Snob Movie Review: Milk

This biopic directed by Gus Van Sant opens today (November 26th, 2008) in limited release and wider next Friday (December 5th, 2008).

Sean Penn stars as Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California. Josh Brolin plays a colleague of Milk and Emile Hirsch and James Franco play his friends.

The film opens with an astounding montage of newsreel and newspaper clippings of homosexual raids across the USA in the past. Milk meets up with Franco in NYC and they end up moving to San Francisco's Castro neighborhood. Starting up a camera store, Milk decides to organize the gay community to have financial and political clout.

He decides to run for city office and loses. A couple of times. Not discouraged, he gets more and more folks to volunteer their time and expertize to his cause. Eventually, he gets elected and gets involved in the national debate over gay rights. More specifically Proposition 6, the law that would make it illegal for homosexuals to be teachers in California.

Gus van Sant has taken a lot of jeers (and cheers) for his storytelling style (long takes, relaxed narrative structure, if any at all) but with Milk, he's made a fairly conventional film. It's also one of his best. He tackles a huge story and seamlessly blends in real footage, real people and original locations to create a cohesive film of undenying power.

The performances on display are fantastic. Sean Penn finally plays a character with a broad range of emotions and he's inspiring.

After a year of mediocre fare, Milk sets the bar for American films in 2008.

Snob Movie Review: Australia

This film opens today (November 26, 2008) and is directed by Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!, Romeo + Juliet), and stars Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman and young Brandon Walters.

There is no doubt that this film is a labor of love for everyone evolved. The plot involves the WWII bombings in Northern Australia as well as the mistreatment of mixed children by the government. Mixed in there is a sweeping romance.

Kidman plays an English aristocrat that comes to Australia only to find her husband dead, and his ranch being run into the ground by a rival rancher. Jackman plays a cowboy that leads cattle across the country to be sold. Mixed into all of this is a bi-racial kid (Brandon Walters) that is torn between his Aboriginal grandfather's mysticism and Nicole Kidman's maternal modern love.

I could continue on with the plot, but that should give an indication of the convoluted mess that Australia is. The first 20 minutes of this film should have ended up on the cutting room floor. It has a bizzarro goofball tone that doesn't go anywhere, and Nicole Kidman has as much personality as the sponge in my sink.

The rest of the film is part romance, part war film and part comedy in the vein of Gone with the Wind. Unfortunately, that's where the comparison ends.

The script is uncompromisingly corny and downright ridiculous at moments. There is far too much CGI effects. It's not so much that we don't think it's real, it's more that I don't believe it. And of course, there's the whole White Saviour undertone.

A massive bloated missfire, Australia deserves more.

Snob Movie Review: Slumdog Millionaire

This film directed by Danny Boyle opened today (November 12, 2008), and is garnering a lot of attention. Early reviews are touting it as a Best Picture underdog. In a year where most films thus far have sucked, that could be a good prediction.

In my books, Danny Boyle has built one of the best bodies of work this generation. Everything he does is somehow interesting, but still has his trademark audacious aesthetic. Slumdog is no exception.

The film is shot mostly digital and entirely in India. The protagonist, Jamal, is on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and is about to be given his final question, when he is accused of cheating. He is interrogated by a cop played by Irrfan Khan (this guy can do no wrong) trying to figure out how this uneducated kid from the slums could answer all of the questions correctly and even get on the show. The answer to a question triggers off a flashbacks to how Jamal knew the answer to the difficult question. It's an interesting narrative device.

Through the flashbacks we learn of Jamal's almost Dickensian youth with his tough brother Salim and a girl he loves Latika. These characters are played by three different actors at various ages, however, the transitions are not jarring. If anything, the performances of the younger cast eclipse those of the older actors.

There are several problems with this film, mostly with the far reaching storylines and the supposed love story at its core. To be honest, I just didn't buy it. The peripheral characters, although interesting, have no real depth and make some weird decisions.

With that being said, the look and feel of the film, shot by Anthony Dod Mantel, propel this average 'rags to the riches' tale into another league. There is so much visual energy in the shots and editing that it exudes real beauty.