The Oscars this year are a bit of a bore. I mean the movies nominated for best picture are so, well Oscary. They are the kinds of movies that always get nominated as if they know when they are making them - Movies like The Reader, Frost/Nixon, Benjamin Button and Revolutionary Road - I am not saying these are not good movies (I have seen Benjamin Button and that was great!) - But still...Oscary.
I would have loved to have seen The Dark Knight nominated for best picture - that would have at least created some interest in the Oscars this year - and it would say that "If you make a good movie, even if it is not a genre that usually gets nominated, it can win Best Picture." Like The Return of the King in 2004 - It would say "We don't only nominate depressing, artsy, Holocaust movies that people like but rarely see more than once."
Not that I am original in saying this but there really is no debate about the best movie of the year. I have to even say that as much as I loved the Dark Knight, Slumdog is better. I do not here want to really even engage the debate about whether it is "slum-porn", exploitative, etc., I think such arguments are founded on the premise that every movie set in a poor setting must by default be a social commentary on the issues - as if no story can transcend -
The movie is brilliant in every way: story-telling, acting, writing, music and directing. The movie is original and risky in a sense - as it does expose some of the realities behind the poverty, which I have seen firsthand in my journey through India two years ago. It highlights the massive flattening of the world through globalization and the movement toward India of many tech companies etc., (Read Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat" and the story which opens it which takes place in India and has to do with golf and IBM) - anyway it is about love, determinism (hinting that there maybe someone or something writing our stories for us, and obviously its a kind of rags to riches as well)...
It is the most creative way I have seen to tell a story in a while, reminded me of a Usual Suspects, or a Memento (though not quite as good or original as either of those films) - it was similar in its original way of telling the main protagonists story...I look forward to seeing it a second time with my wife - who didn't see it with me the first time.
When it comes out on video.
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