Django Unchained

The second of my two trips to the cinema while I was back in Aus, this time I enjoyed the surprisingly tranquil surrounds of the Bunbury Grand Cinema. The film was Quentin Tarantino's latest, Django Unchained and I had a pretty good time while watching. It was only a few days later that a few reservations began to leak out.

Now, I quite like Tarantino as a film-maker. He's smart and he knows his film history. Pulp Fiction was one of the movies that defined the 1990s and Reservoir Dogs and Jackie Brown are brilliant. I didn't like Kill Bill (1 or 2) and I've yet to see Death Proof but Inglourious Basterds was great fun. So that basically leaves us with Django. And (of Tarantino's work) I reckon it's just above the Kill Bill films in quality. Well, maybe quality is the wrong word - more like.....heart or emotion. As with much of his portfolio, Django comes across as a cocky, smirking movie, one that's a little too clever for its own good.

I get the knowing nods to cheesy exploitation films of the 1970s. I understand the majority of the cameos from average old actors/directors/stuntmen, etc. I can see why he wants to pay homage to film history. But please, Quentin, that's enough. Homage is becoming haemorrhage (my thanks to dictionary.com) and I think he's better than that. Perhaps he's just a product of our modern culture. Maybe he's watched so much (top drawer and bottom) that he's had no time to experience things for himself and he therefore needs to ape previous works.

That said, Django wasn't terrible. There were some good performances (Cristophe Waltz especially) and some of the scenes were handled with style, in keeping with Tarantino's visual methods. But overall it was too muddled. Jamie Foxx was just okay, Di Caprio was just under okay - too much oomph, almost popped a vessel - and Samuel L. Jackson was an oddity (I couldn't understand his character's motivation - possibly my ignorance of U.S. slavery history). It was too long, many scenes dragged in order to show off Tarantino's 'clever' writing. This worked for me in Basterds, probably because I was more interested in that particular historical period but it didn't fly here. I felt that it was overly verbose - much like this review.

On that note, I shall edit here. Thank you and good night.

Argo

One of my two trips to the cinema while back in Australia, I saw this at Cinema Paradiso in Northbridge (where once upon a time I used to get the odd free entry courtesy of the Pig Strangler). It seems to have retained its indie charm though not its old price listings - $17 for a ticket and $4.50 for a choc bomb! Welcome to Perth.

Argo is Benna Fleck's 3rd directorial effort and he seems to be growing into a pretty solid film-maker. He must have done his research regarding pacing (helps to have a good editor) and atmosphere. I've never really been a fan of his acting or presence on screen but he obviously knows how to get a performance from actors. In fact, I think he's a better actor when he's directing himself (or maybe he's just getting older and more familiar). The cast is fine all round, especially the relatively less well-known group on the periphery of the crisis. Their performances lend a pseudo-documentary feel to the whole thing, especially in counterpoint to the funnier, flashier Hollywood scenes with John Goodman and Alan Arkin.

The aforementioned crisis is this little number that took place at the end of the 1970s and isn't often used as material for Hollywood dramatisations. The whole story sounds pretty preposterous but, according to declassified documents, it's generally accurate (albeit with a little tension building thrown in at the end). And it works for the most part. I was reasonably gripped as the story played out and only mildly annoyed at all the American whooping for joy as it reached it's conclusion. There is a sub-plot involving Affleck's character's family situation and while this fleshes out his role a bit, it doesn't really add much to the narrative. This aside, it's a fairly tight film with some nicely edited transitions (eg. spinning glass paper weight ---- to ---- record playing on a turntable).

The final credit sequence is a nice touch. The actual stills (I trust they are real) and passport photos of the protagonists are juxtaposed with the film's renditions and, as a self-congratulatory pat on the back for the set and costume designers, it works quite well. Jimmy Carter even makes an 'audio' cameo to lend the film some more authenticity. Meaty and enjoyable, a juicy lamb doner for your eyes and ears.