Film review: Django Unchained

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Christoph Waltz, Django, Django Unchained, Don Johnson, entertainment, Film Review, Film review Django Unchained, Inglourious Basterds, James Remar, Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, Leonardo DiCaprio, M.C Gainey, Quentin Tarantino, Tarantino

Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx in Django Unchained

Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, like Inglourious Basterds, takes history, gives it a Tarantino twist and creates a whole alternate world.

Set in 1858 Django Unchained is basically a western, men in hats on horses shooting people. But of course there is more to the story than that. The German bounty hunter Dr King Schulz (Christoph Waltz) frees Django (Jamie Foxx) from slavery and takes him on as an “apprentice”.  While the two unlikely partners go looking for bad guys on wanted posters, ruthlessly kill them and cash in the reward, a second layer of plot is slowly revealed.

Django wants to find and save his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). Intrigued by the name Dr. Schultz tells Django about the German myth of Brunhilde and her lover Siegfried and decides to help the “real life Siegfried” free his Broomhilde.

After a lot of violence, blood and gore Django and Dr Schultz discover that, Broomhilde is held by the Southern aristocrat and sadist Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) on his Plantation Candyland.

Django Unchained is an homage to the spaghetti westerns of the 60s, just much more violent and bloodier. Like so many of Tarantino’s films, revenge is the main theme, justifying the blood-lust of its lead character. And while the interwoven storylines and plots need time to be told, 165 minutes (no break) does seem a little excessive and is a true test to anyone’s bladder.

However the strong cast and witty dialogues do keep you entertained, especially those given by DiCaprio’s captivating complex villain Candie. He is charismatic, brutal and deeply racist, with a weirdly intimate relationship to his house slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson).

Both Waltz and Foxx are also enthralling to watch, Waltz embodies Schultz as a true gentleman, charming and very eloquent, educated but with a ruthlessness streak and a deep-rooted sense of right and wrong. Foxx seems to channel Clint Eastwood at times, with his silent demeanor and expressive gaze.  And there is a whole slew of recognizable faces in smaller, supporting roles, like Don Johnson, M.C Gainey, James Remar and Tarantino himself.

Although Django Unchained is undeniably a Tarantino film, laced with black humour and playful brutality, it isn’t as good as Inglourious Basterds. This is partially due to the overindulgence in length and partially due to a disconnect in the storytelling.  Too many narratives are equally weighted, and some that could use a stronger focus lack punch. But this doesn’t entirely distract from the unique storytelling, strong characters and great actors, making Django Unchained overall another successful Tarrantino film.

Film review: The Sessions

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Ben Lewin, entertainment, film reviews, Helen Hunt, John Hawkins, Mark O’Brien, movies, Sundance Film Festival, The Sessions

Boston born poet and journalist Mark O’Brien is the inspiration for Ben Lewin’s latest film The Sessions. Following a crippling attack of Polio as a child O’Brien lives his life mostly confined to the restrictions of an iron lung.  The Sessions   follows O’Brien’s autobiographical writings of his sexual coming of age.

In 1988, at the age of 38 Mark O’Brien (John Hawkins) decides to lose his virginity. Restricted by his inability to move anything but his head he seeks the help of professional sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen-Greene (Helen Hunt).

In several sessions Cheryl engages with Mark physically and helps him discover and understand his own sexuality.  To better understand these sexual encounters Mark seeks the advice of Father Brendan (William H Macy) and in a series of “confessions” he describes his experiences. These frank discussions between Mark and the often dumbfounded priest are tender, honest and quite funny.

Luckily The Sessions is never overly sentimental, gimmicky or affected. This is mainly due to the combination of superb acting and the natural flow of the storytelling. Hawkes excels at portraying the immobile O’Brien, with his head always tilted, his back constantly uncomfortably arched he shows all emotions in his face. Never going overboard but playing O’Brien with an appropriate mixture of sincerity, naivety and sense of humour.

But Hunt in the role of Cheryl is no less impressive. Hunt plays Cheryl as a strong, independent, intelligent woman, undoubtedly comfortable in her own body and very aware of her own imperfections and desires.

The Sessions is quite a special film, a story beautifully told, never saccharine or condescending but tender, honest and very real. It really is no wonder that it won both the Audience and the Special Jury Prize at last year’s Sundance Film Festival. Sadly with staggered and limited release it could be quickly overlooked.

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thousand thoughts

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distarctions, distrcated, mental-health, miscellaneous, random, thoughts

Today I am struggling to find just one thought to ponder on. My mind is flitting here and there, glimpses of ideas that then run and hide again catching my attention of a flicker of an eyelid.

While I at times I enjoy my restless mind, as it takes me on adventures and makes unexpected discoveries, today it is a little frustrating. Not only are the thousand thoughts running through my brain distracting me from the many tasks on my list, they are making me restless, fidgety and even a little bit nervous.

The up-side to this marathon of thoughts is that it reminds me of information long forgotten. If by coincidence or an ironic trick my mind is playing on me , I remembered something about how the mind works and why we only have a limited amount of attention span each day.

When our brain is concentrating on a specific task it uses up a measurable amount of glucose. As we go through our day our resources deplete and it takes more and more effort to focus. Decision making, discipline and creativity are high-energy tasks diminishing our supply of glucose fast. This flow of glucose is stopped whenever we are distracted and used for other things, like musing over the weather, deciding if it’s time for another cup of tea or if the phone rings, an email pings or a text messages bleeps.

One study from 2005 even showed that we lose more than 2hrs each day by being distracted. When we start a project it takes  about 11minutes before a distraction pulls our attention away and it takes another 25 minutes for us to refocus and continue with what we were doing, if we go back to the original task in the first place.  And because our mind is jumping around, playing tag with the latest distraction, steadily depleting our glucouse supply, we need longer and longer to focus on new projects as the day goes by.

The only thing we can do to contract being pulled away from the task at hand seems to be by switching of anything  that can distract us and allow our mind to just deal with what is in front of it. This may sound simple, but in the age of double screening and multi-tabbing most of us find it nearly impossible to do.

And our brains really don’t help, as the lure of the new always piques our curiosity, our mind always picking the new over the old. The reason for this is that the medial prefrontal cortex, located behind our forehead, activates when we are not doing much. This part of our brain is responsible for thoughts about ourselves an other people, it deals with our inner dialogue and emotions. It is also part of the “default network” in our brains, that part of our mind that tends to wander and create independent thought. So when we are concentrating on doing the task at hand there is a part of our mind that flicks the on-switch and allows our thoughts to go for a stroll, distracting us, whether we like it or not.

As the day grows shorter and my mind is still playing hopscotch, maybe I should go for a walk and hope my brain will be too played out tomorrow to cause too many distractions.