Be Excellent To Each Other

Just been to the cinema to see this and I have to say that I think it's bloody excellent. The posters tout it as a feel good flick with a bright, happy, shiny, smiley poster but it's a bit of a lie. Although the overall film is shot through with optimism there's a very harsh truth at work throughout it. If you don't know the premise, a young lad from the slums of Mumbai has found himself on the show Who Wants to be A Millionaire, genially taunted by his mildly terrifying host for being practically of the untouchable caste. He's doing well. Too well for some suspicious and jealous minds.

The young man in question is called Jamal and his life is retold in the setting of a sometimes brutal police interrorgation, the interrogators demanding a confession from him that he cheated to get as far as he did in the gameshow. Because he's just a kid from the slums right? How the hell did he know the answers to such obscure, learned questions? And so Jamal tells them how he came to know...

The film is alive with colour and light and movement; ever optimistic life inhabiting a blighted landscape of shacks and refuse and poverty. Jamal and his brother suffer horrible loss, great danger and poverty - but also by the light of their quick wits and nimble frames astonishing coups of trainers, food, money and crash space. As both their journeys take them in different directions, so the events in their lives and the decisions they make play to Jamal's Muslim belief - "It is written." And yet Jamal's calm-eyed acceptance of what fate deals him does not make him a victim, he accepts what is done, and keeps punching and kicking and scheming his way to his goal anyway. And whichever way things work out in the end, well, "So it is written."

The acting is universally good to great. Characters have that see-saw of being amusing one moment and terrifying the next. There's some stand out villains who I don't want to reveal, but one is mesmerisingly creepy in a cold, smiling way. The child actors are faultless too, you completely forget they're actors working a script. It's a film that rips along too, barely pausing to catch breath. It's not concerned with character motivation or delving into emotion - it's more a tale racing to capture the bloody-minded struggle for survival, hope and the pursuit of dreams.

Featuring violence, humour, beauty and at times an unflinching ugliness that is hard to watch, Slumdog Millionaire might just be the film of the year. True, there are flaws. The ending is somewhat Dickensian in coincidences, the entire story has something of an urban fairytale to it... but so what? It feels true and vital, and that makes a fucking good film in my book.

A must see. Best Boyle film since Trainspotting? Yup. Better than Trainspotting...? I'll have to check and watch them both again...

Five stars.

I ehar that life in pakistan is somewhat different to the UK.

I want to go and see this. Send me some money so I can. Thanks.

oioi, this sounds good as trainspotting is just about my favourite movie ever..!

Slumdog Millionaire - It's all right but a bit too much 'every day life' kind of thing for my liking and vastly overrated by everyone. Slightly overlong. Good heartwarming ending. Enjoyed once will never watch again.

It's pretty damn great.

Bits of it were kind of hard to watch, reminded me of some of the stuff I saw in Sri Lanka when I went there in my gap year.

Nice soundtrack.

Fair so. Maybe I like it so much because it's got that magical-realism stuff I crave in other films like Powell & Pressburger, it's a different thing altogether from simple wish fulfilment as there's sort of a modern myth about it. The structure that the feel good is built upon is pretty harsh - sort of the equivilent of 'It's a Wonderful Life', where the ending is happy but the journey is dark. A critic rather neatly argued that it's a typical Bollywood film but superbly crafted by a Westerner and that the reason why Western film critics and audiences are getting so excited is that they've never had anything like it before, anything so fast and alive and alien but accessible.

And yup, the soundtrack is very nice. Lots of top Indian stuff, but good use of Paper Planes too. And the best bit is the age-transition after the train ride. I gasped when I saw that.

Brilliant

I downloaded this for Mum as she was pestering me last time I saw her.
It does look ace. I did see a small clip of him on some gameshow or something before the hdd death happened.

Might have to grab it again

Why not just pay 6 quid and go to the pictures?

I really don't understand persons torrenting films when they are less than a tenner on DvD and 6 quid at the pictures with far superior sound and visuals than a shitty 19inch lcd screen.

Whilst I agree with you I would like to vent my rage about how tickets in london routinely cost £10 or £11. So you are looking at a night out costing me and The Lady at least £30.

Most of the time we would rather wait. Get the film off LoveFIlm and spend the £28 remaining on lovely booze and food. Or live comedy, which costs about the same.

Ditch the woman.



But, seriously, I've just looked at the first page of Play.com's top 100, and only the double disc extra special boxed sets are more than a tenner.

Lovefilm is free for a while, and not exactly expensive anyway so adults torrenting films is, well, odd.

