Thursday, January 1, 2009 shall forever be unofficially known as Indian Appreciation Day. My brother’s girlfriend had the day off and my brother decided to go into the office for some ridiculous reason (he never stops working, it’s actually kind of annoying). Since I’ve been jobless for my entire winter break, we were both left with nothing to do. So the plan was to go see a movie. Fortunately there are a lot of good movies out right now, the only issue we had was choosing one. We both settled on Slumdog Millionaire, which, from the information and ratings found on Rottentomatoes.com (awesome site by the way), looked like a winner. For those unfamiliar with the film, it’s basically about a poor kid who goes on the Indian version of the T.V. show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” and wins a lot of money. Indian officials think he’s cheating, so they interrogate him, only to find that it was actually different events over the course his life that gave him the answers to all the questions.
Before going to the movies we decided to grab some lunch. Interestingly enough we went to an Indian restaurant, Banjara Indian Cuisine in Ashburn, Virginia. This was my second time going to this place and the food here is always great, even if I’m not always exactly sure what I’m eating. We just barely caught the lunch buffet and I ended up eating way too much food, which made me wonder if the bill would end up being as big as my stomach. Amazingly enough it was only $10 a person. Ten bucks a person! I don’t know where else someone could eat that much great food for a price like that.
Anyways, after our meal we headed back home to check on the dog and then to the theater. While our seats were a bit too close to the screen (for some reason I didn’t think this movie would be that crowded at 4 in the afternoon), I didn’t pay much attention to the pain in my neck because, from beginning to end, Slumdog Millionaire was incredible.
What I appreciated most about this film was the story. At first it sounds completely ridiculous–I mean who would consider a movie about a “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” contestant seriously? But the “Millionaire” scenario allows the story to be told in such an innovative and unique way. I also liked that the film included a cast of not-so-well-known actors. Again, it allows the film to be story-driven, rather than star-driven. I’m not really one to criticize performances–I mean, I can tell the good difference between good acting and bad acting, that’s about all–but I was very impressed by everyone in the film, especially considering all the actors were relative newcomers and for more than half the movie the main characters were played by children.
I really hope a lot of people go see this film, not only because it’s so different from everything else that’s out there right now, but also because it exposes the poverty that exists in countries like India. Poverty in the States will never compare to the poverty that exists in other parts of the world, and the only way the American people are really exposed to such atrocities is through the media. I really hope this film does well during this year’s awards season because it really deserves the merit and the attention.
Cavalog 