A Colourful Contradiction...

Boyle creates a fuzzy Bollywood feeling with Slumdog Millionaire. Child trafficking, Mumbai slums, Indian gangsters, Cops as agony aunts, Brotherly love oh and Destiny. Hardly at all about Who Wants To Be a Millionaire but rather acts as one of the many colourful threads in the tapestry which is this film. It can be argued that many of the nuances of Mumbai life are lost or rather overidden in the efforts of creating Californian sun drenched pans over the visually famous slums next to the Mumbai skyline. The utopia of "Bollywood" is certainly captured in Jamal's journey from slum child to genious tea boy. The various threads of the film constantly bring forward political, economical and social issues. Wonderfully satirical, poking fun at the stringent social class in India with the slight at Bollywood moviemega god-like star Amitabh Bachan visualises that colourful contradiction which is so very much escalating. But these issues just end up playing their part in a boy meets girl, boy losses girl, boy finds girl, boy loves girl type sceanrio. Boyle hopes to create a coming-of-age texture, but is this that film which changes your life? No. That was The Pursuit of Happyness. Though it does show to pessimists that slum living can be chipper.

Mr. Kanye West: Original College Dropout

Now i ain't saying he's no fab rapper but he ain't rapping about his love of art???!!!

Kanye West has been in the UK for this Glow In The Dark Tour, yesterday he graced Birmingham. His futuristic theme has been eminent since his smashits "Spaceship" and more recently "Stronger", in true West form Stronger sampled Daftpunk infused with his own flair collided to create a cult track. His spaceship crashes and so the concert begins. The concert saw West show a side unknown to his fans; budding actor and art school drop out! West showed his acting tendancies as he played along with the skit of being stranded on a desserted planet with spaceship;Jane (what a name Kanye?!). Loved the impressionist piece when he was having an imaginary fight with a space dinasour! But it was his passionate talk/key note speech on cencert set designs, which blew me away (aside from the music-of course). West during his acknowledgements enthused about the value and importance of set designs for concerts. He mentioned how the graphics rolling on the back screen had been hand painted including the "sky" and "clouds". He also touched on references of favourite movies as a child that inspired his set design. He bigged up all the artists out there and as a art school drop out himself admired them for their work and passion, espcially toward Popart. Mr. West we like this intriguing side to you, but don't let the other sides fade away; like your strong sense of style. Where were the snazzy outfits?!

Happy Birthday Prince

As the Prince of Wales is about to turn 60, the BBC honour him with a candid documentary, Charles at 60; the Passionate Prince. The balanced juxaposition between his passion of gardening at his residence Highgrove and his hands on ethic through his various charitable work. The man behind the title at the age of 60 is very much laid back but still seemlessly passionate about city regeneration, helping the environment, organic farming to international relations. This insightful film manages to capture humour; the quick dialogue between father and son as Prince William is being honoured, or agitation as the helicopters furiously do their rounds during Charles' video interview. My personal favourite was the 'black spider memo'- what a delightful way of practising business in the era of hyper technology. Happy 60th.

P.S. My brother made it in the background of a shoot in the documentary.