Word: bollywood
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That Slumdog should get anywhere near an Oscar is--like the crazy-wonderful plot twists in a Bollywood musical--both improbable and inevitable. India provided the backdrop for two Oscar-favored dramas of the '80s: Richard Attenborough's Gandhi (11 nominations and eight wins, including Best Picture, beating E.T.) and David Lean's A Passage to India (11 nominations, two wins...
...documentary director, and I just went back to doing that. I listened to people, talked to people." From these wanderings came moments that give the film its pungent life, like the scene in which Jamal jumps into a mound of human waste to get the autograph of Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan...
Being a hit in North America doesn't guarantee the same reaction in India. Slumdog opened in 350 theaters Jan. 23 and did fairly well--the third largest non-Bollywood debut, after Spider-Man 3 and Casino Royale. But India is one of the few nations to prefer local product to Hollywood blockbusters, and so far it has proved a tougher sell to the mass public than to U.S. audiences...
...Times on Sunday, calling it a "masterwork of technical bravura, adorned with inspired ensemble performances and directed with astonishing empathy." Added critic Rajeev Masand, "It's a great, fun film with a big heart. The success of the film lies in the fact that it's told using the Bollywood idiom - the West has embraced this unique, unusual format." And therein lies the rub. What works for the West may not necessarily work for India...
...film generated controversy in India even before its release there. A Jan. 13 blog entry by Bollywood maharaja Amitabh Bachchan, in which he asked if the film would have generated such hype if it had been made by an Indian director, led to an avalanche of Bollywood stars and critics taking positions for and against him. On Jan. 22, some 40 slum dwellers protested outside the Mumbai home of actor Anil Kapoor, who plays a leading role in the film. The protesters held banners reading "I Am Not a Dog" - referring to slumdog in the film's title - and "Poverty...