Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Directed by: Danny Boyle & Loveleen Tandan (co-director)

Based on a novel by: Vikas Swarup

Screenplay by: Simon Beaufoy

A Mumbai teen reflects on his upbringing in the slums when he is accused of cheating on the Indian Version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?"

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I've mostly been avoiding movies that win the academy award for best picture, because it has become obvious they aren't in my taste, so why force myself to watch something I'd find boring and then complain about it online and cause arguments and blah blah. Of course there are several that are of interest: Moonlight (2016), Spotlight (2015), No Country for Old Men (2007) and of course, Slumdog Millionaire - mostly because it seemed thrilling, but also because it's directed by Danny Boyle, who still hasn't disappointed me.

The story is intriguing, and it shows the worst and best of India. It shows the slums and brutality, but also the glamour of the rich. And the line between the two is clear, because not everyone is happy to just let a "slumdog" to become a millionaire and change the dynamic. But of course that's not just India, this is pretty much every country, where the differences between the poor and the rich are growing.

And this movie is so thrilling. Towards the end I was ready to scream, because I was so excited. I was hopeful and scared at the same time and had no idea what would happen to Jamal, would he get the answer right or wrong. 

One of the key features of this film is the structure. The narrative isn't chronological, and instead it's mostly told in flashbacks. That's always  risky, but in Slumdog Millionaire it's used amazingly. It tells you what you need to know and when you need to know it, not sooner than needed. This gives that certain air of mystery when you don't yet know everything, but you want to.

I wasn't really into the love story, but also I couldn't think what would make it better, so I probably shouldn't go into that.

Slumdog Millionaire is an amazing movie, very thrilling. There were several little things bothering me, but all in all it's astonishing and definitely deserved its win. 

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

8 / 10

28 Days Later... (2002)

Directed by: Danny Boyle

Written by: Alex Garland

28 days after a mysterious, incurable infection starts spreading through the United Kingdom, Jim wakes up from a coma. He is puzzled by the almost empty city until he finds more survivors. Together they are trying to find sanctuary.

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I rented 28 Days Later because my friend Rose recommended it to me. Actually she recommended both 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later but I wanted to watch this one before renting the other one. And this one's directed by Danny Boyle. Danny Boyle has never disappointed me, and he definitely didn't disappoint me this time.

I like zombie movies, I just don't watch them as much. My current favourite is Shaun of the Dead, which isn't exactly that serious. 28 Days Later is probably the first more serious zombie movie I really like.  Of course the problem is most of these movies have a similar structure to them. It's always about survival, having to kill someone you care, all that. Comedies of course take different kind of turns.

Plot structure to 28 Days Later seems pretty similar to the other movies I've seen or heard about. There are still some twists I really enjoy, and very many scenes I like. 

But the main reason this movie stands out is because of the characters. I usually am not extremely fond of characters in horror, because you never know what's going to happen. But then I realised how attached I was to the characters of this movie. That realisation happened during some of the most serene and so very nice scenes, like the one at the grocery store. Those little scenes are so nice and heart-warming it makes everything else even more painful. You just want them to have nice, good lives, but horror movies are what they are.

The cinematography is interesting. It's annoying at first, because it's grainy and really poor, but it keeps getting better. Also I really like the music in this film. It's simple, it amplifies the feeling in each scene, and it isn't just scary music used to make the scenes seem more threatening. It's a perfect soundtrack when you don't want to take any risks.

All in all 28 Days Later is a great genre movie. Danny Boyle sure knows how to direct all kind of stuff, huh?

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

9 / 10

Trainspotting (1996)

Directed by: Danny Boyle

Written by: John Hodge

Based on a novel by Irvine Welsh

Mark Renton struggles with Edinburgh's drug scene and his own addiction to heroin. He tries to get out of it despite the allure of drugs and the influence of his friends.

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I can't believe the last time I saw this movie it was in English class. I remember it well, because Trainspotting is definitely a movie you probably don't feel comfortable watching with people from school: a two friends and mostly people you haven't talked to since first grade. It's even weirder when it's actually your teacher who chose the movie. It raises a lot of question. Okay, yeah, we were all 17 or 18 by then, so it's not like it would be causing us a lot of trauma. I mean maybe it would, but we'd be mature enough to get over it

Also I think it's pretty clear why I'm watching this movie now. I saw the second one two weeks ago - for the first time - and one week ago for the second. I'm also planning a trip to Edinburgh this summer, mostly thanks to Irvine Welsh. I'm going to watch Trainspotting and Filth and Ecstasy during this week, or next.

Anyway, now, let's get to the actual review.

If I had to choose a favourite movie from the year I was born, it would definitely be Trainspotting. 

The first novel I read by Welsh was Filth, and his writing style is absolutely fascinating. With Filth I was bored and then watched the movie and realised holy shit, I wasn't even at the important parts yet. So I returned to the book and while I had already seen the movie it still was able to blow my mind. 

