{"id":446,"date":"2009-05-03T11:06:10","date_gmt":"2009-05-03T19:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/?p=446"},"modified":"2009-05-03T11:06:10","modified_gmt":"2009-05-03T19:06:10","slug":"why-i-didnt-like-slumdog-millionaire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecompany.net\/jason\/posts\/2009\/why-i-didnt-like-slumdog-millionaire\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Didn’t Like Slumdog Millionaire"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jamal
\nLast night I finally got around to watching Slumdog Millionaire<\/i><\/a> — the best movie of 2008 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences<\/a>. I was pretty disappointed with the movie (though not for the reasons I expected) and perplexed as to why so many people thought it was such a great film (maybe commenters here can help shed some light on it’s greatness?).<\/p>\n

First, some history of me and the film: I absolutely love the director: Danny Boyle<\/a>. I love Trainspotting<\/i>, I was one of the few who liked The Beach<\/i>, I was one of the few who went back and watched Shallow Grave<\/i>, I liked 28 Days Later<\/i>, and I absolutely loved Sunshine<\/i>. When I first heard that he was behind Slumdog Millionaire<\/i>, I was totally interested in seeing it. Before it opened widely, it was playing at the Harvard Exit<\/a> theatre — one of my favorite small theatres playing independent\/”art house” films.<\/p>\n

Then the movie started getting all sorts of Oscar buzz and everyone and their mother felt the need to see it and I became a bit disinterested. (Which happens often — once everyone loves something it loses its appeal to me…) And then at the 2008 Academy Awards Slumdog Millionaire<\/i> cleaned up and left The Dark Knight<\/i> behind — and I very strongly feel that The Dark Knight<\/i> was the best movie of 2008 and I’m still overly bitter about the fact that it didn’t even get nominated for Best Picture…<\/p>\n

So finally last night I saw the film. Based on the fact it won an Oscar and word-of-mouth reviews I’ve heard from people, I was expecting some overly romantic sentimental movie. Everyone called it the “feel good movie of the year”<\/a> so I was expecting non-stop feel-goodness — and I know I’d hate that.<\/p>\n

But in ultimately, it was really only a “feel good movie” for the final 10-15 minutes of the film. Mostly it was a very artistically-shot flashback-heavy movie with a great soundtrack. But that describes a lot of the movies I see every year… so, again, I’m not sure what made Slumdog Millionaire<\/i> so exceptional.<\/p>\n

My thoughts on some specific aspects of the film:<\/p>\n

Soundtrack:<\/b> Danny Boyle has always been a master of creating a great soundtrack for his films:<\/p>\n