Slumdog Millionaire

Danny Boyle is a special talent behind the camera. He has created the greatest drug movie of all time (Trainspotting) the second best horror film of this decade (28 Days Later) and one of the better, albeit still heavily flawed, modern sci-fi films (Sunshine). His latest movie, Slumdog Millionaire, has been riding a wave of festival buzz and Oscar talk (and it will most certainly receive that "little movie that could" nomination that went to both Juno and Little Miss Sunshine), and I was really excited to see it. Slumdog tells the story of Jamal, a Mumbai street kid who grows up to get on the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." Nobody believes that he could actually know the answers, so, after his first night on the show, which takes him all the way up to the final question, the police take him in and interrogate him to discover his method of cheating. He begins to tell them his life story, relating each question to specific events from his orphan youth. After the death of their mother in a religious riot, Jamal and his brother Salim meet up with a girl named Latika and eventually wind up in an absurdly corrupt orphanage. After escape and separation, Jamal spends the rest of his life trying to find Latika, while Salim transforms in a way frighteningly reminiscent of Lil' Ze from City of God. Of course Jamal's story wins the cops over, and he goes back on the show to try to find Latika again. It ends relatively happily and there's a dance number over the credits as some sort of homage to traditional Bollywood.
I can say that it ends happily because you know going in exactly what will happen. Like all inspirational films, you know that the character will reach their true goal in the end. In fact, after ten minutes, you should be able to guess the final question. I can't criticize the film for that. Unfortunately, I can criticize it for a few other things. Boyle's camera tries to capture the energy behind modern India (essentially the opposite of Wes Anderson's superior The Darjeeling Limited). This works perfectly about half the time. The color scheme is beautiful, and there are some truly stunning shots (a sequence involving young Jamal and Salim on a train stand out the most in my mind), but the constant motion does get annoying (although not quite at the level of a certain recent blockbuster). It also feels like nearly half the film is shot at either an odd angle or in slow motion, two techniques that rarely work here. Some of the music choices were also rather questionable. I would have much preferred them to just use Indian music all the way through, but one or two of the western songs actually work rather well (the use of M.I.A's "Paper Planes" perfectly complements the aforementioned train sequence, but the use of a remix about five minutes later fails). The rest of the western and techno music feels overbearing and takes away from the intended feel of the scene. The performances from the actors playing the three leads (and each had to be played by three actors at three separate ages) were very good, but some of the supporting performances completely fail, especially those playing the gangster characters.
Their "Millionaire" set really does look exactly like ours

Despite all of this, I still must recomend the film. It may not deserve the Oscar talk, but it's still something fun and different. The story is heart warming and occasionally pretty funny, the actors are great and, for the most part, it looks wonderful. It also has some good, albeit somewhat basic, Indian class commentary. Its always nice to see a great director take a bunch of relative unknowns (Anil Kapoor, who plays the gameshow host, is the only really well-known actor in the film, but even that is just in India), and make a good film out of it. I was also fascinated by the aspect of Boyle taking this very American story, moving it to India, and then basing it entirely around what was originally a British television show. It's something that could only be done in this modern world.
Rating (out of ****): ***

Edit: You know what, its been about a month since I saw the film. Upon much further review and a rewatch, I've decided that I gave it far too much credit. The acting is bad, the story is not as fun as I originally gave it credit for, the end is unbearable and, while the structure is interesting, it limits any opportunity to get to know the other characters.

New Rating (out of ****): **

Let The Right One In

This November, two non-traditional vampire movies will be released in America. They will both deal with teenagers (or preteens) learning to deal with the world around them, and they are both based on bestsellers. One is a masterpiece that goes far beyond almost any other vampire film ever made, the other is sure to be one of the year's worst films. I'll give you a hint, the name of the second one rhymes with "highlight." Is it really fair of me to judge Twilight, based on the bestselling young adult novel, so harshly without having seen it and only having been able to read ten pages of the book? Yes, because those were the worst ten pages of any book I've ever read. What will make it seem even worse if I'm forced to actually sit through it is the brilliance of that other vampire movie, Let The Right One In. This Swedish film may be the best vampire movie since Herzog's Nosferatu. Although this is a vampire film, it's much closer in feel to Pan's Labyrinth than anything else. While this doesn't reach the exact same level as Del Toro's masterpiece, it is still must-see cinema.

