Django Unchained review

                 It has been said that filmmakers essentially make the same film over and over their entire career, in an attempt to perfect an approach to their obsessions. Tarantino has stated that he is deeply influenced by the Italian Spaghetti-Western director Sergio Leone and that “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” is his all-time favorite movie. Though he has worked in many different genres—and many combinations of which they derive—one can see a through-line of the Spaghetti-Western revenge-movie archetype in almost every single one of his outputs.  
                “Django Unchained” is Tarantino’s latest film and his first period western, complete with horses and hats and the rest of it. The story centers around a freed slave named Django (Jamie Fox) who teams up with a German gun-for-hire, disguised as a vagabond dentist, named Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Together they travel the pre-civil war south to find and save Django’s slave wife, who is being held against her will by a plantation owner named Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). On the way, they run into many other outlandish characters and take on southern racism with a fervent righteousness and genuine bloodlust.

                Fans of Tarantino will feel like they got what they paid for with this film. It’s brutal, vicious, sardonic, and sometimes quite clever. His ear for fast dialogue is still in tune and his stand-offs, shoot-outs and set-pieces are just as well shot and cathartically satisfying as they were in “Reservoir Dogs” and “Kill Bill”. The performances he gets from his cast are always interesting and memorable, particularly DiCaprio who seems to be enjoying himself as the comically pathetic villain. Unfortunately all of these praises have to come with a somewhat-deflating ‘but’.

                 Throughout the film we never really get a clear attachment to our hero’s journey because Django is the least interesting and least developed character in the entire movie. Jamie Foxx does well enough in his role, but he doesn’t command the same kind of screen presence that Clint Eastwood did as the quietly dangerous Man With no Name. Instead, what was probably written and acted to a character of mystery comes off as frustratingly vague; especially since every other character around him is so large and specifically drawn. Though some complain that this movie is too long—and that is certainly a valid complaint—had it spent a little more time on getting to understand  Django’s pathos, it might have actually felt shorter.

                While this is easily one of Tarantino’s funniest scripts, it’s also one of his jokiest. If you have the stomach for this movies particular brand of dark humor then you should laugh plenty. However, it seems like an awful lot of scenes are really only set up to deliver a coming punch-line and oftentimes the dialogue between characters feels less like biting satire and more like flippant sarcasm. Whereas the comedy of his earlier films always came from a nervous energy or truthful tension built within the scene, in this film it is never quite as naturally delivered.

                Though there is enough to keep you immersed in this film I feel like it doesn’t really satisfy past its base interests. Like “Inglourious Basterds”, “Django Unchained” turns well-documented history into exploitable genre opportunities for Quentin to play around in. His cinematic talents and his ability to entertain are always apparent but his films have become less and less challenging as he has aged. This is by far his most conventional, and most linear movie yet and his approach to the (shall we say) touchy subject matter seems alarmingly detached and disingenuous. 

                The good news is I can’t call this a bad movie because too many things about it are so well executed and it's so much fun to watch. But even as large chunks of it are firing on all cylinders, those moments don’t conceal the cracks in its thematic infrastructure.

Grade: B-

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Dec-2012

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey review

                 In 2001 when Peter Jackson released “Fellowship of the Ring”, the fantasy genre (for better or worse) was forever changed. The scale and scope of his ambitious trilogy was something that was never approached before, and while those films aren’t without their flaws or issues, they managed to pull-off a massive exercise in keeping momentum and quality with millions of variables stacked against it. Despite having a no-breaks shooting schedule, a screenplay that was being typed as the production was moved along, and new visual effects that had never been very well tested, the entire trilogy was nominated for several Oscars, and continually broke box-office records.  Now, eight year later, with new CGI event-films coming out monthly and released in a year of many box-office record breakers, can Jackson’s return to middle earth still satisfy his long awaiting fans?

                 It was decided early on that this story would be split into three separate movies, even though it originates from the shortest of Tolkien’s novels. In this first-third of the book, entitled “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”, we are introduced to a younger Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman)—60 years before the events of “Fellowship”—as he is roped into an adventure by the wizard Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellan).  His job is to accompany a tribe of wandering Dwarves as a thief, as they plan to steal back their treasure and their home from a dragon named Smog.  On the way, they run into trolls, elves, and Orcs in long action set-pieces, filled with digital effects of varying effectiveness. 

                Because this film is also directed by Peter Jackson and because it’s based on similar source material, this falls very much in line with the style and look of the previous trilogy. However, because this is a smaller story, with lower stakes, originally meant to be much shorter and lighter than “Lord of the Rings”, this film seems to strain and grind a bit within its green-screen adaptation.  The screenplay seems to be unnecessarily front-heavy and incidental minor conflicts from the book are stretched out to give the plot a stronger arc. Sometimes this results in a movie that feels too long…and it is.

