Film review - Django Unchained

After the disappointment of Inglorious Basterds, I wasn’t really looking forward to seeing Tarantino’s latest offering, so I suppose I can no longer call myself The World’s Biggest Tarantino Fan™. I needn’t have worried, though, as Django Unchained avoids (almost) all of the ridiculous, poorly-judged moments of Basterds and is a thoroughly entertaining epic with a poetic script. It also manages to depict slavery in a more interesting and (I can’t quite say accurate, so I’ll say…) appropriate way than one might expect.

The setting is the Deep South in the 1850s. Verbose German bounty hunter Dr King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) buys a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) because he can recognise the faces of three wanted men. Django quickly shows natural flair for the bounty hunting business, so the two partner up to kill the South’s worst offenders and to rescue Django’s beloved wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington).

Quentin’s script is detailed, funny and shows his brilliant use of language. He is most famous for his chats about American popular culture, and in Inglorious Basterds these became chats about German cinema of the 1930s. As this is his first film set before the moving image, he has had to forego all that, making Django Unchained feel a little less referential and arch than his other films.

Instead we have the wonderful Christoph Waltz rat-a-tat-tatting through line after line of flowery prose. His character really is the best thing about this film – a charming, cunning murderer with morals. Why he is nominated again for best supporting actor rather than full actor, I do not know. Foxx’s Django is a tower of quiet strength, and he is impressive in the role, but Waltz is on screen just as much and has a lot more to say.

Perhaps the most surprising performance comes from Samuel L. Jackson, who is almost unrecognisable as an elderly house slave. He’s the one who should have been nominated for best supporting actor. The part is quite small but crucial, and asks uncomfortable questions. And he plays it exquisitely.

Slavery is an issue that is hardly explored in cinema. Apart from a few worthy films that focus on it, it is generally glossed over in tales of the Old South, or just given a gentle nod to make sure we know the filmmakers are aware of it. Here it is integral to the plot, but it isn’t the plot alone. And it is shown to be brutal in the extreme – Tarantino isn’t taking the subject lightly, as Spike Lee presumed without seeing the film. Although he is often accused of making violence seem fun, the violence inflicted on the slaves is that other type of Tarantino violence – shocking, real and deeply unsettling.

Unfortunately, the film does go downhill a bit at the end. After a wonderful build-up of tension we get a lot of silly shootouts. These go on for too long and aren’t as beautiful, or cool as any of the sequences in Kill Bill, and instead are a bit jokey. Of course the redemptive aspect to the violence is nice, but if it was done in a more majestic way, it would have been the ending the film deserved.

Which brings me to the one truly stupid bit of the movie. A scene which took me completely out of the story and made me truly despair of my favourite director. It is the scene close to the end in which he plays an Australian ranch hand.

An Australian.

In 1850s Mississippi.

I’m not going to take cheap shots at Tarantino’s acting ability (I actually like him in From Dusk Till Dawn and Pulp Fiction), but it isn’t even a good Australian accent.

Some switch must have flipped in Quentin’s head in 2008, and he can no longer tell when an idea is good or hideously embarrassing. This is why he is playing an Australian here, and why the whole scene with Mike Myers in Inglorious Basterds exists. If he had been walking this tightrope in 1994, one step to the left and he’d have had Jules and Vincent whacking each other over the head like the Three Stooges before bringing Brett breakfast.

So, if you ignore that bit, Django Unchained is a very enjoyable cinema experience. It does not reach the majestic highs of a few scenes in Inglorious Basterds, but it doesn’t sink to that film’s lows either. There are no truly great Tarantino moments, but this is mature filmmaking with only a smattering of self-indulgent childishness.  

Film review - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I am not a Lord of the Rings fan. Kevin Smith got it right when he described them as “three movies about walking to a fucking volcano”. So I was not looking forward to ruining another three Christmases in a row with Peter Jackson’s new endurance tests. Yet somehow I quite enjoyed The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Maybe it was because Cate Blanchett’s celestial droning was kept to a bare minimum. Maybe it was because Martin Freeman got to use Tim from The Office’s “Really?” face in a scene with Gollum. Maybe it was because I feel more kindly to Peter Jackson after watching West of Memphis. Whatever the reason, I wasn’t bored half to death.

The film tells the first part of Bilbo Baggins’s epic adventure helping the dwarves of Erebor regain their kingdom from the fearsome dragon Smaug. All the great effects, scenery and cinematography from the Lord of the Ring films are here again, and the cast give good performances. I particularly enjoyed the scenes with Sylvester McCoy’s Radagast the Brown (I believe these did not appear in the original book, so I risk the wrath of Tolkien geeks by saying that).

My problem with LOTR was not that they were bad films, just that they went on and on and on. If you are mesmerised by this universe, you want as much detail as possible and every incident from the books to be shown on screen. If you are not, it can be quite punishing. The Hobbit is a lot lighter in tone, reflecting its origin as a children’s book. Here you get the quality from LOTR with added fun.

Yes some scenes could probably have been shortened, and yes I am concerned about how another two films are going to be strung out of this one, reasonably short, book. But I will not roll my eyes when my family suggest seeing The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug next Christmas. I might even be the one to suggest it.

Film review - Pitch Perfect

When I saw the trailer for Pitch Perfect, I got all excited. Though it is transparently a Glee rip off, it looked funny and bitchy and it stars Anna Kendrick (little miss actressy actress who is so amazing in 50/50 and Up In the Air – I love her!), Rebel Wilson (the strangely-Australian one in Bridesmaids – I love her!) and Adam DeVine (writer/creator/star of Workaholics, my new favourite stoner comedy series – I love him!). I even did a happy little dance in my cinema seat when it ended.

I should have quit while I was ahead.

This really is one of those films where the only good bits are in the trailer. The full-length cinema cut of Pitch Perfect contains exactly 27% of the wit of a season one Glee episode (which is equal to 43% of the wit of a season three episode).

The film follows college freshman Beca (Kendrick) as she is forced to join the uptight Barden Bellas a cappella singing group.  Now, Beca takes her music seriously, and doesn’t like the Bellas’ attitude and dreary, out-of-touch song choices. Can the Bellas change their image with the help of Beca and win Nationals? I think they just might.

My problem with Pitch Perfect isn’t that it is predictable, or even that it is silly (though it is both these things). My problems are:

1. Beca is extremely unlikeable, moping around for no reason and being horrible to everyone around her because she is “artistic” and “deep”. She is supposed to be cool and have a serious taste in music, but she seems to like only David Guetta and La Roux, neither of whom are cool. Someone must have explained contemporary music wrongly to the screenwriter.
2. Almost all of the humour fell flat for me because the director just didn’t get me onto his side. Vomit slapstick is not my favourite comedy style, but it seems to really tickle director Jason Moore. And the film also makes fun of Asian people much more than you would expect for a mainstream comedy from whatever-we-decide-to-call-this-decade (the Teens?). Usually I try to give people the benefit of the doubt about things like this, but it seemed mean-spirited and lazy in this case. 
3. A lot of Beca’s romance storyline is predicated on you believing that The Breakfast Club has the best ending in cinema history. And that you could understand why from watching just the ending without seeing the rest of the film. And that characters who were born in approximately 1993 could ever think these things. 

While there are some funny moments and lines (mostly from Rebel Wilson), this is a waste of a lot of talented people’s time.