Slumdog Millionare

This was a truly exhilarating film. I haven't had a movie affect me this much in years. Slum dog Millionaire is the story of a teenage boy in India who goes from living in the slums as a child to winning "Who wants to be a millionaire"! How did he do it....DESTINY!!!!(awsome.) We flashback to the main character Jamal's childhood in the slums. The scenes showing the children running through the slums are exhilarating filmed by director Danny Boyle. The first scene in particular reminded me vaguely of another Danny Boyle intro "Trainspotting":

Although this film deals with different subject matter it is clearly is influenced by the style of its director. the intro of Slumdog millionaire also shows people running through their "territory". Only in "Slum dog" it is poor Indian children, not drug addicted young adults who are being chased. This is an example of how even in two completely different stories a director can retain their style.
The three main characters are Jamal, his no good but loyal brother Salim and his lifelong love Latika. Three actors of different ages play each character and all are remarkable. All three meet when they are orphaned as children. The film charts how Jamal came to know all the answers to the quiz show. To our amazement we see how every answer came from a different event in Jamal's life.For example when an American woman feels bad for him after seeing him beaten by a cop (after his friends were stealing from them) she gives him a hundred dollar bill. By destiny! one of his questions is "Who is on the hundred dollar bill?"
The movie doesn't shy away from the harsh reality's of these children's lives. However it also shows the inspiring way that these children never become defeated. In the first scene we see the children running through their dirty and impoverished slum. however they run with an intense enthusiasm and spirit, enjoying every second of the chase. That is perhaps the most inspiring thing about this film.

Milk

Milk is by all means a good film. However sadly I think the film is too ambitious to accept being just "good". It fails in its attempt to be great. If I am making any sense here I don't know. What I am trying to say is that while Milk is engaging and enjoyable it is not something to think about afterwords.
The performances in the film are uniformly good. Senn Penn does a phenomenal job at convincing us that he is a nice guy. James Franco takes on the role usually reserved for the woman (Laura Linney in "Kinsey", Reese Whitherspoon in "Walk the Line", Kery Washington in "Ray"): the beautiful, sweet, wonderful, love interest. Diego Luna is the beautiful, self destructive,crazy, less wonderful love interest ( Regina King in "Ray",Ginnifer Goodwin " Walk the Line"). Josh Brolin is the sympathetic but totally nutso eventual assassin. The wisecracking sidekick with an occasional dramatic moment is Emile Hersh. The strong successful lone female is Alison Pill ( a favorite of mine). From my descriptions of the characters you have probably gathered my main qualm with the film. With the exception of a few good protests scene and one great catch phrase ( I'm Harvey Milk and I'm here to RECRUIT YOU!) there isn't much we haven't seen before. Another problem that I had was that the fact That Harvey wasn't killed because of his sexual orientation but because of personal reasons between him and Josh Brolin's character was never fully addressed. I know it is a true story but I had a hard time with the fact that Harvey's death had little to do with his life. I simply didn't find Harvey very interesting. Likable but not interesting. The movie makes him so wonderful to the point that he becomes completely dull. My first grade teacher was a lovely woman but I wouldn't watch a movie a bout her. The movie needed to show more of Harvey's flaws. If it had done so it would have made him more interesting and thus more endearing.

3 out of 4 stars.

Top five movie trailers

Movie trailers! Maybe its the editor in me that finds them so interesting. Or Maybe its just the ADD. Anyhow lets debut my favorite movie trailer!

5. Burn after Reading. The song. The atmosphere. The big bold lettering. This is perhaps the funniest trailer I have seen in a while. Unfortunately this was one of those films that ended up not living up to its trailer.

.4 Eyes Wide Shut. This trailer is the definition of Art House cool. The song that plays over this trailer has to be one of my favorites. I also adore the complete lack of dialogue in the trailer. Also the big bold lettering happens to be a favorite of mine. Then that piercing close up of Nicole Kidman....

