Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle and producer Christian Colson recently told the press that their youngest and poorest stars, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and Rubina Ali, will be moved into apartments worth about $29,000.  With their families.  Not with each other, that would be weird.  Well, probably not as weird in India.  I imagine.

Colson and Boyle told the Daily Mail the children and their families are looking at new apartments on the edge of the area where they live. Boyle told the Daily Mail: ‘These are bricks and mortar flats. They will have electricity, running water and good sanitation.  They will still be close to their friends and extended family.’

The film company has also agreed to pay for a rickshaw driver to take the children to and from school every day for the next eight years – to ensure they attend.

“It was always my dream to force a poor toothless beggar to sew my soccer balls,” I imagined Ismail saying.

And in an astonishing turn of events, officials from the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority – a Mumbai housing association – have now also said they want to gift the children a new flat each.

The organisation’s chairman, Amarjeet Singh Manhas, said: ‘These children have made the country proud and have an equal hand in the film winning the Oscar [Editor's note: No they didn't.] These children are special and have won laurels for the country and we want to felicitate them.’

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Following the Oscars on Sunday, the slumpuppies took their adorable U.S. press tour to Disneyland, where they hung out with Mickey Mouse.

“In America, the rats are big and friendly and never steal your food or bite you while you are sleeping.  It is truly the happiest place on Earth,” I imagine Rubina Ali saying.

Oh, and if you think that’s racist, at least I didn’t just hold up a piece of paper with their names on it to avoid having to pronounce their complicated, non-Caucasian names.  No, it’s okay Seacrest, they don’t need individual recognition. After all, they were only the main characters in the Best Picture of the year, you worthless f-cking sack of processed cheese.
[picture via Radar]

All nine actors who play the three main characters in Slumdog Millionaire will be attending the Oscars, even the two youngest ones, whom some have alleged were mistreated by the filmmakers.

Also attending will be Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, 10, and Rubina Ali, 9, both of whom were plucked from their homes in a Mumbai slum by director Danny Boyle and his team. The trip will be their first on an airplane and their first out of the country, relatives said.
“I’m very happy that I’m going to the Oscars,” Rubina said in her home Friday, hours before she was to leave for the United States. “My friends are saying, ‘your fate is so good.’”
“I’m not scared,” said Rubina, who will be traveling with her uncle. “I’m going to go and take a lot of pictures and show them to people over here.” [AP]

Oh sure, it’s all about fate. See what this movie has done, you idiots?  Why go to school, right kids? Clearly you can learn all you need from living on the street, and if you’re ever meant to raise youself out of a life of poverty, destiny will take care of everything.  Anyway, I know I said I hated this stupid collection of clichés that everyone’s calling best picture, but I’m happy for these kids.  When you spend your childhood wearing contact lenses made of fly eggs and crying yourself to sleep on a pillow made of a sibling’s bloated corpse… well, at that point it’s fair to say you’ve earned your giftbag full of iPods and Restylane.

A no-name blog has posted a cryptic list of what it says are the leaked winners of the 2009 Oscars.  Its validity seems slightly doubtful considering the ballots were due at 5 pm Tuesday and the post went up only an hour after that (seems like they’d take longer than that to count, no?).  But then again, the Academy are nothing if not predictable old farts, so most of these are still probably a pretty good bet.  Here they are:

Actor in a leading role: Mickey Rourke [Yay!]
Actor in a supporting role: Heath Ledger [Duh]
Actress in a leading role: Kate Winslet [Meh?]
Actress in a supporting role: Amy Adams [Sure, why not]
Animated Feature Film: WALL•E [f-ck, I thought Bolt had it locked up]
Art Direction: The Dark Knight
Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire
Costume Design: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Directing: Slumdog Millionaire
Documentary feature: Man on Wire
Documentary short: The Conscience of Nhem En
Film editing: Milk
Foreign language film: Departures
Makeup: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Music (Score): Defiance
Music (Song): Down to Earth (WALL•E)
Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire [Duh. Ugh.]
Short film (animated): Presto
Short film (live action): Auf Der Strecke (On The Line)
Sound editing: WALL•E
Sound mixing: The Dark Knight
Visual effects: Iron Man
Writing (Adapted screenplay): The Reader
Writing (Original screenplay): In Bruges

I know, I know, it’s just not the same without Hugh Jackman singing a gay song about them. Speaking of gay, the super secret list of presenters is rumored to include Robert Pattinson, Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Dominic Cooper [ed note: I have no idea who that is], Amanda Seyfried, Beyoncé, and some say, Miley Cyrus.  Hooray for half-assed plans to attract younger viewers!  Shit, why not just get John Cena to host and call it the People’s Choice Awards?  And the best kill sequence set to Limp Bizkit goes to: Saw XVIII…

[thanks to Spout with the assist]

Finally, a Slumdog Millionaire controversy more substantive than idiots whining about the title.

“Danny Boyle has spoken of how he set up trust funds for Indian child actors Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Ismail and paid for their education. But it has emerged that the children were paid less than many Indian domestic servants.

Rubina was paid £500 ($745) for a year’s work [they didn’t do an entire year's work, I guarantee you] while Azharuddin received £1,700 ($2,532.95), according to the children’s parents.

However a spokesman for the film’s American distributors, Fox Searchlight, disputed this saying the fees were more than three times the average annual salary an adult in their neighbourhood would receive. They would not disclose the actual sum.

Fox doesn’t sound like they’re disputing the actual amount, they’re just saying the amount is three times the average annual salary of someone LIVING IN AN INDIAN SLUM.  Not necessarily the best defense.

Both children were found places in a local school and receive £20 ($29.80) a month for books and food. However, they continue to live in grinding poverty and their families say they have received no details of the trust funds set up in their names. Read the rest of this entry »