Slumdog Millionaire WINS at Golden Globes
In the last 8years that I have been following the Globes and Oscars, this is one time I was up cheering for a film so hoarse. Every time Jai Ho was playing for a win for Slumdog, my aspirations of Indian Films being truly world-class are being realized. The debate may go-on and on and on about whether we need to really care for films made about India depicting its poverty and being made “once again” by Britishers can hold on for this period of 2 months till the Oscars because right now its time to truly cheer for AR RAHMAN and all those people involved in Mumbai & Chennai in making Slumdog receive such loud celebratory wishes.
For a lot of people, its just a masala film or there are tons of flaws or its not awesome enough… for me, and for my watching experience and for the love of cinema… A TRUE MASTERPIECE, not only for the music department and the marketing of the film, but for the whole spirit that this movie embodies!
4 Golden Globes… Take a Bow.
The following are the winners of tonight for the Movies Category:
Best Picture – Slumdog Millionaire.
Best Director – Motion Picture – Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Screenplay – Motion Picture – Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Original Score – Motion Picture – Slumdog Millionaire; AR RAHMAN
Best Actor in a Drama – Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Best Actress in a Drama – Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road
Best Picture Musical or Comedy – Vickey Christina & Barcelona
Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy – Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical Or Comedy – Colin Farrel, In Bruges
Best Performance by an Actress In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture – Kate Winslet, The Reader
Best Performance by an Actor In A Supporting Role in a Motion Picture – Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Best Animated Feature Film – Wall-E
Best Foreign Language Film – Waltz with Bashir
Best Original Song – Motion Picture – Bruce Springsteen, The Wrestler
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
drama-director-screenplay-music
huh to say am happy would be an understatement…
if only Langella won instead of Rourke….
cant stand that guy
Great to see Slumdog take home the booty, if only for 2 of my favorites, ARR and Danny Boyle. Have not yet seen Wrestler, so cant comment on Mickey Rourke’s performance, but am hell as happy for my favorite Kate Winslet, getting a long overdue one.
And best part was Spielberg taking the Lifetime Achievement Award, and then acknowledging his friend Marty, boy that was a champagne moment.
Two Thumbs Up. Bring on the MASALA!!!
Jai ho!
ooesome!!!
this is really awesome news!!! i haven’t seen Slumdog but i have seen Benjamin Button and i am a bit sad that it missed out…it’s a great film!!!
Congratulations to the entire team of Slumdog Millionaire.And very proud of A.R.Rahman.Great job.
I’ve seen SM and Must say its a nicely made movie. At times you may feel “nah,c’mon this is unrealistic. How can he get questions linked to his life?” But then, isn’t Cinema about making unreal real. So go for it. Its a good pacy movie.
Don’t worry about people saying this potrays bad side of India. They are forgetting that bad side is still a side of India.
Mickey Rourke was brilliant in The Wrestler no doubt, but the Globes seemed politically conservative, almost ignoring Milk.
A word about SRK too. I thought he was brilliant and charismatic on stage !
Finally some Indian presence at the Globes this year.
watched the telecast of awards on tv. heartening to see 1st time indian fraternity represented at american(aka world) level ..Shahrukh was excited and anil kapoor was like a child , a child who felt vindicated/proud to get appreciation from the more clouted group who has been denying his existence so far.
not undermining , how good this will serve the india film industry on world level but i still didn’t like the film much , i still can’t comprehend this idea ,that film won critical awards..for me it was average but different movie
may be , subconsciously i was not liking the idea that once again poor side of india is shown
and i might be asked question in office ” do you have slum also near to ur house also ” . i am OK with it because it is reality but why show poor side of india always in western media….
Really great to see that Rahman picked up the award. He won against seriously touch competition, which is even better
A true moment for Indian Cinema.I’m feeling ecstatic today.congratulations to ARR & the entire team of Slumdog Millionaire wah!mazaa aa gaya.
Is a repeat telecast going to happen in India? I heard the show was well managed compared to the horror that was the Emmy Awards of 2008.
Dhananjay, u can catch the show at 8 PM on UTV world movies.
just a correction SM is not “indian” movie
it is backed up by hollywood studio , directedby brithish filmmaker.
Kudos Rehman and good on Danny Boyle!! but best screenplay? did we not see ‘the wrestler’? sigh!
“Every time Jai Ho was playing for a win for Slumdog, my aspirations of Indian Films being truly world-class are being realized.”
It’s debatable if Slumdog Millionaire can be truly called an Indian film. Chandni Cowk to China is an Indian film, but Slumdog?