As the film opens, we see Oskar, a twelve year old boy living in the suburbs of Stockholm with his mother. He is an awkward child and faces constant bullying from an incredibly cruel group of children at his school. One night, while sitting in the courtyard outside of his apartment, he meets Eli, a girl who has just moved in and appears to be his age. As soon as she moves in, people around town begin to die in violent attacks. The first attacks were perpetrated by her handler, the much older Hakan, but he eventually fails, and Eli is forced to attack others for sustenance. As the film goes on, Oskar eventually realises what is going on, but he's OK with it. He's falling for Eli, even though she's not technically a girl, and happens to be well over twelve years old. She teaches Oskar to defend himself, and he does so in a scene that heavily reminded me of David Gordon Green's Snow Angels. The citizens of the town realize what's going on, and after numerous deaths, they close in on Eli. The end of the films features a scene of shocking, somewhat macabre violence, as Eli decides what really matters.

The film raises many moral questions, and they are the things that separate it from the standard vampire tale. After draining their blood, Eli clearly has two options. She could allow them to go on as a vampire, or she can kill them. We see what happens to one citizen who becomes a vampire, and Eli's preferred choice of murder seems to make a lot more sense. The people that die so that Eli may go on are all innocent. In fact, only one truly "bad" person dies in the movie. Is it really worth it? We know that Eli is a good person, but so are the townspeople. In the hands of a lesser director (something general audiences will get to see when the American remake, directed by Matt "Cloverfield" Reeves comes out next year), these questions would not have been nearly as interesting and the film would almost undoubtedly focused more on the violence than the characters. Thankfully, Tomas Alfredson shows a deft touch and balances all of the film's issues perfectly. There are probably a few too many lingering shots of snow-fall and nature (great in small amounts, but somewhat excessive here), but that is my only real complaint. The kids playing the leads give some of the best child-performances I've ever seen, the movie looks great, it's constantly exciting and by the end, I truly cared for the characters and their situation. This is the third best film of the year so far, and is my personal front runner for best foreign language film come January.

Rating (out of ****): ****

Quantum of Solace

It is probably important to note that I love the James Bond series. I'm pretty sure I've seen every one, and I know I have seen every one on opening night since 1997's Tomorrow Never Dies. I can't be certain what separates the good Bond films from the bad ones. I don't think it's the actor, as even Brosnan had Goldeneye, but after sitting through the train-wreck that is Quantum of Solace, I think it may be the director. Martin Campbell's Casino Royale is either the best or second best of all Bond films (it's hard to go go against Goldfinger). It was an exciting fresh start for the series and Daniel Craig was brilliant, but it still kept some of the moments that made us remember why we love the Bond films. Marc Forster's Quantum of Solace does nothing of the sort.

