Django Unchained

I remember on my first day of film school, one of my teachers asked me what I wanted to be in the
industry. When I replied that I wanted to be a director, he preceded to ask me who was my favourite. I said Tarantino, because like most young filmmakers my age, he was one of the people who inspired me to get into film. He then started to mock me for being inspired by a man who was incapable of being original and someone who stole scenes from other films. In my own naive way I thought this to be true, but as I saw more and more films by other directors I realised that everyone makes homages to their favourite films and filmmakers. But it isn't until now that I feel fully vindicated. Of course after my dressing down in front of the class, my newfound friends all told me they liked Tarantino as well. So, the reason for my vindication, you might ask, is Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. And that is because this movie is a movie that covers such a controversial, heart wrenching topic that affects the majority of the population of the US.

The movie follows the story of the titular Django (Jamie Foxx), who is sought out by the cunning bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) to help in discover the whereabouts of three of his targets, in return Django will earn his freedom. As they move on and Dr. Schultz trains Django as his protege and they embark on numerous bounties, we find out that Django's wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), was sold to someone different to Django as punishment for running away. Dr. Schultz agrees to help Django find his bride. She is being held at Candyland and her master is the downright evil Calvin Candie (Leo DiCaprio), a francophile who doesn't speak a word of French. Dr. Schultz and Django concoct a master plan to get Broomhilda to safety and the film ends in classic Tarantino style (going into any further depth on the plot would just be unfair).

Tarantino has said that there is something for everyone to hate in this film and I have never heard a truer statement. Whether it be the stylised but gratuitous violence, the overuse of one of the worst racial slurs one can utter (although in the context of 1858, that overuse is understandable) or the graphic depiction of the punishment of slaves (which is the one that wrenched at me) there really is something for everyone to wince at.

Also there is not a single weak performance in this movie. Everyone is exemplary. Jamie Foxx should win an award, any award for his performance. Django is a sympathetic character who you hope everything comes good for. I haven't seen Christoph Waltz in anything since his depiction of sadistic SS Colonel Hans Landa in Tarantino's previous effort Inglorious Basterds. Dr. King Schultz couldn't be further away from Landa. Even though he is in effect a glorified assassin, he is still a friendly and affable character, that's of course if you're not one of his targets. The stunning Kerry Washington is unfathomably fantastic as Broomhilda. She is obviously loved a lot by Django and in return she loves him in equal amount. One of the scenes which disturbed me most involved her being released from a hotbox, which I can only imagine was a punishment for slaves in that time.

And then on the other side of the coin we have the heinously evil Calvin Candie and his manservant, Stephen, played respectively by Leo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson. DiCaprio's performance as such a despicable character renders him so completely unnoticeable from any of his previous roles. There is one scene where he smashes a glass with his hand and suffers quite a bad cut, but the character keeps going. Sam Jackson is just as excellent as the devious Stephen, who orders the slaves around like he is their master. There are also a huge number of cameos by respected actors from around the globe, but they are too numerous to mention one by one.

Verdict: This film is an epic sprawling across the southern states. It is also classic Tarantino and probably the best film of his career. A must-see.

Hitchcock

I am convinced that someone has built and is using a time machine. My evidence for this wild allegation is the movie Hitchcock. They must have gone back to 1960 and convinced Alfred Hitchcock to get in some odd shaped car and act in a film about the making of his most famous movie Psycho. It's either that or Anthony Hopkins is the best celebrity impersonator ever (or close enough until you hear the legendary Ralph Garman). Either of these ideas work for me.