Congrats Rehman…
also a bit of perspective needed here please. Slumdog Millionaire is not an Indian movie, its a movie with an Indian themed background, but directed by a British director, and backed up by a Hollywood studio.
“A true moment for Indian Cinema.”
In what way please, the fact is that none of the Indian cinema producers, even touched this subject, and Danny Boyle, had to seek help of another Western studio.
Just having an Indian actor present the award, and an Indian music director receive one, does not make it a moment for Indian cinema. That will come, when a movie produced by an Indian, directed by Indians, wins at Golden Globe awards.
Its great to see ARR, win the award, but lets not get carried away and call this a defining moment for Indian cinema, we r still some way there.
Ratnakar
I agree the movie is made by a British Director & backed by a Hollywood Studio so technically its not an Indian product- no debate here.
Let me tell you why I said its a true moment for Indian Cinema-
1. For one the movie has a lot of Indian artists & technicians who’ve worked in it.So when they get noticed,Indian Cinema gets noticed too.
2. Production houses like Reliance’s Big Movies & UTV etc can now curse themselves for missing upon such a golden oppurtunity.After all Danny Boyle had gone to them first & they hadnt accepted the project. So this will make them take more notice of such projects hereafter.Now Indian producers would also want to get associated with international projects all the more.
3. Through ARR’s music for the movie, once & for all, bollywood music is earning the place it truly deserves.So no the song & dance routine is getting duly accepted.
All said & done the movie is making India & in turn Indian Cinema get noticed.Can anyone dispute this?So what if the turn of events is being triggered by a foreign source.Look at the benefit heading our direction.But otherwise I wont say we’ve fully arrived.For that I agree we need to have a movie directed by an Indian & producd by an Indian firm.But I see that happening soon, very soon!!!!
Sorry for posting this here.. but has anyone seen the movie ‘The President Is Coming’..? I have seen zero mention of it on PFC !!
Congrats to the SDM team..but I dont know how is it remotely going to help Indian cinema…not a bit..secondly IMHO ARR score isnt as good as he can actually churn out..we have had better music from or original score..it was that he scored music for SDM and got nominated.
Bring on the bubbly
SDM was a very good film and deserved the GG but I wonder if it would have done so well/won if it wasn’t for the fact that Danny Boyle was it’s director.
I will really celebrate on that day (in the near future?) when a film made in India by an Indian director wins.
@cassandra
Even I’m surprised why no one has mentioned the president is coming on PFC.
It’s an awesome movie, with hilarious jokes, unbelievable dialogs, and perfect casting.
The funniest Hindi movie since Aandaaz Apna apna
i honestly dont think it deserved best film but sigh
….its WRITTEN!!! jai ho!!
Just like Kate Winslet’s acceptance speech – “Is this really happening?” – it was a moment like that for me to see Shahrukh-King-Khan and Anil-Saheb-Kapoor on the Golden Globe stage!
Truly proud moment for bollywood fraternity, though Slumdog isn’t the “Indian Film”, but we are almost there …. Desis need the formula to crack the academy and GG. Just like I think they have found the formula for Miss Univ and Miss World! ;-)
Its a matter of adaptation, I tell ya’, and desis are damn good at it – if Dev can become Dave and Praful can become Paul at call centers to deal with an American’s finance while talking Steelers and 49ers game as a side conversation, so can they crack the hidden GG/Oscars formula. Ab bas gali gali mein coaching center kholne ki deri hai!
@ 20.Ratnakar
completely agree and well said
@Sethumadhavan
” Production houses like Reliance’s Big Movies & UTV etc can now curse themselves for missing upon such a golden oppurtunity.”
dude 15 million $ ie 75 cr indian rupees and that is what is the budget of this film and it is a NG of big Indian blockbuster.
now directly from wikipedia
“In August 2007, Warner Independent Pictures and Path'© acquired the American and International rights respectively to distribute Slumdog Millionaire theatrically.[4] Though Warner Independent Pictures paid $5 million to acquire rights to the film, the studio was hesitant about its commercial prospect. In August 2008, the studio began searching for a buyer to relieve its overload of films at the time.[17] Halfway through the month, Warner Independent Pictures and Fox Searchlight Pictures entered a pact to share distribution of the film with Fox Searchlight buying in a 50% stake.[18] Slumdog Millionaire premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on 30 August 2008, where it was positively received by audiences, gaining “strong buzz”.[19] The film also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September 2008, where it was “the first widely acknowledged popular success” of the festival,[20] winning the People’s Choice Award.[21]”
link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slumdog_Millionaire#Release
It is clear to recover such budget , you need in depth understanding of North american market , so it is very easy to criticize UTV and reliance big(and now it won award), and difficult to back it up
@ Njudo-E-Dara- Refer your comment # 30 where you’ve concurred with Ratnakar on his comment #20
“In what way please, the fact is that none of the Indian cinema producers, even touched this subject, and Danny Boyle, had to seek help of another Western studio.”
