Bronx Doesn't Want the Indians

Okay, a free subscription to this blog for anyone who can get the title reference.

So, eight Oscars later, "Slumdog Millionaire" has entered into the pantheon of stratospheric Academy winners. I won't begrudge the film as a crowd-pleaser and a reasonable choice among a number of quality but not superlative competitors. But aside from its novel setting there is little to distinguish it from better cinema champions (and didn't "Gandhi" travel this turf a while back, knocking off "E.T."?)

My problem with the movie stems from entering the theater with extremely high expectations, thanks to word of mouth. Yeah, it transported me to a different world, at least when away from the "Millionaire" studio set. As a Dickensian tale of triumph over terrible adversity it did have its powerful moments. But story-wise it seemed to sag among a series of unlikely plot machinations involving the game show. To wit: 1) how did he get on the show in the first-place? I know there was some plot device that eluded me but an 18-year-old is unlikely to find his way onto that stage;. 2) I 've been on several game shows and the idea that the host would be allowed to go to the john at the same time as a contestant is ludicrous (okay, Standards and Practices may not be as stringent on the Subcontinent as in the U.S., but still--); 3) why would the 20-million rupee question be so easy, and yet the contestant not know the answer? I accept a certain cosmic irony about that circumstance as registered in Jamal's face, but if he was stumped, why didn't he just accept the 10 million rupees and head home? Didn't he have enough problems to deal with, that half the grand prize money would have nicely addressed?

I also have a problem conceptually with a prize-winning ending a story. That kind of nouveau richeness should have begun a story. Can you imagine the thieves and p.r. wolves that would hound him all through India? More realistic is what happens to Hurley on"Lost" when he wins the super lottery--it's all downhill from there.

Whether "Lost" is more of a fairy tale than "Slumdog" is worth some debate, and I adore the "Lost" mythology as much as most moviegoers loved "Slumdog." I guess we pick our fictional poison. And I certainly enjoyed "Slumdog" more than I did last year's harsh and cynical "No Country for Old Men." But it wasn't the best movie of 2008. In my opinion, that would have been the visionary "Wall-E," which was another fairy tale that at least did not pretend to be pseudo-documentary.

Aside from the predictable "Slumdog" sweep, the other choices for major awards were all defensible, and some were very touching. The best speech was Dustan Lance Black's for winning the screenplay for "Milk." Usually that award goes to an original story of the type Charlie Kaufmann would write--but this was definitely a labor of love. I also liked Sean Penn's victory, probably narrow, over Mickey Rourke. The difference probably was that Penn inhabited the skin of someone so unlike himself, whereas Rourke played a character close to his own persona. And thank goodness "Wall-E" at least won the Oscar for Best Animated Film.

The show itself started out well, and it was refreshing to see the losers in the acting categories at least receive some final accolades before they had to beam the good-losers' smiles and tear up their victory speeches. But after a while I began to miss the illustrative snippets of their performances, as well as scenes from the nominated films. The clips fell victim to the time constraints and the demands that all major awards be televised.

My favorite moment was the Judd Apatow "Pineapple Express" comedy movie salute. Seth Rogan (and who is his trainer?--he is almost unrecognizable), and James Franco were hilarious when they started roaring hysterically at "The Reader." In fact, that was the funniest bit of anything I've seen from Apatow, whose films I think are overrated.

The musical numbers were hokey. Hugh Jackman is a charismatic showman I guess, but he got a little ingested by the chorus and scenery and his serviceable voice probably wouldn't get him into the top 12 of "American Idol." And how long did they have to rehearse Queen Latifah's endless dirge to the Death Medley so they ended up precisely on Paul Newman? Well at least he outranked penultimate finisher Charlton Heston, a win by Fast Eddie over Ben Hur, and by cultural extension, of salad dressing over guns. The Age of Obama.

Well the streets are slowly clearing and soon I will be able to drive East of La Brea again. February is coming to a close, and March Madness approacheth. Go, Connecticut.