A few obvious statements about ‘Slumdog’

"Slumdog Millionaire" is one of those movies I think about the next day, and that's a high bar. I haven't read the criticism of the film, but a few impressions:
It's a great merger of western documentary and Bollywood. Bombastic characters/schmaltz mixed with cinema-verite Mumbai. A true mingling of cultures, with a Hollywood budget. Beautiful.
How great to see a movie without one caucasian face in it, at a suburban multiplex, the hall jammed.
It is the thin end of the wedge. This sort of east/west syncretism is just going to keep happening, Obama being our exemplar.
There's joy in this.  It must soon extend to Arabs. It is just a matter of time before Arabs/Palestinians are humanized for an American audience, even at the behest of Jewish Hollywood, which is alive to the zeitgeist.
Some of the difference that is being removed here is economic. We're in a tailspin, they're on the rise; it is easier to relate to material suffering now that we're many of us jobless. I can't forget those Asian faces all over the Academy awards. Global media will assist in global democratization. Export schmaltz not guns.