Slumdog Millionaire Takes Home 8 Oscars

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.

Comments

Where were these noms?

[justthinkit]

Comedy:
Definitely, Maybe
Ghost Town

Documentaries:
Flow
National Geographic's In The Womb series

Drama:
Red

What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!?

[ActusReus]

Britney kicks off her latest world tour on March 3... post an article about that while you're at it.

Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!?

[Shakrai]

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:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!?

[Spazztastic]

In that clueless celebrity's world, it is the the "most prestigious award in the world." Do you really think she will ever get the Nobel Prize? Highly doubtful. Just let her enjoy her clueless life and go on with yours.

Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!?

[FooGoo]

Celebrities live in a different world. It's kinda like a snow globe filled with lithium and cocaine. In their world it is the most prestigious award.

Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!?

[wisty]

Even more than the AVN awards?

Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!?

[Ogive17]

Why do you know when Brittany's tour kicks off? Hell, I didn't know she was out of the loony bin yet.

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:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!?

[spydabyte]

I personally enjoy the Oscars and obviously I read Slashdot. Sure there are a lot of clueless actors and actresses out there, but I truly believe some of the work they do is incredible and no one else in the world can come close to the product they create.So I completely agree that the Oscars should be as noteworthy as they are.

Now I found Barbra Walters and the Red Carpet bit pretty irritating, but at least they stopped cutting people off (for the first 2 hours I voluntarily watched).

I personally am embarrassed at the response this article received on Slashdot. I'd like to see the response if the new Star Trek gets an Oscar. "Oh man now they're sweet!"

Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!?

[Amazing Quantum Man]

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.

Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you seriously implying that the Nobel Prize has any meaning whatsoever? Seriously?
Do you really believe that the Nobel Prize is anything but a circle-jerk, just like the Oscars?

Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!?

[zappepcs]

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:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!?

[eln]

The Nobel Prize has been inflated in the minds of some (with help from the media, no doubt) to be far more than it is. It is not designed to be awarded to people who just make mind-blowing life-changing discoveries. Nobel's will specifically stated that it be awarded annually:

The capital shall be invested by my executors in safe securities and shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind

It then goes on to stipulate what categories each award is for.

So, the Nobel Prize was originally intended to simply be sort of a "man of the year" competition in various fields, and was supposed to pertain to work that was done during the preceding year. In that spirit, Gore's prize was proper, since he was being awarded for stuff he had done during the previous year, while those prizes given to scientists for discoveries made years or decades earlier were technically in violation of Nobel's original intent, since it was supposed to reward only work done during the preceding year.

If the Nobel Prize was awarded as a "Man of the Year in x field" rather than "person who made earth-shattering discoveries in x field", you wouldn't have near the controversy it always seems to generate.

Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!?

[The Moof]

I think Brian Williams put it best about the Oscars during Friday's newscast:
"It's the day where the west coast pretends what they do actually matters."

Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!?

[CohibaVancouver]

Acting is pretty easy

I dunno about that... I've got some 'actor friends,' I've seen a lot of plays and movies and TV shows and I don't know / haven't seen too many people who could have rivalled Sean Penn's performance in "Milk" or Winslet's in "The Reader..." and on it goes. Utterly brilliant.

Re:What the FUCK is this doing on Slashdot?!?

[rahvin112]

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.

bye slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that really did it.

cheese with cheese

[NoMass]

Every year that goes by the Oscars become more of a farce.
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.

Not news for nerds.

[DoofusOfDeath]

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:Not news for nerds.

[The Dancing Panda]

Movie nerds are among the largest classes of nerds, dude.

Re:Not news for nerds.

[GF678]

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.

[Spazztastic]

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:Not news for nerds.

[pzs]

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.

[GundamFan]

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.

Re:Not news for nerds.

[genner]

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.

Bah....in the old days we would add Mac Fanboyism to the mix and call it a night. We were happier back then.

Re:Not news for nerds.

[SputnikPanic]

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:Not news for nerds.

[SputnikPanic]

[T]he words "geek" and "nerd" exchanged status positions. A nerd was still socially tainted, but geekdom acquired its own cool counterculture. A geek possessed a certain passion for specialized knowledge, but also a high degree of cultural awareness and poise that a nerd lacked.

From The Alpha Geeks, an op-ed piece by David Brooks. It's actually an interesting read -- worth checking out.

Re:Not news for nerds.

[SputnikPanic]

I enjoy this sort of story every once in a while too. Here on Slashdot we're more than happy to talk all day about what technology is being used in making films or about Hollywood's often overzealous antipiracy efforts or any number of stories about the Watchmen movie, all of which just reinforce the fact that movies are part of our lives. So if Slashdot wants to toss in a story about the Oscars, which after all happens only once per year, I don't see it being all that big a deal. The way folks are reacting to the story, you'd think that Slashdot had just wholly subsumed the message boards of People magazine or something.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that comparatively few people saw Slumdog Millionaire. Did Slashdot run a story when LOTR: Return of the King won Best Picture, and if so, did everyone still rail against an Oscar-related story being on Slashdot?

