Our feel-good movie of the year is “Slumdog Millionaire,” a Dickensian tale in which we root for an impoverished orphan from Mumbai’s slums to hit the jackpot on the Indian edition of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” It’s a virtuoso feast of filmmaking by Danny Boyle, but it’s also the perfect fairy tale for our hard times. The hero labors as a serf in the toilet of globalization: one of those mammoth call centers Westerners reach when ringing an 800 number to, say, check on credit card debt. When he gets his unlikely crack at instant wealth, the whole system is stacked against him, including the corrupt back office of a slick game show too good to be true.
We cheer the young man on screen even if we’ve lost the hope to root for ourselves. The vicarious victory of a third world protagonist must be this year’s stocking stuffer. The trouble with “Slumdog Millionaire” is that it, like all classic movie fables, comes to an end – as it happens, with an elaborately choreographed Bollywood musical number redolent of “Gold Diggers of 1933.” Then we are delivered back to the inescapable and chilling reality outside the theater’s doors.
– Frank Rich in Who Wants to Kick a Millionaire?
New York Times, Sunday, December 21, 2008
Quote of the Day – Frank Rich added by SearchIndia.com on
View all posts by SearchIndia.com →
http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3785319&categoryId=3286128
Any thoughts on this cinderella story?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Interesting.
Our favorite sentences from the video link:
1. From the L.A. coach
Basically they threw like girls and didn’t know how to catch.
2. From the voice-over:
They are carrying the hopes of a nation that’s home to one-third of the world’s poor. A place where 800 million earn less than $2 a day and even some sacred cows must fend off starvation
And now for our two favorite words in the English language – Pittsburgh Pirates. You know why.
BTW, did you watch Slumdog Millionaire.
Thanks for the link, gora.. haven’t been checking baseball news since the season ended. unfortunately Pirates are one of the worst teams.. which is probably a good thing.. these kids may get a chance of play in the major league eventually..
Apparently the second place winner (who just got 2500$) is doing better (throwing harder) than the first place winner (who got 100K).
Which is your favorite team, Gora.. as you from the “Safe Haven” state :), it is the Rockies?
India has such a huge amount of untapped resources in terms of athletic talent. If these two kids make it, it would pave the way for baseball academies to be set up in the major cities of India just like so many teams have set up academies in the Dominican Republic. The big thing is that MLB has harvested so much talent from a poor country (the DR) that has less than 10 million people. Imagine the talent they could unearth from over 1 billion people to choose from.
Haven’t had a chance to see Slumdog Millionaire yet. Closest place it’s been playing at is the AMC Empire outside of Times Square which is a little over an hour away, but planning on going into NYC for a few days after Christmas and will see it then. I talked with one of my friends in Omaha who saw it over the weekend and he thought it was great, but was the second best movie he saw this year behind Tell No One.
Þórarinsdóttir, M-E-T-S Mets Mets Mets! “Safe Haven” state? Born/raised/currently living in New Jersey, but spent way more time than I should have living on the edge on the mean streets where Warren Buffett lurks. I was always quite fond of driving on the bridge over the Missouri River from Iowa into Nebraska on I-80 and seeing the sign declaring “Welcome to Nebraska – Home of Arbor Day.” Hehehe.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. We watched it at Ritz Center in Voorhees (NJ 08043) & then had lunch at a small Indian restaurant there called Spice Corner. Decent fare except for the Dosa.
2. You write: I talked with one of my friends in Omaha who saw it over the weekend and he thought it was great, but was the second best movie he saw this year behind Tell No One.
We liked Tell No One too. Watched it in Landmark Sunshine Theatre on E. Houston St, NYC. They get nice movies in that downtown theatre.