The two movies that I have chosen this week, Transformers and Slumdog Millionaire could not be any different from one another in their approach to showing their messages, and just how they get them across. However they both have important places in film, and each show how movies can become succesful. Transformers has done this by showing just how compelling and successful CGI can be in film, and Slumdog Millionaire showing what can be done when new technologies are embraced to try to create a better movie. These movies have both battled their own controversies and criticisms in the effort to cement their place in cinema history.

Transformers is a movie about a robot alien race coming to earth, and essentially waging war with one another on it. In the middle of all of this is a teenage kid who somehow holds the key that robots are looking for. Because of the plot the movie had to use many advancements in CGI to create realistic robots and fight scenes, in some cases using radically new technology to create the effects. Despite the fact that some critics thought the story line lacking, and the movie too long, the special effects work was so successful that Transformers was able to launch a major franchise. Transformers showed that not only could a movie stand almost completely alone because of its spectacular special effects and stunts, but that people would keep coming back if you were able to keep increasing the ante. The Transformers franchise has succeeded because it kept refining what consumers enjoyed about the first film, making the robots and fights more complex, and increasingly trying to wow the audience with fantastic CGI scenery it worked so well, that the original cast was eventually replaced and the storyline that the first few movies showcased changed dramatically, without much drop in performance.

In almost complete contrast Slumdog Millionaire is a movie about a poor young Indian who is on the show “Who wants to be a millionaire?” he has been able to answer every question given to him, surpassing doctors and other scholars. The movie revolves around how a person who grew up in the lower class could possibly know all the answers, and goes into a deep story that looks at the long held Indian caste system and how poor actually live in the country. To get its point across, the movie uses a deep story connected to amazing cinematography. To capture the fast moving cities and scenes involved in the making of Slumdog, the director Danny Boyle went through great effort to make sure that he was using the right film technology to get the maximum effect.

Slumdog Millionaire used many digital camera technologies to be able to get closer to the action and to actually get the effect of the film, the director Danny Boyle chose to go the direction of digital because he thought that it better captured what he wanted to see out of the film, and what he wanted his audience to experience. Because of the creative use of camera choices and the results that it ultimately created, Slumdog Millionare became the first film with digital cinematography to win an Oscar for best Cinematography. This has placed Slumdog Millionaire in a special category of movies that have helped progress the ideas of the film industry, and to break new ground while winning multiple awards. Slumdog Millionaire has been studied and reviewed by many people, including in this youtube video where not only the amazing cinematography is discussed, but how the sound mixing was done for the film.

Despite the critical acclaim for the movie, and reputable people praising the film, Slumdog Millionaire did not achieve its success without its share of critics. While the movie faced allegations of stereotyping, unfair portayl of the Indian Police, it was also praised by some for showing this harshness, as many other films like to skirt around the issues. Slumdog Millionaire was not only able to become a movie that many wanted to watch not only because of its beautiful cinematography, but also as a movie that raises hard questions and shows a world that many would not understand, and prefer to shy away from.  Transformers and Slumdog Millionaire both went very different ways to attempt to capture an audiences attention, and they both were very successful. Transformers while not being a movie many think as groundbreaking helped create the CGI franchise, and Slumdog Millionaire was able to help digital cinematography break through to the mainstream.