TIFF 2008 Day 4

$5 a Day
Road trip flick of a cheapskate father who claims he can live on $5 a day, and the son trying to make a normal life for himself. Christopher Walken is both madcap and genius in his role, and there’s great onscreen chemistry between the characters. Good plot, could have benefited from being shot in anything but 16 mm like it was. 8.5/10

Director Nigel Cole

Sunshine Barry and the Disco Worms
Think “Hairspray” except with worms and disco. Overly simplistic plot leaves not much for the adults. Animation could have been state of the art in 1995; no textures, no bumpmaps, you could see polygon outlines on curved edges, and no anti-aliasing was done. And the selection of disco songs (which is supposed to draw in nostalgic adults) could have been much better. Unless you have 5 year old children, don’t bother with this one. The only good thing about it was the clever ways they made the limbless worms do things… such as dance like John Travolta. 4/10

Director Thomas Borch Nielsen

Afterwards
Think a dramatic instead of thriller version of “Dead Zone”. Good plot and Evangeline Lilly is always nice to watch on screen, but I really disliked the performance of lead actor Romain Duris (Frenchmen really don’t know how to swear properly). 7/10

Director Gilles Bourdos

Romain Duris and Evangeline Lilly

Slumdog Millionaire
This film first came to my attention from the title. At first I thought the film was about me, but I didn’t notice any cameras, so I read on. Once I saw this was a Danny Boyle film, of course I had to see it. Based on the novel “Q&A”, a low class, uneducated man is on the Indian version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”, and is doing unexpectedly well. As each question passes by, we find out how this man knows the answers from his impoverished and sometimes brutal childhood on the streets of Mumbai. This film is brilliant in all respects: directing, cinematography, acting, story. Highly original story, cohesive screenplay (apparently the book was more a collection of stories that didn’t have much relation to one another), excellent performances by all the actors including the children, superb cinematography, and an emotional roller coaster ride. The audience gave the movie a standing ovation at its conclusion. Run, don’t walk, to see this film. 10/10

Sidebar: Apparently two of the child actors were actual slumdogs from Mumbai. Since the film, they have been sent to school and have been given incentives to stay in school until the age of 16.

TIFF artistic director Noah Cowan and Director Danny Boyle

Costume designer Suttirat Anne Larlarb, Danny Boyle, and Freida Pinto

Danny Boyle, Frida Pinto, Dev Patel, screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, and a producer

Rained quite a bit today, so I didn’t get a chance to whip out my camera on the streets much. However we did stumble across a free concert in front of the Much Music building (anyone know who this is?)

And a shot in front of the MTV building