Happy birthday, Jen!

My friend Jen out in California gains another year of wisdom and wild times today. :) May this year bring her happiness, joy, and maybe a better outcome at the Rose Bowl!

Beautiful music (VIII)

Pagodes, by Claude Debussy. (Gotta turn your volume up, though.)

Slumdog Millionaire

Two months after it nearly swept the Oscars, I finally got around to watching Slumdog Millionaire this weekend. In all candor, I wasn't sure what to expect going into it, as I'd heard varying degrees of reaction to the film—ranging from a truly remarkable film to a mediocre film with an all-too-Hollywood ending. Frequent comparisons to City of God were made, as they both took place in the slums and revolved around the dichotomies of falling victim to the slum lifestyle or having what it takes to rise above the slum and escape. (Though comparing the two is like comparing apples to apples, so I'm not going to fall into that trap.)

The main character of the movie is Jamal Malik, a young "slumdog" who grew up on the streets of Bombay with his older brother Salim and a young girl they befriended named Latika. Now in his late teens/early twenties, Jamal has landed a spot on the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," and has risen far beyond the point of any previous contestant on the show. The host, Prem Kumar, becomes very suspicious of Jamal, wondering how a kid from the slums could possibly know so much—even after he deliberately feeds Jamal an incorrect answer during a commercial break! So after an episode one night, he has Jamal arrested and tortured interrogated by the local police, who review with Jamal each and every answer he's made on the show, basically wondering how he could possibly know each answer. Jamal responds each time with a story of survival from his childhood in the slums, always revolving around a tragic event wherein he gained the knowledge to the "Millionaire" question.

For example, one of the questions was who composed a famous Indian song (the name of which escapes me). Jamal learned who wrote the song when he was very song, when he, Salim, and Latika were taken under the wing of someone named Maman . . . who turned out not to be a guardian angel but a gangster running a terrifying operation: he would find the homeless child with prettiest singing voice, and then blind him because blind homeless children brought in more money as beggars. The song Jamal was questioned about on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" was the one sung by his friend Javed just before he was blinded by Maman and put on the streets to collect beggars money.

Flashbacks like this served as good storytelling devices, but the fact that every answer on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" could be traced back to a gritty story from Jamal's childhood in the slums was just too convenient for me.

But aside of the main plotline (about how Jamal progresses on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire"), there's also a very human story about Jamal's relationships between his brother Salim, with whom he's shared a very rocky relationship, and that with Latika, for whom Jamal has always carried of a torch. Since Jamal and Salim lost their mother in a religious riot when they were both very young, all they had for so many years was each other, though Salim was often very bullying and arrogant. Having not grown up with a sibling, I often find myself fascinated by the tumultuous relationships between brothers or sisters, and the evolution and disintegration of Jamal and Salim's relationship was the one thing that held my attention the most.

Jamal's lifelong pursuit of Latika, however, struck me as the movie's biggest flaw. I think this story arc could have been so much more powerful if Jamal had in fact lost Latika by the film's end, rather than get the girl against all odds. The way I see it, had Latika suffered the same fate as Salim, then Jamal would have lost everything in his life, and his struggle on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," with all of India cheering him on, would have been that much more inspiring as a result.

Overall, Slumdog Millionaire was a good movie with an engaging story, but I wouldn't necessarily call it a great movie. It was a very well-made film, but it didn't speak to me the way that, say, There Will Be Blood or To Kill a Mockingbird did. Nevertheless, Slumdog Millionaire took home eight golden statues at this year's Oscar ceremony, and was the heavy favorite for Best Picture going into the show. Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning direction was fabulous, as was the cinematography. Two of its songs, "O Saya" and "Jai Ho", were nominated for Best Original Song. "Jai Ho" was crowned the winner, though I personally liked "O Saya" better. I can't say that Slumdog was more or less deserving to win Best Picture than any of the other nominees this year (largely because the only other one I've seen is Frost/Nixon), but I still give Slumdog Millionaire a 7 out of 10. A good movie, but not a great movie. Not a Best Picture winner that's on the same level as The Godfather, The Silence of the Lambs, or Casablanca.

Assorted tax quotes

Homer Simpson: "Would you look at those morons? I paid my taxes over a year ago!!!"

