It’s amazing what winning an assload of Academy Awards can do
for one’s respectability. A few years ago, Danny Boyle was struggling
to get people to see his science-fiction film Sunshine, but ever
since Slumdog Millionaire scored eight Oscars, the dude’s
getting offered more directing gigs than he can handle—not to
mention a double feature of two of his early films, 1994’s Shallow
Grave and 1996’s Trainspotting, this weekend at the
Northwest Film Center.
It’s great to have both of those films back on the big
screen—but even if you hit the Northwest Film Center’s Whitsell
Auditorium this weekend, you’ll likely want to rearrange your Netflix
queue to catch more of Boyle’s genre-defying work.
Trainspotting, arguably Boyle’s best, is still—just as
it was in ’96—sly and thrilling and terrifying and exhilarating.
Boyle’s solid first feature, the thriller Shallow Grave, has
more arthouse devotees, but it lacks the heady verve that characterizes
Boyle at his best—for that, you’ll have to revisit 2002’s badass
zombie flick 28 Days Later. Ignore the film’s goofy opening (in
which we find out that zombies are caused by grumpy monkeys) and focus
on Boyle’s nerve-wracking, post-apocalyptic London. In a similar vein,
Sunshine follows a stressed-out crew of astronauts who are sent
to reignite our dying sun; though it veers into slasher silliness for
its climax, it’s still pretty fantastic. And then there’s
Millions, Boyle’s 2004 film about two kids who find a giant sack
of money: It’s charming and enjoyable, and if your mom loved
Slumdog‘s feel-good finale, you should probably show her this
instead of Boyle’s movies about zombies and junkies.
As with any filmmaker who takes risks, Boyle has some duds: You can
avoid 1997’s clunky, ill-advised follow-up to Trainspotting, the
crime/romcom A Life Less Ordinary (more proof that Cameron Diaz
ruins everything!), and also the follow-up to that film, 2000’s
oft-derided Leonardo DiCaprio thriller The Beach. But other than
those? Hit the Whitsell this weekend, and then have at.
