India's richest asset is its people. A billion of them. Not all of them are from the slums, or rich. But the rags-to-riches love story of 'Slumlord Millionaire' was a sure winner at the Oscars last night.
Just like at the Golden Globes, Slumdog Millionaire got the Best Picture prize, along with Best Director. Eight Oscars in total. Including Best Song 'Jai Ho' by Allah Rakha Rahman, who is an Indian Muslim.
The movie's main characters, brothers Salim and Jamal Malik, are Muslims too. As their mom is among those who are killed when the Muslim minority of the slums is attacked by a horde of thugs.
A good day for Muslims, shown in positive light for a change. And for Indians. And even for all of us who love diversity, peace, and love amongst all people, without regard to our religion, race, skin color, sex, and wealth or lack thereof.
Having just seen it this past weekend, I thoroughly enjoyed Slumdog Millionaire. It's a love story that has all the ingredients to make you laugh and cry, respect the inevitability of destiny, and believe in the characters who act out the story of struggle and survival. I recommend it highly. You won't be disappointed.
Obviously, I was cheering for it to win. And I applaud the Academy for having the balls to select a 'foreign' movie, and I don't mean a British one, as Best Picture. Goes to show you that a movie with a $15 million budget, and no big name stars, can go all the way, if as producer Christian Colson said, "Most of all we had passion and we had belief, and our film shows if you have those two things, you have everything." I hope Turks are paying attention!
Back to the Oscars. Here's what I liked and what I didn't.
For one thing, the show lasts too long. Maybe it's time to cut out televising some of the awards, like best performance by a panda in an animated short story involving cartoon characters who speak English and are funnier than the dude who hosted the telecast.
Instead, combine five or six of those less meaningful (at least to me) awards on one slide, and show the winners on the screen, without the 'thanks to my grandmother who is up in heaven looking down' speech.
Eliminate the commercials. Replace them with corporate sponsors who could have their logos etched underneath the 'best whatever' tag on the Oscar statuette. Like 'best soft drink that causes cancer if not consumed under supervision by pharmaceutical company executives' or something.
Have all the nominees for the awards get up on stage, instead of past winners as presenters. Time to see the emotions on their faces when they are standing next to each other, instead of those little picture-in-picture boxes too small and too many to follow by naked eyes unless you have TiVo and hit the pause button frame by frame.
And then, have last year's winner in that category open the envelope and read out the name of the 'winner.' For the main awards that you have to wait three hours for, you might even have a little fun and announce the 'losers' one by one. Third runner-up, second runner-up, etc. like they do at beauty pageants.
As for Hugh Jackman, don't invite him back next year! Why is there a host anyway? Have an opening number, and a monologue. A monologue that's funny. Someone who can actually ad lib and make me laugh. Like Wil Smith who had the funniest line in the whole show when he said, "Yes they still have me here. I believe Hugh is napping," as he was getting ready to read the names of the nominees for the fourth of four awards he presented.
