Movie Weekend

The weekend of December 29 and December 30, 2012 I had one objective, or rather two objectives. I wanted to see the movies Django Unchained and Les Misérables. There could not possibly be two more different movies, but I have some broad (yet specific) tastes.

I made Django Unchained the priority, mostly because I believe that Les Misérables stands a greater chance of staying in the theatres for longer. Fortunately, both were playing at the Lagoon Cinema, which is basically in walking distance of my apartment.

I thought Django Unchained was fantastic, though I really don't know that I can write a review without getting into some really uncomfortable territory, so I'm going to save it. If you know Quentin Tarantino's filmmaking, then you know what you're getting into. Nuff said. If you have never seen another Tarantino movie, then go in expecting amazing dialogue, jokes that you're a little nervous about laughing at, lots of blood and gore and guts, amazing acting, and a little bit of revisionist history.

The next day, I went and saw Les Misérables. I went into it without having seen the stage play (or read the book for that matter). I was familiar with a fair amount of the music just from it having bled into social culture over the years. I thought the movie was fantastic. The fact that everything was sung live was astounding. The performances were all extremely good, though Russell Crowe did not seem to have the vocal chops required for his role, he did play the character well. Because everyone is already talking about the A-Listers who were cast, I'm going to take a moment to highlight the boy who played Gavroche, Daniel Huttlestone. IMDB doesn't show any other credits for him, but I suspect he will be getting more work out of this. He was a lot better than you'd expect from someone that age.

And now, as I am still not feeling 100% (Read: I can't brain today, I have the dumb) I am going to cut this short. I recommend both of these movies, but not to everyone.