Lincoln

When I watched Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter last year, I walked away from it with two thoughts running through my head. The first was that I was kind of disappointed in how it turned out, and the second was that I was ready for the real film about Lincoln's life to come out. A few months later, Steven Spielberg releases his Oscar-bait biopic Lincoln, with an all-star cast that includes Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Tommy Lee Jones. After watching it, I want the vampires back.

There's a very distinct culprit making Lincoln an awful film. The blame falls entirely on the writing staff hired to write the drivel that I had to sit through. Firstly, anyone who expects to see a biopic about the life of Lincoln will be sorely disappointed. The movie should be called The 13th Amendment, seeing as how it only takes place during the period of Lincoln's life in which the House of Representatives were debating the passage of the amendment. But a misleading title is the least of this film's problems. Not only is the script a mockery of history, it seems to move like a gritty reboot of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. I started to get a feeling that every piece of dialogue was just an excuse to have Daniel Day-Lewis or Tommy Lee Jones eventually give a monologue about how great our country is or how racism is bad. It's not that I disagree with those ideas, but I got the point thirty monologues ago. Can we move on, please?

The only thing I can say positively for this movie is that the acting and wardrobe departments were fantastic. Day-Lewis gave the most amazing portrayal of Lincoln that's ever been captured on film, and the rest of the cast delivered their roles well. That being said, there's still a lot of overhype for some of the performances. Daniel Day-Lewis rightfully won a Golden Globe and a Critic's Choice award for his role, but the performances by Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones should never have been nominated in the first place. Field's portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln was cartoonish at best, and Tommy Lee Jones played...well, he played Tommy Lee Jones, and I don't see him getting any accolades for Men in Black 3.

After I left the theater, I felt like someone had played a cruel joke on me. Abraham Lincoln's life is one of the more interesting pieces of American history, so why this piece of garbage was made instead of a proper biopic is beyond me. I wanted to give this film a zero, but Daniel Day-Lewis was good. Really good. If you ever find yourself faced with the task of watching this film, take solace in that. So congratulations, Lincoln. I give you 3 trite morality speeches out of 10.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

With the announcement of the Academy Award nominees this past Friday, I started my annual tradition of trying to cram in as many of them as I possibly can until the awards show on February 24th. So when I saw the relatively unknown Beasts of the Southern Wild was one of the candidates, I did some research.

Dozens and dozens of award nominations and accolades? Check. Topical plotline about the plight of southern Louisiana bayou communities? Check. The youngest nominee ever to be nominated for Best Actress? Check.

Naturally, I had to watch it. I'm pretty glad I did.

If you've never heard of Beasts of the Southern Wild, I don't really blame you. This is the first feature film by most of the people involved and, despite making a huge splash in several acclaimed film festivals, saw only a limited release in theaters. It wasn't until after I had seen its several nominations (Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Picture) that I was even aware of its existence. But one quick trip to Redbox had me glued to my television watching an intriguing, if not overly artsy, portrayal of a unique father-daughter relationship in one of the most exotic locations in the country.

Beasts of the Southern Wild is about Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), a 5 year-old girl who lives in the fictional Louisiana community called "The Bathtub" with her father, Trip (Dwight Henry). The Bathtub is an isolated bayou community, cut off from the rest of the country by a levee, and the film follows the trials and tribulations of Hushpuppy and the members of her community after a storm devastates their home. Although it sounds like a run-of-the-mill natural disaster flick, the film breaks the mold in a couple of neat ways. The first is that the film's  focus isn't really on the storm itself. The core of the story is Hushpuppy and her unique relationship with people and nature. What the audience sees as a result of that is a mixture of child-like naivety and timeless wisdom that rightfully earned Wallis a nomination for Best Actress.

The film isn't without its flaws. Early in the story, Hushpuppy's teacher tells her class about Aurochs, ancient beasts that lived during the time of cavemen. The story apparently sticks with Hushpuppy, because it is used as a heavyhanded metaphor for the entirety of the film. Although the film isn't terribly long, I felt that my time was being wasted every time it cut away to the Aurochs. I get the metaphor of savage beasts bearing down her neck as calamity ensues, but all it did was make my eyes roll.

I honestly think this film will walk away on Oscar night empty-handed. The only shot that it has is if Wallis win Best Actress, something I'm actually rooting for. It's an interesting film and mostly well-done, but it's just entirely too forgettable. It's not the weakest contender for the Oscar race, but its indie roots might not hold. I give it 7 crazy bayou dwellers shooting shotguns at hurricanes out of 10.

