Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Ceylan, 2011)|||||7
* Jackie Brown (Tarantino, 1997)|||||8
* Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (Tarantino, 2003)|||||7.5
Django Unchained (Tarantino, 2012)|||||6.5
This is Tarantino making the piece of entertainment he's always wanted to make - so, knowing Tarantino's taste, this is an artistic disappointment. It's not a tonal piece or thematic work, it's finally Tarantino doing his honest-to-goodness exploitation flick: pure popcorn-muncher, with no structuralist pretensions, and rhetorical ones bromized to a salty dishwater by sheer dint of all the slackened fun. Tarantino is in Kill Bill mode here - busy, busy filmmaking, trying to channel the energies and capriciousness of the real filmmaking of olde - but without even Kill Bill's vigilant mood, control, and focus.
He tries his absolute damndest to make every minute come straight from the 70's or 90's (or Griffith), which of course results in filmmaking verve and truly palpable mise en scene which we're often starved of nowadays. But, still, all his minor efforts never transcend the lower ambitions set here, and the film's hodgepodge results in many mediocre patches and somehow no scene that equals the heights found in his previous films.
Augment the 70's filmmaking freedom with the scrappy 1990's sense of narrative propulsion (whereas Inglourious Basterds befuddled all expectation with its structural pacing, this film trots or montages along like Corbucci by way of any circa-English Patient historical pageant) and you end up with Django Unchained: a dumb grindhouse flick, or a perfectly conventional period epic - but a particularly intelligent and audacious one... which is the way one wants to describe those 70's pieces of detritus worth remembering (or dated 90's slogs worth remembering). Well done, Quentin, you've realized your dream film with what feels like a throwaway effort, and clearly your most slapdash picture. Also, probably the Tarantino film that moves at the fastest clip - a good sign of its disappointing convention.
But it's a great time - the screenplay is full of high points and some fascinating returns.
Amour (Haneke, 2012)|||||7
Something of a disappointment. Beyond the inherent merit of Haneke tackling such worthy subject matter with his unsentimental sense of humanity, the screenplay he's written is so simple... it's a Haneke film with no surprises. Too many inert metaphors, as well - SPOILER a pigeon and a dream sequence threaten to sink the picture. /SPOILER
V/H/S (Various, 2012)|||||4
The Hole (Dante, 2012)|||||6
* Silent Night, Deadly Night Part II (Harry, 1987)|||||3.5
Brilliantly bad. Highly pleasurable gonzo and irresponsible filmmaking.
* Black Christmas (Clark, 1974)|||||7
Holds up. A tame slasher, but a gripping and dramatically excellent slasher - a rare achievement, worthy of savoring.
Argo (Affleck, 2012)|||||5.5
This is essentially an American film that half takes place in Iran and can pretty much be said to be about Iran, and it has that much going for it. It's its better self when it is directly depicting the political history and functioning society of Iran. Hugely uneven, though. But Affleck remains a visually confident and earnest, even-handed filmmaker.
Oslo, August 31st (Trier, 2012)|||||7.5
The Pact (McCarthy, 2012)|||||4.5
The Night Porter (Cavani, 1974)|||||5.5
* Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (Dickerson, 1994)|||||4.5
Mon Oncle d'Amerique (Resnais, 1980)|||||7.5
Je t'aime, je t'aime (Resnais, 1968)|||||6
* Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks, 1935)|||||8.5
Silver Linings Playbook (Russell, 2012)|||||5
Anna Karenina (Wright, 2012)|||||6
Entrance (Hallam & Horvath, 2012)|||||5
Mississippi Damned (Mabry, 2012)|||||4.5
* South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut (Stone, 1999)|||||5
Le pont du Nord (Rivette, 1981)|||||6.5
