I liked SM, but I thought it was overrated. But maybe the milieu is something new for Western audiences. Its not entirely familiar for Indian audiences IMO, since even Indian films' depiction of poverty is often more sanitized.

ARR's score is not his best, but it is pretty good. I particularly like Mausam and Escape, Liquid Dance, and O Saya. I don't think Jai Ho is especially great, though. I can see why Subash Ghai rejected it for Yuvraaj.

Actually, Ek Ajnabee was a poor or at best a mediocre movie, well on it's own, irrespective of the existence of 'Man On Fire'. The fact that it is a copy, only made the movie look stale in addition to being mediocre. The fact is that I have watched 'Man On Fire' several tiomes and the "staleness" factor does not make the film any less attractive to me upon each new viewing.

On Manmohan Desai too I beg to differ. The problem with him or should I say his films, was not just the fact that he kept immitating his own work, but rather his new work was rank bad poor, period. 'Naseeb' was nothing but a total rehash of 'Amar Akbar Anthony', but that initself did not stop it from being a decent entertainer unlike the utter 'crap' that he made post Naseeb. 'Amar Akbar Anthony' is a movie I have seen umpteen number of times and can watch it probably atleast that many more times and still enjoy it, for it is a good movie and my becoming familiar with it does not diminish that fact. In my opinion, it is only mediocre movies that suffer from the "staleness" issue that you refer to. By the way, 'Amar Akbar Anthony' was not the first movie to revolve around the lost and found formula and thus based on your theory of "staleness", it too should have suffered the consequences of it.

Is it me or is no one else bothered by the fact that A.R. Rahman is nominated for a soundtrack that features three tracks composed by someone else, including the best two tracks. To make matters worse, one other track, 'Ringa Ringa' is nothing but an absolutely poor copy of an all time great song, Laxmikant Pyarelal's 'Choli Ke Peeche'. Someone ought to actually sue Rahman and the producers for this. I wonder how the 'goras' would react if they actually heard the original 'Choli Ke peeche' or for that matter the Bally Sagoo remix of the same. Or maybe even some of Rahman's own work, such as 'Dil Se'.

He's not nominated for the "soundtrack" of the film, but the background score, which he did compose. Just as an example, it's the same as Thomas Newman being nominated for a score like American Beauty, when the film featured other songs as part of its soundtrack. As for Rahman's best song nominations, they're specific to his compositions.

Anyway, who really cares? When Ron Howard gets a Best Director nom over Christopher Nolan, you just know things aren't right.

Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon is an amazing film. Better then crap like The Reader or Revolutionary Road...
The Dark Knight was entertaining, but not Christopher Nolan's best (check out his previous film "The Prestige").

I hope that Doubt picks up some awards for performances and screenplay.

Frost/Nixon may have good performances and if you like the writing, fine, but in terms of direction, it wasn't anything special. As far as Nolan's direction on The Dark Knight, there are few films that came out last year which put as much thought into the composition of frames as he did.

Sanjay, I agree that Manmohan Desai's films declined in quality toward the end of his career. As for films' feeling stale, Amar Akbar Anthony, I feel, was excellent. Almost every topic has been explored; if a movie manages to re-examine one in an interestingly, reasonably creative way, it's all anyone should ask. I think Ek Ajnabee would have been very good had it been original; alas, it was a shit-faced xerographic copy of a so-so movie.

The Dark Knight was great, though, I feel, ever so slightly less controlled than Batman Begins.

on The Dark Knight, I felt the editing wasn't too great between different sequences/scenes, (though quite nice within a sequence).

I finally watched Slumdog Millionaire. I might post a review, soon, but, in the mean time, I'd like to say — though I'm not a fan of numerical "ratings" for things — I'd give it about a 6.5 out of 10. It's not the worst thing ever, but, without question, it's not "great."

ARR = 2xOscars congrats!

Must be one of the worst-ever Oscar winners.

Kudos to Danny Boyle! otherwise it was not upto par.

Still imho, ARR is the best in INDIA, whether he was upto this Oscar or not is a different debate! I am proud of him.

My feelings exactly.

AR Rahman and his group did get to perform at the Oscars ceremony but despite the live music, including humongous drums, had no juice in the "Jai Ho" number without Sukhvinder. I wonder why was Sukhvinder not included ??

surprisingly good win was Sean Pen imho! politically correct!

I was looking at my Gandhi Bluray, so Slumdog Millioner = Gandhi , for # of awards at oscar!

It is always when these Goras make a film on India, some how they can pull the rabbit out of the hat perfectly.

I bet this film in hands of wankas like Ghaii, SLB, VVC, YRF ..ORM etc etc...Arghhh!!cant even think of what they would have done with it. May be make another SADAK

Wow! those two Kates, take turn, if it is not Blanchet? it is Winslet! and Meryl is nothing better to do Did some one see Penelope's movie?

I saw her in Volver and she was GOOD!

Those kids were cute as heck. Without them, there's no Oscar. I hope they get a few million out of all this.