Slumdog Millionaire
Half of it isn't in English, there are no major stars, and the main characters are waiters, whores, and hustlyers. So why should you give a rabid rat's ass about "Slumdog Millionaire"? Because it's a deliriously moving experience and the best film of the year, that's why. I know I toot my horn a lot about overlooked movies, but dammit, this one deserves to be seen. The story? Jamal (the scrappy Dev Patel), who serves tea for a living, goes on the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire", in order to gain the attention of his childhood sweetheart, who he was separated from at a young age and who knows leads a life of forced prostitution. The shocker is that he becomes an intellectual wunderkind who wins over the hearts of thousands of commoners as he inches closer to his goal of ten million rupees. It could be a hokey story, but what director Danny Boyle (working in tandem with the superbly expressive Patel) does brilliantly is make you fall madly, deliriously in love with Jamal and his quest from the moment you meet him. This is the first film I've seen in ages that prompted startled gasps, raucous laughter, and spontaneous applause, not just from me, but from the entire audience. It's also features the most straight-shooting, unabashedly tear-jerking romance of any film since Casablanca. If you love drama, romance, political intrigue, world history, slapstick humour, psychological intricacy, photography (India has never looked so good), Dickensian tragedy, gangster epics, globe-spanning thrillers, music videos (AR Rahman's score is a beautiful listen all by itself), or any of the above, then you will be fall just as hard for this delightful, breathlessly hopeful genre-bender of a film as I did. A
Milk
Dramatic gestures! Subway hook-ups! Gay sex! No, this isn't a summary of the average life in the theatre. This is what takes place within the first five minutes of "Milk". It's a chronicle of Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), the first openly gay man elected to public office. The movie itself is a heady, steamy mixture of ideas and agendas that often becomes frustrating and impenetrable. Having said that, set this one out and miss two modern day movie messiahs giving the performances of their careers. Even when the story veers off course, Penn always keeps us riveted with a performance that often feels more like a possession. This, we think, must be what it was like to see the real Milk speaking-to sense the fervid fire that burned steadily in an unexceptional Average Joe of a man who bravely crusaded for a cause simply because no one else would. The other astounding performance comes from Josh Brolin as Dan White, a homophobic co-worker of Milk's whose slow-burning insanity and confused ideals lead to the chain reaction of Earth-shaking tragedies that occur in the film's final act. Brolin never plays him as crude or evil, but instead as a man who refuses to change his shape to fit a progressing world, and who in fact believes it should work vice versa. Ultimately, these performers stir something in your soul, and you leave this imperfect but cleverly crafted, of-the-moment film with a desire to fight for something-anything, really-that deserves fighting for. A-
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