Re:OK, how do I ignore the ENTERTAINMENT section?

[Laxitive]

Oh no! You were exposed to the same information from two different sources!

Call homeland security! This gross indecency must end!

Re:OK, how do I ignore the ENTERTAINMENT section?

[Anonymous Coward]

I added this to my /etc/hosts.deny file:

entertainment.slashdot.org

but I think I got a virus because when I restarted firefox, I heard Christian Bale "Oh, GOOD for you, and how was it? I hope it was fucking good because firefox is useless now isn't it? Fuck's sake man, you're amateur..."

If you're actually interested...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Movies/02/22/oscar.nominees.full.list/index.html For a proper listing of the nominees and winners. Posting AC because I don't care, but I also don't want someone to see my UID attached to this post.

Robbed for the sound oscar?

[damn_registrars]

I may be missing something, but how is it that difficult to do sound for an animated film? I would say if anyone was robbed regarding sound-related categories it was slumdog millionaire. With animation you have all the time in the world to do the sound effects any way you want. Some of the scenes in slumdog were shot on handicams in crowded slums by comparison; how many times can you redo a take with thousands of extras and still achieve some sort of continuity?

Re:Robbed for the sound oscar?

[FatalTourist]

So animated films have no deadlines? Sound for animated or live action is often done the same way. In post. Rarely do you actually use a sound that you recorded on set (aside from dialog).

Re:Robbed for the sound oscar?

[pz]

Most live-action movies have overdubbed sound. Not all, but it is the norm. So the difference between a live-action film and an animated film, in terms of creating a soundtrack, is quite small. Both have massive sound effects -- in a live-action film, each footstep, each door opening, each paper crinkling, each jingle of keys, each car passing, and every single uttered syllable, is likely dubed. And even if you do have live sound (which, nominally, you do), there's lots of manipulation that needs to be done to turn it into a soundtrack. Just like with an animated film, except you lack the live sound recording.

Re:Robbed for the sound oscar?

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

and every single uttered syllable, is likely dubed.

That's where you lost it. Most sound effects are dubbed, yes, but there's an entire team of people on a film set dedicated to keeping the dialogue clean and usable. Dubbed dialogue can rarely match the intensity of a real, live recording of a scene and using it almost always robs a performance of some quality.

Re:OK, how do I ignore the ENTERTAINMENT section?

[caluml]

I added this to my /etc/hosts.deny file: entertainment.slashdot.org

hosts.deny is for listing hosts (and services) to deny connections from. You're thinking of /etc/hosts.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:OK, how do I ignore the ENTERTAINMENT section?

[cayenne8]

This Slumdog movie won all these awards?

That blows. I was rooting for Apu in the Simpson's Movie.

Much more compelling performance....

Apu was robbed!!!

What's an Oscar?

[nyvalbanat]

In any case, if it's by Microsoft I automatically hate it, and if it's for Linux I definitely love it.

Re:Browning of America

[Benzido]

OOh, how scary, a British film about Indians won an American awards ceremony! First the president, now this! Soon EVERYONE will be brown! The extinction of the goths is imminent!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Oscar betrays its Western centerednes

[ghoul]

Would Slumdog have been even noticed had it not been made by a British Director? Thousands of movies have been made about poverty in India. They get as much attention as movies made about drugs in American cities. People deal with this shit in their everyday life and dont want to watch it when they pay to enter a theater for some relaxation. Only people who have never seen poverty get their rocks off by watching something like Slumdog. Then again probably why Rambo and Die Hard were so popular outside the States was that guns are a big deal in countries with gun control.

Re:Oscar betrays its Western centerednes

[owlnation]

Would Slumdog have been even noticed had it not been made by a British Director?

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:Oscar betrays its Western centerednes

[Anonymous Coward]

I strongly suggest watching Ram Gopal Verma's film "Satya" and/or Madhur Bhandarkar's "Chandni Bar"
instead of slumdog for a better exposure to the same subject.

Satya and CB portray the genuine trials and tribulations of Mumbai's different peoples without degrading or dehumanizing an entire country of people like Boyle did with slumdog.

Re:Oscar betrays its Western centerednes

[mzs]

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:Oscar betrays its Western centerednes

[Anonymous Coward]

Slumdog was a gangster movie with a love interest and a game show hook. It is by the numbers.

Oh, absolutely. I can't tell you how sick I am of the unending stream of gangster romance movies set against game shows.

