Review: Django Unchained

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Quentin Tarantino’s newest film, Django Unchained, has been billed and advertised as a Western, but that’s not entirely accurate.  It has horses and gunfights and a Sam Peckinpah mixed with Sergio Leone style, but it’s not really a Western.  For one thing, it takes place in the South, from Texas to Mississippi to Tennessee.  For another, it’s really a slavery revenge story.  And though it was generally enjoyable, it made me wish that Tarantino had chosen to make a true Western, if only to show what he could really do by sticking to the genre. Continue reading →

Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

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            “The Hobbit” was my favorite book when I was in elementary school.  I read it many times, equally enjoying the adventure story and the british humor and style of the book.  I didn’t read “The Lord of the Rings” until high school, once I had heard they were turning them into movies.  At the time I was surprised they weren’t starting with “The Hobbit”, but after seeing Fellowship of the Ring I was completely sold on their method.  “The Lord of the Rings” is more epic and adult than “The Hobbit” and the success of those films clearly shows that they made the right choice.

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Review: Lincoln

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             It’s winter, 1864.  Abraham Lincoln sits in the rain as a couple of black union soldiers recite back to him the Gettysburg Address, delivered about a year before.  It’s been almost two years since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War is drawing to a close.  So begins Steven Spielberg’s long awaited masterpiece, Lincoln.  It tells Lincoln’s story in a somewhat unconventional way, by focusing on one event during his complex and fascinating lifetime: the fight for the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, banning slavery.Lincoln has recently been reelected, and is opposed by a stubborn lame-duck Congress.  He knows that the war will end soon, and he knows that the Emancipation Proclamation, a wartime executive order that freed only some of the slaves, will not stand up to legal scrutiny once peace is declared.  He has tried to sell the idea that an amendment abolishing slavery will bring an end to the war, but he knows that if rumors of peace talks spread that they will effectively kill any hope of passing such an amendment.

Review: Skyfall

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Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond movie celebrating the 50th anniversary of the release of Dr. No, is a bit of an oddity.  It’s certainly enjoyable, but it’s also very different.  It signifies a bit of a clean slate for the series, it has a unique villain, and it deals with some interesting questions about Bond’s place in the world (and, by extension, the relevance of James Bond movies in our current times).  It contains the same globe hopping, martini drinking, explosion filled extravaganza we expect from Bond, but the last half hour contains something completely new.

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Review: Wreck-It Ralph

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            Have you ever felt like no one appreciates you?  Have you ever felt like you don’t fit in, or that you don’t have a place in the world?  Try this one: are you tired of being repeatedly thrown off a roof by an angry mob while your opponent always gets a medal?  Ralph is.  For the last 30 years, Ralph has been destroying an apartment building as the villain of Fix-It Felix, Jr., a videogame in an arcade.  Every morning he gets up from the pile of rubble in which he sleeps, climbs to the top of the building and destroys it, hurling wreckage down at Felix, who repairs the building.  The inhabitants of the building cheer Felix on, baking him pies, and when Felix finally gets to the top the people throw Ralph off the building into the mud.  He’s done this over and over again, every day for 30 years. Continue reading →

Review: Frankenweenie

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How often have we seen the story of a boy and his dog?  And more importantly, how well do we know the ending?  From Old Yeller to Marley & Me, we know that, nine times out of ten, a boy and his dog story will end with the death of the dog.  But, in Frankenweenie, the death of the dog is just the beginning. Continue reading →

Review: Argo

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The date is November 4th, 1979, and the US Embassy in Tehran, Iran is surrounded by Islamist students and militants.  The Ayatollah had assumed power earlier that year as a result of the Iranian Revolution, deposing the Shah, who had been installed in 1953 as part of US backed military coup.  The Shah fled to the US, where he was being given medical treatment for cancer.  As the protesters outside compound grow in numbers, volume and anger, one man cautiously climbs over the fence and onto American soil.  He is followed by another, and another, and then the chains on the gate are cut, and the entire crowd swarms in.  The US soldiers stationed inside the embassy eventually stand down, not wanting to fire into the civilians and cause a bigger incident.  Eventually 52 American embassy workers are captured, and will remain hostages for 444 days, in what will become one of the defining moments in US-Iran relations.  But what the Iranians didn’t know, was that six Americans escaped, and are on the run. Continue reading →

Review: Pitch Perfect

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Beca (Anna Kendrick) is starting her first year at Barden College with a free ride because her father is a professor there.  The only problem is, she doesn’t want to go to college.  Beca would rather be going to LA to become a music producer.  She spends every spare moment (even in the cab she took from home to avoid interacting with her father) on her laptop, creating mash-ups and musical creations, her real joy in life.  She has an awkward first meeting with her roommate, she scoffs condescendingly at the goofy people she encounters around campus (especially the cute guy who sings at her out the window of a car), and her embarrassing dad is insisting that if she gives college a try and doesn’t like it he will pay for her to move to LA.  This would typically be the start of a typical college movie about romance, parties, friends, and finding your place.  But Pitch Perfect has something different going for it.  You see… Beca is a nerd.

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The 84th Annual Academy Awards

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Once again, it’s time for Oscar predictions. Last year I did a pretty poor job with my predictions, getting only 10 correct.

Best Short Film, Live Action:
Prediction: Tuba Atlantic
My Pick: N/A

Best Short Film, Animated:
Prediction: La Luna
My Pick: Tangled Ever After
It’s interesting that La Luna is nominated, despite the fact that it has yet to play nationwide.  You’d think Pixar would have waited on it until it airs before Brave this summer.

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Thoughts on Harry Potter

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Before the final Harry Potter movie comes out, I want to try to explain what it means to me. It’s a difficult task; the story and the universe J.K. Rowling created are vast and intricate, with rich and real characters and story moments that cover every conceivable emotion, and it’s difficult to find the words to relate just how I feel here at the end. Her story is one of death and loss hand in hand with love and triumph. It is both funny and shocking, both tragic and uplifting. It has drawn, and continues repeatedly to draw, more tears from my eyes than I can count, of joy and sorrow combined. Once I connected to the story it was a part of me; the characters now have a permanent grip on my heart. It’s something that will be with me for the rest of my life, and has had a profound impact on me in ways I’m not sure I fully understand. I’m doing my best not to overstate things here, but the Harry Potter story is, for me personally, one of the most influential and lasting experiences I’ve encountered.

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