Django Unchained

This being my first post in a while, I want to say a few things before I get to this review:

1) I'm sorry I've been gone so long.
2) Go see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Just do it.
3) I'm definitely back though. For real this time.

It kind of makes me sad that it's taken me this long to come back, but I don't think I would have wanted to come back to pick apart any other film than this one. Quentin Tarantino draws critics to his films like moths to flame, and Django Unchained is certainly no exception.

Tarantino is known for paying homage to his favorite styles of film. The Kill Bill series and Inglourious Basterds are his tributes to kung fu and World War II films, and now he's taking a stab at spaghetti westerns with Django Unchained. Set two years before the Civil War, the film follows a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) and his dentist-turned-bounty-hunter owner/partner Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) as they hunt fugitive slave-handlers and attempt to rescue Django's wife from the clutches of wealthy plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). If you have any prior knowledge of Tarantino, then you should automatically assume that a premise like that is going to be gruesomely violent, highly laden with vulgar language, and overall a fantastic cinematic experience. I am pleased to announce that your assumption is correct.

Although this is not my favorite one of Tarantino's works (that title belongs to Inglourious Basterds. You can tell me how wrong I am that it's not Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs in the comments. It's not going to change my mind), Django still impresses, doing everything it sets out to do with the same lopsided mixture of bloody action, unique characters, and quote-worthy dialogue that we have come to expect from Tarantino's off-kilter universe. Therefore, the burden is carried mostly by the performances of the cast, all of which were perfectly placed. Jamie Foxx's turn as the title character is an amazing mix of a man haunted by his brutal past and a gunslinger who is enjoying his job a little too much. DiCaprio is captivating as a plantation owner who is as repulsively vile as he is completely oblivious as to how evil he truly is. Even Samuel L. Jackson's relatively small role as head house slave Stephen is perfectly balanced between comedic relief and scheming cretin. But the runaway role goes once again to Christoph Waltz as bounty hunter King Schultz. Inglourious Basterds had us see Waltz as an actor who could play an incredible villain, even earning an Academy Award for his part as Nazi colonel Hans Landa. Django Unchained shows us that he is just as capable of playing the good guy. Waltz sells his character as a gunslinging man of the law who is willing to live and die by his altruistic moral code. The breakout character of the movie yet again, I will be truly surprised if he doesn't get nominated again this year.

The other facet of the film that really impressed me was its pacing. Quentin Tarantino is not known for making short movies, and Django is no exception, clocking in at right under three hours. Unlike most of his other films, however, it never feels quite like it. There is never a dull moment, from the first moments of the movie where we see Django being transported by slavers across the Texas desert to the film's explosive finale, as Tarantino never makes us feel like we spent all afternoon in a dark theater.

So if this movie is so good, why does it not make my top spot as my favorite Tarantino flick? The answers are very nitpicky. Although the characters are all played expertly by the actors, none of them (save maybe Waltz's character) are nearly as memorable as some of the characters we've seen in his prior films. Django is also a more action-packed movie than the others, which diverted some of the attention away from the tense wordplay that has become associated with Tarantino's work. And frankly, I just didn't like the ending. Sue me.

Django Unchained is a fantastic movie. It's not perfect, but it's pretty close, and anyone who isn't easily offended by gore or language needs to make seeing this movie a priority. I give it 9 and a half learning-how-to-be-a-better-shot montages out of 10.

The Amazing Spider-Man

Ten years ago, my dad took my 12 year-old self and my little brother to go see Spider-Man in theaters. That movie was single-handedly responsible for my current love of superhero movies. So it was a bittersweet moment when I saw The Amazing Spider-Man. On one hand, it was definitely the end of an era. On the other, it was time for that era to end (I think I can speak for all of us when I say that Spider-Man 3 was really bad). I went into this movie with a lot of hope and a lot of fear, and I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

This being a reboot of the series, The Amazing Spider-Man is helmed by a new director (Mark Webb) and an entirely new cast. A few of the big characters return from the old movies, albeit with new faces. Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) plays Peter Parker, with Martin Sheen and Sally Field playing his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. That's where the similarities end, though. Instead of Mary Jane Watson being Peter Parker's love interest, the film stays truer to the comics and has Emma Stone as Peter's high school sweetheart, Gwen Stacey. There's no J. Jonah Jameson and no Osborne family (that's ever really seen), but the functions of some of those characters stays intact. Instead of Jameson being the loud-mouthed newspaper editor bent on making a villain out of Spider-Man, we have Gwen's dad, police captain John Stacey (Denis Leary), making Spider-Man out to be a dangerous masked vigilante. And although Norman Osborne is more of a shadowy figure in this film, Peter still finds a scientist role model/villainous arch-nemesis out of Rhys Ifans' portrayal as Curt Connors/The Lizard.

