Monday, January 26, 2009

Film/movie catchup: Slumdog Millionaire, Valkyrie, Milk

This is the pick of the bunch.  It starts with a torture scene, and at times is hard to watch, and yet so much of it has you on the edge of your seat, utterly engaged with these characters and this story, as you find out how Jamal, a chai wallah (tea boy) and slumdog, knows the answers to the TV quiz questions.  A terrific film.

0901 Valkyrie
Competent, workmanlike, at times tense - I'm damning it with faint praise, aren't I?  I'm not sure how much of that is due to the fact that one knows the outcome - the Valkyrie plot to assassinate Hitler failed - and yet I'm happy to say that I learned new information about the immediate aftermath of the plot.  The British headliner actors do their thing - although Bill Nighy's general is so fluttery you wonder how he would have become a general - and I was glad to learn at the end that Von Stauffenberg's wife and children survived.  It's by no means a terrible film, but it's not a great one, either.
Sean Penn is such an accomplished actor.  He is so different in this to the contained man of The Interpreter, or the death row inmate in Dead Man Walking.  It's a biopic done with care and attention, well acted, using archival footage to make you realise how much, in some ways, the world has changed.
As the cinema didn't have posters of Slumdog Millionaire or Milk, I've used and acknowledged posters from http://www.impawards.com/, where among other interesting possibilities you can search posters by designer.  So click here to see the many other striking posters designed by the same person as did the one for Slumdog Millionaire.
And what else did the cinemas have to offer this week?  Air conditioning....and it's good to pack in a few before the holidays end and the world of work takes over next week.

1 comment:

Candy Schultz said...

I am looking forward to all three of these. I was sorry to see Valkyrie get such bad reviews as the Nazi era is an obsession of mine and I have been studying it for forty years. I will wait for dvd. I also know a good bit about the story behind Milk and I know Sean Penn is an incredible actor. Slumdog is probably going to win the best picture award at the Academy Awards and I look forward to seeing this very much. Actually I will probably be waiting for dvd for all these because with fibromyalgia a trip to the theater is daunting.