Quick Review: Django Unchained

How was it? Perfect.

Django Unchained is a cinematic masterpiece with balls the size of grapefruits. A homage to spaghetti westerns that manages to be original, engaging, full of action and suspense, as well as comedy. Possibly Tarantino’s greatest film so far. The bad guys are so bad you want to jump into the movie Last Action Hero style and kill them yourself. Waltz, Foxx and DiCaprio are exceptional in their roles, with Samuel L. Jackson just being that extra bonus, while Don Johnson is unrecognizable, but in a good way. Tarantino is a master of details and has managed to sneak in scenes and frames that look exactly like a spaghetti western, and when the soundtrack kicks in - which offers a mix of Morricone and Rick Ross, you realize this isn’t just a great movie, this should be a standard for great movies.

Note: This movie is fun from start to finish. There’s even a homage to Blazing Saddles! I’ve never seen slavery depicted so brutally in a movie, usually it’s with a much more dramatic, theatrical approach - this felt very real, painful, unfair, inhumane and sadist. I never thought I’d say this about any movie, but while watching it, I wished my day was alive so we can enjoy it together. Yup, it’s a powerful film, no doubt. Worth re-watching. 

Vuk Oreb, Rad Recorder via Rotten Tomatoes

Quick Review: That’s My Boy!

Adam Sandler is trying to pass the torch to Andy Samberg, but the problem is, is there any fire left on the torch? Whatever the case may be, That’s My Boy is the dumbest Sandler movie I have seen thus far, but I haven’t seen Jack and Jill yet, so I still love his work. As dumb and vulgar as it is, at least it doesn’t feel forced. MacFarlane’s Ted is equally obnoxious and laced with a Massachusetts background, but it feels way more unnatural than this over-the-top politically incorrect stoner slacker film. If you love Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison, and have zero expectations, than this movie doesn’t fail. There have been some truly terrible comedies in 2012, like American Pie Reunion or The Watch, and this really is better. One thing is for sure - it’s awesome to be friends with Adam Sandler, because he will make sure you have an acting career, as the entire roster of his allies featured in this film will surely confirm. Also, the product placement here is crazy, everything is Budweiser, Busch, New Era and Carrhart, which means that even if the film failed at the box office, nobody involved left empty handed. So, when it comes to the stupidest of comedies, you can rely on Sandler to deliver, and that’s why this film deserves a three out of five rating.

Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms (2006)

Mike Mignola provided the story, the character design is equal to his comic book series, all the voices were done by the same actors that portrayed these characters in feature films, so this will definitely be a great cartoon, right? Wrong! The story is full of plot-holes and seems nonsensical, the animation is lazy, and the action scenes could have been done better - if not for the aforementioned lazy animation. There’s another Hellboy Animated feature, Blood and Iron, but after watching this one, Blood and Iron will be skipped. What a waste of time.

Vuk Oreb / Rad Recorder via RootenTomatoes

Quick Review: The Loved Ones

The Loved Ones is an amazingly intense, gory and disturbing horror film. No monsters, zombies or aliens here, just psychopaths, so twisted you won’t forget them in a long time. The main villains here are a teenage girl named Lola and her father, who kidnap Brent, the boy she wanted to take her to the school dance - so they organize a private prom in their house.

The torture scenes and the level of suspense in this film are uncanny. This kind of horror hasn’t been seen in years. There’s also some humor with the help of supporting characters - a nerd and his heavy metal babe crush, whose back-story has a calming effect in the middle of all the painful and disgusting scenes with Brent, Lola and her father. If you love true horror, this is a must see. Australian cinema doesn’t get the credit it deserves, and The Loved Ones is a title that proves its awesomeness and originality.

