The Hunger Games: Catching Fire/The Hobbit, something something something

The Hunger Games

This second installment of the franchise was better than the first. Partially because the new director moved away from shaki-cam, but mainly because the movie at least tried to expand beyond a rote  retelling of the books. Specifically, it at least made an effort to explore the world from other characters perspective (The books, which I love, are told entirely from the main character's point of view) which is the big opportunity the film has to differentiate, and build on, the books. Overall it still hues closely to the main narrative, but I still appreciated the effort to do something different.

Other than that there's not much else to say.  Jennifer Lawrence is still great, the action scenes are a bit long, and its reasonably entertaining. Unlike the next film I saw.

The Hobbit Desolation of Smaug (probably misspelled but I don't care)

It's long.
So long.
So so long.

Look I liked the Lord of the Rings films, but I found the first installment of the Hobbit to be incredibly tedious and boring. However I saw it on a plane so I'm willing to admit that maybe not having the proper visual environment colored my opinion. Nope. This was equally as tedious and drawn out. Yes they spent alot of time and money on the visuals but perversely I found the much hyped 48 frames per second shooting style to be a detriment. Specifically, it makes everything on screen so clear that the falseness of the CGI really stood out for me, particularly in the daylight scenes. Of course had the film not been a slog this wouldn't have been such a bid deal, but at three hours long it was tough not to miss any flaws.

I'm sure I'm being too hard on this, and had it been shorter I probably wouldn't be so annoyed. Its not horrible, simply boring. Which, as I've said before, annoys me more than almost anything.

Oh well since we're in full on awards mode I'm hoping to see the following over the next few weeks to cleanse my pallet:

American Hustle
Wolf of Wall street
Her
Inside Llewyn Davis

Gravity/Thor: The Dark World

If you had told me I would have come out of these films wishing one had more action and less character, and the other less action and more character, I probably wouldn't have guessed the latter would be Thor. Its interesting but in all the Marvel Films the characters (particularly Iron Man) have been so established that I prefer the time spent just hanging out with them, rather than the generically interchangeable fight scenes. This is particularly true in Thor where they try even less than usual to make the villain compelling (or even logical). As a result the best scenes focus inherent goofiness of the character (particularly when its just Thor and Loki hanging out and talking trash), rather than 20 minute fight scenes where you never really believe the world is going to end. Joss Whedon got close to the desired dynamic with the Avengers (in the scenes with Iron Man and Hulk) but even there the action ended bogging down the proceedings. Really I wouldn't mind someone like Kevin Smith getting ahold of one of these films. Someone who would put all the focus on the interactions of the characters, and the incongruity of having them in the world, as opposed to massive set pieces.  Don't get me wrong. I still enjoy the universe, I guess I'm just less impressed by the spectacle.

Gravity on the other hand is a taut 90 minutes of essentially real time space action, and it looks as good as everyone says. Really the only problem with it, and this is the same point Will Leitch made in his review, is the arbitrary attempt to force a back story on Sandra Bullock's character. Its completely unnecessary, and really grinds whats an overall propulsive film to halt. There's plenty of tension already, we don't need a dead kid thrown in there as well. This is only a minor quibble though, and its well worth checking out.

The World's End/Rush

Been busy (busy = napping) so haven't been out to see much.  Anyway I saw The Worlds End about a month ago and like the rest of the Cornetto Trilogy (Sean of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) its really enjoyable. The cast has a nice rapport and the film doesn't beat you over the head with references. Its not going to change the world or anything (which is good because, well, The World Ends) but it has a high rewatchability factor and is one of the funnier films I've seen this summer.

