Django, Les Mis, and Unchaining the N Word.

So we ended up seeing Django Unchained after all, and then Les Miserables after that.  Joe and I both cried at the end of Les Mis.  He said it was the best ending of a film that he's seen this year.  I agree it was a moving moment, but the film was super long and really dragged in spots.  I think in total it only had 3 good songs in there, those songs were really good though, can you say verklempt?  At first I was all pissed off at the shaky cam and quick cut edits, but I let that go.  Also I wasn't all that impressed with the singing, except for Amanda Seyfried and the guy who played Cosette's love interest, also the daughter of the innkeepers had a nice voice.   But especially Russell Crowe was lamo - I think better voices should have been cast.  I liked Sascha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter in their buffoonish lowlife roles - they provided the comic relief to an altogether dismal and ernest affair.

Django was lots more fun.  I think what I liked best about it was how authentically 70's exploitation spaghetti western it looked and felt.  The songs sounded 70's, well they actually used 70's songs so I guess that makes sense.  In fact I wouldn't be surprised if Tarantino's inspiration for having Jamie Fox's character be called Django was because he wanted to use the theme song.

I liked the rap stuff too and the editing was sweet. There were a lot of these quick zoom reaction moments that were just great.  Like that viral gopher.

Christoph Walz is awesome in it.  I kept thinking, Tarantino really scored when he found him for Inglorious Basterds.  He's just got this super styley panache.  It's the way he talks, the distinctive cadence and precise phrasing, and how he grins and does this big eyed hand twirly oh you kinda shit just before he does something outrageous.  He's the best part of the film.  I'm pretty sure Tarantino wrote the film around him.  Yeah, yeah, it stars Jamie Foxx, and it's a slave revengesploitation, but it's such a white man's film, an apologist view of racism, that glories in racist violence too, and that the German guy is the one who frees the slave?  Well what's that if not an attempt at healing some karma and attempting cultural reparations?  Dr King!!! Schultz?  I bet QT was all giggling on that and I bet lots of black folk hate that it's such a white folk flick, but  I'm not bothered by that much.  I enjoyed it, and even though I thought it was a tasteless film to make, I think it's great that slavery is the subject, because slavery and racial intolerance and yadayada social justice human rights issues are so important to spark dialogue on.  It's got gross bits of ultra violence and the slaves are mostly weak and Jamie Foxx is the superman exceptional black man, but whatever, I don't wanna get all analytical on the flick.  It's an adventure time story and I think everyone involved had a good time making it.  I had a good time watching it.  Thumbs up.

Back to the racist stuff though...I'm reminded of this song

I was trying to figure out who did it yesterday, and I found out it's from Gangsta Rap: The Glockumentary (2007), dir Coke Williams.  I haven't seen it, but I want to.  It sounds a lot like CB4 (1993),  the Chris Rock/Tamra Davis thang, except this faux behind the scenes mockumentary is more recent.  I listened to some of the songs and they're pretty funny.  Anyhow, I think it's an important distinction that cultural commentary that could be seen as racist and mocking, that it's better if it comes from a cultural insider.  At least that cuts down on the knee jerk that's RACIST!! reactions some.  I dunno.  There's a whole lotta drama attached to the word nigger and nigga, the n word!!! Like you should't use it if you aren't black, or that it's verboten because it's an especially hateful word. I don't really buy that.  Kike is a hateful word, so are a lot of words.  Slurs are powerful, but making them taboo like that with different levels of acceptability of usage around race, while it makes sense,  it also seems silly.  I know I'm trying to simplify something complicated, but I would like it if life WERE simpler in terms of words NOT being especially imbued with power to hurt.  Let's not get rude about crudeness eh?

I wrote this about a week ago and I thought I might write more on the flicks, but I'm fine with this as it is.  I just want to get back in the habit of writing about the movies I see again.