Rating: 4/5

Posted at RottenTomatoes

Vuk Oreb / Rad Recorder

Quick Review: The Campaign

The Campaign is a decent political satire, with Ferrell and Galifianakis doing a great job as the douche congressman and his fish-out-water naive good guy opponent, both running for office in the same district in North Carolina. To paraphrase the great Stewart Griffin, friends become enemies, enemies become friends, leaving everyone richer for the experience, as the film follows a predictable pattern that is even reminiscent of Trading Places - two rivals who don’t even know each other, manipulated by two filthy rich bastard brothers, played by Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow.

Jay Roach directed this, so those predictable elements go extreme in the best possible way, but this also means the story is a bit naive and cliched at times. And yes, Galifianakis cries in this film as well, within the first ten minutes.

Rating: 3/5

Posted at RottenTomatoes

Vuk Oreb / Rad Recorder

Quick Review: Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap (Starring Ice-T as Ice-T in an Ice-T production, directed by Ice-T, narrated to sleep by Ice-T)

The Art of Rap is basically a documentary about Ice-T talking to veteran MC’s about writing lyrics, just talking and spitting rhymes. And it’s incredibly boring, like a long mandatory lecture about music history, from the viewpoint of the people who were actually making history happen, but they overemphasize every single detail about the creative process, their own importance, and constantly keep kissing each other’s asses.

The format is like this: Ice-T talks about himself and the omnipotent power of Hip Hop, about himself some more, then we see a couple of urban landscapes, Ice-T walking in slow motion across some city, then Ice-T talks to a rapper, he calls the rapper the greatest at something and the innovator of something else, the rapper agrees, usually followed by an extra long verse; repeat cycle. Most protagonists seem to be totally out of touch with reality, Ice-T included, and the weirdest part of this documentary are Eminem’s eyes. If you follow modern Hip Hop, not the mainstream/singles charts/MTV heavy rotation shit, but if you’re in the know about today’s leaders and innovators, then don’t watch this.

Rating: 2/5 (maybe, it’s unbearably boring, and you keep waiting for KRS One to show up and bore you even more - he delivers)

Posted at RottenTomatoes

Vuk Oreb / Rad Recorder

A couple of film reviews coming up. Some were good, some were awesome and some sucked. 

Quick Review: Safety Not Guaranteed

Safety Not Guaranteed is a good indie comedy with a slight Sci-Fi twist. The premise of a team of reporters doing a story about a man who placed an ad seeking someone to go back in time with him is interesting, based on real events, and thanks to leads Aubrey Plaza, Jake Johnson and Mark Duplass as the magazine intern, journalist and potential time- traveler, this an enjoyable feature. Like most indie films in recent years, you get a dose of real human stories, humor, and melodrama, because independent films like to remind you that there are no perfect and happy endings. Speaking of endings, that’s when this movie feels rushed, in its final third, when it jumps to Sci-Fi mode. You might say ‘Wait, that’s it?’ by the end of it, but Safety Not Guaranteed is definitely worth watching.

Vuk Oreb / Rad Recorder via Rotten Tomatoes

The Avengers - Quick Recap

Saw The Avengers last night, finally. It’s a good movie, but a great product. What I mean is that it feels more like a product, rather than a work of cinematic art. It is just like a comic book that’s come to life, but there are many, many different comic books, and some are dumber than others. This especially applies to Marvel, which can get up its own ass at times. Lots of action, plenty of lightweight comedy, an almost constant ‘Team America, Fuck Yeah’ atmosphere, excessive cliches and a story that should had been explained better, but, most of all - special effects, everywhere, all the time, as the center of attention and the main vehicle carrying this movie. So, I’d give it a 3.5 out of a total 5, tops. I’ll definitely check out the sequel, and I hope it has a better story than this one. That’s my main gripe with The Avengers, the story is just too flat, and rushed in the final act. I’m a comic book nerd for life, love pulp novels, B-movies, superheroes and everything that falls under those categories, but when you have an insanely huge budget like The Avengers had, please, there is a lot more you can do with the story, and it would’t hurt the box-office results.