How does a film garner 10 Oscar nominations despite almost being dropped by Warner Brothers?
A.) a potent newcomer cast
B.) an invigorating, socially conscious storyline
C.) a vibrant setting and soundtrack
D.) all of the above.
Set against the gritty mosaic of India, "Slumdog Millionaire" shines like a gem.
Jamal (Dev Patel) is an impoverished teen from Mumbai who is one question away from winning the Indian version of, "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Unwilling to believe a mere street urchin could know all the answers without cheating, the show's producers have Jamal arrested and tortured.
In a series of flashbacks from the interrogation, we see how Jamal learned the answers to each question while growing up with his brother, Salim, in the slums.
Through his tales, the audience becomes privy to a life marred by religious conflict, abject poverty and the social woes of rapid urbanization and industrialization.
In spite of the heavy context, at the heart of the film beats a romance that traverses all obstacles. Jamal goes on the show in order to reach a lost childhood love, a girl named Latika, played in adult form by Freida Pinto.
"Slumdog" writers Simon Beaufoy and Vikas Swarup have crafted a "Great Expectations"-style screenplay broad in its social scope and deft in its execution.
Featuring a virtually unknown cast and filmed half in Hindi, director Danny Boyle ("28 Days Later") fashions a visual tour de force through attentive use of raw, shaky camera handiwork that matches the chaotic, pulsating locale.
Bolstered by such strong direction, a few nit-picky issues seem trivial. Switching out actors three times to represent different time periods in Jamal, Salim and Latika's lives is a bit off-putting, especially when the older versions barely resemble the younger selves.
It is a small quibble though, compared to the talent exhibited in each set of child actors.
The emotional brunt of the film is spearheaded by the chemistry between Dev Patel and Freida Pinto. Patel, in his portrayal of an ever-vigilante Romeo, hits very melancholic, lovelorn note with pained finesse. The striking beauty of Pinto is expounded by a haunting vocal theme that accompanies her scenes.
Powered by a lively soundtrack from A.R. Rahman and featuring songs from M.I.A., the film's fast-paced momentum leaves you gasping for air either from exhilaration or heartbreak.
Grade: A-
Verdict: D.) All of the above.
I remember when Bastian Balthazar Bux changed my life.
I was an only child of nine; he was an only child of around eight. We both dreaded math tests.
And when he opened the amulet-emblazoned cover of "The Neverending Story" in the 1984 film of the same name, the fantasy-fiction bibliophile in me was born.
Flash forward to 2009's "Inkheart," a film with the potential to be that classic that inspires a generation of lonely geeks to turn to literature. Instead, the film splutters from start to finish, lacking a basic feature fundamental to the medium it promotes - a sound plot.
Brendan Fraser, fresh off two abhorrent films in 2008, can't seem to stay away from badly written screenplays.
In this, Fraser plays Mortimer "Mo" Folchart, a book restorer who is also a 'silvertongue,' a person who can bring what he reads aloud into being. However, for every person or thing that escapes from the book, someone in the real world gets pulled in. It is an uncontrollable, "Jumanji"-like caveat Mo discovers. When he reads a fantasy adventure titled "Inkheart" to his young daughter Meggie (Eliza Bennett), Mo accidentally throws his wife Resa (Sienna Guillory) into the tome, while bringing the main villain, Capricorn, a fire-juggler, out.
Stringing Meggie along, Mo spends the next nine years searching for the rare book in order to bring Resa back. He is hounded by the fire-juggler Dustfinger, played by Paul "You should have learned from 'A Knight's Tale'" Bettany, who just wants to go home.
Meanwhile, Capricorn (a campy, sans-Gollum Andy Serkis), schemes to bring the ultimate evil out of "Inkheart."Tack on Helen Mirren ("The Queen") as an eccentric aunt, the ever-quirky Jim Broadbent as "Inkheart"'s author and a smattering of ineffectual literary characters, and you have a convoluted plot with enough holes to strain spaghetti.
Never mind Meggie's inexplicable British accent or Fraser's occasional regression to a smart-alecky "Mummy" tone. And for good measure, we can forgive Mo for never trying to find the author in the first place or even looking for the book on Amazon.com.