Rush on the other hand is the embodiment of a 'solid' movie, but nothing more. It follows two formula one drivers vying for the 1976 championship, one is a hothead who relies on guts, and the other takes a cerebral technical approach to his work and finds the other to be a 'danger to the sport.' If this sounds a little too generic and cliched to you, you're not wrong.  The weakest part of the film is the overly broad characterizations and on the nose dialog which did have me roll my eyes at times. However, the film excels in the racing scenes. You really get a nice sense of the power and speed of the cars, and just how dangerous it was to race in the relatively unregulated race series in the 1970's.  Really the way the films portrays it I was amazed there weren't more racer, and spectator, deaths. Basically you could just roll right up on the track behind a minimal, or non-existent, barrier and watch the race. Though if this was still allowed I might actually watch a NASCAR race (no I wouldn't).  Anyway Rush is worth seeing for the racing action, and that is worth seeing, but don't expect much more.

The Spectacular Now

TSN (I only did that because I realized the film's initial's were the same as The Sporting News, and makes it sound like a network on The Newsroom. I'm clever) is a generally enjoyable film about a functioning high school alcoholic who ends up falling for a sheltered classmate. The best things the film has going for it are the two leads (whose names I"m  not going to bother to look up). They have the benefit of actually looking like high schoolers (or, at worst, sophomores in college), and do a great job capturing the subtlety of the characters. This subtlety is generally matched by the pace of the film and I appreciated how for most of the first half it didn't feel the need to put an explanation point on the drinking, or the main character's general sense of disillusionment and fear of the future. Unfortunately the last half hour or so devolves into a combination of a PSA and the ending of Good Will Hunting which undercuts the restraint the rest of the film exhibited. Its still worth watching just because the two leads are so good, but I wish it had stuck to the earlier feel and not felt the need to shift tones so dramatically.

Also because I like to appear like a discerning pop culture fan I'm obligated to mention the Bubbles from the wire plays a math teacher. #stuffwhitepeoplelike

Blackfish/Despicable Me 2/Blue Jasmine

Okay got a little backed up here doing other super important activities (video games don't play themselves). Lightning round.

Blackfish

This documentary about deaths of Sea World trainers at the hands (flippers?) of Killer Whales is smart in how it goes about its business. Rather than being the expected "Aren't Orcas beautiful and mysterious, how dare we keep these beautiful spirits in captivity" route (though there is some of that), it focuses on whether or not Sea World (and other water parks) run unsafe work environments. And really, if the very act of working with these animals is asking for trouble (the answer would seem to be yes). The film has amazing footage of whales attacking trainers, and paints a pretty damning picture of Sea world  management ignoring risks and trying to hide all of the attacks from not just the public but other trainers as well.

The film does have two major drawbacks. The first isn't really the makers fault. Sea World refused to participate so there really isn't anyone arguing the other side (though there are few things that seem indefensible). This leaves most of the arguments feeling incomplete. Second, it does verge a bit into the polemical at moments, particularly at the end as former trainers get into the whole 'should we even have zoos' debate. I don't deny there may be a discussion to have about that, but its a much more problematic area then the question of unsafe work conditions (particularly, as my brother likes to point out, we do spend much of our time breeding animals in worse conditions for the sole reason of eating them).  Thankfully this isn't the focus, and the majority of the film is engaging and brings up some interesting questions. Well worth checking out.

Despicable Me 2

Its fine. Ignores the kid characters probably too much, and definitely gets draggy in spots, but inifinitely less offensive than something like Planes.

Blue Jasmine

As I've said before, I'm totally in the bag for Woody Allen.  I'll see anything the guy does, and even with his lesser works I always find something to enjoy.  Blue Jasmine is actually a divergence from his last several, mainly comedic, films.  Its funny, but more like Crimes and Misdemeanors funny as opposed to a farce. It follows a thoroughly unlikable character (jasmine, played by Cate Blanchett) whose life falls apart and then spends the rest of the film popping pills and going crazy. The film actually plays lighter than my description sounds, but its a really interesting choice and pretty dark. Not everything works (some of the supporting characters are, to say the least, broad) but overall another solid effort from the Wood-man (yes I really just called him that. Shut up.)

Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim has ended up being more divisive than I would have expected. As an example check out Will Leitch  (positive), and Vince Mancini's (negative) reviews. While I think all the criticism is completely fair (the characters are generously described as thin, the dialogue is marginal, and story derivative), I still ended up generally enjoying myself. This movie is all surface, but that surface is Monsters vs. Robots as done by the guy who made Pan's Labyrinth, and starring Idris Elba (Stringer lives!), so the surface goes a long way.  Del Toro does a real nice job with fights scenes (you can follow what's going on, and they actually involve some deliberate pacing) which counts for quite a bit. Sure I would have preferred to have there be actual acting outside of Elba (and to a lesser extent Charlie Day and Ron Pearlman), but I'll take what I can get.  And in this case what you get involves a scene of a Robot hitting Godzilla with a tanker ship. That's not nothing.

Much Ado About Nothing

Joss Whedon is one of those guys I'm completely in the bag for, so of course I was going to see his adaptation of Shakespeare, shot at his house in 12 days while taking a break from editing the Avengers.

Overall he does a nice job capturing the playfullness of the original play, and adds some wordless flashback scenes between Benedick and Beatrice which actually gives some context to why  there's so much beef between them.  He also makes the smart choice of having most of the characters spend the entire proceedings hammered. This makes all of the mistaken identities (or at least perceived mistaken identities) more tolerable since its difficult to believe anyone sober could actually believe any of the plot machinations.  Unfortunately he's not able to get rid of the most problematic part of the play. The fact that the central conflict revolves around an idiot plot point that could have been solved with any number of people just asking one relevant question. But whatever, the film is still a lot of fun (even though like every Shakespeare play I see it takes about five minutes to get used to the language) and Nathon Fillion is still the man.

Man of Steel/World War Z

Going in my interest in seeing both of these could be described as moderate at best.  I just don't find Superman to be that interesting of a character, and as for World War Z, do we really need more zombies (given the box office success probably yes)? But, I found myself out of town for the weekend with some time to kill in a city that was 100 degrees, so here we are.

As for Man of Steel, Vince over a Filmdrunk had a pretty good review of this most recent entry to the Superman series, and I think he hits most of the big issues with it.  I agree with people who say the first half has some interesting ideas but the second half just degenerates into a pretty generic action thriller with some glaring, to say the least, plot holes.  I even like Zach Snyder (an opinion that seems to be in the minority, at least among 'serious' film fans). I thought 300 had a manic energy to it that was a lot of fun, and had be able to infuse some of that energy into Man of Steel then the film could have avoided turning into slog most of the last hour plus ends up being.  But whatever, its a solid C film. Not horrible,but nothing I feel any desire to watch again.

A couple of other random thoughts:

-This is probably a spoiler but the way Pa Kent dies is just idiotic. Basically he goes back to save the dog and waves off Clark so he can keep his abilities secret. I like dogs as much as the next guy (editors note: That is a lie, Eric's interest in dogs could be described as ambivalent at best), but when a tornado is bearing down I think its time to let little Sparky try to make it out himself. He had a good run.
-Its an old comment that these superhero films (or action films in general) just ignore the collateral damage that our ostensible protagonist unleashes in the name of 'justice' but Man of Steel turns it up to 11. Easily millions of people die while superman is doing his thing, and nobody really seems to notice. If the film exhibited any sense of humor I would almost think they were making a commentary about action films, but it shows no indication of self-awareness at all.
-Michael shannon just isn't that good as General Zod, but since he's usually excellent I'm going to assume  a lot of that has to do with how dumb the plot surrounding him is.

Now the one big advantage World War Z has over Superman is that its a half an hour shorter. I mean that as  a compliment. Besides the relative brevity Z is a compentently paced action film with a few interesting ideas interspersed with a lot of A-B-C action. Its not boring,but its also not all that compelling. Really the best way to describe it is that I entered indifferent, and left indifferent. Not bored, just kind of 'meh.' Basically its not worth seeking out, but if you run across it on cable one day you could do worse.

Now you See Me

So yeah, magicians as bank robbers, but not really. Whatever, I liked the cast and after a day of reading labor migration research I didn't want to watch anything that caused me to have to think too much. And it definitely met that bar. Its watchable, mainly because of the cast (Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fischer, the Franco bother who was on Scrubs, Melanie Laurent, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Mark Ruffalo), but also needlessly complicated (not in a you can't follow way, but in a 'if you think about what's actually happening for more than a second the plot doesn't hold up at all' way) and takes itself a little too seriously for what should have been a pretty light heist movie (it needlessly revolves around this idea of what 'true' magic is).