I'll start with the good parts: Daniel Craig proves that he is the best actor to ever play Bond (it's too early to say that he is the best Bond, just the best actor), and there are two pretty good action scenes (the finale, and a sequence involving Bond running away from Henchman at an opera). Unfortunately, there are more than two action sequences in this film, and the others are all downright incompetent. The worst example is probably the opening car chase, which could be one of the worst ever put to film. It isn't just a rather dull chase, but it's a dull chase that's edited quicker than a Bourne film; however, unlike a Bourne film, the short shots that we do get are not at all impressive. After that, we get what may be the worst Bond theme song yet. I'm going to blame this on Jack White, and unlike all of the other problems of the world I blame on this talentless hack, this song actually is his fault. Of course, the song isn't helped by the rather dull animation sequence that it's backing. Now, getting to the actual plot of the film, it opens an hour after Casino Royale, with Bond ending the chase and going to torture the mysterious Mr. White. He escapes, and another poorly shot chase ensues. Following some tagged bank notes, Bond goes to Haiti to find a contact, but, of course, winds up killing him, and trust me when I say this is a recurrent theme in this film. James Bond shouldn't kill everyone, even when he is motivated by revenge. It's what separates him from other action heroes. While in Haiti, Bond assumes the identity of that contact and discovers the plans of villain Dominic Greene, who plans on engineering a coup in Bolivia in order to take control of the nation's water supply, which is, as Roger Ebert points out, an incredibly stupid goal for a Bond villain. With the help of new Bond girl Camille Montes (played by the lovely Olga Kurylenko), he escapes via, you guessed it, another incompetent chase sequence. Bond follows Greene to Austria, and to a performance of the opera La Tosca. During the show, Bond taps into a conversation between Greene and other members of his mysterious organization Quantum (I'm actually very happy that they've utilized another SPECTRE type group). The films only really good chase scene follows, but even that is marred by needless, un-Bond-like civilian deaths. After this, M (once again played by Judy Dench) revokes Bond's papers, and he must rely on Mathis, the man who helped him in Casino Royal, to get him to Bolivia. I'll stop the summary here, as I'm pretty sure all of you already know whether or not you're going to see this film. All I'll say is that what follows in Bolivia includes a tribute to the most famous scene from Goldfinger, some more poorly shot action, the return of Jeffery Wright as Bond's CIA ally Felix Leiter, some heavy handed political commentary and a decent finale.

Craig and Kurylenko

Another important thing to note is the apparent increased role of Paul Haggis as a writer. On Casino Royale, he simply preformed some last minute touch-ups, but here is is the first credited writer. As someone who despises Haggis, I'm going to blame him for the lack of humor and the heavy-handedness. It's also come out that he turned in the final script two hours before the beginning of the writer's strike. I would have been happy if he had taken those two hours to write a single joke or pun that the Bond films are known for. Still, I've never really enjoyed a Marc Forster film, and if someone is barely able to put together a drama, they should not be given a $230 million action film. The film's failure probably belongs to both of them. Daniel Craig's performance alone keeps this film from falling into Moonraker or Die Another Day levels of bad, but Forster's complete inability to direct an action scene and Haggis's weak script do put this film near the bottom of my list of Bond films.

Rating (out of ****) *1/2

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Until now, I've avoided reviewing most of the older films I've watched, simply because I didn't think I'd be able to write anything new or particularly insightful about them. Honestly, does the internet really need another mediocre analysis of La Notte or Kieslowski's "Three Colors" trilogy? To be frank, I didn't think I'd write a review of Robert Weine's 1920 horror masterpiece, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, when I watched it the other day. It's among the most beloved and widely discussed silent films (with good reason), but I thought of something when I was done that will allow me to turn this into a good mix of review and rant. I'll start with the review. As the film opens, we see Francis, our protagonist, sitting in a park, preparing to tell his story to the other man sitting on his bench. This use of a framing device was unique at the time, and the film's legendary twist (which I will not divulge for those who have not had the opportunity to see it) would not work without it. Francis' story begins as his small village is visited by a traveling show featuring the mysterious Dr. Caligari and his somnambulist, Ceasar. Ceasar predicts the death of Francis' friend Alan, and, of course, his prediction comes true. The villagers become suspicious, and the woman that both Francis and Alan pined after appears to become the next target. I could go on, but it is a short film, and I don't want to give too much away. As many of you presumably already know, the film is best remembered for it's genius, German expressionism-influenced set design and it's innovative, still-shocking twist. The warped sets perfectly capture the madness of the characters and the situation, and they fill one of the most unique towns ever filmed. I want to avoid discussion of the twist, as I really don't want any of you to miss the pure shock of the film's final moments. This is one of the greatest horror films ever made, and I'd recomend it to anyone who loves film.

