Jun
29
“The Hurt Locker” Review
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I’m beginning to think that this is perhaps the biggest and the dumbest summer to date. The writer’s strike has something to do with that. Too many projects went into production without scripts. But that’s been going on for years. In fact it’d be miraculous if a blockbuster movie actually had a locked script before shooting. No, something else is at play. I was dead serious in my review of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” that we’re in the middle of a new film movement, where critic-proof box office behemoths have been aggressively subverting the conventions of the summer film. Unfortunately, that isn’t to say they’re doing so in such a way that’s terribly entertaining. Summer films have become a simulation of entertainment.
The word “entertaining” has seemingly lost its meaning. Audiences don’t quite understand what entertains them or why. The average movie-goer acts as though their daily lives are so harrowing, that they cannot see a film that challenges them in any way. As such, the medium suffers. Millions of dollars are invested in movies that have the emotional pull and intellectual appeal of a game of Ms. Pac-Man. Meanwhile, brilliant and truly entertaining films are unspooling in art houses, largely ignored by the masses except around Oscar season, when dullards try to fake being couth, like when a bimbo wears a pair of glasses in an attempt to “look smart.”
All that being said, “The Hurt Locker” is the best film of the summer, perhaps the year. It’s one you probably haven’t heard of because Summit Entertainment can’t sell a movie unless it’s “Twilight,” and the fans do all the heavy lifting for them. But “The Hurt Locker” entertains. Seeing it in the theater is an experience. The look, the sound design, the performances — the movie is a confluence of cinema at its most engaging. You can sit through “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and be indifferent to the action. You cannot watch “The Hurt Locker” without becoming deeply involved with everything that’s going on.
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, the film is set in Iraq in 2004. It’s about a three-man bomb disposal unit that’s tasked with disarming IEDs (improvised explosive devices) that are buried in the sand or locked in the trunk of a car. Staff Sergeant James (Jeremy Renner) is new to the team, a wild card who appears to have a death wish or believes himself to be indestructable. The team is short. They only have 38 days left in their tour, and James’ hot-dogging could very well get them killed. But he’s damn good at what he does.
Movies about the Iraq war have been universally ignored by the average filmgoer. I don’t think culturally we have a real sense of perspective of the war, since it’s not even over yet. Some of the documentaries that have come out in recent years — “Taxi to the Dark Side” in particular — are great. But I haven’t seen many of the fiction films about Iraq, not have I wanted to. They seem mopey and political. “The Hurt Locker” doesn’t ask you to form an opinion about what we’re doing in Iraq. There’s no mention of Bush, 9/11 or WMDs. The film’s focus is on the three men at Camp Victory and the razor’s edge upon which they live.
I want this film to become a sleeper, to find an audience and become the hit it deserves to be. It’s Bigelow’s best film to date, and Renner’s performance should not go unnoticed by the Academy when awards season begins to ramp up. This is a film I went into cold, not having spoiled every inch of it because I wanted to be transported. “The Hurt Locker” delivers all the action and the thrills and the entertainment audiences should be demanding from summer movies. You won’t forget about this movie after you’ve seen it, and better yet, you won’t want to.
-Brad Lohan
Apr
28
“The Mutant Chronicles” Review
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I should’ve known better than to see another movie with the word “Chronicles” in the title. I don’t know what I was thinking. I guess I was too hung up on the word “Mutant” to care what noun it was modifying. I love the word “mutant.” It should be pretty hard to screw up a movie with mutants in it. I mean, how bad could a movie called “The Mutant Chronicles” actually be? Well, I found out!
“The Mutant Chronicles,” which sounds like a newspaper for the hideously deformed, is apparently based on a role-playing game — a big red flag there. Had I known the film’s origins were some pencil and paper RPG, I’d have steered clear. Even I don’t waste time with role-playing games, and I like some geeky shit. I mean, I went out of my way to get Joan Severance’s autograph last weekend because I own “Black Scorpion” on DVD. But I digress.
At any rate, the film is set in the 28th century, something I gathered from the poster, not the lengthy voiceover — another red flag — at the top of the film. Tom Jane plays a soldier in a privatized army that’s engaged in trench warfare with another privatized army on the Eastern European border. During a sequence that should not be used as a good example for how to maintain screen direction, one army or the other breaks open this giant manhole cover in the earth and unleashes a horde of mutants. The mutants then carve up most of the soldiers with their scimitar-shaped right hands. Tom Jane’s character manages to escape, so he can be doughy and brooding for the remainder of the film.