                The visual effects are impressive at times and middle earth (aka New Zealand) looks just as majestic as it ever has. But one can’t help but notice how the advancement of digital effects through the years has adversely affected this film.  Meant to be shown in 3D, with a newfangled high-def frame-rate (only fully experienced in limited IMAX), the animated characters don’t have the same grit and weight as they did eight years ago. They may be more expressive and idiosyncratic than they once were, but a lot of times the CGI just looks less believable. In fact, it seems that less practical effects are used in general. Most of the time this isn’t a problem for the film as a whole, but it is a curious distraction.  However, if you want to know the true meaning of distraction, read reviews by those who were able to see this projected in its intended frame-rate—word on the street; it looks weird.

                While I was eyeing my watch from time to time, and while I wasn’t as overwhelmed as I had previously been by Jackson’s Rings movies, I still feel like he understands fantasy in a way very few directors do. He knows when to make something bombastic, when to make something funny and how to respectfully honor a narrative setting that is essentially silly in premise. The character work is strong and occasionally the movie reminds you of how fun it can be, but unfortunately it’s only a piece of a story and ultimately that’s how it feels.

Grade: B-

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Dec-2012

Playing for Keeps review

                You know that one scene, used in many movies, where an ATM or a slot machine has broken and begins to spit out hundreds of dollars or pour out unwarranted tokens at a rapid rate? This is the image that was conjured in my mind whilst enduring “Playing For Keeps”, the latest in a long line of terrible romantic comedies starring Gerard Butler. But instead of a cash machine or anything else that would belong in a fulfilling fantasy, I was struck with the notion of Hollywood’s cliché machine, malfunctioning and uncontrollably vomiting out conflicting bad-movie ideas.

                It shouldn’t be to anyone’s surprise that the state of the American romantic-comedy has been in retrograde for quite some time—and I say this of a supporter of the genre. However, this movie in particular seems to find new lows by trying to jam square-shaped plot-devices into round shaped, narrative voids.

                George (Gerard Butler) is a once professional, Scottish soccer hooligan who has since run into a stream of bad luck. Now divorced from his wife (Jessica Biel), he is forced to live jobless, struggling for rent in America, where he can share custody of his son. When he decides to coach his kid’s junior soccer team for money, he begins to attract the lascivious attentions of all of the cougar moms at practice (Judy Greer, Catherine Zeta-Jones). He also decides to make friends with a sleazy and rich team supporter (Denis Quaid) but has to make sure that the camera men that follow his wife (Uma Thurman) don’t capture any suspicious looking activity when she sporadically throws herself at him. Meanwhile, he still has to find a way to get a better job as a sportscaster, win the approval of his distant son, who is getting used to his mother’s new boyfriend, and hopefully win back the affections of his wife, with whom he still has feelings for… Let the dry-heaving begin.

                Nothing works in this movie and that is almost the most fascinating thing about it. While many rom-coms are overly sappy and sometimes broad, this movie is just downright perplexing. Every scene is setting a new tone and switching the intentions of its characters and the plot. Is it a father-son bonding film about divorce, is it a raunchy sex-comedy, is it an underdog story about a man trying to prove his self-worth, or is it weepy drama about reconnecting with your long-lost love? It’s none of the above because it can’t commit to any of them. Literally, you could go to the bathroom halfway through and come back in the middle of a completely different movie.

                Gerard Butler is handsome and charming enough, but in this he just comes off as creepy and/or wishy-washy. Quaid seems to be channeling a manic Nicolas Cage with a load of unchecked, overacting energy from mars. Also, the usually-talented female cast is completely wasted, as this is yet another “chick-flick” that noticeably hates women. Every female character in this movie is portrayed as flighty, desperate, conniving, controlling, or just plain mean.  

                Ironically, “Playing For Keeps” does anything but that. I would say that it has no truth of its convictions but the truth is it doesn’t have any convictions. Each mechanical contrivance seems to cancel out the next and what you are left with is a grotesque Frankenstein of a film. This is one of the most confused and mishandled movies made this year and I truly despised every moment of it.

Grade: F 

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Dec-2012

Killing Them Softly review

                Generally speaking, most gangster movies are designed to romanticize the criminal lifestyle. As you may recall from earlier this year, in my review for “Lawless” I stated that gangster movies are wish fulfillment fantasies that parody the capitalist ideals of the American dream. But what if there isn’t an American dream anymore? What if the capitalist ideal has failed? In lieu of our recent economic disaster, how does it affect the gangster genre?  With his second film “Killing Them Softly”, Director Andrew Dominik--who has previously brought us the art-western-biopic, “The Assassination of Jesse James”--presents a particularly bleak vision of the world of crime, where even the criminals aren’t left with much to steal.

                Crucially, Dominik sets this film in 2008, during the point in American politics when our economy had officially collapsed, just as we were transitioning from Bush to Obama, and the words hope and change were being thrown around a lot.  This is referenced all throughout the film, as every radio and television is tuned to news reports about the weakened state of Wall Street, election debates, and now-famous victory speeches.  Though the general plot of the film has nothing to do with these events, Dominik constantly juxtaposes these political sound-bites with stock genre moments as they occur.

