Slumdog Gagillionaire

OK, quick one for you all today on a non-baseball topic. Me and the wife saw "Slumdog Millionaire" last night. Great flick, not going to take that away from it.

BUT... best picture of the year, really? In my opinion, "Milk" was a far superior film, and yet the movie hardly gets mentioned as a realistic contender.

I'd put "Frost/Nixon" in the same category. I've speculated, however, that "Frost/Nixon" may be subject to the same reservations people have about giving Rookie of the Year honors to Japanese players who have lengthy resumes in their homelands.

I can see the argument. In some sense, "Frost/Nixon" the movie is a cinematic representation of a theater production (which I never saw, and my girlfriend regularly informs me was terrific). Every camera trick (or most anyway) is some adaptation of the theater production. I don't know if this is really a discredit to the film, but it's a question.

I haven't seen "The Reader", but I found myself slightly disappointed by "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". To me the love story was a bit of a non-starter; Benjamin pined for a woman who hardly seemed to give a damn about him, then all of a sudden she's in love with him.

The movie it's most compared to, "Forrest Gump", had a similar love story narrative, but you could always see the underlying tenderness between Jenny and the Gump Man. In "Button" I didn't quite see it.

That all said, I'd say it like this. If you can only see one of the best picture nominees before the Oscars, see "Milk". If you love American history, see "Frost/Nixon". If you want to see a bunch of Indian people doing a sweet dance at the end, see "Slumdog". If you have three hours to burn, see "Button". And if you want to be more worldly than the Glass Man, see "The Reader".

But hey, I'm no movie critic.

- A.F.O.M.G.