The story behind Psycho was an amazing one. His last film North by Northwest was a huge success. But Alfred dreams of his younger days, when he and his wife Alma (Helen Mirren) were making experimental movies and pushing the boundaries of can and can't be shown on the silver screen. He is under contract for one more picture with Paramount. So in the search for the inspiration for his next movie, Hitchcock comes across Robert Bloch's novel Psycho. It is about the owner of a mysterious motel who murders most of the young female guests who enters it's doors. Hitch, as he is known in this movie, is smitten with the story, he has found the film that will push the envelope in many ways. However, he cannot get anyone to finance it. So, in a turn that makes me to consider him one of the original indie filmmakers, he mortgages his house and tightens his bootstraps to make one of the most ambitious films of his career. Ambitious only because the head of the US censor board (That 70s Show's Kurtwood Smith) finds the film to be abhorrent. So through the ups and downs of the production he finally is able to make a rough cut that is satisfactory, although it isn't any good.

Meanwhile, Alma finds herself drifting away from Alfred and wishes to pursue her own projects. She starts work on an adaption of her friends new novel. She works on this for a considerable amount of time before realising it is unadaptable. This is just about the time when Hitch finds that he needs to re-edit his rough cut and Alma comes to the rescue. They spend a considerable amount of time in the editing room and end up coming out with a masterpiece. This time round the film is much more to Hitch's expectations, although only two theatres agree to show it, so they must rely on word of mouth. Luckily for them it is a success with the audience.

The cast in this movie is great. Anthony Hopkins, as I said earlier was a dead ringer for the master of suspense, and Helen Mirren were perfect as always. But they real joy of the cast is in the supporting roles. Scarlett Johansson is perfect as Janet Leigh (also known as Jamie Lee Curtis' mum, something I only recently discovered), the leading lady made famous by the iconic shower scene. Another doppelganger in this movie was James D'Arcy as Anthony Perkins, who plays the eponymous psycho. This guy was so convincing as Perkins, he had all the nervousness of the actor and character down-pat. Also a surprising supporting role came from a highly unrecognisable Toni Collette as Hitch's assistant. Jessica Biel also gets a bit part as Vera Miles, Hitch's former leading lady.

There are some interesting "dream" sequences in which Hitch's experience making this film is likened to that of the story Ed Gein, the serial killer caught two years prior to the making of the film and the model behind the character of Norman Bates. Here his played by Michael Wincott (we all remember him from Alien: Resurrection, surely).

Verdict: I found this movie to wonderfully enjoyable. I love Psycho and I find it to be terrifying (it's 52 years old as well). I also like to see movies about how Hollywood worked in it's golden age and this is no exception. Look out for a great reference to his next film, The Birds.

Classic Movie Review: Detroit Rock City (1999)

Detroit Rock City is  rocking romp about four teenagers trying to see the titular 1978 KISS concert. It is chock full of references to 70s pop culture and the soundtrack blasts out tracks from late 70s/early 80s rock and disco.

The four guys are Jam, Hawk, Lex and Trip and for years they have been trying to see KISS in concert and this time around they aren't letting anything get in the way of seeing one the band's most memorable concerts, whether that be Jam's Christian crusading mother (Lin Shaye of Something About Mary fame) or the fact that they have no tickets. But luckily one of the guys wins tickets to the concert in a radio contest and the guys go off on their journey to Detroit, rescuing Jam from a boarding school and getting into a fight with some guidos (male disco fans in this films parlance) along the way. One of the stellas (a female disco fan) gets a ride with the guys to city.

The guys reach the city, only to find out that they didn't win the tickets due to Trip's incompetence. So the guys go their separate ways to try and get into the concert. Hawk tries to get money to buy a ticket of a scalper by entering a male stripper contest hosted by pornstar Ron Jeremy, but instead ends up whoring himself out two Gene Simmons' long time girlfriend Shannon Tweed. Lex, who had his car stolen, decides to try to sneak into the concert only to get caught and thrown into a car yard which holds his car and the girl who they picked up on the highway (played by American Pie's Natasha Lyonne).

