2012 in Review: Most Surprising

2012 was a good and surprising year for film. As the year draws to a close, it's the surprises I want to focus on first. I love it when a film is more than I expected or different (in a good way) than I hoped.

Here's a look back at my biggest cinema surprises of 2012:

The Queen of Versailles
Directed by Lauren Greenfield
Available on DVD, digital download

During 2012's divisive Presidential campaign, a timeshare mogul named David Siegel sent a letter to his employees telling them it was in their own best interests to cast their votes for Mitt Romney. You see, according to Siegel's logic, another Obama term meant higher taxes for the wealthy so that meant he would have to begin to lay people off. So the message was: my guy wins or you lose your job.

The Queen of Versailles began its life as a way to document Siegel, his wife, Jackie, and their attempts to build the largest house in the United States--a 90,000 square foot behemoth the couple dub "Versailles" after the royal chateau in France. In the middle of construction, the financial crisis necessitates a very different type of film. As Siegel's timeshare business feels the crunch of banks turning off their spigots, construction stops and the family must face some harsh financial realities.

While nothing about the Siegels is subtle and its hard to feel sorry for a family whose idea of cutting back is having to continue to live in their 30,000 square foot home, The Queen of Versailles does a good job of providing a bit of humanity to the so-called 1%. While I will never support or be able to grasp the arrogance of David Siegel's election email to his employees, The Queen of Versailles helped me understand why he did it: survival.

Wreck-It-Ralph
Directed by Rich Moore
Featuring the voices of John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jane Lynch

I never thought I would be able to say this, but am pretty happy I can: this year, with Wreck-It-Ralph, Disney came out ahead of Pixar.

While Pixar's Brave was a disappointment--plodding and obvious--Wreck-It-Ralph was full of unabashed joy. This story of an old-school video game villain searching for his place in the (virtual) world is a charming confection full of fun and funny. Wreck-It-Ralph went retro to capture the hearts of nostalgic adults with nods to Nintendo and Atari (a down-and-out Q-Bert!), but also included more contemporary video game staples, including Calhoun, a bad-ass sergeant (voiced by the fabulous Jane Lynch) trying to stop a big, bad bug invasion within a Candy-Land-like racing game.

Calhoun wasn't the only great female in Wreck-It-Ralph: Sarah Silverman plays Vanellope, a candy-colored would-be race driver who discovers what she's truly capable of. In a year where Pixar wanted little girls to connect with Brave's Merida, Wreck-It-Ralph offered better female role models and more for everyone to cheer about.

Skyfall
Directed by Sam Mendes
Starring Daniel Craig, Judy Dench, Javier Bardem
Now in Theaters

Before I talk about Skyfall, I want to address Quantum of Solace--Bond's last outing. I didn't get it at first. It's a heavy film; one that's much more severe in tone than any other Bond. Since that initial viewing, I've had the opportunity to see Quantum as it was intended: as an extension of Craig-as-Bond's first film, Casino Royale. Quantum picks up as Royale ends with Bond looking to understand the betrayal and death of Vespa Lynd, a woman that had him convinced to give up Queen and Country. Both films feed into one another with the tone coming around to a much more somber and subdued Bond than we've seen before.

And that's what made Skyfall such a surprise.

While Skyfall starts with a brooding and broken Bond, he finds his wry wit again setting up future Bond films for a much a lighter and familiar tone (although think more Sean Connery than Pierce Brosnan). Add to that: a fabulously devious and not-to-be-forgotten villain (Bardem), solid pacing, and action enough to make the film feel brisker than its 143 minute run time.

I do have a few complaints--most namely the end of an era (if you've seen the movie, you'll known what I mean)--but Skyfall made me excited to see what happens next.

Stay tuned--my favorite and most disappointing movies of 2012 to come!

G.B.U. Review: Looper (2012)

Directed by Rian Johnson

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Jeff Daniels

Now Available on DVD, Digital Download

Gordon-Levitt and Willis star as young and old versions of Joe, a "looper"--basically a hitman whose targets are sent back in time to him from the future by his employer, an all-powerful crime syndicate. The pay is good, but the benefits suck: A looper's contract is up when he's forced to kill his 30 years older self aka "closing the loop." Needless to say, Old Joe refuses to go quietly into that good night. 