From the novel Fletch's Fortune: "Taxes, Mr. Fletcher." "What about 'em?" "You haven't paid any."

A possible Jim Mora interpretation: "Refunds??? Don't talk about refunds!"

A possible Treasure of Sierra Madre interpretation: "Tax forms??? We ain't got no tax forms. We don't need no tax forms. I don't have to show you any stinking tax forms!!!"

Probably the greatest tax-related quote came from the queen of mean herself, Leona Helmsley: "Only the little people pay taxes!"

I'm tempted to walk up to the post office at lunch today to see how long the line is—and then laugh at them, since I filed my taxes last month and received my refund deposits a few weeks ago.

Deconstructing Fisher

Marc Fisher wrote an excellent (though somewhat idealistic) article this morning about the Nats and the surrounding neighborhood in Southeast as we enter the fifth year of the franchise and the second year of the new ballpark (well, not so new anymore). The temptation to add my commentary to the mix was all too great to resist.

The idea was that by building the stadium, the city would unleash imaginations and wallets. Bars and restaurants would spring up, and tax dollars would flow. A grand circle of investment would be completed.

This was the idea that we were all sold on for bringing a team to Washington, and it was a good idea! The only problem was—and this wasn't the fault of the city, MLB, or anyone else—this idea sprung up right in the thick of the real estate boom, when people couldn't even conceive of the bubble bursting. I still think the idea is a good one, and hope that one day the idea comes to fruition. But it won't be overnight, nor will it be this year or next.

No one builds much of anything these days. We've lost the trust we had in the idea that building begets building, that that domino effect creates the energy that sustains us.

That was one of the greatest fallacies of the housing boom—that everything would go up, up, up! But then reality kicked in, and the economic collapse that I had predicted 3-4 years ago took place (no, I'm not an economist; all it took was common sense to see that we as a nation were spending ourselves into the ground and that one day it was going to royally come back and bite us in the ass hard).

But despite the optimism each new season brings, there is a growing unease, questions about whether fans will really support the team and whether the city's investment will provide the promised returns.

Winning might help! Our best season was our first, when we finished up 81-81! From that point onward, it was all downhill. This is something I lay firmly at the feet of the Lerners, who haven't really proven themselves worthy as owners. It's one thing to play hardball with the city council by refusing to pay rent on the stadium (not that I'm condoning that necessarily), but there's no excuse whatsoever for refusing to spend money to recruit promising talent for a team that badly needs it. It's not like the Lerners don't have the money! But like all other super-wealthy people, they want the biggest bang for the least amount of buck, even though the hard reality is that the Nats are getting what they're paying for—zippo. It doesn't help that Washington is a football town by nature, too, so growing a fan base for baseball is going to require winning seasons.

Some will say it's time to return to reality: The owners aren't spending the money it takes, the team's still a loser, the game's in decline, times are tight, let's stay home and watch TV.

Tight times alone might be enough to keep people away from the ballpark, though I'm sure the Nats aren't the only team in baseball being hit by the recession. As to that last point, though, there are still some who are bitter that Peter Angelos owns the majority of the Nats' TV revenues, and wonder what act of God must take place before that's set right. I mean, how is one baseball team owning another team's TV rights not the very definition of "conflict of interest"?

For my part, I still love the Nationals, and hope to make it to as many games as I can this year. Our losing record(s) won't diminish my love of my team. But the frustrations I feel are shared by countless others across the region, and I can only hope that one day they can be set right.

Oh, and as a final post-script, I loved how Marc called out Adrian Fenty!

When the city's soccer franchise asked for the same deal the Nationals got, Mayor Adrian Fenty gave D.C. United the back of his hand.

If memory serves, Fenty ardently opposed the stadium deal way back in the Linda Cropp era. And had he been mayor of DC in 2004, I'm sure he would have done the same to the Nats. (Though I do have to give Fenty marks for consistency.)

Simpsons stamps

Apparently this isn't an April Fool's joke!

"The Simpsons" will be immortalized on stamps to be issued by the U.S. Postal Service this year.

See, a book of stamps like this I'd buy just to have as a collectible! But on the flip side, wouldn't it be fabulous to send in a bill payment with a stamp that reads, "Eat my shorts"?