New on DVD: City of Slumdog Millionaire Gods

Out on shelves today, it's City of -- oops, I'm sorry, I got last year's Best Picture winner confused with this film:

(NSFC -- Not Safe for Chickens)


But hey, at least I'm not the first one to make the comparison. Guess it's easy to confuse a film that's set in a non-American slum and opens in the present day before flashing back years to a scene where the protagonist is failing at playing sports with ... another film that's set in a non-American slum and opens in the present day before flashing back years to a scene where the protagonist is failing at playing sports.

(Deep breath ...)

Anyway, not to Jai on Slumdog's Ho (that sounds dirty) -- and not to insinuate that the more recent flick is a total ripoff (the tones clearly are different) -- but it's unfortunate that the lesser of these two has been immortalized by the Academy while the other ... well, it had some pretty tough Oscar competition back in '03, so we'll let that slide.

My point is, dude, here's my point: If you're in the mood for something that's more than a simple fairy-tale love story*, try the darker, edgier Cidade de Deus (City of God).

*... that doesn't make much sense. Why, again, was Jamal so in love with Latika? I must have been texting while the characters explained that part.

If not, Slumdog's fine. It looks good, sounds good, and is exciting enough. But that love story ... I'll bet you it's no accident that the final frames of this clip came not from the movie that won the big award.

Los Abrazos Rotos (A note on Almodóvar)

Aided slightly by Google Translator:

No tengo ni idea de qué se trata esta película. También, sólo he visto una y un tercio de las películas de Almodóvar. Pero, estoy un poco excitado de ...



(Back to English) Which brings up the whole Pedro Almodóvar thing. Previous incarnations of The Film Official were averse to subtitles, so many great foreign films from years past got passed over. Then we (I; the royal we) happened upon this one accidentally, and everything changed.

Which brought us (me), recently, to Hable con ella*, the Oscar-winning 2002 film that starred two guys and two comatose women and had one of the most bizarre/original scenes imaginable (and one that's so NSFW I won't even remotely link to it). The plot, the dialogue, the characters -- OK, so they weren't quite as original as that one scene, but they were close, which placed Hable con ella alongside a number of great '02 releases.

*Literally: "Talk with her," but for some reason translated to "Talk To Her" for English crowds.

Subsequently I caught the first 45 minutes of Volver, the 2006 film that netted Penélope Cruz her first Oscar nomination. Intriguing stuff; hoping to see the rest soon. Then Los Abrazos Rotos ("Broken Embraces"). Then maybe, belatedly, I can take up residence in Almodóvarlandia.