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.