Reel Critic: Holiday Movie Wrap-up

Quentin Tarantino has proven to be one of the more divisive directors in Hollywood. Three of his films have received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Picture, one of his films, Pulp Fiction, won him both the Palm D’Or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

Despite these awards, his use of sometimes over the top violence has earned him much criticism as a less-than-serious director by some critics and some members of the public. Tarantino’s 2012 film, Django Unchained, followed Django (Jamie Foxx) a recently freed slave working with the bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) to free his wife from the famous plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).

Each of Tarantino’s films acts as an homage to a specific genre, and Django was an artfully constructed tribute to some of the old spaghetti Westerns.

The name Django is a recurring character from over 20 films throughout the history of the genre and Tarantino’s film feels like a great addition to the tradition.

The acting was solid across the board. Waltz, who was brought to the public’s attention in Tarantino’s last film, Inglorious Basterds, and DiCaprio both gave solid performances — it’s no surprise Waltz was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance.

The best performance definitely came from Samuel L. Jackson. Jackson, who is a regular in Tarantino’s films, played Candie’s head servant, Stephen. Jackson has a flair for often bombastic roles but Stephen was a refreshing and surprising change from the norm, proving his ability as a top class actor.

Tarantino, whose films often feature stellar soundtracks, made some interesting decisions with the music in Django. A mixture of both time appropriate folksy tunes and more modern feeling hip-hop tracks, the soundtrack helped develop the unique feel of the film, though it did prove distracting from the movie as a whole at points.

Unfortunately, Django is Tarantino’s first film since the untimely death of his long time editor, Sally Menke and this definitely showed, as the film lacked the seamless flow of his other films.



I think it’s only fair to mention that I went into the theater for Les Misérables having never seen the stage production and being only vaguely familiar with the story.

That being said, I had high hopes for this film and unfortunately, I was largely disappointed. There is a lot to like about the film, most noticeably the performances by Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway. Jackman, a veteran of Broadway, delivered an electrifying performance and I don’t think I could find a single flaw in his performance. Hathaway, who is newer to musicals, was fantastic and I hope this isn’t the last time we get to hear her glorious singing voice.

It’s also worth pointing out the devotion both actors obviously had for the role as both nearly starved themselves to develop their image for the role, weight that Jackman then had to regain for the second half of the film. Unfortunately, the good things I have to say about the film stop there.

Russell Crowe was greatly overshadowed by his fellow lead actors and his singing voice left a lot to be desired, which is surprising given his history performing on stage with multiple bands since the 80s.

The cinematography also felt very out of control. It is a common trope in musical films that shoot large, grandeur shots that take in the entirety of the scene and Les Mis really tried to break away from that but in the end, the execution was poor. At one point, the scene would be filled with a large cast of characters and images of the admittedly fantastically executed scenery, only to zoom in on one of the characters, tracking their movements with a shaky camera. While I have no problem with a shaky camera in general and I appreciate any attempts to work outside ones genre when shooting a film, the attempts fell flat in Les Mis, only leaving me confused as to what sort of movie they were trying to make.



The end of every year seems to have at least one “sleeper hit,” that movie that doesn’t really get talked about until it is released and then suddenly blows up on stage, taking everybody by surprise.

Think The King’s Speech in 2010, which was hardly talked about until it won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

For 2012, Silver Linings Playbook was that hit. The film follows Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) who has just finished his court-ordered treatment at a mental institution and suffers from bipolar disorder.

Dealing with psychological disorders in film is always tricky and too often the disorder becomes nothing more than a plot point, trapping the character in stereotypes and clichés.

Silver Linings was a striking exception to the rule. The film talked about Pat’s illness in such an intelligent way and became a beautiful story about the disorder and the trouble both patients and their friends and families experience.

What really pulled the movie out of disorder-film clichés was Cooper’s performance.

Cooper has never really had a role that’s truly wowed me until this film, where he was able to so perfectly capture the torment of the illness while still being able to break away from being just another “bipolar character.”

For a large portion of the movie, Cooper’s character is obsessed with winning back the approval of his ex-wife, Nikki, and though we hardly see Nikki in the film, her character is so well put together by the stories told about her that I felt like I connected with her without really meeting her.

While I think the movie could have been enhanced by a well-composed original score, the soundtrack added an eclectic spin to the film, especially during the final dance scene.

Unfortunately, the film suffers from a trailer that seems to describe an entirely different film than what Silver Linings actually ends up being.

Certainly one of my choices for best movie of the year, this movie well deserves the growing, end-of-the-year attention.