Ceremony Year (2009)

Movies Came Out In (2008)

Winner:

Slumdog Millionaire – The plot is pretty interesting, in that an Indian teenager in Mumbai gets to be on India’s version of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”. Through life’s circumstance, he knows the answers to the quiz show’s questions, and is accused of being a cheater. I like this film but I didn’t think it was great like I had heard when the film first came out. Worth watching, but don’t set your expectations at full throttle.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – The plot is interesting in that a man ages backwards through life and has a lot of strange circumstances happen. My biggest complaint: The length of the film. At almost 3 hours long, it was far longer than it needed to be to tell the same story. I still think it’s worth watching, but have the time set aside for a full viewing.

Frost/Nixon – Good movie, not great.  It’s the true story of David Frost’s TV interview of Richard Nixon after Watergate. Interesting topic matter and told in a pretty unique way. I think middle/high schoolers should watch to get a sense of the situation and sign of the times in the mid-70’s.  Not exactly action packed, but kept my interest.

Milk – What a fantastic film.  I did not see this when it originally came out, and now wish I had.  Brilliant acting, true story (Harvey Milk’s rise in politics as an openly gay man and activist), powerful, emotional and important.  Highly recommend it.

The Reader – A lot of emotions in this movie, sadness, anger, creepiness, but absolutely no humor (like not even one line to chuckle about).  It was a strange movie, bizarre premise (after WWII, a nurse has to defend herself against war crime charges), not a true story.  It was “okay”, I would never watch it again and probably wouldn’t not recommend to others to watch it.

Brian’s Winner:

Milk

#BrianWatchesOscarMovies

#2008

Ceremony Year (2009) – Movies Came Out In (2008)