Slumdog Millionaire opens western eyes to Indian films

Now that Slumdog Millionaire is already one of the most popular movies around the world, winning more awards than most films in America, Hollywood is taking a more indepth look into Bollywood. All this while, India was only about elephants and maharaja’s and poor people with funny accents, but now there seems to be a little more respect for Indian cinema there.

Now these are exact quotes from national papers there, to the Los Angeles Times, Luck By Chance "seemed charged with an unusual excitement", while New York Times believes Akhtar "shows herself to be a master of extremes".
"A fabulous circus-theme musical number pulls out all the stops, but a scene in which an acting teacher explains why Hindi stars have to be more talented than those in Hollywood is a subtle comic gem," said New York Times' Neil Genzlinger.Mark Olsen of the LA times reported that the film bears a slight resemblance to another Oscar contender, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

"Most of the musical numbers play under montages, but there is one full-out, film-within-a-film full production: the joyous Baawre, the aforesaid circus-set number that's worth the price of admission alone. OK, that's hyperbolic. But it is a ravishing cornucopia of colour, sounds, shapes and sizes, as dazzling as the movie is down-to-earth." Says a popular American critic.

Now that is something India can be really proud of, and we’re not selling any poverty or maharaja’s in this one.