Millions

"Millions" (Danny Boyle, 2004) One of those ones I missed in the theater, and one I deeply regret. It's a little gem of a movie Boyle made between his zombie-film "28 Days Later" and this year's sci-fi film "Sunshine," about a saint-obsessed child who finds a large duffel-bag of pound notes, seemingly from heaven, in the days before the change-over to the Euro. His older brother uses it to gain influence in his new school quickly becoming BMOC (Dad, a recent widower, has just moved his family to a new development by the train-tracks), but Damian wants to give it to the poor. He is visited by numerous saints to guide him along on his spiritual quest (and quite perkily announces their names and birth to death dates and how they died at each arrival). It's a highly charming movie, while avoiding the usual cute kid cliches, and maintaining a quite sophisticated tone of drama and off-the-wall comedy. That was a trick even Disney found hard to pull off. It gets a very high recommendation from me. **

** Dan "The Man" told me a funny story about Danny Boyle at our last visit. He went to see a preview of "Millions" and there was a Q & A with Boyle afterwards. After the obligatory three questions about video cameras from techies and director-wannabes, Dan stood up and asked, "Mr. Boyle, as a recovering Catholic, do you have a love-hate relationship with your success, and do you feel redeemed?" This question so flummoxed Boyle that he couldn't answer and couldn't focus on anything else, ending the Q & A. I would liked to have heard the answer, frankly.