But whatever, the most fascinating part of the experience was this guy about three rows back. He could not have been more entertained. He was busting up at the film's couple of half-hearted attempts at a one-liners, and at the big 'twist' ending he about lost his, pardon the vernacular, shit all over the theatre. I worry  if he saw a film that was actually clever and surprising, like say The Usual Suspects, he may actually have a heart attack.  So I guess its good that middle of the road, immediately forgettable, films like this exist. There's a certain segment of the population who wouldn't be able to go to the cinema and come out alive otherwise.

Before Midnight

Before Midnight represents the third film in a series (after Before Sunrise and Before Sunset) that periodically  (every nine years)checks in with two lovers played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy.  Its kind of a fictionalized version of the 7-up series, and sets out to show the progression of a relationship over time and, in particular, how messy and complicated things can become.  Like the previous films, Before Midnight is ambitious, interesting, and contain a lot of truth, but I'm not sure that I really enjoy watching it that much.

The biggest problem with all three, and this one in particular, is that they're almost too literary. The entire film is almost entirely monologues, which I'm sure plays well on the page, but end up just becoming exhausting by the end of the film. Really each conversation ends up feeling like a one act play with lots of grand statements and truths being compressed into a short amount of time. I don't deny that people often have conversations like this, but all at once was a bit much for me. Also the amount of vitriol that was spilled had me wondering how Hawke and Delphy were still together. I get that point of the film was the relationship they built in the previous two entries is what pulls them through the conflict, and I like how everything is still a bit ambiguous at the end, but I still ended up feeling restless as it played out.

That said these are still bold films and I appreciate how they endeavor to portray a real relationship. There are certainly moments that capture real truth in each film, but I do feel like the execution falls short of the ambition.

A whole bunch of stuff

I saw a fair amount of stuff around/during a recent international trip. I'm sure at one point I had a coherent narrative about all of them, but I'm too lazy to write more than a few disjointed notes.

Iron Man 3

At this point I just enjoy hanging out with the Tony Stark character so much that the action is actually something I just sort of put up with while waiting to get back to the smack talk. The film dealt with the problem of why the other Avengers/S.H.I.E.L.D. never show up to help out by just ignoring their existence, which I guess is the best possible approach. As a result this ended up being the most standalone Marvel Film since the first Iron Man. In fact writer/director Shane Black kind of turned it into a superhero equivalent of an 80's cop film, with one of the few non-annoying kid characters in film history, and Jarvis the computer, playing the role of Downey's partners.  The film also has some nice moments of humor (particularly how it treats the Mandarin character and a great cameo by Max from Happy Endings (RIP)) and manages to keep the tone relatively light until the obligatory massive final fight. I don't know if this is the best Marvel film, but it was generally entertaining.

Star Trek Into Darkness

I actually saw this twice. While Into Darkness is a nice continuation of its predecessor, it spends a little to much time referencing the earlier incarnations of the series. The last half an hour or so in particular gets really goofy as they pretty much take the ending of Star trek 2: Wrath of Khan and just flip the roles of the two main characters, culminating in a moment that had me laughing out loud in the theater (both times).  I think the comedy in this case was completely intentional (I hope), but I think the makers of these films have played out just re-imagining the original films and need to start taking the characters in a new direction.  Otherwise the series runs the risk of becoming a series of in jokes and fan-service, as opposed to something bigger.

Also, the ending is essentially the same as Iron Man 3 which was interesting (or not).