The Good: Looper offers an interesting, if thin as presented, premise. Johnson creates a world that looks a lot like our own, but--given the year is 2044--adds enough touches to remind you that you're in the future. He imbues everything with the same sodden colors and heavy atmosphere as his previous films, such as the fantastic Brick. The acting is all fine, but the scenes with Jeff Daniels bring a much needed lightness to an otherwise very somber film. 

The Bad: The last third of the film focuses on a subplot involving a little boy who may or may not grow up to be a killer crime lord that's prematurely closing loops in the future. While this does come back around to the main story about Joe, the introduction of the boy and his mother (played by Blunt) feels slapdash--like I was watching another movie laid over the original. 

The Ugly: While I appreciate the filmmakers attention to detail, Gordon-Levitt's prosthetics to make him look more like Old Joe, that is Willis, were a bit distracting. 

The Bottom Line: There's a great film in the idea of having to kill your future self (and that future self knowing you're coming), but Looper isn't quite it. Despite my misgivings though, Looper is still a really solid and entertaining entry in the sci-fi genre. 

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Review: Django Unchained (2012)

Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio

Rating: 9 out of 10

Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained is everything fans of the writer/director have come to expect: violent, offensive, and uncomfortably funny. It is also an important and brutal film about America’s uneasy relationship with slavery and racism. 

The second film in what Tarantino calls his “revisionist history” period, Django Unchained begins in the dead of night with German dentist-turned-bounty-hunter, Dr. King Schultz (another brilliant performance from German TV star, now Tarantino favorite Christoph Waltz), stopping a couple of slave traders taking their bloody and bound “property” through the backwoods of Texas. Schultz is looking for one specific man--Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave whose previous owners are wanted for murder. 

Schultz, who sees the parallels between what he does and slavery (“I trade bodies for money.”), nevertheless finds the idea of and the people connected with slavery abhorrent. He is the film’s reluctant moral core even as he admits that purchasing Django--despite his intention to give the man his freedom--will allow Schultz to make money by identifying and killing his bounty. 

Eventually, the two find Django’s previous owners and, while Django earns his freedom, the former slave shows a natural marksman talent, making him a perfect partner for Schultz, who feels a strange responsibility for the man he once, albeit briefly and for a singular purpose, owned. That partnership grows into a friendship as Schultz agrees to help Django find and buy freedom for his wife, Broomhilda--a former house slave who was so brutally punished for an escape attempt that her scars only make her acceptable for the job of providing men “comfort.” 

She is owned by Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), a charming and giddy man who treats black people like dogs and commodities, seeing no issue with fighting them for his own amusement while pondering why they don’t rise up and kill their owners. Schultz and Django hatch a plan to make them the welcome guests of Candie’s southern plantation (appropriately named “Candie Land”) and, hopefully, through a fair amount of subterfuge, buy Broomhilda her freedom. 

With Django Unchained, Tarantino has made, what in modern times and on paper, must have seemed like an impossible film. It's unflinching in its portrayal of America’s relationship to slavery. Even in the film’s most absurdly hilarious moments--there’s one in particular involving a discussion of KKK masks--there’s an underlying heartlessness and cruelty that makes the laughter awkward and frightening. While the film is never uncomfortable with itself, it wants its audience--no matter their race--to feel uneasy.  Unlike historical dramas, Django holds a mirror up to the audience, not allowing them to take a scholastic approach to slavery and the backwards ideas that allowed it to happen. 

By being so entertaining, Django makes the audience complicit in the history, in the brutality. In this way, Tarantino has pulled off something amazing--a film that deserves more than cult status, one that should be studied and talked about. One that could have been a masterpiece. 

And then Tarantino got self-indulgent. 

Sadly, the last 20 minutes of Django devolve into a revenge fantasy. This is all the more disappointing  because these waning moments begin with a stunning and powerful scene between Candie and Schultz--two men who have vastly different relationships to slavery but have both used it as a means to an end. It could be argued that given the fact that Django is intended as a throwback to spaghetti westerns that Tarantino’s choice to make the main character something just short of a superhero in the final frames could be excused.  But, given what comes before it, I would have preferred an ending that was less bloody and not as neatly wrapped up. 

Django Unchained is and will continue to be a controversial film. It can’t be easily categorized or discussed. There are few heroes and some of the monsters are easier to like. It is a challenging and violent film that won’t be for everyone, but wrapped not-so-tightly in Tarantino’s signature dialogue and humor, is a conversation about our past and what it says about our humanity.