Slumdog Millionaire Official Scone Review

It’s not particularly insightful to point out that different people think different things are appropriate at different times. In fact, not only is this devoid of insightfulness - meaning is conspicuously absent as well. It all comes from my school days - I think as far back as primary - where it was prohibited to merely provide an answer - you had to include the question within that answer too. Starting an answer with word ‘Because’ was comparable to handing-in a dead pigeon you’d found outside the Co-op rather than your exercise book. But, my first sentence doesn’t really include a question either. I even criticised that sentence from within it self which indicates I was fully aware of it being sub-standard. I was consciously throwing perfectly good words into a pedal bin, which could have been used by those less fortunate to build fishing boats.. While that sentence could have just been read and forgotten, it now has a shed-load of other, possibly even more pointless companions, lazily leaning against lampposts in this cul-de-sac. I mean look at this sentence we’re in now; it will provide a contribution to the sum of human knowledge roughly similar to watching an elderly cast member from Emmerdale Farm say ‘fuck’ on TV’s Naughtiest Blunders.

Because in the cinema, in the adverts at the start(and I mean the ones before the trailers), some people chat through them quite comfortably. Some people are already self-censoring the volume, others are consciously increasing the volume of their voice as if the emphasise the point that a Twix advert is to be drowned out at all costs by discussions related to the impending demise of Jade Goody. But I guess three-quarters are bizarrely transfixed by these advertisements being generously spooned onto the big screen; and a strange phenomenon occurs: Adverts that appeared mildly diverting on television are now laugh-out-loud funny. The one with the slob eating pizza dipped in spicy Tabasco Sauce, who is bitten by a mosquito, which then flies off and explodes in a mid-air fireball, got the sort of laughter normally reserved for the sight of a man falling over in a muddy field. It’s hard to work out whether it’s the bigger screen or the louder sound that increases the amusement. I am however left in no doubt that Nicholas Lyndhurst’s next BBC1 vehicle should become the world’s first IMAX-only situation comedy.

The actual film started off well and carried on in a similar vain, but then the fire alarm went off. I mean literally went off (if ‘went off’ means ‘rang’ and not ‘flew to Africa to discover itself’) – I’m not using some critic metaphor here; we all had to clear out of the cinema and wait outside. There was a kind of excitement about being evacuated mid-film; it was an unexpected plot-twist; the fourth wall had had a hole cut into it and we’d climbed through into the cold Bristol city centre. Our roles in this story may have been entirely limited to swinging our arms and chatting in short sentences, but it’s never wise to run before you can walk.

Ten minutes later and the all clear was given. There had been no actual physical fire, but there’d been no actual physical street kid from the slums of Mumbai winning Who Wants to be a Millionaire either.