Yawndog Millionaire

Firstly, since I haven’t seen any of the other nominated movies, I wont comment on whether or not the movie deserved 8 oscars. Maybe the other ones were equally bad or worse. Maybe it's post Obama America trying to make amends for the last couple of decades of self-obsession and self-righteousness by acknowledging that non Americans also belong to the human race. Maybe it's all these and other factors combining in the ridiculous way fate sometimes has of turning things on it's head.

So, lets discuss the movie itself. It's not even good, forget great. The screenplay has gaping holes, the storyline is ridiculous, the performances are extremely ordinary, the script is juvenile, the cinematography is as good as what we see in most hindi movies these days and the direction is average. Rehman is good, but way way short of his best (but I guess even that is good enough for the Oscars so that’s all right). And of course it has the following scene:

Poor Boy Fucked by Fate (PBFF) working as guide to American Tourist With Golden Heart (ATGH) is caught stealing and is thrashed by Insensitive Indian Goon (IIG).

PBFF while getting belted tells ATGH – ‘see..this is the real India’.

ATGH stops IIG, scolds him, hands PBFF a C note and tells him ‘this is the real America’.

Amazing!! Real goose bump and lumpy throat stuff right?

And the reaction!! Funniest thing yesterday was how both the British and Indian media were going bonkers that ‘their movie’ had won. And there were celebrations in the Bandra slums and in Pali Hill bungalows. At the end of the day, the hype is all about Bollywood. This entire ‘spontaenous eruption of joy’ has been carefully choreographed since the BAFTA nominations. So, while the movie ran to empty theatres across Mumbai, the film fraternity came out with media bytes blazing – no doubt mentally rearranging their dates to accommodate Hollywood directors they think would be lining up after this phenomenon.

Was the reaction similar when Pt Ravi Shankar or Pt Zakir Hussain got the Grammy? Or when Ray (who???) won the Oscar?

As Borat would say…’Naaaaat!!!’.