Ron Perlman plays a monk or something with encyclopedic knowledge of the mutants and their mutant-making machine, a device that’s kept underground and needs to be destroyed or else there would be no movie. Although Earth’s being evacuated, Perlman’s character inexplicably assembles a team of ragtag soldiers, including Jane’s character, to destroy the mutants’ Easy Bake Oven. It should be pointed out that I had no idea the machine turned people into mutants until late in the film when Jane’s character falls into it, but manages to easily escape. He’s sort of a half-mutant from that point on. Oh, and the way you destroy the machine is by putting a bomb in a relief that’s been specifically carved into the machine for someone to put a bomb.
The movie was shot on a digital backlot, but unlike “Sin City” or “300,” it’s uglier than that Scottish woman who looks like Colm Meaney but can sing really well. All the money the filmmakers saved on building sets they instead pissed away on the cruddiest looking post-apocalypse I’ve ever seen. “Mutant Chronicles” falls into that quirky sub-genre known as “steampunk,” so everything is coal-fired. Steampunk more or less reached its cultural apex with the final scene in “Back to the Future III.” Since then, we’ve had “Wild Wild West” and this film. Steampunk can go eff itself.
“The Mutant Chronicles” is not a noble failure. It isn’t a movie with a reach that exceeds its grasp. Rather, it’s one of those movies where you get the sense that the people behind the camera had never actually seen a film before they started shooting. It’s a two-hour fan film, a shittily made valentine to a retarded RPG. You’d have to be a mutant to enjoy this.
-Brad Lohan
Mar
26
My Favorite L.A. Haunts
Filed Under Books, Comics, Cult Films, Culture, Indies, Movies, Theatre, Toys | 1 Comment
I need to get out more. That’s probably what some people think about me. Thing is, I actually don’t spend very much time at home. I do stuff. I go places. I’m not into dive bars or nightclubs, though. I like places that cater to my unique tastes: cult movies, comic books, sketch comedy, arcane collectibles and so forth. I also like hamburgers.
That said, here’s a list of my top 10 favorite haunts in the L.A. area:
This is easily my favorite movie house in L.A. I’ve been to more midnight movies here than I can count. The most recent one I saw was “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” They also show very obscure art films in extremely limited release. I can’t wait to see “Anvil” next month.
Looking for hard-to-find CDs or DVDs? I’d recommend Amoeba. Short on cash? Sell them your used DVDs and CDs for store credit or some greenbacks. Unfortunately, they used to have a more generous buyback policy than they do now. A few years ago, I walked away with almost $200 for a stack of ill-informed blind buys they gladly took off my hands. More recently, I left with about $18. Still, their selection of rare and used DVDs is significantly better than the bargain bin at your local Blockbuster.
This is where Paul Dini and Joss Whedon buy their comics. I know because I’ve seen them there. If you’ve never heard of them, well, you probably don’t read comics, watch cartoons or like cult TV shows. At any rate, HOS also knocks at least 10% off your purchases, and you don’t even need to have a pull file. Someone even spraypainted “Who Watches the WATCHMF” on the outside of their building. I don’t advocate vandalism, nor poor spelling, but that’s still kind of cool.
Right next door to the Nuart is the best video store in all of Los Angeles. Where else will you find a place that has a “Charles Bronson” section? Cinefile categorizes their movies by filmmaker, subgenre and even “Holy F***ing S***!” titles. This is where real cineastes rent or buy films. Brett Ratner goes here, too.
I’ll drive all the way from the Westside to Hollywood to catch a movie at the Dome every now and then. The last one was, of course, “Watchmen.” Here’s a theater that has some great filmmaker Q&As and screening series. I also found a book called “Playboy: Redheads” in their gift shop once. I couldn’t put it down!
I don’t like shopping in big box bookstores. I find their horror and film selections to be lacking. Oh, Barnes & Noble has a lot of books, but none that are rare or used. Dark Delicacies carries all manner of out-of-print titles, and the staff is immensely helpful. They also line up some great author and filmmaker signings. I got Lloyd Kaufman to autograph my copy of “Toxic Avenger: The Novel,” a book that’s quite a fetching read!
