{"id":617,"date":"2008-12-21T16:11:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-21T21:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/?p=617"},"modified":"2011-04-23T15:36:43","modified_gmt":"2011-04-23T20:36:43","slug":"amc-slumdog-millionaire-boyle-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/2008\/12\/amc-slumdog-millionaire-boyle-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"AMC: Slumdog Millionaire (Boyle, 2008)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_L6AEeviYYws\/SU6xbHN40hI\/AAAAAAAAAIw\/yhLuHEczeDo\/s1600-h\/2968978540_b3a8f207bc.jpg\" onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\"><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5282354492304052754\" style=\"float: right; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; cursor: hand; width: 216px; height: 320px;\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_L6AEeviYYws\/SU6xbHN40hI\/AAAAAAAAAIw\/yhLuHEczeDo\/s320\/2968978540_b3a8f207bc.jpg\"   border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a>After I saw <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Sunshine<\/span>, I convinced myself that Danny Boyle would one day make something truly great.  <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Sunshine<\/span> was brilliant for the first two acts (as good as a film can be that has a crew of astronauts flying into a sun to reignite it) before it became terrible, and his <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">28 Days Later <\/span>and <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Trainspotting<\/span> were more consistently good without ever being great.  With <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Slumdog Millionaire<\/span>, be goes completely in the opposite direction, embracing a sort of audience-friendly Oscar sure-thing that immediately falls in the same category as <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Little Miss Sunshine<\/span>, <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Juno<\/span>, and possibly even Haggis&#8217; <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Crash<\/span>.  Half feel-good indie film and half pseudo culturally significant, &#8216;pat myself on the back because I was able to make it through, and even enjoy (!), a film that is mostly subtitled&#8221; schmaltz field.  The subtitles even jump around the frame, locating themselves next to the speaker in crazy colors like blue, green, and orange.<\/p>\n<p>The premise is okay.  A teenager named Jamal is on the India version of &#8220;Who Wants to be a Millionaire?&#8221; and he isn&#8217;t actually intelligent enough to know the sort of questions that are commonly on the show.  But, all of the questions are remarkably familiar to him.  The film is structured in a way that you see the question asked on the show, and then the film has a flashback to an early part of Jamal&#8217;s traumatic childhood to reveal the event that shows us why he knows the answer to the question.  Not a bad set up.  Except that every flashback makes Jamal&#8217;s life seem more and more miserable.  Oh, you thought it was bad that he had to escape from a latrine by jumping in a pool of shit?  Just wait until you see the fucked up sway his mother dies! Oh, you think that&#8217;s terrible?  How about how his childhood dream girl is sold into prostitution!  Man, Jamal got a raw deal.<\/p>\n<p>But it&#8217;s ok.  He gets the girl, and the money, as you can predict 5 minutes in.  This is the favorite for the Best Picture Oscar.  Okay, then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After I saw Sunshine, I convinced myself that Danny Boyle would one day make something truly great. Sunshine was brilliant for the first two acts (as good as a film can be that has a crew of astronauts flying into a sun to reignite it) before it became terrible, and his 28 Days Later and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":902,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions\/902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blakewilliams.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}