Trip decides to steal some tickets from some defenceless kid, who ends up has an older tougher brother, and ends up getting beaten up and his wallet stolen. However, he does save the day at the local convenience store when it is held up. Using a 70s icon, a Stretch Armstrong, he is able to trick the gunman into thinking he has his own weapon. Jam doesn't even get to come up with a plan, because lo and behold, his mother's church group (Mother's Against The Music Of Kiss) is campaigning against the concert. He is whisked away by his mother and ordered to go to confession, where he reunites with his high school crush. Jam also ends up standing up to his domineering mother.

Just before the concert the guys reunite outside Cobo Hall, the venue of the classic concert. They are at a loss and despondent and are about to give up when they try a new plan where they beat each other and hope that they will be able to convince the ushers at the door that someone beat them up and stole their tickets. As they tell the ushers this, Trip sees the group who stole his wallet and accuse them of beating him up and stealing their tickets. This works and they end up seeing the concert.

So this movie is just one fantastic romp through a 70s music environment. Speaking of music, this movie's soundtrack is in perfect sync with the film's events, such as Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak, when they are breaking Jam out his boarding school.

The two performances that stick out to me are from Terminator 2's Edward Furlong (Hawk) and Jungle2Jungle's Sam Huntington (Jam). They are both really fantastic in their roles. It is also worth noting that KISS member Gene Simmons was behind this movie and thanks to him we now having a greatly entertaining musically driven comedy.

Verdict: This movie is a lot of fun and highly quotable, one of my favourite lines is shouted by Jam through a loudhailer at his mother's protest (I just lost my virginity in a confessional booth, Lord have mercy). I was introduced to this movie by my brother when I was 14 and it shaped my music tastes for many years afterwards. Definitely worth a watch.

Classic Movie Reviews

To keep myself going between new release reviews and to keep you guys entertained/educated I have decided to start doing some reviews of classic movies. They might not be classics in the general sense, but hopefully they will encourage people to see movies outside their own comfort zone. In these reviews I'm not going to assign the films a rating out of ten as some of them may be many years old and people may have their own views on these films. Also I like all the movies I'm going to review, so it would be a little bit bias. So maybe they aren't reviews as much as appreciations.

Gangster Squad

Gangster movies have long been a staple of my movie diet. Since a young age I have enjoyed movies such as Goodfellas, Scarface, Reservoir Dogs and countless other crime flicks. I have always been drawn in by the glamour of the lives that these men lead, but I have also taken away the message of these movies, that although you may have a great life it never ends well. And boy, doesn't it end badly for Mickey Cohen, the main bad guy in Gangster Squad. It seems to me that whenever a something is set in 1940s LA, the go to bad guy is Mickey Cohen. He has been featured in everything from film, books and even video games.

Gangster Squad is the story behind the crusade to bring down real life LA kingpin Cohen, played perfectly and ruthlessly by a stellar Sean Penn. Josh Brolin's John O'Mara is charged to put together an outfit to bring down Cohen, who's been running LA for years. The team is quickly assembled and they have to work outside the law to bring down Cohen, because he has most of LA's cops in his pocket. They destroy racket after racket to flush out Cohen, which eventuates in a classic hotel shootout, but it is one we have seen a million times.

Josh Brolin is excellent as the crusading cop and this is the first movie that I've seen with him since the Coen Brother's True Grit, but the stars that everyone has come to see in this are Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. It's no secret that I am in love with Emma Stone, every guy who has seen her feels the same way, but her casting in this feels like nothing more than a marketing ploy. Everyone loved her and  Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love, but she didn't get enough screen time for me to make a meaningful connection to the character and although she's no ditzy blonde, she seemed like she was only there as motivation for Gosling's character. Although I am a huge fan of Ryan Gosling (he should have won some award for Drive and I am immensely looking forward to The Place Beyond The Pines), he seems like he should stick to being the indie hero that he is. When he stars in these big budget movies I feel as though he doesn't get to be the actor that he can be when you see him in indie films.

