Milk & Slumdog Millionaire

Well, the awards season is really heating up and today I saw two films that seem to be big contenders.

Milk is the story of Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) and the start of the gay right's movement. I would say it is exactly a biopic because when we meet Milk he is already 40 years old. He meets Scott Smith (James Franco) in a subway station and the two immediately become lovers. Harvey works in a conservative industry and is closeted. Scott convinces him to come out of the closet and move to San Francisco. And the rest is history.

There is no need to go into details about the plot because many of us know what eventually happens (although some members in my movie audience seemed not to know). Milk is a very powerful film and one of the year's best. Gus van Sant does a fabulous job of directing and Dustin Lance Black's screenplay is sharp and crip. Penn is unbelievable as Milk. Franco is terrific as is Emile Hirsch as activist Cleven Jones. And Josh Brolin is amazing as Dan White. What a fantastic cast! I think that Milk can look forward to some nominations from the various groups.

Through this film you get the real feel of what is was like to be gay in San Francisco. Milk made history be becoming the first openly gay elected official in the city. And we've come a long way since that time. But have we really? Sadly,
several states have banned same sex marriage - even "liberal" California. So there is lots of work to do.

The film really hit me emotionally and I cried at the end. Milk is not only a great film but an important one as well. I hope that many people go to see it. Until gay people have the same rights as straight people the United States cannot be a true democracy.

Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire has been widely praised and has already won a best film of the year from the National Board of Review. And while I thought that is was a very good film I certainly don't think it is the best of the year.

The story opens with Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) being tortured and then questioned by the police because he has won a ton of money on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The authorities think that he cheated. But he tells a sympathetic police investigator (the wonderful Irfan Khan) that he got all his answers from his life experiences. We go back and forth from the present to the past when Jamal and his brother Salim become orphans. It is a very sad story and one that I am sure happens all the time to the poverty stricken in India. Along the way he meets Latika and even when they lose one another he is constantly thinking of her.

Boyle's direction is outstanding. His shots of Mumbai (where the story takes place) are truly dazzling. Credit must also go to his co-director in India Loveleen Tandan.
The reason why I don't think this is a great film is because of the way the story is carried out. Simon Beaufoy's screenplay is well written but something just doesn't ring true. That may the fault of Vikas Swarup's book which the film is based on. The scenes of poverty are heart wrenching and the love story is very sweet. But the film should have grabbed me more on an emotional level. Patel is very good as Jamal and I already mentioned Khan. Also fine in the acting department are Anil Kapoor as Millionaire host Prem Kumar, Freida Pinto as Jamal's love interest Latika, Mudhur Mittal as his brother Salim and the various young actors who played them as children.

Still and all, I think that Slumdog Millionaire is a very worthwhile film and I recommend it. It brings us to a culture that we don't know much about and a way of life that we don't want to think about. But it just doesn't live up to all of the hype.