Now for the promised mini-rant. I understand that it is difficult to release silent films on DVD. The original prints have degraded and large sections may be missing (a la Metropolis until recent findings that will hopefully allow a fully restored version), but that isn't really the case with Caligari. In 1997, Image entertainment released a special edition (that I haven't seen) that allegedly has very high picture quality, plenty of interesting features and runs 76 minutes, which, at least according to IMDB, was the film's original runtime. Unfortunately, I do not have the Image edition, I have the Alpha Video edition. First, despite the box claiming that the film runs for 82 minutes, it was 66 minutes long, which means that I missed at least ten minutes of the film; because of this, I don't think I should give the film a real rating at the bottom of this review. At least most DVD's of Metropolis have title cards explaining what the viewer is missing. This DVD was released in 2002, which means that the picture quality should have been better than that of the Image version, unfortunately, this appears to be untrue. The quality of the image on this DVD was unbearable, and, at least according to various user reviews, far below the Image release. So what I'm tyring to say is this: DVD companies, please stop throwing out shit releases of great films to make a quick buck off of the poor film buffs of the world. I know you can't all be Criterion, but at least try to give a shit about quality. That's all.

Chopper (Dominik '00)

Andrew Dominik's sophomore effort, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, was my fourth favorite film of last year, and I consider it to be one of the greatest westerns of all time. I was stunned when I discovered that it was only his second feature, and his third film, the Cormac McCarthy adaptation Cities of the Plain isn't expected until 2012 (is there any way for that to not be awesome?), so I decided to go back and watch his debut. Chopper tells the story of Mark "Chopper" Reed, a notorious Australian convict who became a bestselling author. Chopper is played by Eric Bana, who gives a wonderful, charismatic performance in his screen debut. As the film opens, we see Chopper in prison for trying to kidnap a judge as a favor to a friend, That friend is Jimmy, a junkie who forms part of Chopper's gang. After a few violent acts (including a brilliant scene centered around his own stabbing), he is transferred to another wing and eventually released. These early prison scenes are probably the best parts of the film. There are moments where the accents seem a bit too thick to understand, and there were bits of the lingo that flew over my head, but this is not a complex film, and these scenes introduce us to a great character and they showcase Dominik's visual style quite well. When he gets out, Chopper just can't fit into his old Melbourne criminal underworld. He starts to work for the cops as a way to get away with more violence, but paranoia begins to destroy his relationships with everyone except maybe his worn out father, who just doesn't seem to care about what his son does. Eventually, everything begins to go wrong, and in the last shot we see the true isolation that Chopper has built for himself in his attempt to become some sort of Australian Jesse James (it's not hard to see how this film led into his next). This film is not as good as The Assassination of Jesse James, but it's an entertaining film with a great performance from Bana.

Rating (out of ****): ***1/2

Synecdoche, New York (Kaufman '08)

My review:
Before I saw Synecdoche, NY, Charlie Kaufman was already my favorite living screenwriter. Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are works of undeniable brilliance, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is flawed (Clooney did alter the script without asking Kaufman), but entertaining, and I haven't seen Human Nature. Now that I've seen Synecdoche, I can say that Kaufman may be my favorite screenwriter, period. This film takes the themes of his earlier work and multiplies them. Those films were complex, but this is a whole new level. By the end, there is art imitating art imitating art imitating art imitating art imitating life (I may have forgotten or added one or two "imitating art", but that's irrelevant). There's a reason Roger Ebert said that this film must be viewed twice to be fully understood.
Kaufman's protagonists are always represent versions of himself (this is, of course, most obvious in Adaptation), and Caden Cotard (Phillip Seymour Hoffman, in the best performance of his brilliant career) is no different. He is shy, awkward and easily controlled by the women in his life, just like Craig Schwartz, Charlie Kaufman (the character) and Joel Barish. The film begins with Caden, around the age of forty, at home in upstate New York with his wife, Adele (Catherine Keener) and his daughter Olive. His version of Death of a Salesman has received rave reviews, but he has a failing marriage and a useless therapist. He also appears to be dieing, and he allows his health issues to define his life. The only true comfort in his life appears to be his work, despite the obvious affection of two beautiful women: actress Clair (Michelle Williams) and ticket-taker Hazel (Samantha Morton). As his health worsens (his body seems to be shutting down) and Adele leaves him for her art career in Berlin, he receives a genius grant, and starts a new play, a microcosm of New York, set in a massive warehouse. Here the plot gets a little weird (even by Kaufman standards). As the play becomes more difficult and he continues to build and ruin the relationships with those around him, he begins to cast doubles for the people in his life. Much of the films comedy comes from Tom Noonan's role as Caden's double. As life and art (and art within art) and so on merge, life in the warehouse becomes real life, and the same goes for the warehouses within the warehouse. Actors begin to play actors who play real people and every character, from Caden's leading doppelganger to the smallest extra, grows and evolves.
This is a film about life, it just happens to spend a lot of time dwelling on death and relationships. We follow Caden until he's eighty, we see him lose his friends, enemies and loved ones, and, in the end, we see the destruction of his entire world.

