Atlanta's Plaza Theatre Presents Nine Days of Tarantino

by Tony Dayoub

Tied to the release of Quentin Tarantino's ninth film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Atlanta's historic Plaza Theatre and the Atlanta Film Society are hosting a special retrospective of his previous eight films. It started this past Thursday with screenings of Reservoir Dogs, a 25th anniversary screening of Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Kill Bill Vols. 1 & 2. Next weekend sees screenings of Death Proof, Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, and The Hateful Eight.

Movie Review: The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

by Tony Dayoub

When considering all of your viable viewing options at the multiplex tomorrow, it might not occur to you to include The Wolf of Wall Street. But are you sure the cynic in you wouldn't be completely fine with it after spending the next 24 hours wrapping and unwrapping presents, in the company of strangers you just happen to be related to by blood or by marriage, eating and drinking well beyond the point some of us might call excessive? Even the most pious among us will recognize something kind of snarky and subversive about opening this mean, epic paean to greed and the Wall Street mindset on what is the culmination of the most materialistic season of the year.

Movie Review: The Great Gatsby (2013)

by Tony Dayoub

As wealthy Jay Gatsby, actor Leonardo DiCaprio walks out to the edge of the millionaire's private dock and reaches for a shiny green light cutting through the mist. Over the image, Tobey Maguire's Nick Carraway redundantly paraphrases what F. Scott Fitzgerald so eloquently wrote for his famous narrator in The Great Gatsby, "...he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock." This scene is so brief and indelible in Fitzgerald's novel, yet it speaks volumes about its enigmatic central figure. Coupled with Carraway's unnecessary exposition in Baz Lurhmann's new film, the wistful moment becomes leaden with portent. So much so, that I re-watched the same scene in the 1974 screen adaptation last night on Netflix and, after ending up drawn into viewing the rest of the film, was struck by how fluidly director Jack Clayton wordlessly elides through the pivotal moment. Granted, the austere 1974 version has its own set of problems. But as cold as it is, it seems practically definitive next to Lurhmann's tricked out translation.

The Shackling of Django Unchained (2012)

by Tony Dayoub

The last time I discussed Quentin Tarantino's films at length here was a little over 3 years ago when I got into it with critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, defending Inglourious Basterds (20009) as more than just a "film that seems morally akin to Holocaust denial." Frankly, I didn't find the revisionism in Basterds—particularly the blatant recasting of Hitler's death as part of a gory massacre in a locked theater auditorium—to be offensive or even problematic. Basterds' climax was characteristic of the propaganda-like take on the American war films of the 40s that Tarantino was riffing on, movies in which Americans were clearly the "white hats" and the Axis were not only their opposite number; they were racially stereotypical, incompetent goons. Besides which, the violent death of Hitler, and not by his own hand, seemed like the kind of wish-fulfillment narrative few would admit finding unsatisfying on at least a primal level. Django Unchained is more of a mixed bag, another revisionist take on history by Tarantino, one that finds the director losing the thread of the conversation he himself instigates. And in this case, it's difficult to ignore his inclination to overindulge.

Ruminations on Inception

by Tony Dayoub

I've been told countless times, "I bet you're analyzing a movie the entire time you're watching it." My response is usually some variation on, "Well, if it's good, if I'm emotionally engaged, my mind is too wrapped up to spend any time picking the movie apart." Christopher Nolan's films are a conundrum then, because I do believe they are good, but I'm often not emotionally engaged, and always picking them apart. In this respect, the polarizing Inception is no different and, in fact, may be the epitome of just such a film.

Blu-ray Roundup: Unreliable Protagonists

by Tony Dayoub

Three very recent releases on Blu-ray span the range of genres—from post-apocalyptic action to creepy psychothriller to historical "how"-dunnit. However, they do have one thing in common. Though they might have their flaws, each is still able to draw its viewers in by delivering a skillful shell game at the hands of a distrustful and unreliable protagonist.

Movie Review: Revolutionary Road - Kate and Leo Don't Find Things Much Better in Suburbia

I guess because of the fact that I found myself uninvolved in the viewing of Revolutionary Road, my thoughts instead were focused on inferences I was making outside the margins of the film, so I thought I'd share. The film is a return to suburbia by Sam Mendes who directed the once overrated, and now underrated American Beauty (1999). Like that movie, Road examines the inner workings of a marriage and the effects of conformity on the couple, here played by Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio - forever associated with their previous coupling in Titanic (1997). I'm not sure it exposes any kind of revelations on the complex relationship that forms a marriage. Now I've never read the Yates novel on which it is based, so forgive me if I read into it from the cinematic side more so than the literary. Road seems a little derivative, the obvious comparison being TV's Mad Men which I've heard bandied about elsewhere. But not having seen Mad Men, it actually reminds me of a much older cult classic I've been viewing for another project, Michael Mann's Crime Story (1986-88). That show was set in the early sixties, and like its descendant, Heat (1995), looked not only at the cops and robbers, but their relationships with their wives and families against the nascent idea of women's liberation. And there's the rub, because the luxury of time afforded even a TV series with a brief run allows one to pick apart both the good things and the bad about a marriage slowly. Even Heat did not have the time nor inclination to successfully flesh out the workings of a marriage in relationship to its principal story like Crime Story did. But this film takes so much time to cover the downside of the Wheelers' crumbling relationship that one wonders what Frank and April ever saw in each other. And brief flashbacks to their first dates are not convincing enough to lay the foundation. So could Mendes have been depending on moviewatchers' own history with these two actors to fill in the blanks? Does anybody else out there find it kind of funny that from a meta-perspective, this movie's Frank and April Wheeler are the hardened, grown-up, cynical versions of Winslet's social misfit Rose, and DiCaprio's freespirited Jack from their previous onscreen match-up?