Author Archives: abstractviews

DJango is a renegade slave in search of his wife during southern slavery days of America’s old west.

If you were to ask me how many times they used the “N” word (Niger) in this movie, I’d have to guess between 500 and 900 times. I’d be curious if anyone watched the movie with a clicker and counted. The use seems extreme in this day and age where it’s simply not acceptable in society, but I’m sure it was common place to use it this much back then. So I found it interesting and refreshing that they didn’t shy away from it to be more accurate for the period.

This film is long, approaching 3 hours. The last movie of this length I saw was a shiny, glittery turd known as The Hobbit. Something that was visually beautiful to watch, but a piece of crap otherwise. But Django is a diamond in the rough. A well told entertaining story that holds your attention throughout.

Being a Quentin Tarantino film, it has his typical unusual flare. That being things like excessive blood spatter, explosions bigger than life, and overly dramatic and campy scenes for brief periods. But also quality production, witty comedic moments, and a well told story.

Even if you don’t like cowboy movies, you will most likely enjoy this. It’s an action adventure movie, made during American slavery times, and even though the action/adventure takes obvious theatrical license, they seemed to make every effort to portray the life of the slaves and the wealthy with some accuracy. And this mixture makes this movie standout and fun to watch.

9/10

The Hobbit, is an unexpectedly long and unexpectedly boring story. It’s by no means boring due to a simply plot, in fact it is an overly complex tale with far to many characters. So many characters, that you don’t care to associate with any of them, as no one character get enough individual screen time or background for us to become fond of.

Nearing 3 hours in length, the first hour and a half are the most painful. Which I find interesting, since that is the typical length of the average movie these days.

Aside from being boring, too long, overly complex, and no true lead characters, there are two more annoying problems with this film. First of all, the film was shot with 3D as a primary goal. I saw the movie in 2D, which I prefer. And a well made modern 3D movie should can be equally enjoyed in 2D and 3D. Far too often we have long pauses where the story and actors come to a stand still so we can watch some 3D effect. Or the action is intended solely to impress us with 3D, and when watched in 2D seems completely unnecessary. The other annoyance is the frequent and bizarre placement of extremely dry and immature British humour that pops up out of no where from time to time, totally unexpected or required for the scene.

In comparison to The Lord of the Rings, it’s also very immature, and seems written for children. Even some of the fight scenes are too much for a fantasy film. For example the goblin strong hold escape scene, reminded me of a Rube Goldberg machine, where every single piece of a extremely complex chain of events must take place perfectly for the end result. A feat that is typically impossible.

The movie is visually beautiful, and that’s all it has going for it.

3/10

Here we have the Hobbit covered in troll snot.
Some of the excellent humour found in the movie.
And unlike the monster snot scene with a TRex in the famous film,
the Hobbit doesn’t even seem too bothered by the experience.
And a few moments later the story, magically the snot is all gone.

Yet another iteration of the Twilight Saga, magical realm of the vampire/werewolf three somes.

Hard to believe that this episode actually has a significantly weaker plot and script than the previous ones. The writing is on the same level as a grade 8 girl’s free form essay. While I’m watching the movie, I imagined a junior high teacher telling her students, “Your assignment for today is to write about anything you like. And it has to be about your happy place. The place you imagine when you feel sad.” And a Twilight Saga script is born!

The final fight scene violence is seriously over the top, considering the audience this movie is intended for. There be decapitations a plenty! Imagine a sick twisted little girl in a toy store, ripping the heads off every doll in sight. And you then have a Twilight rumble. And just like headless dolls, apparently headless vampires don’t spray blood everywhere, which must make the mock extreme violence okay with the ratings people. Either that, or the cash that’s pushed under their doors at night.

In the earlier movies, didn’t the vampires sparkle in direct sunlight? Ya they did. Not any more. Now they look human and older than before. But now they all have blood red eyes instead, and have to wear contacts to hide the fact.

But fear not, we have multiple happy endings, just in case you don’t feel fulfilled with the typical happy movie ending. We have several levels of ending goodness, followed by more than 10 minutes of happy songs during endless credits. They seem to want no complaints that the ending isn’t satisfactory.

Why do I watch the Twilights? I’m a sucker for vampire and werewolf movies. And I can’t help analyzing the sceptical of how successful these movies have been, when they are so incredibly bad. It’s the Justin Bieber phenomenon.

Snitch is a low-action emotionally involved crime drama. It’s not the sort of film I’m used to seeing The Rock in. Most of the action doesn’t start till near the end. In the mean time we are overwhelmed with a father’s struggle to rescue his son from jail, for getting too deep into a first-time drug deal. Since his son (who spends most of his air time crying and getting beat up) won’t rat out his friends, or help with a drug deal to lower his sentence, his father becomes a drug snitch in his stead..hence the title.

If you enjoy dramas with heart ache, I suppose this is a better film than my rating implies. If you are looking for an action movie, or even a police drama with escapism, this is far from it. This is a vehicle for Dwayne to attempt to be a more dramatic actor, and attempt to shed his image of being only a star in action and kid’s movies.

I personally was disappointed with Snitch, and I’m willing to admit I expect action movies from action heroes, with escapism, not with family problems, crying teenagers and deep emotional baggage. But to each their own, some people like to pay money to experience that sort of thing.

5/10