I don’t understand my fascination with the 1950s. Maybe it’s because my parents were born back then. I have no idea. Whatever the reason, I have nostalgia for a period in which I never lived. Fortunately, there’s a Cafe ’50s just a short walk from my apartment, and in my opinion, it’s the best in L.A.; there’s one in Venice and another in Sherman Oaks. I almost always get a hamburger and an Oreo cookie milkshake — with frozen yogurt instead of ice cream, of course. You can even play board games like Connect Four while waiting for your food. Fun fact: I really suck at Connect Four!
The sketch comedy shows at the Groundlings are always funnier than any Judd Apatow bromance picture now playing in theaters. There are some incredibly hysterical unknown actors — and a few known ones — performing either improv or scripted material every night. I personally prefer the scripted shows; improv can be a mixed bag.
Buying back your childhood? Well, if you’re constantly being outbid on eBay, try Blast From the Past. Here you’ll find all manner of collectibles from your childhood that you broke or wantonly discarded. The toys on the pegs here are way cooler than all the “Ben 10″ bullshit I see at Toys ‘R Us now.
The Third Street Promenade isn’t just a homeless talent show. Yes, there you’ll probably see the fat guy who paints himself silver and wears silver clothes and wants you to give him money because he can stand really still. But you’ll also find the Puzzle Zoo, another great place to pick up hard-to-find action figures from your childhood. It’s definitely a better way to spend your money than giving it to some d-bag with a guitar who sings U2 songs that I don’t even like when Bono sings them.
So those are the places that I spent most of my free time and my discretionary income. Check ‘em out.
-Brad Lohan
Feb
23
I love going to the art house and seeing a movie you’ve never heard of. It’s like going to the movies in an alternate universe, an arty-farty universe. The theaters are a little shabby, but charmingly so. They don’t have stadium seating, digital projectors, or jingoistic National Guard recruitment videos starring rednecks like Kid Rock and Dale Earnhardt Jr before the movie. The posters on the walls are for foreign films, documentaries, and ultra-low-budget fare. There’s a vibe in an art house you won’t feel at a multiplex, which has begun to feel like the airport. No, the art house is for cineastes, people who live and breathe film.
And apparently our economic crisis is forcing studios to move away from distributing art house movies, according to the AP.
Despite the overwhelming success of “Slumdog Millionaire,” a film that’s earned $130 million to date and 8 Oscars, major movie studios are shuttering their indie shingles. The majors are more interested in gambling on $100 million tentpoles rather than indies that cost a small fraction of that and could presumably have a much higher return on investment if they’re a hit. Ironically, this means we’ll see more superhero movies, although the comic book industry is also experiencing a dramatic decline in sales. It seems this economic crisis is laying waste to everything I like — art movies and funnybooks — but I’ll bet you a shiny quarter that “Hancock 2: Hancockier” is in development.
The AP article also points out is that we’d never have had “The Dark Knight” if writer-director Chris Nolan hadn’t burst onto the scene in 2001 with “Memento,” an indie that came out of nowhere and blew everyone away. If it weren’t for indies, we also wouldn’t have filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Kevin Smith, and this year’s Best Director winner Danny Boyle. The list goes on.
Even if you don’t make it a point to visit the art house, the influence of independent cinema can be felt even in the biggest blockbusters. Indie sensibilities keep formulaic movies interesting. A dearth of independent films means we’ll be denied a new batch of fresh talent, and the movie-going experience — whether you’re at the multiplex or the art house — will be less exciting.
-Brad Lohan
Jan
26
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” at the Nuart
Filed Under Blockbusters, Comics, Indies, Movies, TV, Toys | 1 Comment
It’s the 25th anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The first issue of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s self-published comic first hit stands in 1984. It was another four years before the cartoon debuted. New Line Cinema then released a live-action film in 1990, which became the highest-grossing independently produced movie at the time.
When I was a kid, I was a colossal fan of the Ninja Turtles. The concept is at once hilarious and ingenious. Four turtles are exposed to radioactive mutagen that turns them into anthropomorphic reptilian teenagers. They’re trained in the art of ninjitsu by a humanoid rat, and with the help of a TV news reporter, they battle a crime ring headed up by a masked nogoodnik with a fetish for sharp objects. Named after Renaissance painters, the turtles are nonetheless impetuous adolescents, who love pizza and pop cultural references. Each has wields his own particular ninja weapon and wears a color-coded bandanna, so you can tell them apart.
