topaz

I got a pass to see a screening tonight of Millions, the new movie from Danny Boyle (director of Trainspotting, Shallow Grave and 28 Days Later), so

inseriatim went with me to see it at Boston Common.

The movie was a lot of fun. It was sweet without being mawkish. Some parts of it seemed kind of flawed to me, but on the whole I thought it was really imaginative and spirited. I recommend it!

As the credits started to roll and people applauded, the house lights abruptly came up and the credits went off. Then a couple of schlumpy-looking guys came up and I noticed there were a couple of chairs at the front of the auditorium.

One of the schlumpy-looking guys introduced himself as a film critic from the Boston Globe. (I don't think it was Ty Burr, but it could have been.) He thanked everyone for coming to the screening and said that it was a great privilege to be able to introduce the director of the movie for a question-and-answer session. That was when I realized that the other schlumpy-looking guy, standing about five feet from me, must be Danny Boyle!

So he talked a bit about making this movie, about taking a break from "drugs and sex and guns and zombies, though we're going to get back to that, I promise." During the Q and A I observed that the movie took an irreverent approach to religious matters (one of the characters imagines holding conversations with saints, one of whom lights a joint and another mutters "for Christ's sake") in a way that American filmmakers find difficult to do without drawing controversy, and asked if he had difficulty getting the movie made in the U.K. That gave him an opening that he seemed to want to explain how it was important to him to portray the saints as ordinary, down-to-earth people, and their mild profanity was an important part of that portrayal. And no, no one apparently blinked an eye at it. :-)

Danny Boyle answering my question!

I was not at all expecting to be able to discuss the movie with the director. That alone made it worth staying in town late during one of the worst snowstorms of the year. :-)