Welsh, whose last name will never stop being amusing to me, is a really brilliant writer. One of the best things about Trainspotting is its dialogue. I haven't read Trainspotting as much as I'd want to, but I have a vague idea how much of the dialogue comes from him. The dialogue has a weird charm. It sounds real, like what you and your mates could talk about, but also makes you feel like why can't your conversations go like that. But still it's not entirely like Tarantino's dialogue, which is realistic, but also sometimes there's no point. With Trainspotting there are typical, realistic conversations about... whatever, but also there's a lot of plot related dialogue with some really witty notions here and there.

What seems to be typical to Welsh's style is that he takes his time. It takes a while to understand what it's about, or it takes a weirdly long time to get to the things the summary at the back cover said about the story (The bedroom secrets of master chefs). It's kind of the same with Trainspotting as a movie. It's hard to say what it's about without being vague about it. "Oh it's about young men in Edinburgh struggling with drugs and such". Yeah but what happens? It's easier to just know the whole thing.

Trainspotting's way of portraying drugs is also interesting compared to many others. Either movies are trying to praise drugs or they are trying to make them seem like devil himself invented them. In Trainspotting they tell straight out what's good about drugs while some of them try to get off it. Like drugs are obviously bad, it's not like anyone's hiding it, but they're also very clear about why it's so hard to quit, and how even after quitting you can still relapse. 

I love surrealism in Trainspotting. Sometimes it just feels like a special effect. Sometimes it feels like it's strongly related to what's going on, how the characters are feeling. It can distressing or it can be really hilarious.

The soundtrack of Trainspotting is iconic! There are so many brilliant songs that reflect the time and also suit the story well, instead of being just separate sounds in the background.

Trainspotting is a masterpiece. It's a true cult classic and I'll be forever bitter to that one friend of a friend who claimed that Fear and Loathing portrayed drugs better but eh, she turned out to be junkie few years later, so what can you say? 

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

10 / 10

T2 Trainspotting (2017)

Directed by: Danny Boyle

Based on novels by: Irvine Welsh

Adaptation by John Hodge

20 years after stealing 16 thousand pounds from his mates Mark Renton returns to Edinburgh and reunites with his friends Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie.

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You can't imagine how great I'm feeling right now. I've seen three AMAZING movies in the theater in the last 28 hours and this latest I saw was seriously so fucking great. I'm so psyched I have trouble focusing on this review, but I'll try my best!! I'm probably going to keep this short.

It's been a while since I saw Trainspotting. While it's amazing and fun and all, it's also super rough. I still love it though, and it's one of my favourite movies of all time. I actually own a copy of the novel in "English" but since actual English isn't my first language it's super hard trying to read an entire novel written in dialect. So I haven't read Trainspotting, so I can't really say if Trainspotting is as good as the book, and I also haven't read Porno, so I don't know whether or not T2 Trainspotting is anywhere near the original.

I was a little worried about a lot of things. First of all, character development - for better or worse. 20 years is a long time. If the characters would've seem pretty much same people, it would've felt awful. But it seems there has been some kind of development. It's not like they are over their issues, no, they are pretty much just as bad as they were or maybe worse. Did anyone get better? Probably not, but that's better than everyone staying the same.

I went to the cinema thinking well I can't give this movie 10/10, since I gave the LEGO Batman Movie and Tom Of Finland 10/10, it would be an overkill. But when the movie was ending, I started thinking... was there anything wrong with it? 

Not really. 

The story is great, so very thrilling, and so much fun. When I think about what it's about, I can't summarise the actual plot easily. It's basically just a revisit to the story, but it's also so much more than that. The original movie had such a perfect ending, but it leaves the audience wondering. T2 Trainspotting gives us the closure we need. But like it's mostly a nostalgic trip, and definitely a good one.

It's amazing to see how the cinematography both hasn't and has changed. There are so many shots that are very similar to the original movie - clearly on purpose. Still there's something that's new, just like with the story and characters. The shots and the editing, lighting and colours are all brilliant. Mixture of old footage and new on is also amazing, especially on a big screen where you can so clearly see the difference. The cinematography is so very enchanting and I loved it very much.. I especially loved the effects where the shots froze. .(Unless the movie was just lagging. I hope not, because they were very effective)

But what I love most about this movie was the soundtrack. The music was perfect, it was so amazing. The only thing missing was Iggy Pop's Lust for Life (there was a remix tho), because I just kept waiting for it, but it didn't play. Still that doesn't matter. The sounds in this movie were amazing and the music was so well chosen and so effective, and just simply astonishing.

I really loved this movie, more than I thought I would. 

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

10 / 10

One of my favourite songs used on this movie was Silk by Alice Wolf. It's seriously one of my favourite songs and hearing it in a movie made me love it even more. Here's the song

"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers."

Trainspotting is a trip through the underground drug-filled world of Edinburgh. The guide for the trip is Mark Renton, an on-off heroin addict. We also meet his friends, Sick Boy, Spud, Begbie, Tommy... 