That's where the similarities end, however, because The Amazing Spider-Man sets a much different tone than its predecessor. Aside from its nods to its comic book origins (Gwen Stacey, using webshooters), this film is a lot darker than the ones that came before it. There's a lot of backstory to the sudden disappearance of Peter's parents, which is one of the two things that makes this version's Spider-Man much more interesting than the previous incarnation. The other thing that makes it more interesting is the fact that the casting choices in the leads were much better this time around. Andrew Garfield is a better Peter Parker in every respect, and I much prefer Emma Stone as the love interest than Kirsten Dunst. My chief complaint with the casting choices comes in with Uncle Ben and Aunt May. Some of the strongest performances in the 2002 film came from Cliff Robertson and Rosemary Harris as Peter Parker's elderly uncle and aunt. Although they opted for some higher-profile names in this reboot (Martin Sheen and Sally Field), the roles of Uncle Ben and Aunt May were largely disappointing, especially from Sheen.His portrayal of the single most influential figure in Spider-Man's life was hokey and uninspiring, a far cry from Robertson's endearing performance.

The only other big complaint I have with this film is the pacing. There was a lot of story to cover, and although the movie clocks in at a little over two hours long, it still feels like some of the relationships were rushed. It shows the most when they develop the character of Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans). The idea was to try and portray him as a misguided scientific mind who gets corrupted by his own creation (think half of all of Spider-Man's villains), but what we got instead was a hurried and rushed explanation and it makes the character less sympathetic and more unbelievable.

Sony and Marvel have already announced that The Amazing Spider-Man is the first in a new trilogy of Spider-Man movies. They're off to a good start with strong leads, an interesting new purpose for Oscorp (think shadowy corporate titan), and a cliffhanger that's better than any other Marvel movie to date. If they tighten up on the eye-rolling cheesiness of Uncle Ben and Aunt May and take a little more time developing the supporting cast, I think we may have on our hands the best movie series Marvel has ever had a part in. I give The Amazing Spider-Man 8 1/2 power-discovery montages out of 10.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

I'm not going to lie: I've been waiting for this movie for quite some time. I first learned of the existence of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter when it came out as a novel back in 2010, and since the first announcements of a movie, my interest was instantly piqued. Written by Seth Grahame-Smith, the same author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is portrayed as the secret journal of Abraham Lincoln, and uncovers the "secret truth" about how all of the actions in his life were dictated by the existence of vampires and his lifelong obsession with killing them. It's an absolutely absurd, yet incredibly entertaining premise, and the film adaptation brings the oddball charm of the book to life.

Despite Tim Burton producing and Wanted's Timur Bekmambetov in the director's chair, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter has plenty of relatively unknown actors making up the cast. Benjamin Walker plays our 16th president from his teenage years into adulthood, and by his side is Scott Pilgrim vs. The World's Mary-Elizabeth Winstead as Mary Tood Lincoln. Walker and Winstead are both surprisingly good at playing both the youthful and energetic Lincolns of youth and the burdened family at the head of a war-torn nation. Also rounding out the main cast is Dominic Cooper as Henry Sturgess, Lincoln's mysterious vampire-hunting mentor, and Rufus Sewell as Adam, the head of all vampire operations in the United States. For a summer blockbuster action movie, all of the main cast is surprisingly good, and the depth of every character is explored through the choices the actors make.

Unfortunately, the great acting is not complimented by a very good script. The action scenes in the movie are amazing, but the script is painfully cheesy, and not in a good, let's-laugh-at-this kind of way. The voiceovers are ridiculously dramatic, the montages are predictable and cliche, and the chemistry between the leads is only about one step up from the train wreck that was Star Wars Episode III. On a personal note, I was sad that they left out his adventure with Edgar Allen Poe, but it was an understandable cut for an already long movie.

