DJANGO Unchained

Quentin motherfucking Tarantino.  I'm a huge fan and consider him among my favorite directors.  I've loved everything he's ever done (except for maybe Four Rooms), so whenever a new project of his surfaces I'm on board.  Like his previous effort Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained is a sort of revisionist historical piece.  Taking place during a pre-civil war Texas, Django (Jamie Foxx) is a newly freed slave, bought by the likes of Dr. Schultz played by the amazing Christoph Waltz.  He has the intention of using Django to help capture and kill some bounties, and they become partners in violent justice.  In return for his services, Schultz promises to reunite Django with his wife (Kerry Washington), who is a servant on the fourth worst plantation in Mississippi, run by Calvin Candie (Leonardo Dicaprio).

It's a considerably less "important" work than Inglourious Basterds, which even Tarantino outright said in the dialogue was his "masterpiece," but Django Unchained is still a ton of fun.  It's definitely Tarantino's funniest film yet, with the first half feeling almost like an outright comedy.  Waltz is on fire here, having fun being a good guy for a change, and is the best character in the movie by far.  Django himself is what you'd imagine him to be: the less vocal, Eastwood-type to offset Waltz.  DiCaprio also shines and is also having fun role reversing, playing the bad guy.  But one of the most interesting performances in the film, and one I did not see coming, was Samuel L Jackson playing Candie's right-hand slave man.  Whereas Candie is the equivalent to Waltz's Hans Landa in Basterds, Jackson is a slave who has worked his way into his owners good side, which means he has the most complex character decisions when it comes down to "choosing sides." 

The violence, a staple of Tarantino films, is bold and bloody.  It's fun when it needs to be and brutal when it needs to be; with the subject of slavery at hand, I think Django handles the issue really well and reminds us of the horrors of this historical reality much better than Basterds did with the Holocaust.  The anachronistic music works for the most part (now that I've grown more accustomed to it since Basterds), and it's just a fun ride.  The film suffers from "two ending" syndrome, and takes a bit of a nose dive (as did Pulp Fiction) when Tarantino decided to put himself in the movie, with the worst Australian accent I've ever heard no less, but the little things don't cancel out the big picture.  The checklist Tarantino fans have is fulfilled: great dialogue, crazy violence, and a badass soundtrack.  It may not be as iconic as the best Tarantino films, but it's a completely entertaining blaxploitation spaghetti western that only Quentin could have made.  

Rating: A-

This is 40, Jack Reacher

This is 40:

Judd Apatow's "semi-sequel" to Knocked Up stars Paul Rudd and Apatow's actual wife, Leslie Mann, as a married couple with two girls, coming to terms with their age and relationship.  Even though this falls prey to the same things that have plagued Apatow's other works, like self-indulgent "sweetness," I thought it made up for in laughs.

This is 40 feels kind of like a mess, like more of a rough cut than a polished finished film, but I found myself laughing more than I thought I would.  Paul Rudd is great, and the kids, who are also Apatow's real life children, were surprisingly good.  And for you fans of Bridesmaids out there, Melissa McCarthy, in her small one-scene role, is fucking hilarious.  If you thought she was funny before, you can see her go over-the-top (I'm pretty sure the crew just told her to "go there" and let her go unleashed).  The script was pretty so-so (it tries too hard to be an Albert Brooks movie, who coincidentally stars in the film as Rudd's father), but the cast elevates the material.  So yeah, its sickeningly sweet and "relatable," but is pretty damn funny.

Rating: B-

Jack Reacher:

Think what you want about the 'real life' Tom Cruise, but the man is an amazingly dedicated actor.  I mean, at the age of 50 he was hanging off of the world's tallest building in Ghost Protocol for our enjoyment.  I assumed Jack Reacher would yet again be a showcase of Cruise's ass-kickery, even if it would be as intelligently written as the carved racial slurs on a bathroom stall.  But no.  Although there are a few glimmers of hope, Jack Reacher is probably the most boring "action" movie all year.  First off, from what I've read online, the character in the books it's based off of is 250 lbs and 6'5" or something like that (too lazy to fact check); so the best guy to play this brute force is...Tom Cruise?!  As awesome as he is, he's a tiny elf-man.