4. Bedazzled. So what if its a silly comedy. It highlights all the best parts of the movie and employs a kick ass ac dc song at the end. That. Is. All.

3.American Psycho. This trailer is both scary and stylish occasionally introducing humor into the equation. Although the actual film is far more humorous then this trailer and less of a conventional horror movie.

2. Margot At the Wedding. This trailer perfectly capture exquisite bitchinessof the movie. More Kidman!

1.It combines one liners, a plot outline and a great song at the end. A cynical Christmas classic. Best. Trailer.EVER.

Music in Film

This scene from "Pulp Fiction" involves Mia and Vincent dancing in a twist contest to " You never can tell." This is a great example of music in the movies. Tarentino is famous/infamous for his use/abuse of music in his films. Personally I can't get get enough of his abuse. I remember the firsts time I saw the scene in "Pulp Fiction" where Mia and Vincent are getting reading for a date while " Son of a Preacher Man" plays. I was hypnotized and I had no idea why. Same for a torture scene in "Reservoir Dogs" where Micheal Madsen dances to the feel good seventies hit " Stuck in the Middle with You" while torturing a cop. WARNING VIOLENCE: However Tarentino is not the only the only director to utilize music. Sofia Coppola also did so controversially in her film " Marie Antoinette." I found it inspired when she filmed a montage of divine/despicable decadence in the 17th century to " I Want Candy."Or when she opens the screen on a smug Marie being pampered while Gang of Four plays.
Nowadays with i pods everyone has a soundtrack to their life. This makes music in film even more powerful.

High school Musical: Why?

I have decided to take this post to discuss the mind bending success of HSM.



Reason 1: It is not about a high school but about a fantasy land where everyone works hard ( even though we never see them study), everyone gets in a fantastic college and boyfriends and girlfriends are happily chaste. IT is what I like to call "Saved By The Bell" syndrome. It is what all middle school students hope that high school will be, not what it actually is.



Reason 2: The songs are catchy. Loud, screechy, annoying, obnoxious but don't tell me you haven't caught yourself humming "We're All in This Together" once or twice.



Reason 3: Everybody is gorgeous. Just because the audience is young doesn't mean it's deep.



Reason 4: Disney is phenomenal at marketing its young stars. No one under 14 doesn't know the films stars by name.



So there are my reasons. Now here are five far better musicals to watch:



1.) West Side Story

2.) Moulin Rouge

3.) Chicago

4.) Across the Universe

5.) South Pacific

Inside Man

"Inside Man" is celluloid proof that thrillers don't have to lame unoriginal afrairs populated by brainless 2o somethings. " Inside Man" centers on a robbery/hostage situation orcastrated by the mysterious suave Clive Owen ( in this type of movie I don't even bother to learn the characters names). Denzel Washington plays a mysterious suave detective in a fedora who is trying to get ahead of the bank robbers. Meanwhile Jodie Foster plays a mysterious suave femme fatal with an unclear occupation. She is aparently very important. Meanwhile the bank robbers, a coed masked group of trouble makers who dress all of their hostages alike so that the police will not be able to tell the hostages from the criminals. However it is the hostages themselves who are the highlight of the movie. We meet them as they are interviewed by the police post bank robbery. Each one of them is a cool, wiseguy/gal who always has a comeback. It is great fun at the end of the film when we found out which of them were in on the robbery.
The film's best scene comes when a construction worker is brought in from the street by the police to translate an Albanian recording given to them by the bank robbers. he announces that he doesn't speak Albanian but his ex girlfriend does . She is then called in. Before entering she insists that if she will translate they must make her parking tickets void. They agree. She then hands them a shopping bag filled entirely with parking tickets.
The film was directed by Spike Lee who directed "Do the Right Thing"has a marvelous time with the smaller characters similar to the ones from ' DO the Right Thing."In this movie the villains keep getting past the cops and we love to watch them do it. This may not be the best heist movie ever made but in my opinion it is one of the most enjoyable.

