Another intriguing selection from the trailer bin: Peter Weir, who arguably has never made a bad film, sends Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, Jim Sturgess, and Sairose Ronan on a walk across continents in the trailer for The Way Back. “The book is Rawicz’s account of being captured by the Red Army in 1939 and his journey to freedom with other inmates. The group crossed the Siberian arctic, the Gobi desert and the Himalayas, finally settling in Tibet and India.“
Category: India
Marshes of the Moon.
“‘It’s really wet,’ said Anthony Colaprete, co-author of one of the Science papers and a space scientist at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif. He and his colleagues estimate that 5.6% of the total mass of the targeted lunar crater’s soil consists of water ice. In other words, 2,200 pounds of moon dirt would yield a dozen gallons of water.“
In keeping with recent studies, NASA is set to announce that there appears to be quite a lot of water on the moon, which would greatly facilitate setting up shop there. Alas, “the U.S. likely won’t be involved in manned voyages to the moon anytime soon…But other countries are gearing up. China has pledged to land astronauts on the moon by 2025, and India has plans to do the same by 2020. Japan wants to establish an unmanned moon base in a decade.” And, hey, why go to the moon when you can spend a decade in Afghanistan?
Little Miss Slumdog.
Partly a Dickensian travelogue through the horrors of Mumbai slum life, partly a generous heaping of third-world-despair pr0n leavened with a very first-world cherry on top (A game show can change your life!), Slumdog Millionaire is in essence a feel-good, less resonant version of Fernando Meirelles’ City of God. If you can remain relatively ambivalent about cartoonish, over-the-top villains, characters who make random decisions solely to further the plot, a lot of chase scenes set to (admittedly catchy) bhangra, and, of course, a thoroughly implausible saccharine-sweet ending, Slumdog Millionaire may be more up your Mumbai back-alley than it was mine. For everyone else, do not pass go, do not collect $200. Make no mistake: As cloying as Little Miss Sunshine at times, this is really the Crash of this year’s Oscar crop (and, very possibly, the worst million-related Best Picture winner since Million Dollar Baby in 2004.)
Slumdog Millionaire begins, improbably enough, with a torture scene. Having gotten within one question of the big payday in India’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, our hero Jamal (Dev Patel, an appealing presence) has been strung up at the local police precinct in Mumbai and hooked to a rusty car battery. His crime? Why, cheating, of course — there’s no way an itinerant slum kid and chaiwalla (tea carrier) could’ve known all the answers…could he? Since Jamal won’t break under the juice, the local sergeant (Irrfan Khan, the most recognizable actor in the film for western audiences) gives him a chance to recount his story. And what a story it is, involving religious riots and narrow escapes and rape and child mutilation and brotherly betrayal and swimming through a river of feces…uh, did I mention this was a feel-good movie?
As it turns out, the torture scene that starts the film is both a feint and a taste of things to come. It’s a feint because, however grisly the opening, Slumdog ultimately plays out in a very different world than it originally suggests, one where bad guys invariably get their comeuppance, love conquers all, and the truth really does set you free. People have been using the “Dickensian” label to compliment this film as a social novel of the city of Mumbai, but, to be honest, it works both ways. The villains of the piece, gangsters and orphan-nabbers and such, are cartoonish enough to make Fagin and Bill Sykes blush. Like any number of Dickens’ supporting casts, most of the characters are paper-thin and plot-determined (I’m thinking particularly of Jamal’s brother, who waxes on and off from scene to scene depending on what the story requires of him.) And the movie takes some ridiculous jags throughout — the last few scenes, for example — that reminded me of nothing more than ole Pip’s jailbird benefactor in Great Expectations. Yeah, it’s Dickensian alright, and not in a good way.
In any event, that kick-off torture scene works as foreshadowing too, as it turns out that Jamal has learned the answer to every single question (in order, to boot) as a side benefit of experiencing something truly nightmarish in his life. What is the name of Lucy Van Pelt’s younger brother? Why, I dressed up as Linus on that same Halloween the house burned down. Who’s the 27th president of the United States? That’s funny, a guy with a William Howard Taft t-shirt shot my dog. Even notwithstanding the screwed up moral economy of this notion — don’t fret if god-awful things happen to you, you might just win some money from it some day! — and the weird voyeurism involved in this story — oof, third world poverty is grotesque and horrifying, isn’t it? But don’t worry, we give the kid a happy ending! — it all gets to be a bit ridiculous over time. I mean, thank god Jamal didn’t get any questions about astronomy, or the poor kid might’ve gotten walloped by a meteor.
Are there things I enjoyed about Slumdog? Well, yes. Like all of Danny Boyle’s films (Trainspotting, The Beach, Sunshine) it’s sleek and propulsive and well-made. As I said above, Patel, Khan (a.k.a. India’s own Chiwetel Ejiofor), and a few others are engaging here. And I particularly liked the scene where Jamal gets fed an answer by the show’s host (Anil Kapoor)…sort of. But, as for the rest of it, I found myself looking at my watch more often than not. For those of you who’ve seen the film, I think Slumdog Millionaire could’ve at least “stuck the landing” for me if, in the final scene, [highlight to read] Latika had answered the phone, told him she was safe, she loved him, etc. etc., and then they both happily blew off the final question. So Jamal didn’t get the money, but he got the girl, and wasn’t that what he was in it for anyway? But, as it ends here — have your cake and eat it too, Jamal — it just reminded me once again how stilted, manipulative, and implausible this movie turned out to be. And by the time an impromptu Bollywood number broke out with the credits, I had my very own bhangra-scored running scene…out the door.
