ERIC NAZARIAN'S "DIE LIKE A MAN" RESTORES MY FAITH IN GOING TO THE MOVIES

This Wednesday night I was at Chi Spacca restaurant on the Mozza Korner when a diner, going from the bathroom back to his table, bumped into me and quickly apologized with a “I’m so sorry. I am really sorry.”

My first thought was it wasn’t that much of a bump to warrant being that sorry.  A few seconds later, the wine guy Daniel Kfoury asked me “Do you know who bumped into you?” No, I told him. “That was Dev Patel. Ya know, Slumdog Millionaire.”

That immediately brought a very pleasant memory. It was in November, 2008 when Nancy and I went to the Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood and saw a movie we had never even heard of called Slumdog Millionaire. We zero idea what it was about and I can’t remember why we chose it. But to this day, the mention of Slumdog Millionaire brings us the joy of going to the movies.

A minute or so after that sweet remembrance, I felt, kinda strangely, there was a reason Dev Patel bumped into me. About six hours earlier I had walked into the Million Dollar Theater on Broadway near 3rd Street in downtown L.A., paid my twenty, and watched a movie called “Die Like a Man”.

As I watched this riveting, powerful, magnificently acted film, I was trying to determine, to enunciate to myself what was it about this movie that struck me so. I couldn’t quite understand why I was so enthralled until Dev Patel bumped into me. I suddenly realized I had not been in a movie theater and been so moved, so impressed, so concerned about the characters in Die Like a Man since i watched Slumdog Millionaire almost 17 years ago.

Yeah. Die Like a Man, henceforth known her as DLAM, was that good. And as a disclaimer, the way Jonathan Gold would rave about a Nancy restaurant then admit she was a family fiend, I’ll say I’ll say the writer and director of DLAM, Eric Nazarian, is a good friend.

I, clearly, am no movie critic. The only other movie I ever wrote about was “Midnight Cowboy” - another rave - for my Gardena High School newspaper way back when. Still, I gotta at least mention these actors in DLAM. Miguel Angel Garcia is the star, playing 17-year-old Freddy. His love Luna is played by Mariel Molino. His moms is Bernice Valle. His gang/father figure is Cory Hardrict. Cesar Garcia is Boxer. And Frankie Loyal, who plays Freddy’s mom’s boyfriend was so good the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences should create a new Academy Award called “Best Performance in Two Scenes.”

I had been in a movie going slump, but Die Like a Man brought the magic of going to the movies back for me. It’s not playing much longer at the theaters, but it is coming out I think this weekend on streaming on Apple TV+ and some others.