6 fast 6 furious

I found the whole Fast and Furious franchise (which in my case consisted of just watching the first film) to be completely completely tedious until Fast 5. In that film the filmmakers decided to embrace the inherent cheesiness of the premise and turned out the closest thing to an over the top 80’s action comedy (in a good way) that I’d seen in a while.  6 fast continues in this tradition, but with less narrative coherence (something I never thought I’d attribute to Fast 5).  Other than The Rock, the acting is really bad and the two leads (Vin Diesal and Paul Walker) actually seem to think they’re participating in a real bad-ass action film.  The fact that they take it so seriously of course adds to my enjoyment (and also explains my love for One Tree Hill).

Like any great unintentionally comedic movie,  the intentionally comedic elements of the film (meant to be embodied by the Minstrel Show that is Tyrese and Ludacris) are laugh free, and in this case borderline racist. All the fun comes from the over the top action (At one point Vin knocks out three bad guys with a flying head butt), groan inducing dialogue (too many to mention) and the constant effort to make it look like Vin Diesel is as tall as The Rock.  The film is definitely too long, but I still laughed out loud a lot, which is more than I can say for a lot of mainstream comedies.

This is the End

I don't have a lot to say about this other than its actually pretty funny, if a bit long and maybe a little too insular. The actors have a nice chemistry, and it made me really want a sequel to the criminally underrated Your Highness. I'm not sure how broad the appeal of something like this is, but its certainly worth seeing if you enjoy the idea of James Fanco, Seth Rogen, Danny McBride and company basically just spending $20 million to sit around and talk trash to each other for a couple of hours.

To the wonder

The people that hated Terrance Malick's previous film, The Tree of Life, are absolutely going to despise To the Wonder. Somehow its even more abstract, and has less of a plot, than the earlier film, and anybody who's not already on board with Malick's meditative, loose (to describe it generously), and visceral approach to filmmaking is not going to have their mind changed by this. The film is 90% voiceover and 90% of that is in French and Spanish (there's a box office draw if I ever heard one). And just like the Tree of Life it constantly cuts between past, present, and future, with little or no indication as to why. Its beatifully shot, as usual, and contains some indelible images but the end result is more of an impressionistic painting than a film. This works for awhile, but after an hour or so I did get restless. Say what you want about the Tree of Life, but at least that film had the chutzpah to try to portray the beginning and the end of the world. To the Wonder doesn't have anywhere neat that level of ambition, which it makes it more difficult to stay engaged in the more digressive sections (which the particularly snarky of you could argue make up the entire film, but then you just have a bad attitude). Its worth seeing if you're already all in for Malick, but probably not otherwise.

One other note: Given that the dialogue is majority voiceover we get plenty of scenes before and after, presumably, important conversations. This definitely is in line with the film's general approach, but it definitely keeps all the characters at arms length.

Oblivion

Oblivion is an odd film.  What I mean is that you can tell the director is predominantly focused on the set design and world building. As a result, when forced to have a plot he just grabbed a bunch of cliches/tropes from other sci-fi films and just throws them out there to get a narrative flow/ending.  The blatant nature of this is actually kind of interesting as the set pieces are pretty much wholly lifted from other films (most glaringly Moon, the Matrix movies, and Independence Day to name a few).  I sort of appreciated how blatant the ripping off is and how uninterested the film was in doing anything other than letting Tom Cruise run around and fix drones. That part of the film (which makes up most of the first half) actually looks pretty great and its enough to keep you interested for awhile.  Eventually though the languid pace gets a bit tedious, and while its fun to play 'spot the other film this scene is ripping off' for a few minutes during the second half even that gets old after awhile.  Oblivion isn't worthless or unwatchable, it just never really engages on more than a technical level.  Which is more than I can say about the director's last film  Tron: legacy.

Few other random observations:
-The voiceover is really bad.  Again then this could be a direct result of nobody being that interested in anything other than the visuals.
-Morgan Freeman is in this for like five minutes, contrary to what the trailer would have you believe.

Gi Joe: Retailiation

Like the first installment of this series, seeing this was a pure nostalgia play.  Until they make a My little Pony movie, GI Joe is the one toy/cartoon from this current trend of lazy reboots that I have enough of a soft spot for to actually sit through a movie.  Even though I knew full well it wasn't going to be good (and make no mistake its really not).