Didnt Ratnakar say this in his comment which you’ve endorsed?I’ve just gone to present my case on why I still think the movie though not technically not an Indian movie will still be crucial for us.For your kind information UTV is the part producer of Manoj Night Shymalan’s last release- The Happening.R u aware of this or not?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happening_(2008_film)- look at the link in case you arent aware of the details.
And Reliance’s Big Cinemas has tied up with giants like Steven Spielberg, George Clooney,Nicholas Cage,Brad Pitt,Tom Hanks.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3143836.cms
So when all this can be done, do you mean to say they lack the indepth understanding of North American market quoting you- “It is clear to recover such budget , you need in depth understanding of North american market , so it is very easy to criticize UTV and reliance big(and now it won award), and difficult to back it up”
Dude please do an apples to apples comparison & just jump the gun!!!I was in no way trying to ridicule UTV or Big Cinemas for that matter.
@Cassandra..Ya..someone needs to see and write about “The President is coming”! Thanks for reminding.
Congrats to all with SDM..Congrats to ARR
Sorry my comment # 32 should read like this
“dude please do an apples to apples comparison & dont just jump the gun!!!”
@ 33 Sethumadhavan
i didn’t get you
Do you want say apples(American film made by American producer and distributed in America) should not be compared with orchids((World cinema film made by Indian producer and distributed in America)?
I compared because you mentioned that comparison and i always keep the gun ready
)
@ Njudo-E-Dara
My comment # 32 is still showing on my screen as under moderation.So give it some time & once you are able to see it, we can keep our guns ready
What I anyways meant was when a UTV or a Reliance Big Cinemas has already entered Hollywood, what makes it difficult for them not to produce a Slumdog Millionaire.After all evaluating a business proposal ( i.e funding of SM) also speaks of business intelligence.So I feel that they probably missed out on it.Anyways my comment has nothing to do with the award- the movie has been in the limelight even before the release & I have been feeling the same since then.
@ Sethu
UTV has distributed The Happening only in the Indian market, Fox was distributing in the North American market, and i got this info from the same link you sent it. So to date UTV still has not touched the North American market.
Also when you say UTV and Reliance Big have entered Hollywood in what way???
Are they making an American movie with American stars in it?
Right now Reliance Big is only distributing Bollywood movies overseas, and is opening a chain of theaters which will telecast all kinda movies. But that does not make it the equivalent of entering Hollywood.
“All said & done the movie is making India & in turn Indian Cinema get noticed”
There is a hell a lot of difference between India and Indian cinema getting noticed. If its Indian cinema getting noticed, i would put Lagaan, TZP and now CC2C as the benchmarks, not SDM, because both of them were Indian movies, produced by Indians and starring Indians.
Ratnakar @ 37
Good that you’ve read my link.But please read it carefully.I’m not talking about UTV or Reliance in terms of their distribution strength, I’m talking about their interests in production alone.
If you read that link about The Happening more carefully, you would know UTV is ” the part producer of the movie”. And talking about Reliance Big ,I’ve talked about their tie-up with Steven Spielberg & the other big names,there’s also a link given for that.
If these do not talk about UTV or Reliance’s foray into Hollywood what else will prove the same?
What you’ve asked is this-
Also when you say UTV and Reliance Big have entered Hollywood in what way???
“Are they making an American movie with American stars in it?”
If The Happening by UTV or the tie-up of Reliance with big hollywood names isnt enough to satisfy you then I cant help it I guess.
Ratnakar@ 38
You’ve just taken a part of what I’ve written.Why dont you look at what I’ve written in its entierty-
“All said & done the movie is making India & in turn Indian Cinema get noticed.Can anyone dispute this?So what if the turn of events is being triggered by a foreign source.Look at the benefit heading our direction.But otherwise I wont say we’ve fully arrived.For that I agree we need to have a movie directed by an Indian & producd by an Indian firm.But I see that happening soon, very soon!!!!”