The story begins with an actually well-handled wordless sequence where a sniper randomly picks off five people and drives away.  Reacher, an ex-military outside-the-law drifter, catches wind of the guy police have taken in and tries to get to the bottom of this mystery (for the crime is "too perfect" and someone else must be responsible).  Him and some DA chick band together to get the bad guys, among whom documentarian Werner Herzog plays a villain.  OK, on paper this sounds pretty good, but in execution you just don't care about anything.  It plays more like a badly made mature crime-caper than an outright action flick, and fails at having any sort of stakes.  There's no real reason to cheer on Reacher, because for one he's a drifter with no ties to anyone (his death means nothing), and the accused sniper, even though he didn't shoot these people, he admits to having killed innocent people before.  The whole thing felt cheap and stupid, with Richard Jenkins and Robert Duvall wasting their talents with a weak script.  Bleh.  There's a decent car chase scene somewhere in there though.

Rating: D

The Hurt Locker 2: Abbottabad Drift

Zero Dark Thirty is Kathryn Bigelow's follow-up to her award-sucking war film The Hurt Locker.  This film has been getting just as favorable reviews from seemingly all the critics in town, citing this as a masterpiece and claiming how brilliant Jessica Chastain is in this telling of the hunt for Osama bin Laden taken from supposed "first hand accounts."

I did really like the action in this film - Bigelow is great at putting you right in the middle of this world, and the eventual seizure of bin Laden's compound is handled magnificently.  Even though everyone knows the ending (hint: we killed bin Laden), I still felt my buttcheeks squeezing in tension during those scenes.  The controversial 'torture' scenes, which have been upsetting certain politicians, are indeed quite disturbing but feel truthful.  And Jessica Chastain, who has been on a roll recently with roles in The Help and Take Shelter, finally is given material where her fierce inner-woman can come alive.  She's the one member of the CIA who organized the whole plan to take down bin Laden, which is clearly what happened in real life.

My complaints are similar to those I had of Lincoln (and Argo for that matter).  Even though I enjoyed the action bits, and there's some great acting on display (including Jason Clarke, playing a guy who doesn't fuck around during interrogations), about two-thirds of the film is endless political jargon.  The characters get into the nitty-gritty of their jobs, and I found it impossible to pay attention at certain parts.  Maybe I'm just not nuanced enough, maybe it's from all my years of playing Call of Duty and losing my sensitization, but I just found it tough to sit through.  It's really "well done," and feels like an honest portrayal of this mission (despite the obvious changes for the theme of the movie) - if anything the assault of the compound is worth seeing it for - but this is most definitely another overrated film from critics.

Rating: C+

Rust and Bone, Any Day Now

Rust and Bone:

A couple limited release movies for you (they'll likely be available in DVD/download in the near future).  First up is Rust and Bone, a French language movie starring Marion Cotillard as an orca trainer who loses her legs in a horrible whale accident.  She falls in love with the equally faulted Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts), a bouncer/security guard/fighter whose heart is in the right place but often employs shitty behavior (like forgetting to pick up his 5 year old son at school while screwing a woman from the gym).  The film is a no-nonsense look at disability and at the romance that forms between both actors as they help fill in each other's emotional voids.

I rather enjoyed this picture, I have to say.  I wish the ending to the film felt more cohesive to the rest of the movie, but the performances were really strong and it was shot beautifully - pretty much what you'd want out of a drama like this.  And Cotillard is great at shedding a tear (if I remember it was four, four separate single-tear shots and each of them were dramatic).

Rating: B

Any Day Now:

You may recognize Alan Cumming from The Good Wife and a bunch of shitty movies like The Smurfs and Garfield (and not recognize him under heavy makeup as Nightcrawler from X2), but this is probably his first major "breakout" role.  Cumming and Garret Dillahunt play a gay couple trying to win the custody of a mentally handicapped boy whose mother was put in prison.  In this infuriating courtroom drama set in the late 70's they have to deal with biased, homophobic lawyers and judges and fight the injustice of the court system in order to live as a family and to give this child his only chance at a good life.

I really enjoyed this film as well.  Cumming can be hilarious at times (especially when he's working as a drag queen at the local gay bar), but puts a lot of power behind his character, in effect not making it seem like a pure stereotype.  They used an actual person with Down syndrome for the kid, and he actually was pretty good in the role.  The grittiness of the era was well captured, and the courtroom scenes really got to me with how corrupt everything is.  Those with working tear ducts might want to bring tissues.