I remember seeing “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” in the theater four times during its original release and probably north of a hundred times on home video. Watching it again last Friday at the Nuart, I was struck by how well it still plays. The turtle costumes — created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop — look great; I even noticed a scar on Raphael’s nose. The martial artists inside the bulky outfits also manage to pull off some pretty spectacular moves during the fight sequences. This film was made back when action was coherently shot and edited.
Miraculously, the script does not short-change the characters or the story. The film cherry-picks elements of the comics and the cartoon, which have slightly different approaches to the material, and the finished product is something that fans of one or the other (or both) can enjoy. The movie’s also endlessly quotable. I learned that the hard way the other night, when I found myself sitting in front of an entire row of assholes who were saying every line of dialogue along with the characters. After about ten minutes of that horseshit, I moved.
I think the original 1990 movie represents the apex of the franchise. To celebrate the Turtles’ 25th anniversary, in the coming weeks I’ll blog about the comics, the cartoon, the movie sequels and the 2007 all-CGI film. Cowabunga.
-Brad Lohan
Jan
26
In the UK, there used to be a list of what were called “video nasties,” films (or “fillums,” rather) that were banned from distribution for many years because of their violent and/or sexual content. Many of them have since been released, according to Wikipedia, so Britishers can now watch a bloke get his John Thomas chopped off during the bathtub scene in “I Spit on Your Grave.”
If “Donkey Punch” had come out twenty years ago, it would’ve doubtless been on the “video nasties” list, which is interesting because the film is a British export. It’s good to know that the UK’s temorary ban on explotation horror movies hasn’t produced a generation of namby-pamby filmmakers across the pond. No, they’re just as socially deviant as chaps like Eli Roth.
“Donkey Punch” is not a movie about a boxing mule. If it were, I imagine the film would have gotten a wider release Stateside. No, a “donkey punch” is a sexual act that you’re going to have to Google because even I’m too much of a prude to describe it here. It’s one of those things you hear about from some drunken frat boy in college and immediately dismiss as fiction. “No one would ever really do that,” you tell yourself. “But, someone should make a movie about it.”
Well, the wait is over. In “Donkey Punch,” three giggly young British lasses vacationing on the Mediterranean meet up with four deckhands, who invite them aboard a luxury yacht to party. They drink, they listen to bad music, they take some E, and they start fooling around. One of the gals winds up dead after receiving a fairly half-hearted donkey punch from the wussiest guy of the group, and everyone else on board copes with their grief in a variety of different ways: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, etc. Ultimately, one of the two remaining girls clobbers a guy with a spinning boat rotor — the “acceptance” phase.
“Donkey Punch” is a horror film — I hate the term “thriller” — without any supernatural elements. It reveals how monstrous people can be to one another when they find themselves in a desperate situation. In some ways, that’s much scarier. “Donkey Punch” also reminds me why I’m better off just staying home and watching video nasties rather than galavanting off to some idyllic locale and getting shot in the torso with a signal flare.
-Brad Lohan
Jan
22
The Academy Award Nominations
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This morning, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced their nominations for this year’s Oscars, which I will more than likely not bother to watch. I have to say, I’m more disappointed that “The Dark Knight” wasn’t nominated for Best Picture than I thought I’d be. But Heath Ledger got his obligatory Best Supporting Actor nom, so the list of nominees isn’t a total bust. Still, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is nowhere near as good as the Academy would like you to believe. 13 nominations?! At any rate, here’s my take on some of the major categories (check out the full list on AP):
Best Picture: It’s going to be “Benjamin Button” vs. “Slumdog.” The other three noms are just placeholders.
Best Actor: I’d like to see Mickey Rourke walk away with this one. I think it’s possible. His is the most-talked about performance even if it was criminally underseen. With Bush leaving office, I’m not sure that “liberal Hollywood” will give Frank Langella the award for playing Bush Lite. Brad Pitt’s good in “Benjamin Button,” but a lot of the performance is just F/X work and/or old-age makeup. Sean Penn’s already taken home a statue. I’m surprised Richard Jenkins was nominated, but Eastwood was not.
Best Actress: I can’t believe Melissa Leo’s gotten a nod, and it’s a well-deserved one. She’s great in the little-seen “Frozen River.” Still, this one is probably going to be a pitched battle between Anne Hathaway and Kate Winslet for two movies I haven’t seen.
Best Supporting Actor: I’m glad to see Robert Downey Jr. got recognition for his work in “Tropic Thunder.” That he plays a five-time Academy Award winner in the film makes this nod so meta, it’s ridiculous. Nonetheless, the Oscar will without a doubt go to Ledger.