Its not worth getting into all the plot holes (though I will say there is one sort of clever twist where Cobra gets all the other countries in the world to give up their nuclear arsenals) or illogical fighting (in the big Ninja showdown not one bad guy thinks to just cut the rope of our heroes) because you expect that in this sort of film.  What did surprise me is that I think there is a way to make  G.I. Joe film actually work.  If they just embraced the ludicrousness of a world where its perfectly acceptable to un-ironically only refer to people by their code names (Roadblock, Snake Eyes, Lady Jaye, etc), have no problem having prisoners get brought to your super-secret prison in full combat attire because the character can never be seen without their mask, or have the big enemy be a large multi-national corporation with apparently limitless resources run by this guy - then the whole enterprise could turn into a reasonably fun send-up of action films.  The film seems to realize this at moments (for gods sake they have the RZA cast as a blind ninja master, no way that's a serious move), but for the majority of the time it takes things way to seriously.  It should just embrace the inherant nuttiness of the universe rather than trying to 'tough' and 'badass.'  Though I did see the trailer for Fast 6, so there is that.   

OZ the great and powerful/side effects

Oz the great and powerful

I don't really have much to say about this.  A friend wanted to see it, we went, time passed, and it was over. Its ultimately an inert, somewhat pointless film, but has just enough decent execution not to be completely boring (which I'll wholly attribute to director Sam Riami).  The 3-d is about a 5 on the obnoxious scale, and don't think too hard about how it fits into the Wizard of Oz universe because the logic really breaks down.  Really the most interesting part about the film is to see how much referencing of the original film it could get away with without having to pay Warner Brothers (who owns the rights to the Wizard of Oz) any royalties.  The answer is more than I thought.

Side effects

Since this was a Soderbergh film I was inevitable going to see it.  Its well-made and entertaining, its not anywhere near my favorite of his works.  I think the problem is that its a little bit too clever and clinical, lacking the energy of his best films (i.e. Out of Sight or Magic Mike).  Basically even though its well executed and impressively slips between multiple genres, I never quite got engaged on more than an intellectual 'lets see what happens narratively' level.  Its definitely worth seeing, but I think it'll ultimately be viewed as a minor work (by Soderbergh (or your mom's) standards).

Life of Pi

The trailer for this didn't excite me at all.  It looked a little too much like a genre I (and whoever I stole the term from) like to refer to as 'White Middle Class Porn.'  This basically means that its vaguely spiritual with some non-threatening ethnicity, and you feeling like something profound happened, even when it really didn't.  However, I kept hearing good things, Ang Lee won an academy award, and I heard the Smurfs 2 trailer was going to be shown, so I decided to see if my feelings from the trailer were wrong.

They weren't, but that doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't see the film.  Its beautifully shot with some tremendous scenes that Lee obviously put a lot of care into.  It also makes pretty good use of 3-D, with only one really distracting 'pokey' scene.  That said the dialougue is expository at best, and cut rate new-agey at worst.  Since most of the film is one guy on a boat with a tiger I half-wish they had just shot without any talking.  You could have easily followed what was going on without the voiceover, and it would have left more time to focus on the phenomenal imagery.  Also the ending is really stupid.  Completely crosses the line into the White Middle Class Porn/Super Cliched NPR listener territory that I was afraid of.  Its not enough to torpedo the film, but it did make me almost laugh out loud.  Really if they had chopped a half an hour and spent the whole time on the boat with minimal set up the film would have been much better.

Final Note:  Gerard Depradieu get a 'and' credit in the title sequences.  Dude is literally on screen for 45 seconds and has about six lines of dialougue.  I have to figure more of his part got cut because it's a completely extraneous role (to be fair that's pretty much all of them except the dude on the boat and the tiger) and for the life of me I can't figure why they felt the need to pay a 'name' to play it.  Maybe I'll read the book to find out.  Probably not.

