Oscar season is finally over, and finally the hoards of movies delayed until the winter to be released in theaters are making their way onto shelves. While the summer is filled with blockbuster action extravaganzas, superhero epic reboots and heartstring-tugging animated wonders, fall and winter movies range from delightful independent feel-good films to brooding and disturbed images of pretty people with depressing lives.
Over the Easter break, I watched four recently released films, each acclaimed in vastly different ways and arenas. I also laughed, cried, stared blankly at the awkward silences, and I found myself shouting answers to a game show only my grandmother still watches, but during 302 minutes of watching “Choke,” “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” I learned something about movies and maybe even myself.
Slumdog Millionaire – I began my cinematic journey at the top of the movie mountain. Danny Boyle’s Indian romance/action/game show/thriller enchanted American audiences with its blend of authentic Indian culture, fast-paced editing and use of sweeping characterizations of impoverished children. Despite all of the gushing reviews, the movie was surprisingly good.
The cinematography highlighted the streets of India with vivid, gushing colors, and Boyle’s fast camera work, a mix of handheld cameras and quick edit jumps, made me feel like I was rolling in a kaleidoscope as it tumbled down a mountain of trash, which the movie implies makes up half of Mumbai.
While the plot is captivating, it seemed to also drip of the recent fad of Best Picture winners: an almost undecipherable smattering of mixed chronologies, suspenseful flashbacks and drawn out unfulfilled love stories. While blending these flowing elements into a quasi stream-of-consciousness epic film is a testament to the attention spans of modern movie viewers, the device is almost completely driven into the ground. When I saw the concept used in “Crash,” I was stunned. Then I saw it employed again in “Babel.” But by the time I’d seen “Atonement” and many other poorly-done attempts at the same genre, I realized all the story lines would inevitably come together in some astounding and serendipitous climax. Luckily, “Slumdog” manages to avoid this partially by revealing its hand early. The early suspense of Jamal’s (Dev Patel) capture is ended when he tells the police he just knew the answers, instantly nullifying the question of how he won a fortune on the game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.”
Choke – After seeing 2008’s critically regarded best movie, I decided I’d indulge in a movie, which despite some buzz following the Sundance Film Festival, had basically disappeared. I’ve been a fan of Chuck Palahniuk’s neo-shock fiction for quite some time, but since David Fincher’s adaptation of the book “Fight Club,” his popular books have remained on the bookshelves and out of theaters. Finally this year “Choke” emerged as pet project of perennial supporting-actor-turned-director Clark Gregg.
The adaptation is adequate at best, becoming more of a caricature of the novel as much as an adaptation. While the subject matter is disturbing, it remains humorous, as much a credit to Palahniuk’s book as the screen adaptation. But the shining star of the film is undoubtedly Sam Rockwell (“The Assassination of Jesse James”, “The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”), whose deadpan delivery and amusing tolerance for the bizarre makes a perfect fit for an otherwise oddly twisting and disconcertingly fast-moving movie. The most unfortunate part of “Choke” is the movie does not spend enough time highlighting what made the novel great – the neurosis of Palahniuk’s characters and circumstances. In “Fight Club,” Fincher found the calm and twisted voice that Gregg’s “Choke” couldn’t quite find.
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist – To lighten the mood following these two heavyweights, I watched an exciting teenage adventure comedy love story aimed at my hipster generation. It was easy engaging in the quirky ways of Nick (Michael Cera) and Norah (Kat Dennings) and their dysfunctional yet complementary relationship, but at the same time the film embodies a difficult paradox: A movie created by people in their 30s and 40s seeks to capture the generational sentiment of teenagers as played by actors and actresses in their 20s. Resulting is a cross-generational time-warp sucking in jokes aimed at the “millennial” zeitgeist that seem to be lacking, while dialogue meant to be explanatory becomes humorous, if only because of the context. Nostalgic inclusions like Nick’s yellow Yugo, and Norah’s father’s super-cool job at Electric Ladyland Recording Studio seem out of place and off base. Instead we get a sense of the aging Gen-Xers living vicariously through actors who could essentially be their children.
There’s a rich history of nostalgic coming-of-age midnight romps, but there are mandatory rules. This movie deeply wants to be the Millennial Generation’s equivalent to 60s’ “American Graffiti,” the 70s’ “Dazed and Confused” or the 80s’ “The Breakfast Club,” but the disconnection from its producers and its audience becomes the movie’s own worst enemy.