Best Supporting Actress: I actually liked Taraji P. Henson in “Benjamin Button” more than anyone else in the film. But I liked seeing Marisa Tomei naked in “The Wrestler” even more. Amy Adams might take home the award, though, for that Catholic kiddie-toucher movie that I skipped.
Best Director: I can’t believe Chris Nolan was shut out. And what the hell is Ron Howard doing here? Anyway, I’d like to see Danny Boyle take home this one, but it could very well be David Fincher.
Best Adapted Screenplay: If this goes to Eric Roth’s listless script for “Benjamin Button,” I’ll eat my shoe.
Best Original Screenplay: Wow, another nomination for “Frozen River.” I vowed not to watch “In Bruges” until I could pronounce it. At the end of the day, I’d like to see “Milk” get this one.
So, there you go. Those are my initial reactions. I’m not one of those goofballs who tries to see every movie that’s nominated before the Oscar broadcast, but there are a couple movies on here, like “The Reader” and “In Bruges,” that I’ll probably check out between now and then. I’ll post a complete list of my picks the night before the ceremony then do a post-mortem after the show to see how out-of-touch I am with the Academy.
-Brad Lohan
Dec
19
“The Wrestler” Review
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I’m not a sports fan. I guess if I had to pick one sport I liked, it’d be “The Running Man.” Now that’s a sport, sports fans. At any rate, I consider professional wrestling a sport even if it’s fake. It’s by far the most homoerotic of all sports with football coming in a distant second. Interestingly enough, pro wrestling is the only sport that could also be considered theatre; it’s theatre for dullards, but theatre nonetheless. There are characters, some semblance of a story and a strong connection between the audience and the performers; other sports seem to have a very strong emphasis on ignoring the hordes of screaming fans in the stands.
Despite its theatricality, pro wrestling is rarely used as a backdrop in sports-themed movies. I think there are probably more movies about curling. A good sports film — or at least one I can sit through — is less about the actual sport than it is about the athlete and his journey, which is simply set in the world of baseball or basketball or competitive eating. I don’t think “Rocky” and its eleventeen sequels are so popular because movie-goers love boxing. No, the actual sport being played is beside the point in sports films.
Now that I’ve gotten completely off-track with my deconstruction of the sports genre, I’m going to review Darren Aronofsky’s latest film, “The Wrestler,” starring Mickey Rourke as Randy “The Ram” Robinson.
The film begins 20 years after The Ram’s career peak. He’s still wrestling, but in much, much smaller venues than Madison Square Garden — venues with folding chairs for sitting, not simply for bashing over people’s heads. The Ram’s flat broke, his estranged daughter wants nothing to do with him, and after a punishing match that involves barbed wire and a staple gun, he suffers a heart attack. What’s left of his career is now over, and just before he was about to step into the ring for a rematch with his arch rival from decades past, The Ayatollah — his perfunctory one-shot back to super-stardom.
I really enjoyed Mickey Rourke in this. The Ram is a difficult character to play. Critics will attribute Rourke’s own career lows as a bit of inadvertent method acting, but I think they’re being glib. Rourke makes the character empathetic, not the easiest thing in the world to do, regardless of how lived-in the performance is. You feel sorry for him to some degree, yes. However, The Ram is an eternal optimist. What else would you call a guy who’s in love with a stripper? On a side note, I hope that Marisa Tomei doesn’t go unnoticed for her performance as Cassidy/Pam, a MILF-y exotic dancer — the best kind!
The Ram doesn’t give up, not on his infatuation with Cassidy, not on his daughter and not on himself. It’s his resilience that makes you root for the guy when you know there’s so much about him not to like. That’s the brilliance of Rourke’s performance and Aronofsky’s understated direction.
You don’t have to be a fan of pro wrestling to enjoy “The Wrestler.” It’s hardly about the sport at all. You won’t walk out the theater with any newfound interest in the WWE. But I’m pretty sure you’ll discover you’re actually a fan of Mickey Rourke.
-Brad Lohan
Dec
4
This is a movie the Mormons don’t want you to see! At least that’s what I would assume, considering how the Church of LDS sunk a pile of money into the “Yes on Prop 8″ campaign prior to this year’s election. They probably wouldn’t like a biopic — especially an R-rated one! — about Harvey Milk, the first “out” politician.