Dangerous Liasons

I haven't seen a new film in a while so I thought I would treat you my humble blog readers to a review of one of my personal favorite films "Dangerous Liaisons"staring Glenn Close, John Malcovitch, Michelle Phifer and Uma Thruman. This sumptuous film centers on two scheming aristocrats ( Close and Malcovitch) who spend their days gleefully destroying the lives of a dim teenager (Thurman) and virtuous beauty( Phifer). Think of it as a 17th century Gossip Girl. The story and humour of the film is gleefully mean spirited and certain situations (such as the rape of Thurman's character by Malcovitch) are extremely unsettling. However at the end of the story the evil do receive their just deserts. The movie seems to be able to both condemn the actions of Close and Malcovitch while at the same time clearly enjoying their antics similar to an episode of 'My Super Sweet Sixteen" only far more eloquence and about a thousand times more fun. The performances in the film are uniformly excellent from Close's cold Marquise de Metuil who manages to be simultaneously frigid and sexy, to John Malcovitch's slimy but viciously seductive Valmont. the supporting cast is excellent as well particularly Uma Thurman as a ridiculously naive but completely amoral young girl. The costumes are magnificent as is the scenery. It is one of the few movies I have ever turned on on demand films and watched all the way through without leaving my chair.
PS: If the plot sound familiar it is. The book "Dangerous Liaisons" was the basis for the teen movie "Cruel Intentions" which also captures the mean spirited perversion of the original book. I recommend both films preferably in a double feature.

How to survive a dysfunctional family drama.

I love dysfunctional family dramas! Or as I like to call them Dysfunctional family dramas. I don't know if its because of the fact that it is the only genre that can feature interesting lead female characters with out being derided as a "Chick Flick." Or maybe I'm just an emotional sadist." The Squid and the Whale", "Margot at the Wedding", "Little Miss Sunshine", " Rachel Getting Married", "Smart People" just a few of my favorite dysfunctional family dramas."Ah family dramas! Nothing more entertaining then watching the antics of a family so screwed up that it makes your family look like like something out of an advertisement for Disney world!Or Sweaters! Here are some recommendations you can use if you ever find yourself trapped inside a family drama!



tip 1- Only answer yes or no questions. Everything you say WILL be used against you.


tip 2- Utilize passive aggressive behavior. That way you can subtly annoy all your family members without having to get punched in the face.




tip 3- Reject every invitation. As we can see in films like "The Family Stone" (which unlike most family dramas focuses not on an insane family but on a family that makes everyone else insane.) and "Who's Afraid Of Virgina Woolf" ( which is about an insane couple as opposed to an insane family) any one who visits anyone in the context of a family drama will face dire consequences! Just ask Nick and Honey from "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf'" They politely agree to go to a friend house for tea and the husband ends up having sex with the 50 year old hostess while his wife spends the entire night lying on the bathroom floor with a whisky bottle in her arms. OR you could ask This girl who goes to meet her fiance's family in "The Family Stone" Meredith:









arrives in the family drama engaged to this guy:











and leaves engaged to this guy:( sorry Luke Wilson i you're reading this, its the character not you! It was the only bad picture I could find.)












While this guy:





Winds up with this girl:









Who also happens to be Meredith's @$%&^% SISTER!


tip 3- Pray for sunshine. The family in "Little Miss Sunshine" is perhaps the nicest family ever to star in a family drama. THE mother is a saint, the father is obsessed with success, the son has refused to speak for months, the grandpa is an obscenity spewing smack head and the daughter is perhaps the nicest and best behaved little kid ever! In short this family is absolutely adorable! Sure they have issues but lets face it they are a whole lot nicer then any families you or I know! JUMP ON THE VOLKSWAGEN!

