Monday, February 2, 2009

NAMASTAY - WELCOME TO INDEEYA !!

















 WHY IS SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE SO POPULAR?

a) its Fantastic

 

b) its in Oscars

 

c) its uncool to be not liking the movie

 

d) its Overrated

 

 

''Namastay''

Welcome to the world where people are dying to get associated with Brand India.Brad pitt,Angelina Jolie,Britney,Maddona,Liz Hurley (cant remember m

ore..thank god for GOOGLE)and now annex the name of  Danny 'Trainspotting' Boyle..

Well the whole big round world is going gaga over the au courant sensation The ''Slumdog Miilliionaire''..Jamaal Malik has mesmerized each and every assemblage who have seen it .Well  I saw it too..and long back ..ya you guessed it right(you didnt?)..on a Pirated dvd print(what?you dont believe in piracy?too bad)..without a hint of feeling guilt for the piracy , i was also impressed by the movie..when there was no banter about the movie that time..

but all of a sudden ..GUSH..The floodgates of Luck flowed in..the movie slowly rose level by level as Jamaal malik and was  inundated with awards and more importantly critics appreciation(An Oxymoron) all over..The list seemed boundless one after the other..

10 nominations in the Oscars(hmm..impressive)..then the American  Cinema Editors,USA(nice)..BAFTA Awards(ohhk!)..Austin film festival(Austin what?),Black Reel awards

(let me google what it is),Boston Society Of Film Critics Awards(forget it) and many others that google served me when I typed 'Slumdog Millionaire' and it swamped me with 11,900,000 and awards that one has never heard..its 

almost as if awarding

SDM(the name is dog..slumdog..well..too long!)) is the best way to advetise

your 'street and club' award organisation..

What were the aspects that according to people made it the pride of every Indian ?

Fantastic theme.India at the core.An Angrez director who was behind movies likeTrainspotting.English production house.Cinematography.Inspirography(Bad joke) and all the cinema jargons the human mind can surmise of.

All the perfect ingredients were concocted or rather  beguiled by the appreciation wave and there rose your cliched Phoenix out of the ashes.To enhance the Indian aura around the world audience and get appreciation from audiences trans border.People appreciating the real India,Indeeya.

Well what is so great about the movie escapes my attention.Movie on a novel adaptation(That would make it unoriginal or lets say 'inspired').Totally bollywoodized with Latika (would make it Normal).Guy going around for the girl whom he met when she was a child(Ubitquitous bollywood optimism ).The last few scenes of the movie,the drive from the villains house,the phone a friend option and the prima donna who is stuck in traffic  and then the Usain Bolt akin marathon(well i appreciate the fact that you would have understood it but then , for the records,Oxymoron again!) to attend the call.and Jamaal Malik becomes a Millionaire(Alls well that e

nds well)!!

Dont really know why there is so much of hoopla around the movie.Either I must be a real bad critic or  real bad art appreciaiting person.Well I am confident about myself for sure and I know that I did like the movie and even watched it twice or thrice but really dont know if it actually deserves so much of appreciation to an extent that it becomes Overrated,Over exaggerated,Over promoted,Over ballyhooed and Over (_________,fill in whatever you want,Orgasmic is what I thought but then it aint fittin.)

Before you  castigate me with the denunciation of Unpatriotism,Over criticism,Jealousy,Jaundiced and all the sins intimated in the Bible and whatever is bound out of the limit of my verbal mind,well , I am not of the same group that criticises the movie on the base that it has shown poverty stricken naked slums of mumbai(as some 6ft 1'' personality had condemned ,I have made some enemies again!).Or the  network of begging mafia.Or whatever baloney people have come out with(Making hay while the sun shines).Well ,Poverty,Begging Mafia etc is common.who would deny that such a thing doesnt exist in india.Its out there and its shown,but then , using it in a movie aint unique..

i am just of the slant that agreed its a good movie but certainly overrated,overhyped and all the stuff that I had mentioned a few lines earlier(getting sick of criticising it) .C'mon there have been much better movies than it this year.Yeah..I agree even some of the totally 100 % hollywood movies are overrated.Take the case of ''The curious case of Benjamin Franklin''

(Oh!Its Benjamin Button).Well I liked the movie till it was playing(again on a pirated CD) and when it came to an end it left me curious about Benjamin Button.Well I did not have a clue exactly  about the movie.

Coming back to SDM.The scene after which these brothers fall of the train and find Agra and all of a sudden lo!! they speak English!!Then its followed by another set of believable(use antonym) happenings.

I guess we are just getting overreactive and getting carried away ..Well nothing bad in it as long as we realise that we are gettin carried away..what?I dont know what the previous line was..see..Atleast I am honest that I dint know..but people are not..half of the people are praising it just because it  got nominated for the oscars and a quarter of people believe it would be uncool to say that they dint like the movie and another one quarter just believe that its Indian and hence appreciable whether or not it actually deserves it or not and another quarter honestly believe its a good movie..well i know the math doesnt tally but then again..what the hell..