Really, how can I explain the plot? Again, this is one of those stories you can't explain with few sentences. Well of course you can say "it's a movie about drug addicts", but that doesn't cover it. I can't help but admire writers, who write stories that can't be put in three or fewer sentences. (I mean if you can but the idea in few words, why write the story at all?) 

Anyway, I fucking finally made it and watched Trainspotting. And I wasn't sure what I was expecting. I mean I had read about 50 pages and then I returned the book for no apparent reason. So when I started watching the movie, I didn't know much of what was going to happen. I knew about that one scene in the toilet, but it wasn't exactly like in the book. But if I expected something, my expectations were mostly based on 'Filth' or 'The Bedroom Secrets Of Master Chefs', both novels by Irvine Welsh, though the latter is much more softer than he earlier work. But I need to read Trainspotting also, because otherwise I can't read 'Porno' or 'Skagboys', and were some of the characters from Trainspotting also in 'Glue'? I have no idea.

I'm going to have to compare Trainspotting with Filth. It's kinda funny that even though Filth and Trainspotting are directed by different people, there is something so similar in them. I don't know if it's on purpose, or some sort of style just goes well with Welsh's novels. And Trainspotting also had kind of similar structure. And by structure I mean the fact that the beginning is mostly hilarious, but the story gets much, much darker towards the end. However, then again Trainspotting partly wasn't as dark as Filth, which makes me really wonder how much the movie is different compared to the book. I mean it felt almost unreal that it wasn't as distressing as Filth, I mean Trainspotting feels like it should be more distressing. ... I really need to read the book...

But seriously, Trainspotting was very good. I mean of course my company wasn't the best possible one. I mean it's not awkward at all to sit on a sofa with my dad with sex scenes on. But seriously everyone else was asleep when we watched Trainspotting, and I was afraid that they would wake up because - at least in the beginning - we laughed so much and so loud. I mean it was so unbelievably and extravagantly ridiculous!

I remember about two years ago a friend (or, well, a friend of a friend?) compared Trainspotting and Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas, and I don't remember everything she said, but basically she said Trainspotting was lame and Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas was better, because you could see the effects of the drugs more. I disagree. In Fear And Loathing yes, you can see the fucking dinosaurs (was there dinosaurs????) the main characters hallucinate but seriously, it wasn't as funny as my friend (of a friend) made it seem. Mostly it was just distressing, and almost boring. Well, in Trainspotting the characters just lie around when they are on heroin, but that is more realistic. That is what heroin does, and that's what it looks like. And the effect was described with words, because you can't obviously show it, but still it was done very finely. And if there's one thing I like about Trainspotting over Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, is that Trainspotting doesn't judge or moralise. I mean of course it shows everything bad about drugs, but the movie doesn't slap you in the face and scream how drugs are bad for you. It doesn't have to. it shows things as they are. But it also doesn't romanticise drug-abuse. I mean that kind of "neutrality" truly shows some skill.

I don't know who I should recommend Trainspotting. Even though in video rental place it was on 'classics' -shelf, it's more of a cult classic. Not everyone likes it, and it may be too harsh for some people. But I have a feeling people should watch Trainspotting, partly because of its reputation, partly because it truly is great. 

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

9 / 10

"We keep secrets from lots of people, including our self - and that we call forgetting."

While trying to steal a painting, Simon gets hit on his head. After that he can't remember where he hid the painting worth millions. A crime boss hires a hypno-therapist, to make Simon remember things that are forgotten.

I bought the movie on sale at a video rental place. I like going there, seeing movies that were previously "rental only" and then buy them. Anyway, Trance seemed interesting because... well for one thing McAvoy is one of my favourite actors. Secondly, I've heard people say good things about this movie. And thirdly, the plot seemed really interesting. It seemed somehow original. 

If I had to put this movie into a one category (not necessarily a genre) with other movies, Trance would belong to the same group with The Fountain and Slipstream. Trance is definitely not for someone, who only wants to watch a movie for fun. It needs concentrating and patience. Mostly because not concentrating might make you miss something. And being impatient may lead to giving up on the movie because so many things aren't explained. ... Yeah, but then again, who would want to see a movie with everything explained beforehand?

Music in Trance is also fantastic. Not necessarily a score someone would typically choose, but it works with not so typical storyline. The music was fantastic, and even though there wasn't lots of stuff happening all the time, it could be something little, but it was the music that made the atmosphere perfect. I count at least like three times they made scenes absolutely perfect and I just sat there like "Oh my god, this is the exact kind of movie I live for". Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Acting was also absolutely great. Not so many well-known actors, with the exception of James McAvoy and Rosario Dawson, who still aren't exactly actors everyone knows. But every casting choice was a spot on. No exaggerations, like hiring some super awesome hollywood stars, no. ... I'm not exactly sure what I meant by that.

But yeah, absolutely amazing movie. I recommend this to anyone who would want to see maybe a bit more complicated movie, that probably blows your mind.

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

10 / 10