A Rambunctious Sort, Ain't He?: Django Unchained

Over at LATimes.com, an article examining the mixed reaction of blacks to Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained is preceded by one of those quick poll questions that site managers like to tack on to stories in an effort to foster interactivity and "enhance" the online experience. It asks, "Does Django Unchained go too far over the line?" Like a check-box note written by an 11-year-old girl determined to find out if her elementary school crush likes her back, the answer options are simply "Yes" or "No." And yet the only appropriate answers to that question are "Which line?" and "When, exactly?"

Director of seven or eight features, depending on how you count his two-volume epic Kill Bill, Tarantino has been stepping well over someone's lines of appropriateness for 20 years now, making movies that aren't just dominated by violence and profanity but that are gleefully obsessed with them. His latest two pictures, 2010's Inglourious Basterds and this year's Django Unchained, further court controversy by taking on (and then to some degree simultaneously avoiding) the Holocaust and the American slave trade, two topics guaranteed to make everyone hyper-aware of those proverbial lines.

Given QT's track record, including his occasional habit of playing some of his controversial characters (with unmistakable relish), there can be no doubt that Tarantino, like most modern stand-up comedians, is obsessed with crossing the line. He gets laughs out of it, cheers out of it, gasps out of it and critical hosannas out of it, and, yes, he inspires furious anger with it, too. His unwillingness to stay behind the line is as core to Tarantino Cinema as his reverence for cinema itself.

Hooper's In the House: Les Miserables

I love musicals. Always have. I'm particularly fond of the palpable energy of live performances — highlighted by those awesome moments when talented singers belt out heartfelt lyrics to the back row — but cinematic adaptations of musicals can be plenty wonderful, too. And yet I didn't have particularly high hopes for Tom Hooper's adaptation of Les Miserables, because that's one musical that's never really touched me, on stage or on screen: it's an epic tale of tragedy and love that somehow leaves me cold.

In fact, the only part of Les Mis that never fails to thrill me is the atypically jovial number "Master of the House," performed by the delightfully corrupt innkeeper and his wife.

Never fails until now, that is.

Best Movie Posters of 2012

There's a lot of movie watching and writing I want to do. Soon. But now it's time for family. So let's continue this other holiday season tradition with a look back at my favorite movie posters of the year.

My introduction from last year's post still applies:

What do I look for in a movie poster? In general, I like a striking image that stands out in the lineup at the multiplex while evoking the film's themes. The best movie posters ingrain themselves within our memories of the films themselves, so that to think ofJaws, for example, is to think of that image of the giant shark swimming upward toward the helpless swimmer. Of course, that means that sometimes how we feel about a movie poster is directly tied to how we feel about a film, and an image that might otherwise be pedestrian takes on greater meaning retroactively, or a compelling image is made to feel trite because the movie turns out to be.

It's a short list for me this year. Take a look and tell me: what are your favorite posters of the year, and what did I get horribly wrong?

Printing the Legend: You Don't Know Bo

Let's be honest: as the 1980s became the 1990s, none of us had a clue why we suddenly needed "cross-training" shoes. But there was never any doubt that Bo Jackson was the right guy to sell them — whatever they were exactly. Bo Jackson was a two-sport star in baseball and football, and after Nike crafted its "Bo Knows" campaign there seemed to be no limit to what he could do. Basketball, tennis, cycling, soccer — the ads, and Jackson's physique, convinced us that, yeah, he'd probably succeed at those sports, too. It was the perfect marriage of a spokesperson's abilities and a company's commercial cunning. To see a "Bo Knows" ad was to never forget it, which could also be said of seeing Jackson himself. So it's only appropriate that Michael Bonfiglio's documentary on Jackson, You Don't Know Bo, would include a section on that famous ad campaign, because all these years later it's a perfect encapsulation of both Jackson's allure (he was one of the most famous athletes on the planet) and our habit of romanticizing his potential to the point that it inflated our perception of reality.

Yeah, I'm something of a Bo Jackson skeptic. Always was. Sure, he was a damn impressive athlete. Other than Deion Sanders (conveniently not mentioned in the documentary — nor is Brian Jordan, for that matter), no other athlete in my lifetime could have found a place in the starting lineup of every professional baseball and football team in America. Jackson was a truly awesome figure — powerful, graceful, fast, strong and possessing a knack for doing the sensational with an air of nonchalance. But during Jackson's too-brief career, we were so awestruck by his multi-sport talent and tendency for SportsCenter-friendly spectacle that we often ignored his limitations and inflated his successes. I've felt this way for years, so I approached You Don't Know Bo, the final episode in ESPN Films' second "30 for 30" volume, hoping it would change my mind. Instead, the very resume that Bonfiglio uses to convey Jackson's greatness confirmed my skepticism.

Everything Old Is New Again: Skyfall

By the time I got around to seeing Skyfall, I was aware that it had been called (at least perhaps) the best Bond movie of all time. By whom and how many, I'm not sure, because this wasn't stuff I was seeking out — the hype on Twitter was simply impossible to avoid. I mention this up front because I'm definitely not the guy who should be evaluating where this picture ranks within a franchise that is now 50 years, 23 films and six Bonds strong. In theaters, on VHS, on DVD or on TV, I've seen almost all of the Bond movies at this point, but most of them only once, and I've never read so much as a page of Ian Fleming's original novels. So all I know about what a James Bond movie "should be" comes from a relatively distant appreciation of what James Bond movies typically have been. Still, when it comes to Skyfall, of this much I'm certain: I've never had a better time watching a Bond movie.

As good of a time? Well, sure. A few weeks ago I stumbled upon Casino Royale on TV and was reminded of the transfixing sexual tension between Daniel Craig's Bond and Eva Green's Vesper Lynd, and I appreciated anew the boldness of rebooting this James Bond as an emotionally raw character. Meanwhile, I've always felt that Goldfinger was the quintessential Bond flick, what with the presence of Sean Connery, the girl painted in gold, the laser aimed at Bond's crotch and the mere existence of Oddjob and Pussy Galore. And even when I think of a ridiculed installment like Moonraker, I'm put in touch with my childhood fascination for the oh-so-Bond-villainous Jaws, the tall guy with the metal teeth who you figure Vince McMahon would have dreamed up as a 1980s WWF heel if he hadn't been conceived for the Bond universe. That said, while Skyfall isn't as playful or imaginative as most of its predecessors (very much by design), it's also more sensitive, more personal and more visually daring than almost all of them. And that's thrilling.