Friday, February 20, 2009
Ghettodawg Chamillionaire
This latest offering from Danny Boyle is a visual feast. Set in gritty West Baltimore, the protagonist Jamaal comes of age during the crack epidemic of the early nineties. The director is unflinching in showing Jamaal's horrific childhood lived in sumptuously saturated shots of dilapidated brownstones, boarded doors, and urinated alleys. An 8 year old Jamaal fleeing the projects while his parents are being slaughtered by a rival gang, or Jamaal being subject to unspeakable sexual indignities during his time at a foster home-- Danny Boyle almost makes us squirm in our plush seats. But virtuoso that he is, the scenes are shot at a rapid clip and set to pulsating hip-hop beats that are synchronously lively and pop-menacing
Particularly magical and joyous are the scenes where Jamaal and his brother, after finding their way to New York City, manage to reinvent themselves as guides, picking up an impeccable east coast preppie accent in the process.
Oh Danny Boyle! An utterly unlettered black kid from West Baltimore donning an east coast preppie accent? You never fail to amaze!
The movie skirts surreality at all times and heartily indulges in the buffet of caviar battered fried chicken and magical realism when Jamaal manages to find his way into Regis Philbin's hot seat while working as a mortgage repackager at Fannie Mae. In a deliciously inspired sequence of lucky strokes, the questions asked of Jamaal resonate soundly with memories from his absent-childhood. Jamaal instantly recognizes Richard Wagner as the composer of The Ride of the Valkyries as that was the ringtone the drug dealers he worked with set up as a code on their burners.
And so, the movie titillates, pleases, pleasures, in ways so desperately sought in these uncertain economic times. As I gushingly committed my trembling pen and fluttering heart to pen an ecstatic review, the theater jived and grooved to the song sequence in the closing titles. Without giving too much away, I will add that Soulja Boy, High School Musical, and Miley Cyrus combine swimmingly well!
Siiigh ¶ 12:27 AM
Particularly magical and joyous are the scenes where Jamaal and his brother, after finding their way to New York City, manage to reinvent themselves as guides, picking up an impeccable east coast preppie accent in the process.
Oh Danny Boyle! An utterly unlettered black kid from West Baltimore donning an east coast preppie accent? You never fail to amaze!
The movie skirts surreality at all times and heartily indulges in the buffet of caviar battered fried chicken and magical realism when Jamaal manages to find his way into Regis Philbin's hot seat while working as a mortgage repackager at Fannie Mae. In a deliciously inspired sequence of lucky strokes, the questions asked of Jamaal resonate soundly with memories from his absent-childhood. Jamaal instantly recognizes Richard Wagner as the composer of The Ride of the Valkyries as that was the ringtone the drug dealers he worked with set up as a code on their burners.
And so, the movie titillates, pleases, pleasures, in ways so desperately sought in these uncertain economic times. As I gushingly committed my trembling pen and fluttering heart to pen an ecstatic review, the theater jived and grooved to the song sequence in the closing titles. Without giving too much away, I will add that Soulja Boy, High School Musical, and Miley Cyrus combine swimmingly well!
Siiigh ¶ 12:27 AM
