Django Unchained

When one thinks of a Western, they usually conjure up images of the American Southwest, with landscapes of grand canyons, gargantuan stone monuments or widespread desert.  However, Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained is also a Western... that mostly takes place in the American Southeast.  Despite this change of scene, Django incorporates several Western tropes and conventions to their fullest potential.  Ultimately, Django is a great movie with inspired action sequences, humorous asides, surprisingly deep meditations and comments on race in America, and perfectly tuned characters who develop as the film goes on, especially Django.

Django starts off rather morbidly, as we find our hero Django (Jamie Foxx) chained up with his fellow slaves and being forced to walk along a trail by a couple of rather awful slave drivers.  After a couple of scenes involving the horrors of such a walk, the audience is introduced to Dr. King Shultz (Christopher Waltz), an ex-dentist and, unbeknownst to the audience, current bounty hunter.  Shultz interrogates Django and believes that he is the one who could be helpful for his next assignment, but is threatened by the barrel of  a shotgun when the drivers realize what Shultz's real profession is.  Shultz immediately shoots them both, killing one and severely crippling the other, and frees Django.
This scene is quite dark yet also quite fun, setting up the film's tone for the rest of the running time.

The film then goes on to its main story, as Django and Schultz team up to take a pair of Django's old slave-owners/nemesis's.  After killing them in style (Django's blue attire may go down as one of the strangest outfits in cinematic history), the two decided to find Django's wife and find a means of freeing her.  Cut to a hilarious piece of dark-comedy on the origin of a certain robe-wearing, white-supremacist group followed by training montage in the surprisingly beautiful Wyoming wilderness.  After these wonderful scenes, Schultz and Django set off to tackle their most difficult challange: freeing Broomhilda Von Shaft (Kerry Washington) from the clutches of a cold-hearted yet memorable villian - Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) - and his truly villainous house-negro, Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson).

(Django meets Calvin Candie, who is the owner of his wife.)

Without giving too much away, Django is a bloody, explosive and hilarious exploration into the Western genre with a Southern setting.  Yet despite the setting Django is a Western through and through.  We are given a protagonist who is a great shot with an even greater sense of style.  There are stand-offs and shoot-outs, wanted criminals and outlaws, bounty-hunters and a damsel in distress.  The roles are almost all perfectly cast, with DiCaprio's surprisingly villainous exploits and Samuel L.'s incredibly formidable character being just two examples.  This  especially applies to the main characters, as Foxx and Waltz seem to both have an inherent understanding of who they are portraying, and simply do an excellent job.   The Tarantino-effect is in full control here, as well - not only is there gratuitous violence, but gratuitous violence that is enjoyable, well-executed and just plain fun.  While the film does have quite a long running time coming in at just under three hours, I would highly recommend this film for its explorations of humor, action, violence, race relations, trope subversions, plot, wonderfully crafted character and, ultimately, just being a bloody good time.  All in all, not just a great Tarantino movie, but perhaps one of the best of the decade thus far.

True Grit (Original)

Hello, movie lovers! Some of you may have read Andrew's recent post on the remake of a western classic, True Grit.  Also, Hopefully, some of you have had a chance to check out the remake because it's definitely worth a watch.  After I read Andrews post I decided to do a review on the original True Grit, starring John Wayne.  Let me just tell you in advanced that the original is just as good, if not better, than the remake.

True Grit, is the first movie I've seen starring John Wayne.  Honestly, I didn't even know what he looked like until, I searched his name on google, two minutes into the movie.  The plot of the story revolves around a young woman, Mattie Ross (Kim Darby), who is trying to find the man, Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey), that murders her father, and bring him back home so they can hang him.  For her first move she hires U.S Marshal Reuben "Rooster"J. Cogburn (John Wayne), referred to by many as a man with "true grit", to find and bring in Chaney.  Mattie and Rooster then later team up with a Texas Ranger named La Boeuf (Glen Campbell), who is also searching for Cheney, to help capture him.

I found Wayne's acting to be very intriguing.  Rooster is a one eyed, unwashed, fat old man whose dynamic persona is a mix between a man who is a ruthless alcoholic, and a man with good intentions. Somehow he blends this mixture into a character that appealed to me.  I also enjoyed how all of the actors in the original have an exaggerated and animated way of acting, especially Kim Darby's character.  This movie came towards the tail end of wayne acting career and showed he could still make a good movie late in his life.  He played the role of the hero again in the film, which is only appropriate.