It very clearly shows that I subscribe to your view my friend.Now do I need to say more to make you happy
@32 Sethumadhavan
Read the wiki post again
It says the Warner independent felt it is risky and hence they decided to promote it with fox searchlight and then premiered it at film festival
———
They had three decision points for both the companies
#at what price you buy slumdog
#and which festival it should attend- there are many film festivals across US and these studios knew which kind film (genre,story)should be sent to which festival to understand its market viability and how to measure the audience response and translate into the whole market estimate,Also if you take it big festival people will get more exposure and may loose interest after release in the storyline.If you takes it to small festival it may not give proper market indication or may not create publicity
# how the film should the film realsed … full ,limited or selected theaters , now having seen response which awards will bring more publicity and hence which film fest(this now after release)it should attend again like GG canes
————
This market understanding is what UTV and big do not have because they are relatively new to US market
Also as mentioned above , making film with Manoj Night Shymalan’s Steven Spielberg, George Clooney,Nicholas Cage,Brad Pitt,Tom Hanks.
is less riskier than making film with non-American actors and story set outside america
Anyway i wonder What if films like maqbool ,satya, black Friday,would have had 75 crore production budget? How far better this film would have been?
@ Njudo-E-Dara
I certainly agre with you that Fox Searchlight & Warner independent have better understanding of the North American market than a UTV or a Reliance Big.Thats also like saying a UTV or a Reliance Big would have better market understanding of India than say a Warner Bros or a Fox.But nowadays a 75 crore budget is already a reality.Rajnikant/Shankar/Aishwarya Rai project Enthiran produced by Sun Pictures is a reportedly 100 + ( 125) crore project.
add to that
warner independent or fox searchlight producing/distributing SM in US is as riskier as UTV spot boy and Mukta searchlight producing/distributing Aaamir and Iqaabal in pure terms of purchasing power parity. Otherwise 1 cr rupees is donation/charity amount to “poor Indian low budget filmmaker’s fund” for warner independent or fox searchlight, but for UTV or Big vice versa is not true.
I felt great when SRK, ARR, Anil Kapoor were seen in a Hollywood based awards show. I felt elated when ARR finally got his due on a world plaftorm.
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I think its good for Indian cinema because we already have the craft of making movies, now the world knows that we have craftsmen who can compete with the best.
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Chances of Hollywood studios backing up risky projects in India may increase and the Indian studio houses will also take notice that they could have made an SDM may be with a cheaper budget :-)
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Now, it may be easier for Indian film industry to market their movies in the west.
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That India is a such a multi-faceted country unlike what Alexander the great or Temple of Doom shows or there is more to Indian than Taj Mahal is definitely a good sign.
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I agree with Ratnakar that SM is not an Indian movie. It’s a movie about India, but not quite an Indian movie. I also agree with Sethu that it might attract some attention for Indian cinema, cast and crew. ARR deserves the award, not necessarily for the music in SM (not his best work I think) but because it is long overdue. I personally didn’t like SM too much. I’m still trying to figure out why it’s got so many good reviews here in the US. I want to see how an Indian audience will react to the movie. No doubt it will get a great opening, post the GG awards but I want to know what the Indian audience thinks about it.
@ Ratnakar
I’m pretty sure UTV’s role in The Happening was not limited to just distributing it in India. I watched the film in the US here and I was really surprised to see the UTV logo (the three fingers underlining UTV with three different colors) before the movie begins. I think they probably partly produced the movie.
Interesting news piece:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2009/01/12/slumdog-composer-a-r-rahman-is-a-big-deal.aspx
“My friend is like, why don’t you write something inappropriate on the form like, ‘I hate chinks’ … I just filled out the form and I wrote ‘I love chinks’ — and who doesn’t?”
So joked comedian Sarah Silverman in her gag about trying to get out of jury duty on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Next day Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) came hissing looking for an apology in the same way American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) went after Ben Stiller’s Simple Jack gag in Tropic Thunder. Both cases seem to highlight the trouble with good satire, when its really good, no one finds it funny. Truth stings more than it tickles. Where the humorless morons at the MANAA saw a shock jock going too far for cheap publicity (irony!), in actuality was Silverman making an acute sociological observation ripping apart the thin paternalistic veil that political correctness has put on bigotry. In careful consideration, all that the four decades of liberal arts education and post-modernist gobbly goop has achieved in the West is that it has convinced self-righteous politically “correct” nincompoop yuppies that racism long died in the 50s. Even the most harmless mention of racially “offensive” words leads to automatic ringing of the alarm bells and clouding of the brains, and the offender is swiftly moved to the lower strata of humans that need to be pitied and ridiculed if they are Average Joe, and demanded of an apology if a celebrity. All this while, what is conveniently ignored is that racism is just as alive and kicking as it was in the days of Kunta Kinte and has just changed its form from open exclusion to one that is sanctimoniously cloaked behind layers of politically correct BS. In its macro- form it rears its ugly head as institutionalized disenfranchisement of the minorities and in its micro- version it leads to utterly insulting hogwash getting Academy Awards for Best Picture: Driving Miss Daisy, Crash to name just a couple. So where does Slumdog Millionaire fit into the picture? It might be next on the list.
