Copycats

It is the month of February and I am catching up with the movies that have been nominated for an Oscar award. I haven't seen any of the 'Best Movie' category nominees but what interested me much were Slumdog Millionaire (aka SM) because of all the hype it has been getting and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (aka CCBB) because of my huge appreciation to David Fincher’s art.

Did not care much about the other 3 nominees. Frost/Nixon, Milk being not so appealing to a non North-American and The Reader being a quasi-remake of previous blender mix dramas.
I forced my wife to share with me the exquisite moments of watching these two gems of 2+ hour duration EACH just to realize that they truly offered nothing new not remotely original. Then a thought hit me! The Oscars nominees are picked by North-Americans who think the world is just the land spreading from the East coast to the West Coast.

Danny Boyle the Director of SB, whose movies I never liked, has offered nothing new in this latest movie. In fact it is a pure Bollywood story like every other single Bollywood story stripped from the musical dance scenes (in fact the ending is a pure tribute to the Bollywood musical dance tradition). As for David Fincher the Director to CCBB, of whom I am a great fan, he offered his story in a pure copy in style of the French movie “Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amelie Poulain”. Did not even bother to change the naming style of the movie.

I do not know whether this is considered as culture or not, but North-Americans really need to be exposed to other cultures to say the least. Only then they would realize that all their creativity is a copy of others. Even if in most cases the copy turns out to be better than the original. Regrettably this is not the case for these 2 movies.