tip 4- Be as mean as possible to everyone. Lie, cheat, steal, kill whatever it take to make your family despise you. Be advised that while this method may take patience because as this is a family drama your family will try multiple times to bring you back to their embrace. Do NOT LET THEM! This is the only true way to escape a family drama. Take a cue from Beth in "Ordinary People."Wile her son is in a nut house she decides that it is a lovely time to go traveling. She consistently treats her family with the worst kind of passive aggressive silence, particularly her son. Eventually she alienates herself from the family so much that they do nothing to stop her from abandoning them and she is able to spend the rest of her life traveling and forgetting her family ever existed! Or look at "Margot at the Wedding." Margot deliberately destroys her less successful sister's wedding by bringing her sister's fiance's past minor infidelities to light. Eventually her sister demands that she leaves and it appears that Margot and her sister probably will never speak again. Which means the end of the family drama!



If you follow these rules you should have no trouble escaping your family Drama. If not well......











..........There is always Prozac.

Rachel Getting Married

Over the weekend had the pleasure of seeing a great family drama entitled "Rachel Getting Married". This movie stars Anne Hathaway of princess diaries fame as a young drug addict actress named Kym who returns home from rehab to attend her sister's wedding. Kym is one of those people who is incapable of entering a room unnoticed and in one memorable scene uses her wedding toast as an opportunity to monologue about her time in Rehab. Rachel played Rosemarie Dewitt ( who had a reoccurring role on the best TV show ever MAD MEN.) is incredibly annoyed that her wedding seems to be overshadowed by her crazy sisters arrival. Another memorable character is Abby the mother played by wonderfuly by Debra Winger. She is extremely distant from the family and seems to want to spend as little time as possible at her daughter's wedding. The most memorable scene is the film is a fist fight between Abby and Kym.
However stealing scene after scene is Hathaway as a beautiful, intelligent,flamboyant girl who ruined her life and many others lives at a young age. Her performance switches from hilarious to heartbreaking at the drop of a hat. However we can recognize people we know in her performance and it never feels like a performance. It is reason enogh to see this film.

Do The Right Thing.

As you may or may not have gathered from my previous posts I am a person who tends to enjoy things that are a little understated. However Do the right thing while many things is not one of those things. And that's the truth................RUTH! Do the right thing is aggressive, energetic, colorful, hilarious, heartbreaking, controversial, confusing but one thing it is not is shy. From the opening credits of the wonderful Rosie Perez dancing wildly against a comic book like backdrop the audience immediately y knows what it's in for. Do the Right Thing centers on the many eccentric personalities who populate the colorful Brooklyn street where everyone is always outside and everyone eats at Sal's pizzeria. Sal's pizzeria is run by a sweet Italian American man and his two sons. Buggin out, a young black man desperately looking for a cause to latch on to decides to arrange a boycott of Sal's until Sal adds some black people to his exclusively white Italian wall of fame. This attempted boycott when combined with infinite amounts of racial tension building on the street eventually leads to a shocking climax involving murder and rioting.
Spike Lee expertly sets up a consistent energetic tone. All of Lee's characters are both entertaining and complicated. Mookie played by Spike Lee is Lazy and apathetic however also longs for something better. Sal is a kind,compassionate man however he may have a hint of racism inside him that he is not even aware of. Buggin out seems like trouble maker but in reality is simply wanting to be be a part of the civil rights movement but doesn't have cause to try for. The dialogue between the characters ranges from poetic profanity ( the three men in the deckchairs) to old fashion romance (the mayor and Mother Sister). Oddly enough best screenplay was one of the movie's only nominations.
Many people tend to forget about the films detail due to its controversial ending. At the end of the film the main character's best friend is killed by the police and Sal's pizzeria is destroyed by an angry mob.
However weather or not you agree with the ending of the film it is impossible overlook its entertainment value. I did not lose concentration one time during this movie.

