As all of you know something wonderful happened in the World Cinema this year. Indian press is going gaga over a movie touted as largely Indian and nominated for 10 Oscars including 3 oscar nomination for People of Indian Origin (PIO) but Global Citizens viz. A. R. Rahman, Gulzar and Sukhvinder Singh. Click here for details.Yes you got it right. I am talking about Slumdog Millionare (SM) by Danny. Even Ms. Nikhat Kazmi rated a movie as 4.5 stars in ToI 23rd Jan in her review and it was one of the first by Ms. Kazmi as noted by me. I may be wrong here :-) Let me quote from her reveiw
"quote"
And this prompted we (yours sincerely and Jaya) to watch this euphoric movie which has taken Indian intellectuals on a ride. The following comments are purely personal and similarity with anybody living or dead is purely co-incidental :-)
"movie_review"...IMHO, it is a pathetic movie but not poverty porn with excellent music and direction. It deglorifes India, indian police, brothels (RLA) but fails misrably while attempting this with the indian slums. They gets are glorifed in the process. Movie succeeds in glorification of the Goras visiting Taj Mahal and slumdogs' childhood romance. "\movie_review"
We both were having a big headache after coming out of Big Cinema at Palam Vihar. Even "welcome to sajjanpur" by Mr. shyam benegal was more entertaining than this movie. We felt like somebody robbed us of our 400 bucks which is a big money to save in this recession times rather than donating it to Big cinemas. :( Had Mr. Danny Boyle learnt something from Bollywood movie Mukhbir's producer of "Satisfactory Guarantee Challenge", I would have been richer by INR 400 today ;-) But it seems Mr. Boyle had full confidence in his marketing and moreover Gora-bhakt indian crowd. Do you think that a similar movie by an Indian director like Meera Nair on Vikas Swarup's Q&A had even gone for Golden Globe, forget about Oscar nominations?
After finding out later that Mr. Arindam Chaudhuri of The Great Indian Dream fame also agrees with me on his latest blog, I propose the following:
Movie Name: Slumbitch Billionare (SB)
Director: Arindam Chaudhuri
Producer: TBD
Music Director: A. R. Rahman
Lyricist: Gulzar
Location: London, slums around posh Oxford Street {:-) as you know every second bollywood movie is shot in London now-a-days}
Game Show Name: Who wants to be a billionare?
"quote"
....Forget the twitter about aggrieved national sentiment. For Slumdog Millionaire is neither poverty porn nor slum tourism… No Slumdog is just a piece of riveting cinema, meant to be savoured as a Cinderella-like fairy tale, with the edge of a thriller and the vision of an artist. It was never meant to be a documentary on the down and out… And it isn't..... "\quote"
And this prompted we (yours sincerely and Jaya) to watch this euphoric movie which has taken Indian intellectuals on a ride. The following comments are purely personal and similarity with anybody living or dead is purely co-incidental :-)
We both were having a big headache after coming out of Big Cinema at Palam Vihar. Even "welcome to sajjanpur" by Mr. shyam benegal was more entertaining than this movie. We felt like somebody robbed us of our 400 bucks which is a big money to save in this recession times rather than donating it to Big cinemas. :( Had Mr. Danny Boyle learnt something from Bollywood movie Mukhbir's producer of "Satisfactory Guarantee Challenge", I would have been richer by INR 400 today ;-) But it seems Mr. Boyle had full confidence in his marketing and moreover Gora-bhakt indian crowd. Do you think that a similar movie by an Indian director like Meera Nair on Vikas Swarup's Q&A had even gone for Golden Globe, forget about Oscar nominations?
After finding out later that Mr. Arindam Chaudhuri of The Great Indian Dream fame also agrees with me on his latest blog, I propose the following:
Movie Name: Slumbitch Billionare (SB)
Director: Arindam Chaudhuri
Producer: TBD
Music Director: A. R. Rahman
Lyricist: Gulzar
Location: London, slums around posh Oxford Street {:-) as you know every second bollywood movie is shot in London now-a-days}
Game Show Name: Who wants to be a billionare?
Quizmaster: Mr. Siddhartha Basu (the other person with me in the pic of this post)
Game Show Host: No prize for guessing this. It is the fellow participant at Big Boss season 1 (who faced Racial discrimination charges against Shilpa Shetty). Hope you remember!!
Lead actors: Darsheel Safary of TZP and Freida Pinto.... and role 0f Jamal can be given to Aman aka Banku from Bhootnath.