The silvertongue power itself brings up multiple issues the film does not bother to remedy. For example, does the power apply to just children's books or could you read anything aloud? What happens when you read the same passage twice? Why couldn't the author rewrite the book's plot when Capricorn first captures them, instead of waiting until the very end?
Although the film is set in a picturesque soft-lit Italian countryside and director Iain Softley ("K-PAX") pulls every fantastical flourish, these questions rob "Inkheart" of any magic it could have possessed.
Based on Cornelia Funke's bestselling German novel, perhaps the film does achieve its pro-literacy message in the end. If the written word is indeed so powerful, why watch the movie when you can read the book?
Grade: C
Verdict: Even Helen Mirren riding atop a unicorn wasn't able to get this movie off the ground.
For a film with a title as bombast as "Notorious," the final product is quite the opposite. This much-hyped bio-pic of iconic rapper Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. Biggie Smalls, Christopher Wallace) is downright unremarkable save for key newcomer performances.
Meticulously tracking his life from the schoolyard to the graveyard, the film accounts for each trial and tribulation lining B.I.G.'s rocky path to stardom.
Writers Reggie Bythewood and Cheo Coker left no stone unturned, even when said stone did nothing to advance the plot.
Though this approach may have served as a briefing for those unfamiliar with Biggie's life and times, it made the early parts of the movie tedious.
Combined with indiscreet cinematography and director George Tillman Jr.'s apparent love of way-too-close close-ups, the film risked overwhelming the audience with overall heavy-handedness.
Fortunately, the flailing project is rescued from an untimely death by the 300-pound frame of 33-year-old Jamal Woolard, who perfected the swagger and mannerisms of the late rapper in this lead role. In watching the musical interludes where Woolard raps, it is as if Biggie Smalls never left the party that day in March 1997.
Woolard's rich performance is only slightly edged out by those of his love interests. Naturi Naughton raunchily sizzles and sparks as Kim Jones (Lil' Kim), and Antonique Smith plays Wallace's wife, R&B singer Faith Evans.
The film picks up pace as the characters Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs (Derek Luke) and Tupac Shakur (Anthony Mackie) enter the scene. Luke's hyperactive portrayal of the media mogul is unintentionally funny, though more reminiscent of R. Kelly than not.
As for the controversy surrounding Biggie and Shakur's murders, the film takes a decidedly hands-off approach, eschewing any "who-dun-it" speculations, other than absolving Biggie of the 1994 shooting of Shakur at Quad Recording Studios.
In fact, it's hard to find one person in the movie's entirety who isn't portrayed in a favorable light. Like most bio-pics, "Notorious" often gives way to sentimentality and simplification, addressing but glossing over Biggie's indiscretions and infidelities. The script neatly remedies each of his character flaws in phone calls and stale monologues.
Yet in an apt and much-appreciated final stroke of poignancy, "Notorious" concludes with a real-life montage of funeral onlookers dancing to Biggie's music, proving that in spite of the uneven execution of the film, there exists a valid point in making it.
Grade: B-
Verdict: The movie equivalent to Puff Daddy's (a.k.a. P. Diddy, Sean Combs, [insert trivial new nickname]) 1997 hit, "I'll Be Missing You."
In the Bridezilla warfare waged between the queens of chick flicks, Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway, the only casualties are moviegoers and about two decades worth of feminism.
Rising out of Hollywood's profiteering dregs, the premise of "Bride Wars" is an unfortunate box office fail safe, indulging easy-to-please audiences with an over-contrived and excruciatingly formulaic set-up.
The 26-year-old Manhattanites, Liv (Hudson) and Emma (Hathaway), have been best friends since childhood, both sharing the lifelong dream of having a June wedding at New York's Plaza Hotel.
They become engaged to their bland boyfriends within 24 hours of each other and are each other's squeal-happy maids of honor. However, when their wedding planner, played by chick-flick staple Candice Bergen, accidentally books their nuptials on the same day, 20 years of friendship fly out the window quicker than one can say, "but this isn't believable."
It'd be funny if it weren't so downright petty, two grown women foregoing any logical resolution and resorting to juvenile, humiliating pranks to sabotage each other's big day.