                The actual plot itself is rather simple. Two low-level criminals (Scoot McNairy and Ben Mendelson) decide to rob a local gambling ring, knowing that the first finger to be pointed will be at the organizer of the game (Ray Liotta), who has bragged about stealing from his own ring once before.  Not long after, a world-weary mercenary (Brad Pitt) is called in by the wise guys in charge.  One of which (James Gandolfini) is held up; drunk in a shoddy hotel room, after his wife has just kicked him out.

                Not only does this movie tell you that crime doesn’t pay, it tells you that crime doesn’t pay very well. Nobody is dressed to the gills, no scene takes place in a fancy Italian restaurant, and nobody seems to be having a very good time.  The vision that Dominik creates here, is one of the gangster lifestyle as a frustrating, nine to five job. Though the heavy-handed messaging may come off as a bit on-the-nose and overly persistent, I feel as though this is (just barely) excused by a very well delivered final monologue from Brad Pitt, who gives another effortless, yet nuanced portrayal. 

                All of the performances are exceptional. In casting Liotta and Gandolfini, Dominik immediately evokes their fictional criminal pasts from “Goodfellas” and HBO’s long-running series, “The Sopranos”, only to subvert those preconceptions with this film, by showing them as weak, whiny, and ineffectual. What is at odds with the naturalistic acting--and with the movie as a whole, to some extent-- is the overly flowery, overly present, dialogue. Because the movie is aiming for a grounded reality, when the characters are mopey and complaining, I was on board, but when they are trying to be funny or clever, it never really rings as true.

                Basically this is a film that doesn’t want to wow you or win you over, and for most people it probably won’t. It gives you the violent, gangster goods, but it gets all that meaty genre stuff out of the way, in favor for giving you the thematic veggies. Though I was never sure while watching it, I think I liked “Killing Them Softly”. I think I liked that it was kind of boring, and I think I liked that the characters talked a lot but never really say much. Concurrently, even if the themes are beaten within an inch of the movies life, I think liked that it at least had something to say.  

Grade: B - 

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Dec-2012

Life of Pi review

               Religion is a tough thing to base the entire thesis of your film on because unfortunately, most people have very strong feelings on the subject, and they aren’t very keen to the idea of having those inclinations challenged.  Usually when a film tries to cross cultural boundaries and find the happy medium, the theological themes become muddled and its attempt can seem half-hearted or sheepish, resulting in a kind of generic, Hallmark greeting card spirituality. “Life of Pi”, the new film by the always interesting—if not a tad inconstant—Chinese director Ang Lee, tries explicitly to discuss religion and spirituality among all faiths (including atheism) and uncharacteristically, it treats each distinct idea as the absolute truth.

                Based on a well-regarded, bestselling novel of the same name, “Life of Pi” tells the survival story of a young Indian boy named Pi. While still a child, he converts from Hindu to Catholicism, and later he converts again to Muslim. Though with every new religion, he never gives up his old deities. Rather, he simply adds new ones to his pantheon. Because his father is the proud owner of a local zoo, when he decides to move his family from India to Canada, they are forced to travel by sea with all of the animals. However, when the ship sinks and Pi tragically loses his family, he awakes to find himself on a life boat, stranded in the ocean with a wounded zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a very large Bengal tiger.   

                It should be noted that Ang Lee has always been a director who is just as fascinated with story as he is his visuals. From “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, to his moody (and much-maligned) version of “The Hulk” in 2003, to the sprawling love story of “Brokeback Mountain”, he always brings a completely original visual design to the story, that sets the film into the atmospheric environment of the characters emotional and mental state.  With this film he embraces 3D for the first time, and instead of using it as a gimmick, he aims to create a painterly dreamscape, where he never lets the audience stay in familiar visual territory.

                As I have mentioned before, the spiritual themes of this movie are overt, as are its cultural reference points. When Pi talks about Jesus, he means the Jesus. When he prays to Krishna and Mohamed, he worships them with the same sincerity. To some extent, this movie is talking about religious tolerance and finding the common ground in worship, but at the same time the story isn’t afraid to call out the contradictions in Pi’s philosophy or challenge the whole basis of theology all together.

                As it pertains to the survival of the young protagonist, “Life of Pi” is an unusual film, and its internal battle regarding spirituality in the face of multiculturalism, is just as interesting as it can be frustrating for those who might insist that a solid choice should be made.  The movie’s strengths are its ambiguities and its abstractions. So, where the movie unfortunately loses some traction is in a ham-fisted narrative framing-device, where a skeptic journalist, who is interviewing the older Pi as he tells story, has to reiterate and interpret the symbolism back to the less patient members of the audience.  

                “Life of Pi” is a well-intentioned, mainstream meditation on life, the universe, and everything.  And as such, for the most part, it does its job well. I like that it doesn’t apologize for its convictions and it’s honest about its conflictions.  But if you can’t be bothered with its big-ideas, it’s still pretty to look at, and it presents an all-aged audience with a fairly original take on the well-worn, man vs. nature, survival-genre.

Grade: B 

Originally published by the Idaho State Journal/Dec-2012