In Gus Van Sant’s “Milk,” Sean Penn stars as the titular character, a camera store owner on Castro Street in San Francisco during the 1970s. A bit of a community organizer, not unlike our president-elect, Milk gets the idea to run for political office, and after three failed bids — and one failed relationship with long-term boyfriend Scott Smith (James Franco) — he wins a Supervisor seat.
Once in office, Milk takes on the anti-gay initiative Proposition 6, which would ban homosexual teachers in public schools. The unintentional parallels between this heinous bit of legislation and Prop 8 reflect how far we’ve come in 30 years as well as how far we still need to go. Milk, however, successfully campaigns to make sure Prop 6 doesn’t pass in California, while we stunningly watched gay marriages implode on November 4th. Then again, “No on Prop 8″ didn’t have a champion like Harvey Milk.
Sean Penn’s Harvey Milk is amazing to watch. I’ve always liked Penn as an actor. He also has the unique distinction of having played a would-be political assassin in “The Assassination of Richard Nixon” and a politician who is assassinated in “Milk.” This is the year of actors disappearing into politicos with Josh Brolin in Oliver Stone’s mediocre “W,” Frank Langella in Ron Howard’s excellent “Frost/Nixon” and Penn in this film.
Brolin appears late in “Milk,” playing another wrongheaded Republican, Supervisor Dan White. I think “W” didn’t make enough of a splash at the box office to overshadow Brolin’s chances at a Best Supporting Actor nom for this film. He’s an actor who can elicit sympathy despite the baggage of playing the villain. Dan White’s a fairly important character in the story of Harvey Milk, and if I had one criticism of the film, it would be that White needed more screen time.
I really enjoyed “Milk.” It’s a political film that inspires rather than angers. Yes, it’s infuriating that Milk’s political career was cut short by an assassin’s bullet, and he wasn’t to accomplish more. Nonetheless, he touched so many lives and inspired so many people. Milk spoke a lot about hope, the spirit of which is clearly still alive and well today.
-Brad Lohan
Dec
1
“Slumdog Millionaire” Review
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This is a film you’re probably going to be hearing a lot about if you haven’t already. It’s playing to sold-out audiences here in L.A. and expanding to other markets in the coming weeks. I saw it in a packed house a couple weekends ago and not even “Twilight” with all of its non-sex could peel off this movie’s business.
“Slumdog Millionaire” is about Jamal, a contestant on India’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” He’s close to taking home the top prize when he’s arrested and aggressively interrogated by the police. Jamal’s a child of the slums, someone who couldn’t possibly know the answers on “Millionaire,” so he must be cheating? But, through a series of flashbacks, it’s revealed how Jamal’s punishing childhood experiences actually taught him all the useless trivia he needed to know. That being said, I knew the answer to the final question at the film’s climax — w00t!
Co-directed by Danny Boyle (“Trainspotting,” “28 Days Later”) and Loveleen Tandan, “Slumdog Millionaire” is Charles Dickens by way of Bollywood. The torture and children in peril scenes are difficult to watch — the family seated next to me walked actually walked out — but this is also one of the most emotionally satisfying movies you’ll see this year. And it’s not like this movie is “Hostel,” either. Hollywood movies are just so sanitized, so safe and boring, mainstream audiences are physically incapable of sitting through anything that challenges them. Yet they’re missing out if they skip “Slumdog.”
The film isn’t all doom and gloom. Boyle brings plenty of humor to the proceedings — a scene with a young Jamal in a public toilet recalls a sequence from “Trainspotting” — and the dance number over the closing credits has you walking out the theater with a smile on your face. Though fantastical in the context of the film, it’s nonetheless emotionally rewarding — a little bit of what they call “magical realism,” which is sorely lacking from the latest bit of product that hits screens every Friday. What I wouldn’t give to have seen a similar dance number at the end of “The Dark Knight.”
This review comes two weeks late, since this is a difficult movie to talk about without getting too hyperbolic. I’ve gone through a few drafts. I find it’s much easier to review movies than films, since I don’t want to sound like those annoying critics who review movies in soundbites, custom made for slapping on posters and newspaper ads, rather than in anything resembling depth. I think the best review I heard for “Slumdog Millionaire” was from this random woman sitting near me in the audience. When a friend of hers asked her how she liked it, she made a noise that sounded like she was either clearing her throat or having an orgasm — maybe even both. I think that about sums up my feelings as well.
-Brad Lohan