Slumdog Millionaire

Neighbors of "Slumdog Millionaire" child actor Mohammed Azharuddin cheering as they watch the Oscars on television in Mumbai on Monday.

(Indranil Mukherjee/Agence France-Presse)

One of my favorite movies of 2008 "Slumdog Millionaire", cleaned up at the Oscars last night. As someone who watches trends on the Internet for a living, I was fascinated by the discussions last night around the movie and it's awards. First I want to point out that I love Danny Boyle and thought the movie deserved all the awards that it won, especially when you consider what it was up against(Benjamin Button...!). The movie has sparked a huge interest in Bollywood and Indian culture altogether so look for more Indian influenced movies in 2009 and 2010.

What I found most interesting as I browsed my Facebook, Twitter and blog posts last night was that most negative comments about Slumdog came from the east coast. Words that seemed common in the criticism include: manipulative (especially in reference to how it made them feel) & overrated.

This blog post from Cinema Blend probably says it best.

"Too bad it’s also a forgettable, obvious fairy tale robotically programmed to tug at the heart strings of ignorant philistines. Slumdog Millionaire might be last year’s John 3:16 for most, but it’s last year’s 3 A.M. Lifetime original shitfest for me" (Cinema Blend)

So here are my conclusions:

• My east coast friends have amazing taste in movies and my west coast friends and I are just a sucker for a fairy tale.
• Life on the east coast is just so much harder, darker and so existential that a movie with a happy ending is just an insult to their very being.
• Indian culture is just not as popular on the east coast kind of like how Mexican films (Amores Perros, Y Tu Mama Tambien) are more popular on the West Coast due to the huge hispanic culture out west.

Well I am a sucker for fairy tales and Slumdog Millionaire was a great one. So if you have not seen this movie yet go out and see it for yourself.



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2 Movies To See After Thanksgiving Turkey

After you have your Thanksgiving Turkey or Tofurkey go and see MILK or Slumdog Millionaire.

Slumdog Millionaire is in my opinion the best movie of the year and has completely reaffirmed to me that Danny Boyle is a genius.


MILK


Sean Penn did a phenomenal job in his portrayel of Harvey Milk that I absolutely forgot that I was watching Sean Penn.

Both movies have a 90%+ fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and will not disappoint.

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