Django Unchained

The best thing about Quentin Tarantino is also the worst thing about Quentin Tarantino—he believes, wholeheartedly, in whatever he’s doing. Most of the time, what he’s doing consists of overly referential homage mashups with dialogue that would give most screenwriters carpal tunnel. The old video store clerk is sublime at saying important things through mediums that don’t usually convey them—Kung Fu films, revenge fantasies and spaghetti Westerns, for starters. He is an artist dressed as a Philistine, splattering the screen with cartoonish violence when what he’s really blowing is our minds. This works, works well, and works often. The House...  read more

Carnage

“Penelope, I believe in the god of carnage, the god who’s been unchallenged since the beginning of time.” Critically acclaimed director Roman Polanski (The Pianist, Rosemary’s Baby) has adapted Yasmina Reza’s award-winning play, (God of Carnage, to make one of 2011’s best films. Carnage is a daring, perfectly cast comedy that presents a supremely authentic story of a day in the lives of well-to-do Americans, and one that, ironically, might have only been possible coming from a French-German-Spanish-Polish production. Shot in Paris but set in Brooklyn, Polanski’s latest film presents a view of “civilized” society that is equal parts “cruelty...  read more