Overall, I was immensely entertained by the film, and yet incredibly disappointed at what it had the potential to be. The fight scenes are awesome, and it makes a great action movie, but it wasted some great talent on a very clumsy script that could be painful to watch when Lincoln wasn't swinging an axe through a vampire's face. It's not a wonderful movie, but it's a great movie to turn your brain off and thoroughly enjoy. I give it 6 and a half silver-coated axeheads out of 10.

J. Edgar

When I heard that a biopic about J. Edgar Hoover was being made, I, as a history major, was a bit wary. Hoover was a controversial and polarizing figure, and his secretive nature made documents regarding his personal life rare and incomplete, and it would be all too easy to play to some of the more scandalous rumors that surrounded him, regardless of their accuracy. On the other hand, when I heard it was going to be directed by Clint Eastwood and stars Leonardo DiCaprio, I was excited at how well-made I knew it was going to be.

Well, I was pretty much right.

J. Edgar is a historically flawed, but otherwise impressive film. DiCaprio plays the title character as he tells his life story to a stenographer shortly before his death. His supporting cast is pretty impressive as well. Naomi Watts plays Helen Gandy, Hoover's personal secretary, and Judi Dench plays Hoover's mother, whose controlling nature hovers over Hoover for his entire life. The breakout actor in this film, though, is Armie Hammer, who most people would recognize as the actor who played both of the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network. In this film, he plays Clyde Tolson, Hoover's longtime friend, confidant, and rumored lover. Tolson is the most human character in a movie filled with cold-hearted bureaucrats, and Hammer is excellent at showing the struggle that is dealing with Hoover's abrasive personality in both a professional and personal sense.

Although it was well-acted and well-paced, I did have a couple of problems with the film. Probably the most glaring flaw of the film was the make-up. I'm not exactly sure what went wrong here, but the people responsible for aging DiCaprio and Hammer did one of the worst aging jobs I've ever seen. It was...it was just terrible. My other gripe is the aforementioned exploitation of the Hoover mythos. Whether Hoover was secretly gay or not is a mystery that might not ever be fully explained, but I hated the fact that it was not only conveyed as a fact, but became central to the movie's plot. As someone who has a soft spot in his heart for historically accurate movies (Public Enemies is one of my favorites for that reason), I had a really big problem with something that controversial being taken as canonical information on his life.

Overall, J. Edgar is a pretty fantastic film. Historically inaccurate, with glaringly fake age make-up, but otherwise incredibly well-done. The acting is fantastic, the pacing is great, and even the smaller directing choices, like angles and lighting, all do their part to tell the story of one of the most secretive public figures of 20th century America. I give it 8 blackmail files on public officials out of 10.

Carnage

A while back, a friend of mine sent me the trailer to this movie, and I got very excited. A Roman Polanski film starring four talented actors, set entirely in one apartment, about the devolution of civility in the face of adversity? Sign me up, right? Well, after a virtually nonexistent theatrical run (in limited markets, nonetheless), Carnage finally hit DVD, so I was very excited to go pick it up. I was thoroughly expecting to get blown away by a dream team of creative talent, but I have to admit, I was a little disappointed with what I watched.

Carnage is based off of the French play God of Carnage, and is centered around two sets of parents who meet to discuss an altercation between their sons. The Cowans (Christoph Waltz and Kate Winslet) are invited to the home of the Longstreets (John C. Reilly and Julianne Moore) to meet and civilly talk through what happened and how to remedy the problem. As the conversation continues, conflict arises, and we get to watch what happens as the barriers of politeness slowly deteriorate. All four of the actors in the movie are on point, but the standout performance has got to be from Reilly. Constantly trying to diffuse the tension, his character seems weak at first, but as the passive aggression builds and the anger boils over, his character starts to lose his grip, and that's when we really get to see his serious acting chops.

My main gripe with Carnage is the pacing. It's a two hour movie set entirely in one location and focuses on one subject for the entirety of the film. While compelling in its own right, and a definite change of pace from the A.D.D.-friendly choppiness so rampant in modern film, it drags very badly in the middle third of the movie, as we watch the characters get fed up with one another at a snail's pace. The tension builds far too slowly, and it's dreadfully boring to sit through to get to the payoff that is the final third of the movie.

I walked away with the impression that Carnage is definitely a screenplay that is more fun to perform in than to watch. The characters have plenty of depth and nuance, the subject matter is compelling, and the chance to perform with that much emotional range is very alluring. However, the movie is about a half-hour too long and starts to feel repetitive at times. Carnage is a good film, it's just not the great one I was expecting. I give it 7.5 interrupting cell phone calls out of 10.