Slumdog Smiling

I went to bed before the end of the Oscars last night, so I just found out who won the "big" awards, and I have a confession to make.

I don't really have any idea what Slumdog Millionaire is about.

I consume my RDA of poppy infotainment via the Internets, but I don't know if I've read or even seen a single review of it anyway in more normal outlets. Now, I have purposely not gone out of my way to find anything out about it - something tells me I should see it without any preconceptions about what it's about.

The other big movies are hard to ignore. Benjamin Button, with it's attachment to the Bradjolina hype machine. I thought one of Hugh Jackman's best lines last night was about how he was contractually obligated to mention them every five minutes. I used to live in San Francisco, so I had been keeping on eye on Milk for a long time, anyway. Then there's Doubt, which I'm sure is a fine movie, but with Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, the ET media was pushing the thespian angle harder and harder and harder. And that leaves Frost/Nixon, with two things that Hollywood just can't get enough of: Ron Howard and Watergate.

But somehow, Slumdog Millionaire stayed off of my radar. Danny Boyle is no stranger to me, I've seen four of his movies, and loved Trainspotting. I remember being disappointed when he left the fourth Alien movie.

But I have seen a couple of awards shows, and seen him interviewed on TV, and I can't say there's a bloke more deserving (I'm not English, nor do I live in England, but that guy's a bloke). My wife said after seeing him on the red carpet he just seemed like a happy, relaxed, positive guy, and it seems like he just really loved the whole experience of making Slumdog Millionaire, loved Mumbai, loved all the people he wouldn't have met otherwise. He just seems completely genuine about everything he was able to take away from it, and that makes me happy. And it shows that if you throw out a bunch of energy like that, unconditionally, you'll get it back in ways you might never dream of. I'm quite sure Danny Boyle didn't get his movie made by convincing suits it would be a prestige film, or even thought while he was making it or even after it was completely cut and finished, "this is going to win the Oscar." I think he just thought about telling the story he wanted to tell, in the way he wanted to tell it, and the rest was just gravy. You can feel the intensity of belief he felt in his project whenever he talks about it.

I don't really have any idea what Slumdog Millionaire is about, but that hasn't stopped it from making me feel, well, happy. I feel like smiling. I can't wait to see it.