I HAVE LOST IT.I AM BORED!! THANKS FOR NOT READING ANYTHING IN BETWEEN AND COMING STRAIGHT OVER TO THIS LINE.HIGHLY APPRECIATED.Because I knew that you people would do that.Let me end it with my honest apologies to none and a sincere appreciation of the wonderful music that AR Rahman has showcased to the world and

 given some leverage to the one of the most Overrated 

120 minutes of the modern times..

d)its OverRated

Background hooter blares..Shukriya,Satsriyakal and Goobye..Advertisement comes in.. 

 

 

12 comments:

alokj said...

no way rafi...the movies sincere, honest, heart warming and fantastic. The acting is outstanding, the cinematography is brilliant and rehmans score is pure genius. The movies beauty lies in its simplicity.
I saw the movie before all the hype and m guessing if u had too maybe ud feel differently bout it.

SAEMA..... said...

Agree with you Arun..
Slum dog millionaire is publicized as a movie having a realistic outlook on India’s slum life…well I doubt if the movie was able to bring out emotions out of the viewers that was intended; sympathy, empathy, hope and humanity. I dint feel any of this after watching SDM. The love story was lacking emotions because of no character depth to Latika, and a feel of forced chemistry or destiny between Jamal and her. Music was good…but the songs were pathetic..
Now the million dollar question is if Boyle is going to spend atleast a portion of the money he is making from SDM to uplift the masses he exploited to make this movie? I doubt this as well..
Overall I think it was a decent movie that has been over-hyped… it was entertaining but not a masterpiece.

ArUn raFi said...

@alok
dude we all saw the movie around the same time wen the movie ws goin around in th hostel..infact i saw it first.. :)
rehmans score is pure genius..no wonder..but honestly..abt acting lets take everyone
anil kapoor - honestly i dint like his acting..infact he dint have much to act
irfan khan-tell me the last movie in which he acted bad.
freida pinto-freida who?she hardly acted
tht jamal guy - we only see him at th same stage as anil kapoor..wat can u judge in tht?and probably a dance sequence in the end tht i thought ws horrible.
cinematography is good..agreed..
simple movie? well ya it was..we all knew tht he ws winnin 2 million in the end..married latika and probably had cute kids in switzerland..
well see the point is..it was a very nice movie..no doubt..but certainly nothing tht deserves like world acclaim..

Anonymous said...

well even i felt that the movie didn really deserve the credits and the fame that they are pouring over it.. to me, yet another of those time pass movies which had some good music by ARR. and also liked the 'small' jamal sheik better than the 'big' jamal sheik.

Anonymous said...

To overlook the technical aspect of the movie, I would say, would be being unfair to a brilliant director.
As far as the movie in it's entirety is concerned one needs to look at it from a sociological point of view. Gone are the days when India was looked down upon as a land of elephants and snakes.
Thanks to the overused term 'Globalization', people across the world are shedding their xenophobic tendencies and are opening upto newer cultures.
I mean look a film like City of God and the uproar it created.
It is the curiosity of the English speaking crowds that intelligent directors like Danny feed upon and well like it or not they end up making award winning movies.
We might not like it or say it is overrated because we see these things, things portrayed in the movie, happening everyday around us - the rags to riches stories; remember the playwin magic some years back?
Thats what it is in simple terms. And I do not think it requires such a lot of thought and criticism. Danny saw something that we Indians usually overlook, the slum life, bollywood masala and all that jazz.
Think again. Hype and appreciation varies across cultures - people in India think Beatles were hyped, ask the Britons/Americans how that music influenced their lives.

Sam said...

And well I wouldn't disagree with you that there are certain technical glitches. Like Jamal looks constipated, bad execution and all that...
But then overall 7/10

Sam said...

I look forward to your views on the whole Sri Rama Sena/ Vanarasena thing...

Adisha said...

The movie is Good but Not that good, in my humble opinion. It's a part of mumbai but Mumbai is about Much more than that.

I was so upsset when thanks to the movie, I saw an article in the washington post that call Bandra one the bhe " biggest slums " in Mumbai. Can u imagine ??

Anyways, I didn't even understand what the Theme was in the movie, frankly. That life is Totally Luck based ?? Nyways, some things just get over rated by " amriccan " peer pressure !! Gloryfying slum life for their palate is something new for them. And thus SlumDog is now the Big Dog !!

Signing off here. Too many thoughts and too much lazyness today...

Cheers,
adisha

Adisha said...

ps - I'm sorry but the same applies to all your post, what I said earlier about spacing ... but here, I noticed it was kinda intentional so I didn't feel guilty about jumping over all the bunched up letters .. LOLzzz

poo said...

Well, I watched it, and liked it as well. there is a subject.. which is been treated well.. who care bout rest. and as for award and hype! Bring it on.. Indian Media Zindabad.. and the oscars.. then the list of nomination explains it all...

ArUn raFi said...

@ adisha
thanks a lot fr being behind my life to change the spacing..well i dont know if tht ws intentional spacing ;)
never bothered tht much but i guess i ll change this also..
dont be sorry..blow all the posts apart..no problem..happy to hear em ol..
cheers
lazy day here too :)

ArUn raFi said...

@poo
there is definitely a lot of differnce in my views than wat u said..mine are exactly opposite to urs :)
i dont see much theme anyway and dont know why indian media is to be "zindabaded"..