Mind you, it could end up like:

Single MaliA: hey, toots, want to come and watch "Superacebestnewfilm 3" later?
Lass: Yeah OK.

Later:

Single MaliA: Yes, the computer's up in the bedroom. no, it really is that small. The screen. Oh, OK. Call you again? No?
StillSingle MaliA: <cries>

To be fair though, I would have thought most people here at least play there (borrowed - Ed) stuff on their 360s with an external drive don't they?

No, they would have paid Microsoft points and downloaded them from the film server. Which, to be fair, is going to be the future.

It's not out on DVD is it? I thought it was new.

OK, the reason I can't go to the pictures is because we only have one. It's about 12 miles away (4 train stops) and in the winter it's closed. It's about the size of someone's garage and they don't have every film there.

Yes, I'll buy it on DVD, but it's not out yet. And yes, I am one of these people that will buy something if it warrants my cash. I downloaded a free version of FO3 and then went and bought the boxset for ps3 just so they had my money.

And yes, I totally agree with the hoarding thing, that's why Im actually quite relieved I lost all my data. At least now I wont sit there with hundreds of films Ill never watch or watch once and I have all of my music on real legitimate CDs.

I also have a large Region 1 collection of films that are all here, that I didnt watch due to my hoarding..

I disagree on the 19" thing however. My bedroom is 9x7ft and I have a 22"lcd. More than enough

Sorry, JC, I didn't mean you specifically.

Nah its ok man. Seriously I have been doing alot of thinking since the data crash.

I had about 200 albums, 8gb of assorted mp3, 200 films and 3 complete season sets of three shows.

And all I did was curl up and watch south park or the simpsons on DVD. LOL.

At least now Ill watch what I have and play what I have.. Having loads of shit just makes it impossible to actually pick something and you end up doing nothing.

From now on I may well download something illegally to evaluate it (only because of awful return policies) but, like in the past I will buy it if its worth it and I know its going to work..

I've got a large mp3 collection which is used to top up my mp3 player (it's a 2 gig one, Samsung T100 or something). Losing that would be a bit of a buggar.

Indeed. It's also been one of my and DocG's theories for a while that they more stuff you pirate, the less you actually watch. I have downloaded loads of films but end up deleting them after a while as I'll never be bothered to watch them. With the exception of one or two, I've seen every single one of my DVDs at least once.

It's the same with games: I've played more games on my Xbox/Xbox 360—both non-chipped—than I have done on any other games system ever.

A Wii with homebrew is pretty good at playing films on the telly.

The HDD disk recorder attached to tellybox always sits at around 75% full, as I tend to record stuff from the telly, and never watch it. I think it's the ease of use which does it, more than the volume.

My parents have PS3 + PlayTV + 320gb HDD.

It is a nice set up.

And mine. Elsewhere, I pointed out to someone moaning about being capped by their ISP that it it would take them 61 days to watch what they downloaded each and every month.

Fuck me, that's a lot of porn.

My sky+ box sits at about 60% full. But then I record every thing, so I can skip adverts. saves 20 mins for an hour program

So Dev Patel becomes a overnight sensation thanks to Mr Boyle. Not bad for someone who started off in Skins.

Because it's much better to watch it at home. I can drink a cup of tea, the sound is at acceptable levels, i don't have to hear other people eating popcorn, and i can go to the toilet whenever i want.

Really, i don't like cinemas, and i torrent almost every movie i want to see. And i don't care what you say

Every time I go to the cinema - really every time someone sits in front of me with a mobile phone and a dazzlingly bright screen and needs to check their text messages or send a text message every 25 seconds. That really, really is something I dislike.

Also, people have a problem of being there on time. I have to try to watch past the people still finding their places at the beginning of the film. Last time i went to the cinema was to watch Beowulf 3d. And the guy next to me spent all the movie coughing and sneezing. Really, why should i pay 6 euros for this?

That's why I only go to the Vue cinema at The O2 - because I can book seats, and it has a balcony. So I book the front row of the balcony. Ain't no bugger spoiling my expensive view.

only happens to be if i go to big cinimas for big films.. go to quality films in small theaters and everything is okay..
(this film started in small theaters last week here in holland, but managed to became the most visited film during that week, which about means that every screening must be sold out, so probably will go to some bigguns next week)

I love going to the cinema

Well good news

The local hole in the wall cinema has this starting next thursday. My uncle has gone down and pre booked so we're having a family day out.

Can't wait. I loved East is East so I really look forward to this.