Writers Greg DePaul ("Saving Silverman"), Casey Wilson ("SNL") and June Raphael dichotomize Hudson and Hathaways' characters to the point of being ludicrous: blonde vs. brunette, a perfectionist vs. a pushover, rich vs. poor. Directed by run-of-the-mill Gary Winick ("13 Going on 30"), this 90-minute mess reaffirms nearly every stereotype about women and their supposed wedding obsession.
Liv, the career-minded lawyer, is reduced to blubbering tears during a briefing over a botched dye job. Emma, the soft-spoken teacher, discovers an inner-bitch Omerosa would be proud of after her tanning salon fiasco.
Each backstab balances out so that one character never wins too many hearts. Hathaway ends up looking rosier though, despite a tale of dead parents that's supposed to inject sympathy into Hudson's character.
Topped off with trite narration from Bergen, nearly indistinguishable fiancés played by "O.C."'s Chris Pratt and "Reba" regular Steve Howey and saccharine photo montages; one almost gets vertigo from so much eye-rolling.
The film managed to wrestle down a few moments of genuine cleverness."You don't alter Vera to fit you; you alter yourself to fit Vera," wails Hudson when she realizes she can't fit into her $18,000 dress.
It's a humorous witticism in the face of the uneasy body image undertones.Portraying lifestyles as unrealistic as Carrie Bradshaw's, the film toes a fine line between lampooning Bridezilla-dom and glorifying it.
Grade: D+
Verdict: It is no small feat to turn two women renowned for their onscreen likability into wholly despicable juveniles.
If a perverted "Garden State" had a child with a manly "White Oleander," the end result would be "Choke," a taut film based on the Chuck Palahniuk novel of the same name and directed by actor-turned-director Clark Gregg.
If the name Palahniuk rings promising boxing bells in your mind, silence them. Where "Fight Club" was the brutal but brilliant neighborhood bully, "Choke" is his sleezy younger brother trying to look up your skirt at Sunday school. He's nowhere near as cool, and only half as appealing.
Nevertheless, when one withholds comparison to the older Palahniuk adaptation and the original book, the film has its sordid merits, inducing genuine smirks at the characters' self-degradations and pithy observations.
Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) is a sex-addicted libertine who drops out of medical school in order to support his Alzheimer's-stricken mother, Ida, played by a venerable Angelica Huston.
In order to pay for her expensive nursing home bills, Victor works as a historical re-enactor in a 17th century-themed park. "I am the backbone of Colonial America," Rockwell deadpans to the camera, nailing the cynical tones of his character.
To make ends meet and perhaps to gain affection, Victor deliberately chokes in classy restaurants in hopes of being saved by wealthy diners. Playing off their savior complex, he then collects on their pity checks.
When a dying Ida begins to drop hints about Victor's biological father, he calls on the aid of his best friend, Denny (Brad Henke) and his mother's beautiful doctor, Paige Marshall (Kelly Macdonald), to get to the bottom of his possibly divine origins.
Macdonald's soft-spoken, endearing Southern drawl still works its magic here, much as it did in "No Country for Old Men." Henke's turn as the slacker best friend is golden, though he is more or less a poor man's version of Seth Rogen.
In spite of these acting boons and consistent laughs, the movie failed in one major aspect - making me care.
Huston's portrayal of an unhinged, manipulative mother in a series of spotty flashbacks into Victor's childhood is a prime example of how a great actress cannot save an unripe script.
In any movie where the plot is driven by "mommy-caused issues," these scenes are vital.
Unfortunately, the flashbacks shallowed out Ida, flattening her into a substance-abusing kook rather than expounding on her deep psychosis.In comparison to the denser dialogue of the film's present time, these moments seemed like after-thoughts, robbing the empathy from Huston's performance.
Thus, the emotional scenes between Victor and Ida come off unconvincing and unwieldy. Even the relationship between Victor and Paige becomes trite as the film closes with a stereotypical drawn out kiss á la "Garden State."
But, seeing as this was Gregg's debut as a director and screenwriter, worse things could have happened and for the most part, his transgressions can be forgiven.
Following in the shadows of Fincher's "Fight Club," however, it's painfully obvious that "Choke" was being throttled by the hands of an amateur, despite stellar performances by the cast.
Grade: B-
Verdict: It's no "Fight Club," but Angelica Huston sure can throw down with some policemen.
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