Django Unchained (2012)

"Kill white people and get paid for it? What's not to like?"

This is, to date, the only film by Quentin Tarantino that I've seen since Kill Bill. It is, like all his films since then, removed from his particular strong point of witty, pop culture-peppered dialogue by being set in the past. It's as though Tarantino likes to challenge himself, but then that's what he does. He's doing a Western this time- well, a Southern- complete with classic style opening and Ennio Morricone opening tune.

He may deny himself the indulgence of cool dialogue here, but he delivers a hugely entertaining, gory and beautifully shot film as he always does, giving us the full graphic detail of slavery in the antebellum south. This is a refreshing antidote, brutal though it can be to watch, to the whitewashed Gone with the Wind version of the south. Before 1865 the place was backwards, feudal, pre-capitalist, savage. And it wasn't even that long ago.

Jamie Foxx is great as Django, a freed slave with a mission to save his wife who grows throughout the film from enslaved beginnings to the assertive badass hero he was destined to be. Leonardo Di Caprio is superb as the slaveowning baddie, the kind of part he should play more often. Samuel L. Jackson is deeply disturbing as the collaborator, Stephen. But it is Christoph Waltz, as Dr Schultz, the educated, witty German bounty hunter and the only civilised white person in the film, who steals the show, oozing coolness at all times.

Tarantino seems incapable of anything short of brilliance. This film is so good we can even forgive his brave attempt at an Aussie accent...

Titanic (1997)

"I intend to write a strongly worded letter to the White Star."

This is, well, the biggest, most epic film I've yet blogged. It's long, expensive and big in every sense of the world. Is it any good? Well, yes. It has deep flaws in its pacing but it is a technical triumph of cinema, and the interminable first half eventually gives way to a second half (in real time from the moment the iceberg is hit until the final sinking in a significant chunk of the film that does not feel to long) which can stand among the finest disaster movies ever made.

That first half, though... yes, it looks amazing in its recreation of Belle Époque opulence, but it is bloated and unwieldy. Yes, the modern day sequences are nice and, yes, Gloria Stuart is a legend of cinema, but given the sheer amount of footage these sequences are disposable. And the long setting up of the relationship between Rose and Jack takes up a normal length film by itself- and, if that were the whole film, this would be fine.

Yes, it's nice to see the the amusing Hollywood romantic comedy trope whereby a woman starts out by being intensely annoyed by the man she will ultimately fall in love with. Yes, Rose and Jack are star cross'd lovers, divided by the gulf of social class. Yes, it's funny to see Cal's unthinking snobbery ("That's amazing. You could almost pass for a gentleman."). But the effect of all this is somewhat undermined for the audience by the fact that the characters are all on the Titanic and, bloodthirsty as we are, we're all impatiently waiting for that iceberg.

And the constant use of that bloody Celine Dion tune doesn't improve matters either.

There are some nice touches; we get to see such Titanic perennials as the unsinkable Molly Brown and J. Bruce Ismay. The Captain is played by Bernard "Yosser Hughes" Hill. There's a very nice sweeping camera movement from the Bridge to the hot, stifling environment with the machinery below. The class gulf between first and third class, and between old money and new, is made very clear. Jack seems to be a fan of Picasso's Cubist period. Rose gets naked and there ensues what can only be described as a sketching montage.

It's still a relief, though, when we're saved by the iceberg. It's an instant change of tone, and urgency; levels of panic will slowly rise and rise throughout the second half of the film. Jack finds himself handcuffed to a pillar as the ship starts sinking, and this leads to a magnificent sequence whereby Rose rescues him; this is truly superb, perhaps the highlight of the film.

Order soon collapses into chaos, with the brave, the selfish, the rich and the lucky finding themselves on lifeboats more often than not. The film becomes more and more gripping as desperation takes hold, with scene after scene providing top entertainment. Perhaps my favourites are the band- truly noble- the Captain going down with his ship and the gentlemen in first class who remain behind to die "But we would like a brandy."

The final moments of the ship are superb,  and we get to see the tragic deaths of people bobbing in the water while people watch in lifeboats which are nowhere near full, and (spoiler alert!) Jack's death is such a powerful moment. 

Titanic is a mixed bag of a movie: overlong, and a mix of bad melodrama and great disaster movie. But the latter, and it's awesome technical accomplishments which won it all those Oscars, makes it a film that has to be seen.

Romeo + Juliet (1996)

“If love be rough with you, be rough with love.”

I’ve always been in two minds about Romeo and Juliet. On some days I find it a genuinely affecting romantic drama. Trouble is, though, behind Shakespeare’s wonderfully eloquent language lies a plot which tempts you to take the piss; it’s such an uber-melodrama it half takes the piss out of itself. And this is a young Shakespeare, closer to the blood and gore of Titus Andronicus than to his most acclaimed tragedies; the play is certainly less reflective and philosophical than his other more well-known plays, and much more about the set pieces.

All of which, of course, makes this play gloriously cinematic, and an opportunity which Baz Luhrmann has grabbed with both hands. This film is brilliantly set area city of “Verona Beach”, an ultra-modern, sun-soaked urban sprawl plagued by gang warfare between the Montagues and the Capulets. The potential anachronisms are wittily handled: there is a police officer called “Captain Prince”, and both “sword” and “longsword” are brands of gun, which is a stroke of genius. The narration, of course, falls to a newsreader. As for the cast, Homeland’s very own Claire Danes is superb, Leonardo di Capio is decent enough, and Miriam Margolyes is Miriam Margolyes. Basically, it rules. There are even nice little in-jokes on the billboards for us Shakespeare geeks.

It’s great to see the imagination on display for the set pieces- the initial Montague ? Capulet scrap happens, with guns, in a petrol station, and it all feels uncannily like the climax to an episode of The A-Team. We have the gayest Mercutio ever, allusions to ecstasy (how very ‘90s), a hugely gay party at the Capulets’ crib, and lots of colour and spectacle.

Even so, this is Romeo and Juliet, a play written about two young lovers, disturbingly early on in their teens, who die tragically because Romeo is pretty damn stupid. There’s lots and lots of Catholic imagery, of course, and I’m reminded that Father Lawrence is a suspiciously positive depiction of a Catholic priest for Elizabethan England, which reminds one of the theories on Shakespeare’s supposed Catholicism. Be that as it may, it’s weird to see Pete Postlethwaite doing an American accent.

It’s a brilliant depiction of the play, right down to the closing titles happening to Radiohead’s Exit Music for a Film.