There is a scene somewhere in the middle passage of Slumdog Millionaire where our endearingly noble-savage protagonist cons an American couple out of their car while he gives them a hilariously (postscript: sarcasm doesn’t work in print) uninformed guide tour of Taj Mahal. Driver who catches on to it right away and punches his nose in, while the American couple pick him up and give him a bundle of American Dollars. I could not help but chuckle at this point, for this seemingly gullible American couple was exactly the film’s target audience. Y’know, the dollar-a-day crowd that wipes its tears of charity at the starving children with the big bellies, on their XXL “Made in Bangladesh” T-Shirts. Not that those tears are not well intentioned or something to be mocked (well, maybe the latter), but the shear ludicrousness of believing that somehow a film like Slumdog Millionaire should be watched and awarded because “its good for you” makes my stomach churn. You see how it is no different from the way Westerners used to tell their children to finish their dinner because children in India and China sleep on empty stomach? Its easy to love the poor just as long as you only have to wtach and not smell the shit-covered slumdog millionaire. Best Motion Picture of the year 2008, I say. Kudos for showing the real India! No longer the land of elephants, snake charmers, Maharajas and that Ghandi feller’. India, an elephant on the move, from slums to call centers, White Tigers and reality television. Add nausea according to taste.
So folks, save your money and go watch Oye Lucky Lucky Oye! instead, if you want an accurate picture of Indian class struggle and what it means to ask for “some more” gruel in India (”Kyun, main nahin kar sakta?”). Unless you are one of those crowd that love films so much you only watch the one that wins the Oscar and read the book that wins the Man Booker. Hey for what its woth it might start a trend and we won’t have to see those mediocre holocaust movies win Best Picture Oscars every couple of years. Maybe, just maybe, Poverty will become the new Holocaust (not that it isn’t already).
p.s. How ironic that its a Britisher who directed this movie depicting Hindu-Muslim riots in a Mumbai Slum!
@Zerosummer
Nice observation dude. No doubt its a nicely made movie but I also found stupid things in the movie. If you project it as a realistic movie then make it realistic.For example, Salaam Bombay. Some people say its a movie, don’t seek realistic story. Then why don’t they show all this to happen in England ;-)? Somewhere in our mind, we still have pre-independence boot-licking attitude. The people who looted us for decades are now using our poverty to win Global Awards.
People in India are applauding for the truth shown in movie but the very same people will close their eyes/nose if they come across a shit-covered kid. They don’t feel embarrassed that it still happens in their own country?
Pity on us.
PS. Zerosummer, can I use your write up for my blog?
I submitted it for iView yesterday I think. Post it if you like on Thursday because they say 5 days is the limit. I doubt they’ll put it up but whatever.
I don’t think we should get too excited about conquering or being accepted by the mainstream Western audience on the basis of this win by SDM.
The only films, by my recollection, based on Indian themes by Indian directors that have been truly successful are Bride and Prejudice (supect) and Monsoon Wedding. This is not a good count.
For Indian films to be successful in the West they have to be patronised by the non-white audience in greater number. CCTC may be the biggest success in terms of box-office collections overseas because of the sheer number of outlets where it will be showing and the hype created has ensured the Asian audience will throng to it. But as far as having a universal audience…. I some-how doubt it. In fact I went to see SDM on Saturday night in London, where it has just released. The hall was packed, but not by “our” Indians. Bar myself and my family there was hardly another Asian to be seen. What does this tell one? That they prefer OMO, RNBDJ, Welcome, SIK….I could go on. So Sad!
By the way with all these premieres that CCTC has been having for cabbies etc one would have thought at least one or two reviews would have come to light! I suspect no-one from the public has seen it and that the premieres were just “window-dressing” for PR purposes.
wow! guys such talent trashing each others point..
golden globe to you all…
i didn’t think Mickey Rourke would ever show up in public again, then there he was, winning big at the Golden Globes
i do not like the name slum dog