Review: ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ on DVD
Pop culture is influenced by so many different factors and timing determines what will catch on and endure while other things, quality be damned, wither and die. A perfect example is the Award-Winning darling of 2008, Slumdog Millionaire
Based on the 2005 novel by Q & A by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup, it was optioned for film by British production companies Celador Films and Film4 Productions who hired Simon Beaufoy to adapt it. By the time director Danny Boyle read the script and accepted the assignment, it was 2006. The budget was set at $15 million, meaning the producers needed a partner – enter Warner Independent which gambled $5 million for the right. Shooting began in November 2007 and it spent much of 2008 being screened at festivals starting with Telluride and the Toronto International. But, a Warner Bros. exec saw the finished product and felt that once you added in prints and marketing, it was not likely to recoup its costs.
A different exec at 20th Century-Fox saw it but saw something different and bought the film from Warners and scheduled it for late in the year. By the time it opened on November 12, the economy tanked and people were in a mixed state of financial panic and political euphoria. People wanted something to latch on to, something to make them forget the scary real world, at least for two hours.
[[[Slumdog Millionaire]]] was the perfect antidote for what was ailing our psyche. As a result, it has earned, through this past weekend, worldwide revenues of $268,103,477 making it hugely profitable and turning the stars Dev Patel and Freida Pinto into celebrities. Pretty heady stuff.
The movie, coming out on DVD Tuesday, is incredibly moving, exciting, funny, poignant and very predictable. While it was the Feel Good Movie of the Year and therefore swayed voters into giving it many prizes, it is not the greatest film of the year. In addition to the enjoyable story, it also shined a documentary-style eye on India’s slum life and we watched in gaping fascination. This was not Bollywood or some idealized view of life, but the actual way the majority of the people lived in the heavily populated country. This, more than the story, may be one reason it was so well-received around the world.
A long-simmering trademark dispute over who owns 
Meet Phil Morris, a man who’s love for the action hero genre stretches even into his bloodline and wait until you hear what he has planned next, plus Spider Girl is back again and Ingrid Michaelson‘s Twitter Tune that will be stuckin your head all weekend guaranteed.
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She’s baaaaaack.
The Harvey Awards