Rust and bone/Zero Dark Thirty

Rust and Bone

Here's a pretty fair review.  I really only went to this film because the director's last work was A Prophet, which was great.  This one has a similar sense of style to the earlier one - lots of dreamlike, almost impressionistic, imagery and wordless interludes - but lacks the narrative push.  Really for being such a high-concept film (orca trainer gets legs bitten off and falls in love with a street fighter) not much happens.  Its pretty content with just letting the relationship play out in a muted and unhurried pace, and (until the ending) no overt dramatics and histrionics.  On balance I think it generally works, but I can easily see viewers being really annoyed and possibly bored by the pacing and lack of clear resolution.  You really have to be in the right kind of mood for this type of film.  Its not non-linear like The Tree of Life, just very mannered and matter of fact while avoiding the obvious emotional beats (until the aforementioned ending where it forces in too neat of a resolution).  I don't know if this means you should check it out, but I can say I wasn't bored and much of it did stick with me.

Zero dark thirty

This film on the other was pretty much a straight adrenaline rush from the beginning to end.  Chronicling the ten year hunt, and killing, of Osama Bin Laden, Zero Dark Thirty focuses on one CIA analyst who pursues the terrorist for over a decade.  I appreciated that the film avoided making any large statements, and I think the criticism leveled at it over its portrayal of torture has been misplaced.  I didn't get the sense it was glorifying the practice, and to not acknowledge that it happened would have been completely disingenuous.  I I also think the criticism of its lack of politics is misguided.  The film is pretty narrowly focused on the mechanics of what happened and not more.  While its true that a more political tact might have given the film more dramatic oomph (that's a technical term), it would have distracted from what I think director Katherine Bigelow was trying to do.

Its not perfect, and it surprisingly lacks the tension of any of the bomb-defusing scenes in Bigelow's previous film The Hurt Locker, but overall its still entertaining.  Really the thing that threw me off the most was the casting of Chris Pratt (Parks and Rec's Andy Dwyer) as one of the SEAL team.  It's not that he does a bad job but every time I saw him onscreen all I could think was BERT MACKLIN FBI!   It was actually really distracting.  But anyway, this is a well executed thriller, and Jessica Chastain does a nice job with a fairly underwritten lead character.  Its not the best picture of the year, but then not everything can be Cabin in the Woods.

Django Unchained

Most of this is going to be some random thoughts, but let me just say up front that this delivered on all its promise.  Its one of the most entertaining experiences I've had at a theater all year.

1.  This is very much a close cousin to Inglorious Basterds.  Except rather than killing tons of Nazis, this time its slavers.  I'm fine with both.  The first big difference between the two is the approach to violence.  Where the fight scenes in Inglorious at least had a modicum of reality (at least within the logic of the film), in Django Tarantino fully embraces the hyper-stylized, over the top, nature of the spaghetti westerns that influence it.  As a result Django is more overtly comic with plenty of laugh out loud moments, whereas the humor in Inglorious was more subtle.  This mainly comes from the fact that the Basterds was predominately driven by  dialougue, and Django is more visceral.  I give the edge to Basterds (mainly because Django doesn't have a scene approaching the opening to Inglorious), but they make a great double feature.

2. Christoph Waltz is still amazing.  Yes he's just playing a variation of his Hans Landa character from the former film but that doesn't make him any less enjoyable.  I also need to figure a way to grow his facial hair.

3. There's been a lot of criticism that the film is too humorous, given its subject matter. I'm not sure that's a fair charge (bear in mind this is coming from a solidly middle class white guy).   Yes Tarantino treats the slavers like buffoons, but doesn't that lack of any respect for them work as a form of criticism as well? They want to be seen as hardcore competent killers, not clowns.  Anyway, the scenes that are meant to horrifying, come off as such.  He doesn't whitewash the atrocities against slaves, he just treats the responsible parties with the disdain they deserve.  And you better believe everybody gets what's coming to them.

4. This is by far the best role by Sam Jackson in years.  He actually seems engaged, and his interplay with Jaime Foxx and Dicaprio is a joy to watch.

5.  Yes its too long, but whatever.  Its a ton of fun, and I was never bored.  I don't know if it will be as re-watchable as some of his other work, but I'm going to find out.