Did anybody watch the Oscars this year? Traditionally, the Oscars have been criticized as pompous, pretentious, and cynical, and recent years have showed low ratings for the ceremonies. Well it looks like the Awards Academy learned their lesson this year, and they actually made an effort, ironically enough, to put on a more light hearted, laid back sort of affair.

First of all, Hugh Jackman was a lot of fun, and for once, the awards went not to the fanciest flicks with the biggest budgets, but to actually entertaining films, like the action/drama/musical thriller Slumdog Millionaire.

The result? Long time critics finally caved, and long time supporters called it the best Oscar ceremony in decades.

…Except for writer Salman Rushdie.

In particular, Rushdie really didn’t like Slumdog Millionaire, and recently went on record calling the film trite, false, superficial, and a number of other things not fit for publishing on this esteemed blog.

“The adaptation (of the original novel, Slumdog Millionaire) has a plot spun out of candyfloss and cheap tricks, the sort of thing that newspapers call ‘touching’ and ‘human’, but which merely spray paint a melodramatic sheen on deeply ingrained colonial prejudice.”

Ouch!

Well… respected author and thinker or no, Rushdie is also famous for being a bit of a grouch. Slumdog is certainly based on a crazy plot device, the whole Indian Who Wants to be a Millionaire? thing, and, as Rushdie says, it’s “more fantasy and fairy tale than contemporary fiction” but it’s really a very fun flick, and a difficult movie to be cynical about, what with its energetic camera work, upbeat international pop music, and, yes, dance numbers that seem to occur for no reason whatsoever.

Salman Rushdie does have some good points, but it’s kind of ironic that he actually seems to be guilty of the same thing that the Oscar ceremony detractors typically Academy of doing: Taking movies a little too seriously.

 Leave a Comment