Danny Boyle’s new film, Slumdog Millionaire, has emerged as the sure-thing Oscar-winning film of 2008, leaving audiences across America scratching their heads wondering just what the hype is all about.  Every once in a while, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sends out its list of great-yet-also-popular films that give rise to big anticipation across the country. The bonus is that they also generate big ratings on Oscar night.

There’s Chariots of Fire, Platoon, Driving Miss Daisy, Unforgiven, Schindler’s List, Forrest Gump, Titanic, Gladiator, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. All of these films were massive hits at the box office, and all of them took home the big Best Picture trophy. Others, like 2005’s Crash was a cop-out to the far superior Brokeback Mountain, which many audiences (and Academy members) shunned because of its heavy gay love content.

Slumdog Millionaire is a film about a single question that begs a much greater question. The central plot of the story revolves around Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), who was a winning contestant on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The prevailing inquiry is as simple as it is probing: Read more »

With Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, director Tim Story attempts to step up the story a few notches by actually providing a real threat that our heroes have to thwart. This film is clearly light years ahead of its predecessor, which really isn’t saying that much. The original Fantastic Four was just plain boring. Where the battle scene of the climax of that film was an exercise in the senseless, Rise of the Silver Surfer has the fate of the planet hanging in the balance. Beware, this review contains some spoilers.

At less than 90 minutes, Surfer is short on time-time that could have been used for actually developing something better than the “Reed and Sue are getting married, so nothing else matters” subplot. Jessica Alba’s portrayal of Sue Storm is actually even more bland than before, which is quite an accomplishment. Read more »