SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE --worth seeing- *****

Slumdog is a well-made, slickly edited movie, with a haunting musical score --and the cinematography is amazing. More importantly, it tells a taut story. Makes an impact --makes you look at street children with a more empathetic eye-and that is something. That's that -- now, I do believe that the choice of choosing a plot is the filmmaker's prerogative --underbelly or overbelly or no belly -we cannot dictate the plot or story to the filmmaker. Forget the accents -- the new faces in SDM can teach our Bollywood badshahs a lesson in emoting ....

Yes, Omkar --films like De Sica's Bicycle Thief,Goddard's Breathless, Antonioni's Passenger, Ghatak's films or 27 Down, Chaplin's Limelight or Elipathayam (Mousetrap) by Adoor --now these are cinematic gems --all of them tell or reflect a "slice of life" --which is what good cinema is all about...

Bollywood cinema --just what the Doctor has ordered for the recession-hit economies.

Telugu and Tamil cinema --some have great vocals --good for declogging eardrum blockages -and plenty of gyrations which Orthopaedicians find it difficult to comprehend.