Week of January 16 thru January 22 (Mann)

What's On At the Tropic
by Phil Mann

I'm going to try to refrain from talking excessively about the media tsunami of awards, all building up to the Academy Award ceremony in Hollywood. But I can't resist noting that SLUMDOG MILLIONARE, which swept the Golden Globes (Best Dramatic Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Score) is playing at the Tropic right now. I've been pushing the movie for several weeks now. Listen up! This is an incredibly original film, a fairy tale of young love layered on top of a harsh story of life in the slums of Mumbai, and is not to be missed.

Also, while we're on the subject you might mark your calendars for the Tropic's annual Oscar gala, with its own Key West red carpet special added to the full broadcast from Hollywood. More info to come, but hold the date: Sunday, February 22 from 7:00 until it ends.

Opening this week is DEFIANCE, another of this season’s hot films. This is another in the spate of Nazi movies we’ve been seeing, but unlike Valkyrie which featured both good and bad Germans, Defiance shows hardly any Teutonic figures except in a few battle scenes. The characters who populate this movie are a group of Polish-Jewish resistance fighters who escape from the ghetto to the forest, fight off attempts at capture, and manage to hide out for the duration of the war. Starring Daniel Craig (James Bond), it’s based on the true story of the Bielski brothers who are credited with saving over 1,000 people. Both Valkyrie and Defiance explore aspects of internal resistance to the Nazi regime, by dissident German officers and upstart Jewish partisans, respectively. Neither film is especially subtle, but both are stirring tales of good against evil.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is the Tropic’s answer to Twilight. That’s right, it’s a vampire movie. Thirteen-year-old Oskar is a victim of bullies, until a new girl moves in next door. She’s strange, because she’s a .... you got it. Do yourself a favor and check out the reviews of this Swedish movie. It’s “a spectacularly moving and elegant movie” (Washington Post), “one of the great horror films of recent years” (Portland Oregonian) and “a magnificent film” (FilmThreat Weekly). At the Tropic for one week only.

This coming week the world's best sailors will be in town for Acura Key West Race Week, and the Tropic will join the action with a special screening of the Disney-produced MORNING LIGHT. This gorgeously photographed documentary follows a team of young sailors, selected in an American Idol-like competition, as they attempt to win the 2000+ mile TransPac ocean race from California to Hawaii. It's a wild ride, just right for all the sailors in town, both domestic and imported. One show only on Wednesday at 8:30pm. Tickets are only $10, and it's a fund raiser for Shake-A-Leg, the Miami-based organization that provides watersports training for kids and handicapped adults.

Full details and schedules at TropicCinema.com. Comments to pmann99@gmail.com

See you at the Tropic!

[from Key West, the Newspaper - www.kwtn.com]