Film
Freedom Fighters
Django Unchained: American History, Wrecked by Erik Henriksen “Western” might be the wrong word, actually: Much of Django Unchained riffs on the likes of Sergio Leone, but it’s set in the South, just before the Civil War. There, dapper German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz, flaunting Django probably the year’s best perUnchained what’s formance, and unquestionably the dir. Quentin Tarantino year’s best beard) rattles about in a Opens Tues Dec 25 creaky dentist’s wagon that has a giVarious ant, wobbling, spring-mounted tooth Theaters bolted to its roof. “I kill people and sell their corpses for cash,” Schultz explains, pragmatically and charmingly. And so—pragmatically and, somehow, charmingly—Schultz buys Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave who can help him ID his current bounties, the Brittle Brothers. (“For the time being,” Schultz tells Django, shortly after pouring him his first beer, “I’m going to make this slavery malarkey work to my benefit.”) While Schultz plans DJANGO UNCHAINED “No, no, I agree. That totally is Bon Jovi’s best song.” on setting Django free once the Brittles are HE WORLD’S FIRST western blax- gleefully making a balls-out western after dead, he soon finds himself devoted to Djanploitation revenge buddy comedy, Django years of almost doing so, and it’s excellent that go’s own quest: to rescue his wife, Broomhilda Unchained is one of Quentin Tarantino’s best he did: The genre hasn’t been served this well (Kerry Washington), from Candyland, a nomovies—a brutal, hilarious, thrilling, messy since Deadwood, No Country for Old Men, and torious plantation owned by the rot-toothed Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) and run bastard of a thing. It’s the result of Tarantino Red Dead Redemption.
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by Candie’s devoted slave, Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson). And so: a film that Tarantino boasts is “the most violent western since The Wild Bunch,” even if, by the time Tupac shows up on the soundtrack, Django has become significantly bloodier. (And, as evidenced by Jim Croce’s sitcom-y “I Got a Name” playing over a montage of Django and Schultz pallin’ around on their horses, significantly funnier.) Like Inglourious Basterds—another film where Tarantino reduced history to pulp, both factually and viscerally—there’s a lot to unpack in Django, be it the boiling-down of America’s fucked-up past into melodrama, or Tarantino’s continued indulgence of his second-favorite fetish, after Uma Thurman’s feet. (Here, at least, there’s more context for the N-word than in Pulp Fiction.) That’s for later viewings, though: On first watch, Django Unchained is simply a hell of a lot of fun—visceral and clever and operatic, with Foxx’s deadpan humor barely hiding his righteous fury as DiCaprio’s babyface smiles and smiles and smiles until it splits apart in rage. And that’s not even getting into Samuel L. Jackson, or the big gunfight, or what is—I’m fairly certain—the only and best scene ever filmed that features the KKK, Don Johnson, and Jonah Hill. Told you it was a messy bastard of a thing. And it’s bloody, and it’s mean, and it’s great. Good luck finding any other movie this Xmas that’s even half as much fun.
Trapped in La Cosette Married with Children
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Les Miz is Garbage. Sorry, Theater Nerds. by Alison Hallett
Judd Apatow and Middle Age by Erik Henriksen
´ LES MISERABLES The Wolverine and Catwoman team-up fanboys have been waiting for!
THIS IS 40 Not pictured: Seth Rogen.
OOK, I LIKE LES MISÉRABLES. If it Hathaway, as a fragile Fantine, kills it with a was playing at a reputable theater com- vulnerable “I Dreamed a Dream.” The rest pany in Portland this weekend? I would go see of the time, the giant-talking-heads motif is claustrophobic and distracting. it! But good lord, the new movie is garThe singing and acting here bage. (Note: I’m gonna go ahead and Les assume everyone knows the plot to Misérables is mostly fine, despite all the hullaballoo about the actors singing Les Miz—it is, after all, the thinkdir. Tom Hooper ing man’s Phantom of the Opera. Opens Tues Dec 25 live. Surprisingly, it’s Broadway vet Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean who Amirite?!) [EDITOR’S NOTE: AliVarious botches his vocals a few times—a son assures me that was supposed to be Theaters few lines are jarringly off-key. Russell “a joke,” and that “theater kids” will “get Crowe acquits himself fairly well in the it.”—Ed.] The big hook for director Tom Hooper’s vocals department, though his Javert comes adaptation of the musical is that all of the actors off as a little too emo in pivotal scenes. I never thought I’d say this phrase, but the did their singing live: That is, the vocals were recorded as the actors sang them in each scene, best parts of this movie are the montages. Any time the movie broadens its lens to encompass not added later as in most movie musicals. Just to make sure nobody in the audience the whole of Paris, things start to get fun, and forgets about this fact, the film is packed with there are some enjoyable setpieces, like “Red extreme closeups. This is a mistake. Les Miz plays and Black” performed by a pack of handsome great to a large theater, but the sung dialogue young revolutionaries. Even with a few engagseems profoundly silly in intimate closeup—it’s ing crowd scenes, though, this movie is 400 like Trapped in the Closet for white people who hours long, and feels longer. Nothing is added aren’t in on the joke. These closeups pay off in the transition to film—and quite a bit of in only a few scenes, most notably when Anne spectacle and fun is lost.
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Debbie’s dad is played by John Lithgow, Pete’s V E R Y B O D Y K N O W S T H A T couby the always fantastic Albert Brooks—ladle ple. They’re pretty, everybody likes on even more stress. It’s all overstuffed, and them, and they’re fun to hang out with—until pretty blurry: This Is 40 isn’t so much they aren’t, since they’re always fightThis about its kajillion characters and plot ing. Not screaming, crying, throwIs 40 threads as it is about reminding you ing-whatever’s-at-hand fighting, that life is generally kind of crappy. but that sort of passive aggression dir. Judd Apatow Which, weirdly, isn’t as identifiwith just enough tension to make Opens Fri Dec 21 able of a sentiment as it should be: everyone slightly uncomfortable. Various The fact that Pete and Debbie are Spending two hours with them is Theaters incredibly well off (and did I mention kind of like watching This Is 40—a film how incredibly attractive they are?) can’t help that, in a few ways, feels like Judd Apatow’s but detract from their supposed unhappiness. most personal yet. It’s kind of like Scenes from There’s never any doubt that Pete and Debbie a Marriage, if Ingmar Bergman wrote great will stay together, which means we get hours jokes about blowjobs. of Pete and Debbie squabbling, nagging, Playing Pete and Debbie—their characters whining, and pouting… and then they wonder from Knocked Up—Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann if they should sell their mansion of a house, are the world’s most attractive and bickering or blithely hop into their BMWs and Lexuses. couple. While Knocked Up had Pete and DebThis Is 40 is excellently acted, and consisbie helping out a couple of dumb kids, This Is tently funny, and, as a portrait of what it’s like 40 zooms in on their problems: Debbie insists to be rich and (kind of) sad, I don’t doubt it’s on insisting she’s still 38, Pete needs Viagra, authentic. But whether or not you’ll want to they’re constantly annoyed with each other, spend two hours listening to these two bickertheir businesses are underperforming, their ing about it is another issue entirely. kids are pains in the ass, and their fathers—
December 19th, 2012 portlandmercury.com 43