Rating: B

Also, just wanted to share that at the screening I went to there was a Q&A with Alan Cumming afterwards.  Wasn't really the best Q&A I've ever seen, but he has apparently been doing them since May, so I can't blame him for being tired of answering questions.  The craziest bit of info he shared was at one time Sylvester Stallone was slated to play the lead.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Amount of Frames-per-second

Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy is unprecedented fantasy filmmaking.  We all thought he would leave Middle Earth behind (with Guillermo Del Toro originally slated to take his place), but he's back in the hobbit-hole to adapt the precursor to the 'rings' books, The Hobbit.  Jackson made headlines when he announced that he would be shooting the film using 48 frames-per-second; in a normal film, footage is shot using 24 frames-per-second, giving movies their "film" look.  In 48fps, things are more "life-like" and action is cleaner (without blurred motion), and Jackson promised that this was the future of filmmaking.  Well fuck that, because I thought it was way too jarring and distracted from the movie.  I hardly got used to it and I'd have rather gone to a regular screening.  But with that gripe out of the way, I think The Hobbit is as charming and adventurous as its source material, with some structural problems that keep it from being amazing.

Jackson's decision to split The Hobbit into three films (and the sheer fact that this is a prequel) makes An Unexpected Journey fall a little on the "light side."  As strange as it is, even though the plot moves at a glacial pace, the film is PACKED with shit (it's as if he released the "extended cut" to theaters).  Goblins, orcs, elves, big-ass wolves, you name it.  There's a lot of spectacle on display and everything looks great (and sounds great, with Howard Shore returning as composer).  But some of the plot feels inconsequential, and the dwarves feel more like those of Snow White than Lord of the Rings. Granted, the actual book was more geared towards children, but following up LotR, it doesn't have that same edge.  Also, the humor that works on the page rarely translates, and there were a lot of awkward lines.

I was definitely entertained by it, but The Hobbit had a strange tone to it and its great sequences (such as Bilbo's riddle game with Gollum) were more episodic and don't add up to a solid whole.  I do like that Bilbo actually did have a character arc within the film, but I think it doesn't stand well on its own.  There were quite a few elements added that were not in the book (not being a big Tolkien reader, they may be explained in his other works) that I felt added very little to the story.  It's fun if you ignore the problems, but personally I think Jackson overstayed his welcome in this franchise.

Rating: B

Hitchcock, Flight, Killing Them Softly

I just farted out these reviews; sorry they aren't more detailed or exciting -- but the year is ending and soon I'll be posting lists of things!  So look forward to that.  

Hitchcock:

When the first pictures leaked out of Anthony Hopkins dressed up in full Hitchcock attire, it was pretty exciting.  When I found out that Sacha Gervasi would be directing the film, the guy who directed one of my all-time favorite documentaries Anvil: The Story of Anvil, I got even more excited.  Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most brilliant and rightfully famous directors of all-time, and to see his story be put to screen would have to give audiences a good understanding of the man as a true artist.  Hitchcock (the film) fails to do that and ends up as something I'm sure the master himself would despise.

Hitchcock is supposedly about the making of Psycho, yet we hardly ever see the brilliance and artistry that went into the picture; the film spends most of its running time showing the relationship between Hitchcock and his wife (Helen Mirren) as a potential affair looms between her and writing partner  Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston).  The actual making of Psycho seems to have just happened around Hitchcock without much effort, and the team of people that helped make the film a classic, including Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh, are there simply for name-dropping and the subject for jokes.

Sure it has its moments of quaint little Hitch-isms that display his morbid sense of humor, but Hitchcock fails at being a serious look at a serious artist.  It panders to the audience with a very broad sense of the man, and does not at all feel written for adults.

Rating: C-


Flight:

Robert Zemeckis is finally back to directing live action movies after his decade-long stint making creepy motion-capture animated films like The Polar Express and Beowulf.  Flight features Denzel Washington as a pilot with a drug and alcohol problem.  During a particular flight while experiencing a mechanical error, he safely lands the plane with a skilled maneuver despite his condition.  The film shows Washington dealing with his addiction and impending court trail.