Mattie Ross is a smart, funny, and determined young woman who drives the whole movie.  Her animated acting and pesky presence allows her to find a route around many of the problems she faces throughout the movie.  She strikes a deal with a horse owner to get a horse for the journey by outtalking him.  She is also the only character in the movie that Rooster seems to really care for.  I thought Darby was funny in most of her scenes.  She talked with energy and action, which is why her character draws much attention throughout the movie.

Campbell, the Texas Ranger, is probably the weakest actor of the three.  His role in the plot is necessary but the acting was a bit too much- over exaggerating his acting in every one of his scenes.  Also, throughout the movie there are these comic jabs thrown at the texan from Rooster and Mattie, which made me wonder why they hated the texan so much?

Director Henry Hathaway uses great camera in this movie.  He moves from these close shots of the actors, to widescreen shots capturing the environment.  However, there was one scene when Mattie and Rooster were camping that looked completely "Hollywood".  It looked like the background was a black cloth, and you could see the fire because the camera was in a close shot of the character's faces.    

I have to say that I was not disappointed watching True Grit, in fact I liked it enough to check out a couple of more of Wayne's films.   If you have never seen the original True grit, but have seen the new one, you should still check it out because the acting of both Wayne, and Darby will keep you entertained throughout.

4 out of 5 stars

True Grit

           

I’m often skeptical of Western Movies. I didn’t grow up with the manly man gentlemanly but still lone wolf don’t need no help gotta do whats right Clint Eastwood John Wayne people. I don’t feel the same nostalgia that my father and uncles seem to salivate over when they reminisce about John Wayne kicking ass and riding off, or when Clint whips out a really unnecessary and absolutely not standard issue weapons and proceeds to write his own laws in bullet holes. True Grit (2010) is my kind of Western, the good kind of Western.

           

            In short Mattie Ross (Hailee Stienfeld) is the young, but doesn’t act like it, tough and fiery girl that looks to hire an old, in every sense of the word, US Marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track down and kill her father’s murderer, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). And all of them play unique and authentic characters that grant weight and emotion to the film. Jeff Bridges is not a glorified Old West cowboy with that elegant sauve and Jame Bond swagger. He sports and old, dirty, patch beard and above it a worn out eye patch and you can tell just how he smells from the clothes he’s wearing. The one eyed former marshal is a stubborn drunk. Jeff Bridge’s character drags around like any man would if his life consisted of riding miles on horseback just to shoot some people, to get shot back at, to never have a real place that is home, to only own one set of clothes. It’s the real western enforcer, not the prettied super cowboy.  

            That dusty dirty drunken Cogburn is up against the straight, “just to watch it burn” kind of evil that I always compare to the Joker from Batman. The no respect, no loyalty, sometimes no motive, unadulterated evil that exits simply because it can. Josh Brolin’s character only earns any props from me just for how well he plays the role. And there is also Matt Damon’s character, LaBoeuf, the Texas Ranger after Chaney for other reasons but who teams up with Cogburn although not to either of their likings. The two battle each other on the road as we learn of the history of these two gunslingers animosity for each other.

            This story of the old souled and unshakable young girl alongside two unlikely and unfriendly heroes to take down a truly devilish man is a must watch. It’s a story of revenge, wit, growing and of course, grit.

4 out of 5

K-Pax

            Ridding on the Kevin Spacey hype train I came upon his 2001 film K-Pax where he stars as Prot who is either Manhattan’s most convincing psychiatric patient or an alien investigator. Spacey’s costar is Jeff Bridges, Dr.  tasked with evaluating and treating the man who claims to have ridden light to see Earth.

The relationship between Pax and Dr. Powell, Bridge’s character, quickly becomes a noticeably unique situation. Powell is a master of his work. He has the respect of his colleagues, he essentially runs the facility, and he seems unfazed by all his other cases and they don’t require much effort on his part. He’s seen it all before. And then there is Prot. Powell’s interviews begin with him and he throws drugs at it and expects the same result he usually gets. But Prots body is immune to these drugs. Powell becomes interested. He follows up with more interviews but Prot continually displays incredible intelligence. Powell brings Prot in front of a team of scientists exploring and working to try to explain the workings of the universe and Prot is able to give calculations and formulas explaining details about his “home” planet that these scientists had had yet to figure out themselves. Powell becomes emotionally invested.

He cares for Prot, and he is determined to help him but his effort to solve the mystery behind Prot is not just a selfless one. Powell is driven to find an earthly answer to maintain his own sanity as well. Powell’s struggle to find the answer is the audience’s struggle as well and it’s an intriguing one. Prot has befriended the audience as well. He is the hero that brightens the ward, giving the patients new energy and hope. He is friendly, intelligent, and genuine who’s entire impact is positive. The film has few points where my eyes aren’t glued to the screen, watching everything, hoping to find another hint that will take me closer to knowing for sure where Prot is from.