Sean Penn's Cohen reminded me a lot of the character he played in Colors and although he played a rookie cop in gangland LA in that one, I couldn't help getting the feeling that he was channeling the motivations he had as that character all those years ago. Of course the real life Cohen didn't share the same fate as Sean Penn did in this movie. Like many of those gangsters all that time ago, he was put away for tax evasion.

For me the real star of this movie was the city of LA. Ruben Fleischer (the director) put together a stunning recreation of the city in the 40s. Now I have to say I am a huge fan of this time period. It was the golden age of Hollywood, jazz music was on the rise, art deco was what everyone wanted. This movie really does do that justice.

Ruben Fleischer, however, maybe wasn't the best choice of director. His previous two films were Zombieland and 30 Minutes or Less, two comedies that both featured Jessie Eisenberg. They are both hilarious movies and this film is by no means a comedy. There was a few jokes early on that were played highly upon, but I felt that they weren't all that necessary.

The action in this movie is stylised and you could read how most of the gunfights were going to play out on their predetermined course. The car chase in the old Cadillacs was a highlight though.

Verdict: This movie is full of the same old cliches and archetypes of the 40s LA gangster film. There were some good performances and the city looked amazing, but in the end it was a film that I won't stick with me too long.

Life of Pi

First off, this movie did not need to be in 3D. 3D is for the kind of movies that I like, Piranha, Bait, Texas Chainsaw (which I hear is doing wonders in the US box office). This movie relies heavily on it's themes and story, which are superbly told. The story is basically the early life of a young Indian teen, who gets lost at sea when the freighter that is transporting his family and all the zoo animals that they own, mysteriously sinks and Pi, short for Piscine, is set adrift in a life boat with a Bengal tiger.

So I better start by talking about how good this movie looks, even without the 3D. Ang Lee, along with cinematographer Claudio Miranda, have put together an extremely beautiful film, which is a seamless blend of live-action and CGI effects and quite honestly I found it difficult to see the distinction between the two at times. The added effect of the 3D made the visuals pop, but once again they were capable of this on their own. Only once did the 3D get to me and that was a shot in the opening credits, where a slightly too long focus pull made the background blur for a period of time that was quite unnecessary.

Ang Lee also did a great job with a small cast and, for the majority of the film it seems, a room covered completely in green. But as amazing as the visuals are, the real star is the struggle that Pi has with confronting his beliefs about God. Early on in the film, we learn that he has adopted three religions of Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. Through the course of the film, he finds that all three of those belief systems have aided him in a certain way throughout his life. There is also a scene during a storm where he confronts God. This reminded me of Forrest Gump, where LT. Dan did the exact same thing.

Another theme in this movie is that all life is is a series of encounters with various people and that when they come to an end, the best thing is being able to say goodbye to whoever that person may be. The impact of that idea hit me quite hard and it is something I am going to be able to take with me.

Verdict: Not only is this film visually spectacular, but it also has a deep and powerful message, that leaves you warm inside. I know it's way to early to say, but it might be my favourite film of the year.

Jack Reacher

Jack Reacher. My first movie of the new year. At the moment all I can say about it is that it was interesting. Having never read any of the books that the character is from, I didn't really have any frame of reference. I saw this movie with my uncle who is the total opposite and has read every one of the titular character's books.

I guess the first thing I should talk about is Tom Cruise. I myself have never been opposed to the man, in fact I find him to be an excellent actor. I know it's going back a few years, but his turn in Rain Man was really good and very emotionally driven. In many of his film roles since, I've found him to be quite adventurous in the roles that he picks. So in this film, I went in expecting a usual Tom Cruise experience and I wasn't disappointed.