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.

How very enlightened and noble of you. I'm sure that the world's 1.1 billion Indians will sleep better knowing that you've taken time out of your day to be offended on their behalf.

Re:Oscar betrays its Western centerednes

[funkelectric]

It is not degrading. It depicts vibrancy, spirit, hustle and bustle. Have you actually seen it? For an interview with Loveleen Tandan, the co-director, see http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/oscars/article5772395.ece The crew that made the film very much seems to have lived and worked together as a team. Storytelling is universal and knows no boundaries, and movies are not tourism commercials. Have you seen trainspotting, a movie more in the director's backyard? I think it is pretty impressive that Slumdog went on to win Oscar accolades, and that those voting looked beyond their own backyard. I'll make sure to watch the movies you mention though.

Re:Oscar betrays its Western centerednes

[frission]

having grown up in a 3rd world country (Ecuador), I can say that I have been exposed to some level of poverty (my family wasn't poor, but you saw all the little kids in the streets, like in Slumdog). I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and not because I was exposed to something I hadn't seen before (poverty), but because it was actually a great movie. What's not to like about a kid who overcomes so much to be with the one he loves?

Re:Oscar betrays its Western centerednes

[SoupGuru]

If I recall correctly (and I'm at work and can't verify), I thought the producers of the film and Boyle were so thankful to their casting director for rocking their socks off with such talent that they gave her a co-director credit. It was purely symbolic since that goes against "the rules" of the director's guild or whatever. Maybe that's the co-director you're thinking of?

Danny Boyle

[elrous0]

I'm glad to see him finally get some recognition. But honestly, he should have won for Shallow Grave or Trainspotting (his best films). The Oscars are too conservative and often don't recognize filmmakers until they're way past their prime (like Spielberg and James Cameron, who didn't win Oscars until their best work was actually long behind them). The Independent Spirit Awards are much better, IMHO. And they're much more likely to recognize the work of young and audacious filmmakers. The Oscars almost never recognize first time directors, no matter how brilliant their debut work. Chris Nolan, for example, deserved and Oscar for Memento. But it took a Batman sequel for him to even get slightly acknowledged.

How about the Sci-Tech Awards?

[jasenj1]

The main Academy Awards may not be news for nerds, but the Sci-Tech Awards are certainly full of /. fodder.

- Jasen.

Re:OK, how do I ignore the ENTERTAINMENT section?

[dintech]

You say that now, but you'll change your mind when Twitter and Co get all deep and meaningful about The Hottie and The Nottie

Sci-Tech Awards

[nameer]

Wouldn't a better /. story be about the Sci-Tech awards?

Anyone else think....

[the-matt-mobile]

Anyone else think that the Oscars are pretty much irrelevant? Anymore it's just about the movie industry patting itself on the back, and not at all about what was actually praiseworthy. Count me in the buck of "didn't watch, didn't care". What happened to news for nerds and stuff that mattered?

Re:OK, how do I ignore the ENTERTAINMENT section?

[drinkypoo]

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.

Good to see that screwing over children paid off

[bgerlich]

Sweet justice that governs this world doesn't cease to astonish me. The kids from the slums that played main parts in the movie get paid with chump change, the movie is a success, gets 8 Oscars, the kids get a plane trip to the US for the Oscar gala and get dumped in the slum afterwards, producers sip lattes and count the profits, people are touched by a beautiful story of love while stuffing their faces with nachos, the kids are forgotten, continue to live in poverty.

Ahhh, the circle of life.

Re:OK, how do I ignore the ENTERTAINMENT section?

[cbreaker]

Right? I sometimes don't think that people really appreciate Slashdot when it comes to that stuff. Overall, you'll get a better discussion and less bullshit on Slashdot than many other sites of this nature.

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:OK, how do I ignore the ENTERTAINMENT section?

[Ihmhi]

Apu was robbed!!!

That's nothing new, really. The Kwik-E-Mart gets robbed all the time.

Re:Good to see that screwing over children paid of

[bgerlich]

The term "substantial" trust fund, coming from the same person saying that the few hundred quid the kids got paid is a lot because it is three times the average salary of someone living in the slum, doesn't mean much, does it? Also the trust fund will be available to the children actors only if they stay in school until they are 18. Too bad that until then they will be living on one meal a day in makeshift shacks, one can only wonder if they will last until their 18th birthday to enjoy the "substantial" amount of money that has been put aside for them. Interesting, that Fox doesn't setup funds like that for their child actors in the States...

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.

So which is it?

[snowwrestler]

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??

[skelly33]

You set yourself up for disappointment any time you show up at a theater with expectations. Couple that with advertising that "you don't get it" in a public forum, and I'm not sure I see the point of your post. *shrug* I rather enjoyed the show.