'Slumdog' Wins Mumbai Street Equivalent Of Best Picture
Everyone knows what a couple of angry parents and Indian social activists think about Slumdog Millionaire's march on the Oscars. But if a five-person, man-on-the street sampling is to be believed, Mumbai wants a victory.
But you've really got to want to believe it — that The Wrap had a correspondent on the street soliciting folks' awards-season insights, and that the Oscar culture that so debilitates us in Hollywood actually has acquired this much traction in innocent foreign lands:
Kanika Raj, student : "Slumdog has a good chance of winning the Best Picture Oscar, only because the entire world is going gaga over it. That's about it. It's not an amazing film, but people have been seduced by this so-called exotic Indian poverty. Just the hype could pitch the film ahead. Benjamin Button is the only other nominated film that I have seen." [...]
Deepanjali Singh, student: "Benjamin Button and Revolutionary Road would be the hot Oscar favorites. Slumdog was a nice movie, but not Oscar-worthy. There's nothing about Slumdog that you can go 'ooh' and 'aah' about, except for the music. The transformation of the slum boy was so jarring."
Kishenchand R Dubey, chauffeur "Oscar Foscar! I don't know the other films at all, and I'm not interested in any awards. I saw Slumdog Crorepati in Hindi, and imagined myself in the hot seat winning all that big money. Alas, such stories happen only on screen."
Maybe so. Either way, we're really, really sorry about that whole Revolutionary Road export. That won't happen on Obama's watch.