The very first title card says: Mumbai 2006
There’s a bit of a broo-ha over the amount the child actors were paid. The youngest Latika and the youngest Salim really were slum kids hired from the filming locations for the movie (the youngest Jamal and the other actors were all from middle class or better families, some being English like Dev Patel) and were paid between $1500 to $3000 (accounts vary).
This is one of those “do you look at as an amount or as relative?” things. OT1H, $1500 is less than Dev Patel probably gets for the gift bags in his talk show appearances for a week, but OTOH it’s more than these kids’ parents probably made in 6 months. The producers responded to the criticism by stating they began a trust fund with a $15,000 prize money to pay for the kids education at some point as well.
Personally, I think the kids should have been paid the same as the kid who played the youngest Jamal, whatever that was, since their roles were about the same size.
Question: Why did Salim put all the money in the tub before he started the shoot out?
Hmmm, I heard about this a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know the full story behind it, but I would be very interested in knowing which studio started the trash talk, because it sure didn’t come up until after the Oscar nominations came out. This kind of thing has proven not to work in the past. A Beautiful Mind won even though trash talk about John Nash started circulating after the nominations came out. Nor did trash talk about Return of the King work (and we know who started that one, Clint Eastwood). On the other hand, the trash talk about Brokeback Mountain worked very well indeed.
Personally, I suspect someone who I won’t name, but his name starts with a Wein and ends with a stein. As if The Reader has a chance in hell.
Edit to add, that of course was in response to Sampiro’s post.
Yeah, I also read somewhere that the studio is paying for a driver to take the kids to school.
I thought it was mostly symbolic- actually transforming it into “blood money” (though most would still be usable), though at first I thought he was going to turn on the shower and ruin it. I thought it interesting that such a secular man died with the words “God is Great” (or as it’s said in Arabic, Admiral Akbar). I wondered if the crimeboss was Hindu or Muslim (not that I much imagined it mattered).
He wasn’t secular. A previous scene had shown him praying (apparently in earnest, since he believed himself to be alone) for forgiveness before going out to kill somebody.
Hypocritical, but not secular.
-FrL-
I just saw this in the theater for the third time - I love it that much.
I disagree with anyone who believes Dev Patel is poorly cast. For the vast majority of his screen time, he’s literally beaten down, appearing on a game show that he could not give a shit about, pursuing money that he doesn’t care about, and he’s just been tortured by authority figures who believe he’s a liar and a cheat. To put it in an American perspective, I imagine him being a poor black guy in Alabama in the 1950s at a police station, unjustly accused of a crime. And he has nothing on his side except the truth and love that may, or may not ever be returned.
The film has more impact on me each time I see it. When he said:
“But they had other plans for her.”
…it just destroyed me.
I just loved his expression when he told the host that he didn’t know the answer to the last question. It seemed a perfect combination of absolute lack of concern about the outcome, contentment, and joy that his Latika had seen him and was safe. (In retrospect, Salim displays the same qualities, substituting acceptance for joy, in his outcome.)
Not too much of a surprise, Simon Beaufoy won the Adapted Screenplay for Slumdog Milllionaire at the Writers Guild of America (WGA) awards last night. (for the interested, Dustin Lance Black won Original Screenplay for Milk, and Ari Folman won Documentary screenplay for Waltz With Bashir).
It’s won all the most major Guilds now, Producers, Directors, Actors (for Best Ensemble), Cinematography and now Writers. I don’t think it will sweep the Oscars, but it’ll come damn close.
They also love Slumdog over in the UK, duh. It cleaned up at the BAFTAs, winning:
Best Film
Director - Danny Boyle
Score - A. R. Rahman
Cinematography - Anthony Dod Mantle
Adapted Screenplay - Simon Beaufoy
Sound - Glenn Freemantle, Resul Pookutty, Richard Pryke, Tom Sayers, Ian Tapp
Editing - Chris Dickens
I expected it to win Outstanding British Film but that went to Man On Wire, which I think shocked the hell out of the filmmakers, Simon Chinn and James Marsh. It was up against not only Slumdog, but also In Bruge, Hunger, and (I had no idea this was a “British film”) Mamma Mia!.
I have the full list of BAFTA winners if anyone’s interested. I don’t know if it’s worth a new thread.
Loved this movie. We just saw it last night and I was so impressed by the score, storyline, and cinematography. Just a beautiful movie.