Tension

I have recently noticed that three of my favorite films ( two which have been watched in AOF) involve tension building. Elephant and Rosemary's Baby both start out as calm albeit odd. The audience knows something is not right and begin to ask themselves questions. Why are Rosemary's neighbors' so friendly? Why are two boys dressed in Camo entering the school? Why does the camera linger on things that appear to be insignificant?
Elephant centers on a typical school day that will end in horrific violence. In Elephant, Gus Van Sant deliberately films insignificant situations throughout the day. For example: people walking down hallways, rolling film or having trivial conversations. However cracks begin to show as the ordinary changes into the perverse. Two cafeteria workers go into the kitchen to smoke a joint, three chatty girls go to the bathroom to vomit in perfect unison, and a boy walks through the cafeteria nonchalantly taking notes.
Gus Van Sant even makes the eruption of tension visual on screen. Gus Van Sant deliberately films the school as colorless throughout the film. However at the end of the film when the school is inevitably set ablaze the school goes from gray ( the most calm of all colors) to red ( the most intense). This is what the day has been building up to: a literal explosion of pent up tension contained inthe school.

Foreign Films

In Honor of The Beautifully shot film "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" I now present My top foreign Films!

1.) Amelie
2.)La vie en Rose
3.)Maria full of Grace
4.)4 months 2 weeks 10 days
5.) Volver

High School Movies

In Class we recently watched a phenomenal movie entitled "Elephant" about a school turned upside down by random violence. I thought that this movie avoided the usual high school cliches effectively and instead of going with the standard "high school is fun for everyone" or "High School Sucks for everyone" ideas expressed the truth: that high school is different for all students.





In response to Elephant I have decided to compile my top ten list of High School Movies!





1.) Heathers

2.)Rushmore

3.)Elephant

4.)The Breakfast Club

5.) Carrie.

6.)Mean Girls

7.)Hamlet 2

8.)Juno

9.)Election

10.)Rebel Without a Cause

Spirited Away

Spirited away is a charming(if not slightly disturbing) Japanese cartoon. It follows the story of Chihiro a little girl who is sad because her family is moving. Through a series of stupid moves by her parents Poor Chihiro gets stuck in the scary but also mesmerising spirit world where she encounters new friends,new jobs,new enemies and first love(awwww.) The animation is two dimensional and beautifully drawn. It made me long for the days before computer animation(don't get me wrong Ratatouille was lovely. And it made me hungry.) This film while somewhat darker then its American relatives (Pinocchio) but still definitely intended for children. Unlike my favorite animated film Persepolis.
This children's film lead me to create my five favorite kids movie list! Enjoy!

1.) Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory
2.)Ella Enchanted
3.)Charlie and the chocolate Factory
4.)The Wizard of Oz
5.)The Secret Garden

Hello

This the first entry on My film blog and I hope you all enjoy it. I am in the process of watching a famous film entitled "North by Northwest" directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring the wonderful Cary Grant and the lovely and beautiful Eva Marie Saint. This film centers on a man who after being kidnapped,mistaken for some guy Kaplen,almost killed by an AIRPLANE! of all things, falls in love with the femme fatal who sent into the path of the aforementioned airplane. All of this happens very quickly so this is an exciting film filled with intrigue,murder,henchman, femme fatals 20 years younger then the protagonist ,irritating mothers a year older then the protagonist(huh?), henchmen, money,the CIA, alcohol,a whole lot of plains,trains and automobiles, plot holes and suspension of disbelief up the wazoo, and of course attempted murder by airplane. With all those elements it is easy to see how this film as influenced today's thrillers from the Borne Ultimatum to Casino Royal. In I addition unlike many other classic movies which have become quite dated I could easily see this movie being popular if it came out today. The scene in which Grant is chased by an airplane is incredible to watch particularly when you as the viewer first realizes that the plane is coming towards him. This scene doesn't use any quick cuts or rock songs to make exciting which is precisely why it is so exciting. One of my favorite things about this movie is the fact that we feel an enormous amount of empathy for Cary grant even though it's a thriller. We feel his fear and his frustration as his situation worsens and when the plane turns on him we feel as we are there with his running from that plane. Grant's performance is part of what makes this possible and Hitchcock puts him at the center of every scene. It is easy to see why this remains a classic!