I've heard mixed things about Flight, but I found it highly enjoyable.  Although the film is different than what it's advertised to be (it's not so much a mystery of a malfunctioning plane as a pure Denzel Washington acting piece), I thought the film was handled pretty well, despite not being anywhere as good as most other Zemeckis films.  I thought Bruce Greenwood and Don Cheadle, playing Whip's friend and attorney respectively, had some of the best bits. John Goodman and Melissa Leo were solid as well in their limited roles.  This was a pretty standard drama; it doesn't break any new ground in filmmaking, but it's a solid acting piece and there are a few really well-handled sequences (one being the big plane crash scene).  I probably would have rather seen the movie about the intricacies of a plane crash, but it's never a bad thing to see Denzel do his thing.

Rating: B-


Killing Them Softly:

Andrew Dominik's third film is a (very) low-key crime drama featuring some familiar faces like Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, and Richard Jenkins playing characters involved (or were involved) in the world of crime.  The film beats you over the head with its political messages, with every TV, radio, or billboard blaring loudly with speeches from Obama or George W. Bush.  Dominik really wants to drive home the comparison between criminals and capitalism, but what should have been subtext is just text.  There are some really great sequences in this film, such as a tense robbery being committed by under-prepared thugs, but mostly it featured just two characters sitting across from each other, going on and on about their plan(s).  Honestly I found myself dozing off for certain sequences - it was just boring.  Clearly Dominik is a talented filmmaker, which makes this muddled mess even more confusing.

It's not without its moments, and Ray Liotta is great in his brief screen-time, but the constant use of "subtext" and long drawn out dialogue sequences make it tough to sit through.  And on a side note, this has been the least successful Brad Pitt movie in almost 19 years, earning a measly $7 million.

Rating: C

Anna Karenina, The Sessions

Anna Karenina:

I am definitely not the target demographic for this film.  Usually these period romance pieces are not my cup of tea, but I was a big fan of Joe Wright's Atonement and last year's Hanna (which managed to squeeze into my top ten) so I wanted to check it out.  For those who aren't versed in the world of classic literature, Anna Karenina is an adaptation of a famous Russian novel from 1877 about a woman committing adultery.  That's pretty much it in a nutshell.  She falls for this strapping young lad, cheats on her husband, and a bunch of posh english phrases like "exquisite" and "charming" are thrown around for a couple hours.

Of course I'm over simplifying it, but it was just a slog to sit through.  On a technical level the film was brilliant, and the life that director Joe Wright, the set designers, the costume people, etc brought into it was pretty breathtaking.  But that was the problem: I was more interested to see the next cool camera move or the next big luscious setpiece than I was about ANY of the characters.  Maybe I'm just not cultured enough to appreciate the story, but it was hard to 'buy' even the affair between Kiera Knightley and Aaron Johnson's character.  I can't help it, but every time I see Aaron Johnson I think of his "loser-ish" role in Kick Ass, so it did not fit in my imagination that he was some steamy icon of masculinity that Kiera Knightley would be willing to sacrifice her reputation over.  I just didn't care, I wasn't invested, and to top it all off the theater I saw it in was filled with old people who kept clearing their throats throughout the movie.  AUAGGHUUGH.  AUGUH.  AUGH.  AGH.  A. - 10 mins later - AUGHUH.  Then repeat for the whole film.  Wasn't my thing, but if you like this sort of stuff, go for it.

Rating: C+

The Sessions:

John Hawkes has been popping up a lot lately, most noticeably in Winter's Bone and Martha Marcy May Marlene as typically creepy characters.  But here he plays possibly the most sympathetic character you're likely to see this year; he plays real life poet Mark O'Brien, a Christian paralyzed from the neck down who spent his adult life in an iron lung.  This is the story of how he dealt with his sexuality by means of a sex therapist (played by Helen Hunt) and spiritual advice from a pretty liberal priest (William H. Macy).

Now I'm not sure how much of this translates into "real life," but parts of this must be fictional.  Some of the things that happen in this movie are just...I just think it's pushing the boundaries of possibility.  But that really doesn't hurt the film at all, in fact despite that tightrope of decency it's walking, it stays on track for most of the film (lets face it, sex with a handicapped person is a touchy subject).  The three main actors are all at their respective top games and it's funny and heartfelt throughout.  It's easy to see why this won the Audience Award at Sundance; it's that feel-good-but-still-shed-a-tear type of movie.

Rating: B+