Slumdog Millionaire Takes Home 8 Oscars 317
Ben Burtt was robbed of his overly deserved Oscars for the sound on Wall-E, and Heath Ledger's Joker unsurprisingly got a posthumous statue, but the big winner for the night was Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire with Picture, Director, Song, and five others. Go ahead movie nerds: talk amongst yourself.
What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Not news for nerds. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not going to enter an extended rant. But I do wish this kind of story didn't make the front page on /.
Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
I was wondering that myself. My girlfriend made me sit through part of the Oscars last night and at one point some clueless celebrity started gushing about how the Oscar is the "most prestigious award in the world". Really? More prestigious than the Nobel prize? More prestigious than the Medal of Honor or Victoria Cross?
Give me a fucking break. I'll never understand the fascination that a lot of my countrymen have with Hollywood and the culture surrounding movie stars/other celebrities.
Re:Not news for nerds. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not news for nerds. (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno, I actually enjoy news articles like this sometimes. It's a welcome surprise from all the Linux zealotry/Microsoft bashing this site is used to.
Re:Not news for nerds. (Score:5, Insightful)
Movie nerds are among the largest classes of nerds, dude.
Okay, fair point. But I just figured that /. was implicitly News for Technology Nerds; not other kinds of nerdiness.
We had this same argument during the earthquake in China over the summer. If you don't want to see this on the front page, use the firehose to mod it down. If you're using the beta index, mod it down so you don't see it. It's News For Nerds. Stuff that Matters. To many, this does matter. Not all of us participate in online forums (specifically that work doesn't block during the day) and it's nice to discuss it.
Just because this article doesn't pertain to your interests doesn't mean you have to come in and troll it. There's also many kinds of Technologies that go behind making movies from the start to finish.
I don't have any interest in the Mars Lander, but I don't go in trolling ABOUT THOSE DAMN NASAHOLES and how JUNIOR CANT READ GIVE THEM MONEY. Get over yourself and scroll down, it's not that big of an inconvenience to ignore one article.
Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Even more than the AVN awards?
Re:Not news for nerds. (Score:5, Insightful)
What is this new trend for everybody who has any kind of interest calling themselves "nerds" or "geeks"? I heard some beautiful person on TV the other day describing themselves as a "Musical Theatre Geek". WTF?
My current theory is that this is a nice way of bragging that "I know loads about this". By saying you're a "geek" it makes it sound like you're being humble about it.
Seriously though, I was proud of being a geek/nerd when it meant being a computery person who is passionate about science and technology and who therefore sometimes seems odd to people who are not into those things. However, if the word "nerd" has come to mean anybody with any kind of interest, it seems a bit of a lame and meaningless term.
Re:Not news for nerds. (Score:4, Insightful)
And yet it doesn't say Technology on the site header.
What would be appropriate content for the entertainment department in your opinion? I'm honestly asking here, as a movie/tech/gaming nerd I'm curious.
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Re:cheese with cheese (Score:1, Insightful)
Slumdog was the most cheesy and predictable film i have seen in years. The screenplay seemed like it was written by a 3 year old, the acting was horrendous, and you knew exactly how the film would end after about 8 minutes into it.
And that's what makes it such a revolutionary film by Hollywood standards. All the other movies literally were written by 3 year olds, and you knew how they ended just by watching the previews.
Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
And I don't see why people are bitching about a thread about the Oscars. Plenty of nerds enjoy movies. If you do not like movies, you could simply NOT CLICK ON THE FUCKING ARTICLE. That's what I do when I come across an article that doesn't interest me, I don't read it (and therefore don't create a whiney post complaining about it either).
Re:Oscar betrays its Western centerednes (Score:5, Insightful)
Your point is very valid. But in this case it's not the director. Danny Boyle wasn't a bankable name, or, indeed, a successful director. Or indeed, a good director. He's a hack who steals ideas from other movies. Slumdog would have been much better with a talented artist at the helm.
Note also that he had an Indian co-director who's had absolutely no credit whatsoever.
No. In this case it's the producer who got it its success-- multi-millionaire Paul Smith, realty TV hack, and expert publicist. Cashing in nicely on India.
Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Oscars are a bunch of MAFIAA types stroking themselves, and assuming (with the complicity of the media) that the entire fucking world cares about it.
When we give/get awards, it's in the family.
Sci-Tech Awards (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oscar betrays its Western centerednes (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you for those suggestions. Slumdog was a gangster movie with a love interest and a game show hook. It is by the numbers. If it had not been set in India everyone would have seen it for what it was. I was very disappointed to see it do so well. I saw it and Coraline on Saturday and Coraline was the much better movie, and Coraline had much potential that it did not take advantage of in the closing third. As I was watching Slumdog I could not stop thinking that this movie must be incredibly offensive to Indian people, and I don't know that much about India. I am glad I am not the only since everyone I have talked to seems very strongly opposed to me when I mention my point of view.
Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Nobel Prize awards would mean more if they were not given out until there was someone of worth to award it to. Instead they are given out regularly, as if the world continuously produces people worthy of the awards. The more often they give them out, the more it is like being one of the 40 million high school queens at the prom each year. Now, if there were only one prom Queen for all the high schools in the USA each year... now that would be special.
Re:OK, how do I ignore the ENTERTAINMENT section? (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't want to see much entertainment news on Slashdot, but I think it is OK to post annual articles on the Academy Awards and Grammys to discuss films and music in a Slashdot way.
Discussing films and music in a slashdot way is discussing the technical and legal ramifications. Who won a bullshit popularity contest designed to keep the masses of asses interested in media which pisses on their minds is not repeat not worthy news for nerds. Anyone who thinks it is obviously needs to take a deep breath and step away from the fucking television.
Los Angeles is going to be underwater soon anyway (not soon enough for me, but whatever.) The WB will have a hard time broadcasting shit from the Arizona Bay.
Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
I quite agree with you.
I actually lost any respect for the Nobel Prize a long time ago, shortly after first learning about them and being mighty impressed,
I went through the list of the laureates.
To my surprise, I did not find Gandhi.
Instead I found that he was nominated five times, but was never awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Now I can accept the last omission, as that was within the rules of only living people being eligible and he was assassinated after being nominated for the fifth time, but I could never accept the other four times.
There have been many other problems with the awards and omissions of them, but I still feel that this was the worst blunder of them all.
Good to see that screwing over children paid off (Score:2, Insightful)
Ahhh, the circle of life.
Re:Oscar betrays its Western centerednes (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OK, how do I ignore the ENTERTAINMENT section? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of it has to do with the fact that the readership for Slashdot has gotten older along with the site, and some of it is that sites like Digg.com have sprung up to pull away a lot of the kiddies.
It's not all roses here, but I continue to use Slashdot because you actually can get some decent discussions going here, and there's a lot of actually funny responses too.
Re:Oscar betrays its Western centerednes (Score:1, Insightful)
We are talking about the same Danny Boyle aren't we, him off of Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, The Beach, 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Millions?
Re:Not news for nerds. (Score:3, Insightful)
Geekdom has always had its camps: you've got your computer geeks, music theater geeks, comic book geeks, fantasy geeks, and so on. Basically if you were interested in something that wasn't considered cool (i.e., something other than cars, sports, cheerleading, binge drinking), you were a geek of one stripe or another.
Of course now, in some sort of wicked irony, it's cool to be a geek. Part of it is a reflection that so much of our lives have become so closely intertwined with technology and gadgets. For example, around here there's a nice restaurant whose bar area has become a very popular spot to take in Sunday football games. Just about every NFL game can be seen on one screen or another, and the beer is pretty good, so if football is your thing, you could definitely do worse. What's interesting is that the folks who are deeply involved in watching the games are also multitasking on their uber-phones or netbooks: they're tracking their fantasy football stats and trash-talking (trash-texting, actually) the guys in their league. With gadgets being ubiquitous now, the cultural valuation of having technical know-how has shifted.
Another thing that's interesting is that geeks have really taken over pop culture too. Graphic novels are now mainstream. Video games are outselling DVDs. When you go to the movies to see the big summer flick, chances are it's science fiction or fantasy of based on a comic book.
All in all, it's a pretty good time to be a geek.
Re:Good to see that screwing over children paid of (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, let's all be merry and celebrate the distributor's generosity. The fact is, that the kids still live in tents while the movie is making copious amounts of money (almost 160 000 000 $ so far).
Also, the diffusion of responsibility is a wonderful thing: those guys made more, those guys made less, those guys just work here, those guys have mortgages to pay and those just followed orders.
Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Oscars have nothing to do with the MPAA or RIAA. The Oscars are the entertainers themselves nominating and awarding themselves. The votes are from current members of the actors and director's guilds (unions) and other members of the entertainment industry. They have nothing to do with the AA's other than the fact that the actor's and director's don't get paid when you pirate.
So which is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Was Slumdog the co-creation of an Indian director who is not getting sufficient credit? Or is it a Western director degrading India for profit? Both criticisms cannot be simultaneously true.
The idea that Slumdog Millionaire "degrades" India is offensive. It implies that any movie that shows the negative aspects of a society is inherently degrading. Thoughts like that come from a perspective that we have to treat some countries like "special" children--keep them from all harm and make sure they wear their helmet and kneepads all the time. Give me a break. No one would be complaining if this exact same movie was set in the U.S., where there are plenty of slums and gangsters and game shows. That betrays a subtle racism of low expectations toward India. In comparison I do not recall similar outcry when Western filmmakers began to use Hong Kong cast, crew, and concepts to make movies.
India has slums and violence, as many, many Indian movies have portrayed. Note that much of the production and acting crew of SM come directly from the Indian film industry, and are happy about their work in the movie. Including the Indian co-director.
Re:Am I the only one?? (Score:3, Insightful)