BilmBlog500

Slumdog Millionaire, seen Thursday October 23 at the  Landmark Sunshine, Aud. #1,  Part of the Variety Screening Series, 3.5 slithy toads. This was already a highly touted movie off of its screenings at the Toronto Film Festival and elsewhere even before I saw it, a few weeks before its opening.  And as you can see from the generous # of toads I am giving it, I think it's one of those movies that lives up to the acclaim.  My sister also liked it a lot, though a friend I was talking with on Monday night did not.  Well, the more people who read your book or see your movie the more people you can find who won't like it, but it's clear it is striking a chord.  The movie's been doing very well at the box office with signs of very good word of mouth, slowly broadening from being on very few screens to being on several hundred, and making the top 10 at the box office against films, up there with films that are playing at five times as many theatres.  Well, good! If you're ...

The Reader, Seen Wednesday evening December 3, 2008, at Landmark's Sunshine, Aud. #1, as part of the Variety Screening Series.  3 Slithy Toads.   Good, Seen Wednesday evening December 10, 2008, at Landmark's Sunshine, Aud. #1, as part of the Variety Screening Series.  1.5 Slithy Toads. So I've gotten to spend the past two Wednesdays in WWII.   The Reader, which stars Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes and a very talented young German actor named David Kross, is a rather meditative movie about the aftermath of the war and of Nazi Germany.  It draws on questions of guilt, innocence and redemption, it goes places where not too many other movies on the subject go, and while not successful in all ways and every way is nonetheless a film that grew on me as it went along. Good is a more prosaic piece of work set during the thick of the Nazi reign from the early and mid 1930s thru to 1942.  It stars Viggo Mortensen as an academic who is roped into the SS at the possible expense of his fri...