I think I've used Nah before. It's between "Meh" and "No."
I did actually think Burn After Reading was fairly interesting: the brainless stud who, for some reason, has no life. The treasury guy who has a set of routines for bedding women but is very insecure. The gym manager who learns to say "yes" to life again after he lost the priesthood, and gets killed for it. These are just slightly more than cliche (though certainly not great, like Hunger or even Rachel Getting Married). Plus it was fun, and pulled a Psycho. That's a move that still gets points from me. :)
More and more, I'm abandoning any intellectual or objective pretense behind my ratings. This is not a measurement. The numbers up there mean something, I think, but I don't know quite what.
My friends in India tell me profound, shocking, and insightful things about India all the time - things that could easily be put into a movie - but nothing like that is found in Slumdog. Instead, the movie is an archetypal fairy tale with irrelevant and interchangeable hero hurdles (orphan abuse, friend lost to the mob, beatings by corrupt cops), context (Mumbai), romance, and everything else. The "insightful" analysis of Indian culture was basically just that it was poor and dirty.
Even in its fairy-tale structure it had hundreds of opportunities to say something thoughtful, but took almost none of them. It could have taken a moment to say something about the neo-colonialism of call centers, the way India invests in the space program while its cities have no sanitation, the extent of religious pluralism and syncretism in India, the perverse family values that result from too many babies and not enough food - all of these and a hundred more were basically set up for Boyle by his own story, but instead he was too busy showing his hero getting beaten up or chased or DUN DUN DUHN! answering questions on a game show.
Funny you should say that - in my next update, which I haven't uploaded - the movie has dropped to No.
I keep wobbling on that one. On one hand it is a technically marvelous movie, and has no major plot problems. That alone makes it better than nearly all movies made each year. On the other hand it is cliche as heck and has nothing to say about anything. At first I gave it the benefit of the doubt but more and more these days I'm just going with my gut (not a method I recommend for truth or ethics, but for artistic opinion it's all we've got), and my gut told me that movie sucked.
So thanks for posting - now I'm motivated to upload my updates before anyone else thinks I liked Slumdog. :)
High 10, good buddy.
Nate Silver got 2 wrong! Penelope Cruz now has an Oscar. Never thought I'd see the day.
I think Penn won because of Proposition 8.
This is how I feel.
Good Lord what a crappy year this was.
Thanks!
Oh, I don't mean I want you to send it to me or anything. I want them to release it. :)
You did not just call Slumdog Millionaire an Indian Pulp Fiction.
:)
I think I've used Nah before. It's between "Meh" and "No."
I did actually think Burn After Reading was fairly interesting: the brainless stud who, for some reason, has no life. The treasury guy who has a set of routines for bedding women but is very insecure. The gym manager who learns to say "yes" to life again after he lost the priesthood, and gets killed for it. These are just slightly more than cliche (though certainly not great, like Hunger or even Rachel Getting Married). Plus it was fun, and pulled a Psycho. That's a move that still gets points from me. :)
More and more, I'm abandoning any intellectual or objective pretense behind my ratings. This is not a measurement. The numbers up there mean something, I think, but I don't know quite what.
Yes, there is a KrishnaTube.
Crash Courses in New Music
My friends in India tell me profound, shocking, and insightful things about India all the time - things that could easily be put into a movie - but nothing like that is found in Slumdog. Instead, the movie is an archetypal fairy tale with irrelevant and interchangeable hero hurdles (orphan abuse, friend lost to the mob, beatings by corrupt cops), context (Mumbai), romance, and everything else. The "insightful" analysis of Indian culture was basically just that it was poor and dirty.
Even in its fairy-tale structure it had hundreds of opportunities to say something thoughtful, but took almost none of them. It could have taken a moment to say something about the neo-colonialism of call centers, the way India invests in the space program while its cities have no sanitation, the extent of religious pluralism and syncretism in India, the perverse family values that result from too many babies and not enough food - all of these and a hundred more were basically set up for Boyle by his own story, but instead he was too busy showing his hero getting beaten up or chased or DUN DUN DUHN! answering questions on a game show.
Funny you should say that - in my next update, which I haven't uploaded - the movie has dropped to No.
I keep wobbling on that one. On one hand it is a technically marvelous movie, and has no major plot problems. That alone makes it better than nearly all movies made each year. On the other hand it is cliche as heck and has nothing to say about anything. At first I gave it the benefit of the doubt but more and more these days I'm just going with my gut (not a method I recommend for truth or ethics, but for artistic opinion it's all we've got), and my gut told me that movie sucked.
So thanks for posting - now I'm motivated to upload my updates before anyone else thinks I liked Slumdog. :)
If so, they would be just that - a difference of opinion. I can get many things from Faust, depending on what I'm thinking about when I listen to it.
Hurrah!
Once again I have no idea if Scaruffi is correct about politics but goddammit he's informed and interesting.
Hey! It's a tough choice!