Month: January 2013

The last of the movies to come out on Christmas for me to review, Django Unchained is unlike really any other.

It isn’t random holiday fluff, and it isn’t based off of previous work/book/musical. Sure, there was the movie series Django. But those stories aren’t at all related, all it is is a name share.

But outside of that, you know its a Tarantino movie, so you know, there will be blood.

Along with stylish threads, and stylish walks.

Django (Jamie Foxx) is a slave. A slave walking through Texas. He had a history, hell, he had a wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). Too bad she got sold to another plantation owner, who knows where.

But as luck would have it, a man has freed him from his bondage. Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a bounty hunter and former dentist. He is looking for a group of brothers who have gone on the run, changed their name, and he knows that Django knows what they look at.

So of course he will help him out! Killing white people for money, what could be better? Obviously. Not to mention if he helps him out, he can get cash, and find out where his wife is. Because we have all seen the preview, we know she is with Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), and under the watchful eye of her owner and head slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson).

And in this movie, the hammer is an actual hammer, and not his penis.

I think I can say, universally, that Django Unchained basically is firing on all cylinders. It was a classic Tarantino movie, despite being his first western. It had it all. Dramatic tension, thanks to a few scenes between DiCaprio/Waltz, comedy, action, and a lot of gunfights.

This is now the third movie I have seen Waltz in and I love his character so much. The high level charisma and witty dialogue will make the long movie length fly by in an instant. Foxx, despite the main character, does a lot less of the talking, which makes sense given his position and role he has to play.

Despite not showing up until the second half of the movie, once DiCaprio and Jackson hit the scene, they make their presence known and make it count. There is a specific scene in question where DiCaprio accidentally cuts himself by breaking a glass, but doesn’t break character making it all the more intense.

Really, this movie is just a great movie. The “controversy” over word choice isn’t a controversy at all, it is just Spike Lee being a jack ass.

In addition to that, you not only see breasteses, but also a penis. Pretty sure though that a stunt cock was needed.

I don’t wanna sound queer or nothin’, but…

Three major movies came out on Christmas Day in theaters, but they all cannot be winners. Parental Guidance reminds us of that fact. Normally reserved for movies with a little bit more umph, Parental Guidance is the other side of movies, the family friendly bunch. Apparently, families sometimes go out to see movies on Christmas. Guess there is only so much bonding time you can allow between the presents and food eating before you snap.

“Alright fuck it, you kids put away your new toys! Time to watch a movie!”

I honestly think I wrote the intro to this review in my sleep. Does it make any sense?

Artie Decker (Billy Crystal) talks a lot, and for a good reason. He is a baseball announcer, has been most of his life, just for minor league teams. Just one day, one day, maybe he will work for the San Francisco Giants. But not if he goes and get fired for not being tech savvy enough. Whoops. His wife (Bette Midler) tries to be supportive, but eh, life sucks.

Speaking of life sucks, their only daughter Alice (Marisa Tomei) has three kids of her own, an overachieving oldest daughter, Harper (Bailee Madison), a younger son Turner (Joshua Rush) with a stutter, and a little boy Barker (Kyle Harrison Breitkopf) who ha imaginary friends and is overly hyper. But her husband (Tom Everett Scott) is a smart one, and he made a smart house after many many years. He is even winning an award, gets to go to some place in California for it. A nice vacation for the two of them, but all these kids and responsibilities…

Oh no, the only people are available are her parents! Their old fashioned life style can’t possibly interact with the new way of raising children, all sugar free, never saying negative things, letting them eat and dress themselves, technology enabled, never losing, and full of derp.

Frankly, I think she deserves this for wearing such an awkward looting sweater dress.

I think I tried hard to not have a bias going into this movie, but the movie sure did its best to strengthen the bias. I should note that Billy Crystal didn’t suck in this movie, after all, he is Billy Fucking Crystal. His character provided laughs and made the film a bit better than horse shit. I think that is what the director was counting on though.

The problem is that every time some good moments almost seemed to go together to make it a decent scene or moment, the film pace changed to crash it into a head palm moment. Not in the “Oh great, now the kids are back and annoying” or anything. Just certain decisions were pretty damn annoying.

Best non Billy Crystal part? Gedde Watanabe was in the movie. Here is one of his great scenes from UHF.

Audiences rejoice! There is finally a Les Miserables movie! Alright, so personally I haven’t been waiting a long time, just a year max. I mostly was excited about the cast! I like musicals, but never really heard the music in this one. I did give the 25th Anniversary soundtrack a listen a few times, just to be familiar with the songs, but I had no idea what was happening plot wise.

But apparently Hugh Jackman gets to sport a killer beard.

The plot? It is anything but simple. The main plot line is about Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), Prisoner 24601, getting paroled after 19 years in a post revolution France. What did he do? Stole a bit of bread. Sucks. Either way, he breaks the parole after turning his life around for God, hoping to be a better man. But breaking the parole is a another crime, meaning he must be on the run his whole life from Officer Javert (Russell Crowe) who follows the law to the letter, regardless of circumstances.

There are however many more plotlines, including the fall of a factory worker, Fantine (Anne Hathaway), into prostitution, in order to provide money for her daughter Cosette (eventually Amanda Seyfried). Well, Jean Valjean agrees to look after the daughter, but has to remain on the run. Eventually it is the 1832 Paris Uprising, which adds in a love story between Cosette, Marius (Eddie Redmayne), a freedom fighter, and Eponine (Samantha Barks). Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter provide comic relief as innkeepers/beggers, and Aaron Tveit as the leader of the student revolution.

Eddie Redmayne. Turns out he has a decent singing voice, despite not even knowing who the heck he was before this movie.

Alright, so I rushed through the plot to talk about the actual movie. Interestingly enough, the music in the movie was not done off set with the actors miming like most musicals, but sung during the shoots and recorded that way. You know, like an actual theatrical musical! It really gave the film a bit more of a raw emotional feel to it. What was more impressive in that department when they had really really long shots, so you knew that they just sang the entire song in one go. When Hathaway dreamed that dream, I cried due to the shear emotion in that song and scene.

A lot of bad talk has been given to Russell Crowe, who is obviously not a Broadway caliber singer, but I thought his unpolished voice brought a lot of personality into his role, and he felt a bit more real because of it.

But this was Jackman’s movie to win or lose, and he put on quite a performance, that sly dog. From the bearded warrior, to a mayor, to a runaway, to a freedom fighter, he is everywhere, and his performance was phenomenal.

If I had one major complaint, it would be that the ending felt a little bit hokey to me. Just a bit, still made me cry though.