Good Germans | Poor Little Rich Boy | Rusty Fan.
In the trailer bin of late:
Limited Appeal.
If you’ve ever seen a Wes Anderson movie, you probably already know if you’ll like The Darjeeling Limited or not. For better or worse, this one is right in his wheelhouse — It is to India and trains what The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou was to Cousteau and boats. I felt pretty much the same about this film as I did about Aquatic — It’s vaguely engaging and mildly diverting at times, but it doesn’t really add up to much, and is basically an excuse for Anderson to parade his usual indulgences for ninety minutes. (Nor is Limited as fresh as Rushmore or as occasionally moving as his best film, The Royal Tenebaums.) I mean, if Wes is your quirky-precious Louis Vuitton bag, don’t let me ruin the fun. But if he isn’t, I suggest taking a plane instead.
Somewhere on the Indian subcontinent, at what passes for rush hour, a flustered American in Organization Man garb (Bill Murray) tries to will his careening taxi through a typically chaotic Third World marketplace, in the vain hope that he can reach his train — the spiffy Darjeeling Limited — on time. Unfortunately for him, this is not his story. Rather, we follow the travails of the three Whitman brothers on this colorful locomotive, who’ve reunited one year after the untimely death of their father to partake in a journey of spiritual bonding. Jack (Jason Schwartzman), the youngest of the three, is currently writhing on the horns of a messy break-up (See The Hotel Chevalier.) Peter (Adrien Brody), the middle brother with a klepto streak, is wrestling with the dilemma of imminent (and seemingly unwanted) fatherhood. And Frances (Owen Wilson), the oldest brother and planner of the trip, is recovering from what looks to have been a self-induced motorcycle accident. (Plus, he’s a bit of a martinet.) These three reluctantly experience the scenic wonders of India at first, spending most of their time quibbling and bickering in fraternal fashion. But, eventually, a tragedy along their travels shakes the trio out of their touristy complacency. And, once they find (a la 3:10 to Yuma) that the train of life can come to an abrupt stop at any time, will the Whitmans then rise above their individual problems and learn the immortal spiritual truth that “brothers gotta hug?” Well, I’ll leave that for you to discover.
And that’s about it, folks…There’s not much else here to speak of. (In fact, the experience of The Darjeeling Limited was almost completely encapsulated by watching the trailer, from the basic outline of the plot to the general mood and rhythm of the film.) I will say that Adrien Brody, fun to watch on most occasions, comes across as right at home in the Andersonverse. And Owen Wilson, whose injuries can’t help but remind us of recent events in his real life, adds a haunted dimension to his character simply by his presence. Still, Darjeeling is a lark — Even with the funeral in the middle going (I’ll let others do the bashing about the dead-anonymous-native-kid-as-plot-point — I’ll confess it did seem a bit off), The Darjeeling Limited has no scene approaching the power of, say, the quietly devastating suicide attempt in Tenenbaums, and no turn as memorable as those of Bill Murray or Olivia Williams in Rushmore. Wes Anderson has shown in the past that he can tell a moving, dramatic story using his signature style. But, Darjeeling is just a rich kid playing with his train set.
Guns to Navarone (and everywhere else).
Paging Yuri Orlov: By way of Dangerous Meta, a new Congressional study finds the US atop the leaderboard in terms of selling weaponry to the developing world. “Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia were the top buyers…The study makes clear also that the United States has signed weapons-sales agreements with nations whose records on democracy and human rights are subject to official criticism.“
Limited Engagement.
By way of Quiddity and as seen in front of Sunshine, the new trailer for Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited, with Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, and Angelica Houston, is now online. (Hopefully this makes out better than the so-so Life Aquatic.)
A “Lunar Armada.”
The LA Times examines the beginnings of the second lunar space race, which will involve, among others, the US, Europe, China, and India. “Some researchers even have a name for the first lunar city: Jamestown, in honor of the first English settlement in the New World.“
Lying in a den in Bombay.
The consistently interesting Peter Weir chooses his next project: Shantaram, with Johnny Depp. “The story follows an Australian heroin addict who escapes a maximum-security prison and reinvents himself in India as a doctor in the slums of Bombay. His attempt to find medicine for his destitute patients leads him into counterfeiting, gunrunning and smuggling.” But will they be trying to tempt him, because he comes from the land of plenty?
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
“Travel writers can be so afraid to make judgments. You end up with these gauzy tributes to the ‘magic’ of some far-off spot. But honestly, not every spot is magical for everyone. Sometimes you get somewhere, look around, and think, ‘Hey, this place is a squalid rat hole. I’d really rather be in the Netherlands.’ And that’s OK.” My friend Seth Stevenson tries to make his peace with India, backpacker culture, and extreme poverty. Sounds like the beaches are helping.