(Hoffman and Morton in one of the best scenes in the film)
I know I need to see this film again before I can write a proper review (if I have any new insights, I'll edit this), because there were things that I didn't get. Hazel moves into a burning house, a fact that is acknowledged but never really discussed. It was amusing, but I couldn't find the meaning. The end of the film, which slows down because that's how life ends, was really dense, and I know I'll get a new perspective with a second viewing, but for all I can say is this: Synecdoche, New York is the best film of 2008, and it will probably stay that way.
Rating (out of ****): ****

Obama's favorite films

So as a liberal from Chicago, yesterday was pretty much the best day ever. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of political blogs out there for further discussion, but this is a film blog, so, without further ado, here are Barack Obama's favorite films (in the order they're listed on his facebook):

Casablanca ****: The quintessential Hollywood classic. This masterpiece showcases all of the great qualities of old Hollywood, and is a true

Godfather I & II ****: Part one is in my top 5, and part two is up there. The perfect look at the American dream, the greatest crime film and the best films ever made about family

Lawrence of Arabia ****: Before Lord of the Rings, this was THE Hollywood epic. Peter O'Toole gives one of the five greatest performances in the history of film, the sets and score are beautiful and the story manages to make the four hour runtime fly

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ****: Nicholson's best performance carries this poignant and funny tale of rebellion. One of the best films of the 70's.

Sure, these are all safe choices, but they are also undeniably great films, so I can't criticize him.

The films of Michael Crichton

After the pure joy that marked last night's historic events, I awoke to sadness this morning after finding out about the death of an author who defined my childhood, Michael Crichton. When I was in Jr. High I read every single novel he ever wrote, and I continued to read his new ones, even if they weren't quite at the level of his previous work. Because of the entertaining, fast-paced nature of his novels, they seemed perfectly adaptable to film, but, alas, these adaptations rarely worked. Still, here is a complete overview of the Crichton adaptations that I have seen, from worst to best (rated out of ****):
Timeline (Donner '03) 0 Stars: I think this was one of his best novels, and I was disgusted by this adaptation. They ruined the plot, got rid of some characters and overly simplified the rest and really did nothing good at all.
Sphere (Levinson '98) *: I think this may be his best novel outside of Jurassic Park, and for the film version they essentially made it into a cheap version of The Abyss. This is not the type of film that Levinson should make, and the performances were surprisingly weak.
Jurassic Park 3 (Johnson '01) *1/2: Not technically based off of one of his novels (which explains the god-awful story), but close enough to make this list. Despite how incredibly bad a film this was, I'm still mildly excited for JP4
Andromeda Strain (Salomon '08) **: I haven't seen the original adaptation, but I did see this year's dull, uninspired miniseries. This story simply should not have been a Scott Brothers production. It's just not their type of thing
Congo/13th Warrior **: I put them together because I know I saw them and disliked them, but I don't remember enough to actually make a distinction.
The Lost World (Spielberg '97) **1/2: This movie shouldn't be near the top of any list, but, unfortunately, it is here. This sequel took away the fun and wonder of the original and made a meaningless thriller by taking away all but the most basic elements of the sequel that Crichton wrote.
Jurassic Park (Spielberg '93) ***1/2: Is it a little silly and simple at times? Sure, but that doesn't mean that it can't be one of the most entertaining and impressive films ever made. The only really successful adaptation of any of his novels

Special mention: ER: NBC's long running hit may have never recovered from the departure of Anthony Edwards, and it really should of ended the second Noah Wyle left, but it's one of the most popular and important shows of its generation, and it was a great show for those first eight years, and Crichton deserves a lot of credit for creating it.