Before I go on to the other cast members, I guess I should talk a little about the plot. The film opens to a   sniper opening fire on a street full of civilians in Pittsburgh, which I recognised from the "amazing" Taylor Lautner action flick Abduction, which is great if you want a snooze. I found this scene to be quite emotionally jarring, as you see the people running from the gunfire to no avail. The gunman then gets caught and instead of confessing his crime he asks the DA and leading detective to get Jack Reacher, who we find out is a ghost who doesn't want to be found (but at the same time comes out of hiding as this happens). As a result of the negligence of the DA, played by the masterful Richard Jenkins, the gunman ends up in a coma. Now it's up to Jack Reacher to seemingly solve the crime and keep the gunman of death row.

Now on to the casting. As I said, Tom Cruise is a great actor and when he is on screen he can do no wrong in my eyes, but I remember prior to this movie coming out, fans were up in arms about this casting. Now it's no secret that Tom Cruise is the tallest guy in Hollywood, but he isn't the shortest (that honour goes to Danny DeVito) and apparently the character is 6'7". But by using movie magic, you wouldn't be able to tell otherwise. Techniques such as not having anyone else in the frame with your actor work, as well as shooting from a low angle or having him sit down also work as well. There is only one scene where he stands in the middle of a group of people, in which the apple box would have been used.

The rest of the cast is also superb. Richard Jenkins as the DA was an excellent choice. The only other movie I have seen with him in was the Cabin in the Woods, which we all know was a horror masterpiece. Rosamund Pike, who plays the defence attorney of the gunman and Richard Jenkins' daughter, was spectacular. She was gracefully subtle, but I do find that she always has a look of surprise on her face.

David Oyelowo was captivating as the detective who is trying to chase down Reacher, as is Aussie Jai Courtney, who plays the sniper trying to get rid of Reacher for the bad guys. A couple of cameos by Robert Duvall and Werner Herzog were also surprising.

The action set pieces in this film are good, but not the best for a film of this genre. The one piece that I did like was a car chase through the streets of Pittsburgh. I've always had the utmost respect for stunt drivers and I know how difficult their job can be at times. This one had a lot of crashes because apparently Reacher is the best driver in the world.

The cinematography in this film was stunning and there was an angle in the aforementioned chase sequence where a camera was on the hood of the car shooting the reaction of the driver as well as the vehicles behind. There was some issues with the sound mix that I picked up on, but nothing to noticeable. I also found the second act to drag on just a bit too long.

Verdict: The action set pieces are amazing and it had an intriguing story. Visually it was amazing and it had some good casting choices.

2013: The Year of the Movie

Hi Everyone,

This year I have set myself a goal to see 56 must see movies that come out this year. My reason for doing this is because last year I didn't see to many many movies and since I consider myself a movie buff, I consider this to be pretty poor. So what I am going to do is write a small review every time is see something on my list. So here it is in no particular order.

• Jack Reacher
• Life of Pi
• Gangster Squad
• Hitchcock
• Django Unchained
• Silver Linings Playbook
• Zero Dark Thirty
• Lincoln
• The Paperboy
• The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
• OZ: The Great and Powerful
• A Good Day to Die Hard
• Stoker
• Oblivion
• Warm Bodies
• Bullet To The Head
• Iron Man 3
• Identity Thief
• The Place Beyond The Pines
• Star Trek Into Darkness
• The Great Gatsby
• Fast and Furious 6
• After Earth
• Now You See Me
• A Glimpse Inside The Mind Of Charles Swan III
• Monsters University
• World War Z
• Man of Steel
• The Company You Keep
• The Internship
• The Lone Ranger
• Pacific Rim
• The Wolverine
• RED 2
• This Is The End
• Kick-Ass 2
• Elysium
• Pain & Gain
• R.I.P.D.
• Gravity
• Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
• Oldboy
• Malavita
• The World's End
• Ender's Game
• Thor: The Dark World
• Jack Ryan
• Anchorman 2
• The Hangover Part III
• Grown Ups 2
• The To-Do List
• Runner Runner
• Delivery Man
• Captain Philips
• Movie 43

I know its a hell of a list, but that is one of my many goals of the year. So stay tuned for some reviews to come.