Juncture

directed by  James Seale (2007)

Juncture is a noirish revenge flick with a pretty good ending that leaves an opening for sequels, or just for imaginating what happens next.  It's satisfying on a bloodthirsty level, but it's a real B flick, not terrible, but not super compelling either.  It's something that probably read real well as a screenplay.  You've got a protagonist who's a well to do good looking lady executive, with a tragic past, and an even more tragic future.  Isn't that always the way though?  Anna Carter, (Kristine Blackport), is head of a richie rich charity board and gives out cash money to worthwhile causes, though you hear her talk about that more than you see her do it, mostly she just flies around the country and talks snotty to her boss.  Actually the flick could have done away with the majority of those scenes, because the real action is around her off the books job as a gun toting lady vengeance. She's the one woman taxi driver weather underground travelling around the country and raining bullets down on the scum to clean up the streets.  It starts off with a bang, she offs a child molester just been sprung from jail, then goes on from there unbottling her genie with the hand gun so to grant other bad folk a Charles Bronson Death Wish.  There's character development scenes around her relationship to her boss and her law clerking best friend, also some ooolala sexy time with a new guy trying to spark a romance, but whatever, because this one is all about the Dirty Harriet action.  Oh yeah, she has cancer in her brain and that's why she decides to do something mean with the rest of her life.

I have to admit I'm a little ashamed for enjoying this.  I like these vengeance flicks though, and I like them even better when it's a woman dealing out the vigilante justice.  It's not that great though, in truth I fast forwarded much of it. It's got some interesting camera work but all told it's not much of a much.  Made the most of a low budget though.  Good job there, James Seale.  I hope you get summat even more pulpier next go round.

The Cry of failure

directed by Bernadine Santistevan (2007)

I just finished The Cry.  What a crappy horror flick.  It was in my DVR stinking it up for god knows how long, and for whatever reason, I'd marked it to be saved from automatic deletion.  Too bad, though because it wasn't worth my time.  I have to be more careful in sussing things to watch later, because if I choose summat, just my choosing it creates an impetus for watching that is hard to overcome.  EVEN when I can tell it's stinky from the description or right from the start with it's crappy DTV look, I'll be still full of hope, thinking maybe it's a buried treasure, or when it's gone a ways and it's still not looking good, I'll think, maybe it'll pull out all the stops and get genius at tying up all the loose ends, or that it's gonna have crazy awesome special effects or a super great performance that elevates the dreck beyond the sum of its parts.  I'm too quick to commit and I want to believe and that's ok if you're religious, but not so good when it comes to movies, especially horror flicks. 

This horror is particularly distasteful since its focus is child deaths, actually murders, the saddest kind - moms killing their kids. I had to look this up, because the way it's explained in the film makes very little sense, but there is a legend/story called La Llorona, about a woman who killed her kids, either because her husband left her, or she wanted to be with another man. She kills herself too, and when she's trying to get into heaven, St. Peter is all where are your kids lady?  Can't get in here without them, so she has to go back and wander around looking for them, and that's never gonna happen because they are dead right? And probably already in heaven too I guess.  The movie is based on that spooktastic tale, but it takes what's admittedly a tragic and scary premise and doesn't bring anything more to the story.


Anyhow, it's about a cop who's investigating child disappearances, or deaths?  I forget, and that's pretty sad that I'd forget such a key point, but the fact that I could forget that is an indication of how little sense this movie makes.  Lead guy, (Christian Carmago - I was wondering where I'd seen this guy before - turns out he was in Dexter), is a cop who used to be a wall street investor. In the course of the film you find out he became a cop after losing his son - there are ominous flashbacks that never explain this and the way his son died is finally revealed in a tasteless scene. I guess his career change means something, but I'm at a loss to figure out why he couldn't have always been a cop, since that part seems integral to the story.  He's got to be trying to solve the disappearances of the kids.  Oh yeah, they are missing, because at the climax of the film, he finds them.

He's got a partner who's obnoxious and doesn't know his partner lost his kid.   I guess they haven't been partners long, or they're not close.  Maybe the movie starts on the main guy's first day as a detective?  I dunno.

I just decided I'm not gonna even bother with figuring out my feelings and making fun of this flick.  It's not bad enough to warrant the energy.  It's a shitty feel bad idea, that's one part cop thriller, one part ghost/possession story, one part mental patient as the monster trope fail, toss a child in danger as the cheap fulcrum of suspense and mush all those elements together in hamfisted fashion until you plop out this stankness.

The best thing about watching it, was Karma, the short that played right after.  That one was satisfying and well done. It had some of the elements of the first one, a bit of spooky, a vengeful spirit, and a child in danger, but it made sense.  If The Cry had been condensed down to a short, then I might have given it a pass, figuratively, instead of wishing I had literally.