I wondered this as well, but now I think it was an interesting juxtaposition between the “bad” Salim and the “good” Jamal. As Jamal was winning his millions through humility and honesty, Salim was sitting in a pile of ill-gotten money waiting for a violent end. Also, interesting that the movie ended with both characters, having experienced crushing poverty for the majority of their lives, ended with gobs of money as a central image.
Slumdog’s now swept all the major Guilds:
American Cinema Editors (ACE, the Eddies) - Chris Dickens
American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) - Anthony Dod Mantle
Art Directors Guild (ADG) Contemporary Film Category - Mark Digby
Cinema Audio Society (CAS)
Directors Guild of America (DGA) - Danny Boyle
Producers Guild of America (PGA)
Screen Actors Guild (SAG) - Cast Ensemble
Writers Guild of America (WGA) - Simon Beaufoy
The only Guilds left are the Costume Designers (CDG), the Visual Effects Society (VES), and the Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE), which is the only one where Slumdog might win more awards. If it does, we might have a sweep on our hands come Oscar night, but I hope not. The Dark Knight should, and I hope does, win the Sound awards.
Once again, here are the Academy Award nominations Slumdog Millionaire has received. The Oscars are next Sunday, February 22:
Best Motion Picture of the Year
Christian Colson
Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
Simon Beaufoy
Best Achievement in Directing
Danny Boyle
Best Achievement in Cinematography
Anthony Dod Mantle
Best Achievement in Editing
Chris Dickens
Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score
A.R. Rahman
Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song
A.R. Rahman
Maya Arulpragasam
For the song “O Saya”.
Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song
A.R. Rahman (music)
Sampooran Singh Gulzar (lyrics)
For the song “Jai Ho”.
Best Achievement in Sound
Ian Tapp
Richard Pryke
Resul Pookutty
Best Achievement in Sound Editing
Tom Sayers
Glenn Freemantle
I’m still angry as hell that the Oscar producers (spit) and jealous asshole director Bill Condon (spit spit I’ll never pay to see another movie of his) have decided to shaft Slumdog’s songs by only presenting a minute of each, as a medley. I hate them I hate them I HATE THEM (the producers and jealous asshole Condon, not the songs)! Two of the most exciting, vibrant and interesting songs ever to be nominated, and they wimp out on actually letting people hear them. Fuckers. I don’t blame Peter Gabriel for pulling out of performing in protest.
I saw this today, and I thought it was great. The concept of having flashbacks that not only explained why he knew the answers to each question but also told a linear story was both facinating and well executed.
I’m glad to see that people here are, with a few exceptions, liking the movie a lot. The hate for Slumdog on other sites, like Awards Daily, is ridiculous. It’s so over-the-top that I revel in each Guild win just because I know it’s driving a lot of people insane. I mean, sure, I’m rooting for Milk over Slumdog myself, but I love Slumdog and am so very very happy that it’s become such a sensation that I simply can’t begrudge it.
Heads are going to explode on Oscar night. It’s gonna be fun to watch. Of course, my own head will explode if either The Reader or Frost/Nixon wins over both Milk and Slumdog, but I seriously doubt that will happen. I could handle Benjamin Button winning, though I wouldn’t be happy about it at all.
**Slumdog Millionaire **is the kind of movie that people will remember intimately 20-30 years from now. How many of he other nominees can we say that about?
I believe that too, and I also believe Milk will gain in stature more and more as the years go by. It really is a remarkable film, disguised as a humble biopic.
The wife and I just got back from this. I won’t say I hated it, but I was pretty disappointed. It was corny, and I’m really surprised to see it compared to City of God, which I thought was great. Then again, I’m surprised at all the acclaim it’s getting, so I guess that shouldn’t be any different.
This is eerily close to exactly what I said to my wife on the way home from the theater, right down to mentioning the peppers on the privates. I had a few other complaints, but this was definitely the biggest one.
Amen to that, brother. If I were to write a one-word review of this movie, it would look something like this:
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
The peppers prank is not on Jamal but on Salim (for being a money-grubbing jerk).
Very good movie. But it’s a fundamentally old-fashioned melodrama _ Oliver Twist Goes to Mumbai _ told in a creative, flashy way.
That’s not meant to demean the movie. It takes real skill, both from the director and screenwriter, to bring new energy to an old-fashioned story.