My only real issue is a small one. The man who has seen everything, and who looks to be as about experienced as it gets when it comes to his field breaks his toughest case yet by using hypnosis. The only time I felt the movie wasn’t drawing me in closer when the introduction of hypnosis. Here we have this big time physiatrist and an impossible client and the doctor’s ace in the hole is waving a watch and talking calmly. I think the movie and Prot deserved a more well thought out answer than that.

But my concerns were buried by the ending I wanted. With still no answer by the end of the movie, it invites speculation and imagination. After the confusion of weighing all the evidence were left remembering the impact that Prot had. The way it should have ended.

3 out of 5

RoboCop Review

Yesterday I scrolled through the Netflix database for a new movie to watch.  I was in the mood for a sci-fi film with plenty of action. After a 4 minute search, I chose to watch RoboCop. Having already seen the original RoboCop, that was released in 1987, I thought it would be interesting to see how director Jose Padiha would reinvent this hero.

I'll start off by naming some of the positives I noticed in Padiha's film.  The first thing that stuck out to me was the societal questions the film posed. Questions such as; Is technology taking away human expression? Can robots combat crime more effectively than humans, without any biases?  Can humans and robots co-exist?  These questions are important to think about, not only because it makes the movie interesting, but also because of the pace that our society is evolving.  Pretty soon robots might be patrolling our streets.

In the movie, Padiha robots are created by a money hungry corporation, OmniCorp, that wants to start using robots as police officers.  OmniCorp has a tough time convincing the public that this would be a good idea, in part because of situations where the human element might need to be activated.  As we all know, robots can't activate this element.  OmniCorp president (Michael Keaton) comes up with an idea of combining a man and a robot to appeal to the public.  The human always being in control of any life or death decision.  OmniCorp starts looking for disabled officers that would qualify for their test of a RoboCop.  They find Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnamen), a detective who almost died in an attempted murder car explosion.  Murphy lost most of his limbs and was in critical condition when he was submitted to the hospital.  OmniCorp president Raymond Sellars introduced the idea to Murphy's wife, offering her to sign a consent form, in order to save Murphey.  She signs.  One of the most powerful scenes in the movie is when Murphy is dismembered of his robot limbs, in order to face the reality that he is just a head, with a brain, and a torso, with a heart.  This image  paints, and asks, the question if humans and robots can co-exist, and if so who is in control?

Padiha does an awesome job creating the action scenes in the movie.  The RoboCop suit looks ways better than in the original 1987 movie.  It is a sleek black, almost batman like, suit that reacts just like normal body reacts to.  What makes the suit special is the data, and information that it can hold.  Murphy can search through his database to target certain individuals who are violating the law.  Also, since the suit is controlled by a human it makes the decision making a little slower than the other robots that OmniCorp creates.  I think the action scenes in this movie kept me engaged.  The acting on the other hand did not.

Now the negatives.  As a big fan of Samual Jackson I found his role in this movie to be annoying.  Jackson plays a news channel host who is in favor of having robots as police officers.  I found him to be just as annoying as real news anchors like Wolf Blitzer, and Nancy Grace.  The acting was more comical than dramatic when Jackson stood in front of the character.  This didn't work for the movie, to me.  Also, Michael Keaton had the same problem.  Their acting was unbelievable, and I don't mean that as a compliment.  His role as the villain in the movie is to cliche.  There is nothing fresh, and new about his role in the movie.   Besides these two characters, I think the rest of the cast does a good job in portraying their role.

Overall, I enjoyed RoboCop.  It is worth watching simply for the questions that it raises on how we interact with technology.  Also, because the future that Padiha creates is not too far away.  If you enjoy future Sci-Fi films with action, that challenge your thinking in where our society is heading, then this movie is a good watch.

 3 out of 5 stars   RoboCop Trailer

Welcome to Our Blog!

Hello!

And welcome to our blog, Explorations of Genre on the Big Screen.  Join us each week as Serxhio, Patrick and Andrew discuss movies both good and bad from each major genre as we closely examine what exactly makes these films either such a hit or a miss.

Tentative Schedule:
Week 1 - Science Fiction
Week 2 - Western
Week 3 - Comedy
Week 4 - Action
Week 5 - Horror

Who are we?

Right now we are all just students at Saint Louis University studying under the English-Education major.  That said, we are also all film-lovers.  After all, who doesn't love a good movie?