We may do one more twist in the movie adaptation of the novel Q&A in the movie to show our contribution. Since "Becoming a millionare is an individual's aspiration while becoming a billionare is an organization's". Hence in our movie, Darsheel would be working for a Slumbitch Indian BPO company having its office in London's Oxford Street aspiring to become Billionare. Who wants to be billionare? No, not Darsheel; it is that Indian BPO. By the way, nothing is much different in SB from SM by choosing UK office of indian company as our hero from SM also works for a Mumbai BPO. And everybody knows what happens in India's call centres now-a-days by reading Chetan Bhagat's One Night at The Call Centre :)
So I am looking for a producer for this movie as that is the only name which is To Be Decided (TBD) in the above schema of things. Even if movie is made and released in India with "Maza na aaaye to paise wapas" (money refund) challenge it is not going to run for even a single week. You can very well guess that this movie will not win any filmfare or screen awards forget about Golden Globe or Oscar nominations even ;-) And you know how many stars Ms Nikhat will give to this movie in her review.......Just one * ...... :-(... Still if somebody is willing to become producer; of this movie please contact me :-)
Hence we say,
Itne saare slumdogs
Aur us se bhi jyaada dogs
Aur us bhi jyaada bade logon ke Kaan (ears)
Phir bhi Mera Bharat Mahaaaaaaaaaaaan (my india is great)!!
Game Show Host: No prize for guessing this. It is the fellow participant at Big Boss season 1 (who faced Racial discrimination charges against Shilpa Shetty). Hope you remember!!
Lead actors: Darsheel Safary of TZP and Freida Pinto.... and role 0f Jamal can be given to Aman aka Banku from Bhootnath.
We may do one more twist in the movie adaptation of the novel Q&A in the movie to show our contribution. Since "Becoming a millionare is an individual's aspiration while becoming a billionare is an organization's". Hence in our movie, Darsheel would be working for a Slumbitch Indian BPO company having its office in London's Oxford Street aspiring to become Billionare. Who wants to be billionare? No, not Darsheel; it is that Indian BPO. By the way, nothing is much different in SB from SM by choosing UK office of indian company as our hero from SM also works for a Mumbai BPO. And everybody knows what happens in India's call centres now-a-days by reading Chetan Bhagat's One Night at The Call Centre :)
So I am looking for a producer for this movie as that is the only name which is To Be Decided (TBD) in the above schema of things. Even if movie is made and released in India with "Maza na aaaye to paise wapas" (money refund) challenge it is not going to run for even a single week. You can very well guess that this movie will not win any filmfare or screen awards forget about Golden Globe or Oscar nominations even ;-) And you know how many stars Ms Nikhat will give to this movie in her review.......Just one * ...... :-(... Still if somebody is willing to become producer; of this movie please contact me :-)
Hence we say,
Itne saare slumdogs
Aur us se bhi jyaada dogs
Aur us bhi jyaada bade logon ke Kaan (ears)
Phir bhi Mera Bharat Mahaaaaaaaaaaaan (my india is great)!!
Jai Ho!!
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© Narendra Shukla, 2009. No part of this post should be copied and used anywhere without prior approval from author.
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© Narendra Shukla, 2009. No part of this post should be copied and used anywhere without prior approval from author.
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4 comments:
If we leave aside the debate on the movies worthiness for the Oscars, Slumdog Millionair at least managed to evoke in you such strong sentiments that you actually shed of all your laziness to write a post on it. :)
Jokes apart, i did watch the movie(at home on my PC) and kind of liked it. I would say it falls into the genre of OSO and ghajni.Typical bollywood masala like manmohan singh desai used to make(remm amar akbar anthony).
just watch them , dont let your logical and analytical powers take over and you will feel pretty ok.
anyhow thats what we do for most of the movies now a days.
but 10 Oscar nominations is what beats me !!
Rightly Said Boss. I fully agree with you. The foreign media and the audience wanted to see the corroborated part of any country and painted as India. This is not acceptable to we the Indians. Let them GL with Oscars or Golden Ducks. We just don't care.
O ho Naren,
Now I am not sure whether I want to see the movie or no. I cant comment on your post but the major significance for us Indians is that AR Rahman and other technical artists have got Oscar nominations and GG awards. Sometimes the means justify the end and if Slumbitch/dog got them the platform to showcase their talent at a global level;lets live with that. Like Pallavi, I am all for a masala film so why not??
Amazing adaptation of SM...I loved that Darsheel Safari version. You are right...the movie baffles with its endless stupid portrayal of an India which can be any place of the world...why just India? I don't understand why not A.R.Rahman of Taal or Bombay or Dil Se and why an A.R.Rahman of SM? Paheli ... :) very nice post Naren.
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