Media Junkie

An Open Letter to Prince

Dear Prince,

I understand you're upset about the news that all six of your recent shows at the Dakota were recorded and are being pressed for sale as bootlegs as I type this.  Believe me, I sympathize.  I don't like bootleggers any more than you do.

You may find that a little hard to believe, considering I only recently posted a review of a bootleg DVD, have professed to owning over 600 unreleased tracks, and Jehovah only knows how many concerts, but hear me out: I despise bootleggers.  Stick with me for a bit and I'll explain, but first let's go back in time to 1988.

One rainy day my older brother picked me up from school in his ratty old Plymouth Horizon.  As I got in, he pointed out a nondescript brown paper bag wedged in between the seat and the center console and told me to open it.  That's when I saw it: an all-black vinyl album sleeve. 

My heart skipped a beat.  We'd read about The Black Album in nearly every major music publication at the time.  Rolling Stone Magazine even reviewed it after it was shelved in favor of Lovesexy.  Somehow, my brother had tracked down a copy of the near-legendary record! 

"Where did you get this?!" I asked.

"This little store around the corner from our house," he replied nonchalantly.  "I'm going back to get me another one, too." 

With that we drove to DJ Records (don't worry, they've long since closed up shop) and purchased a copy of Charade - a collection of Parade-era outtakes - and, thus, our introduction to the world of bootlegs was complete.

Over the years, we scoured independent record stores and collector's shows for every boot we could find.  With the advent of internet services like Prodigy and America Online, we met other traders and formed bonds that last to this very day.  We amassed quite a collection of material, and we spent a pretty penny doing so.

Which brings me to my point (hopefully you've stuck with me so far...): if you want to stop bootlegging, all you have to do is release the material yourself.

Remember in 1994 when you wanted to release more material than Warner Bros. was willing to allow?  You began painting "slave" on your face, and talking up a project known as The Gold Experience, claiming it would never be released.  Of course, it eventually saw release and remains one of your finest works, but by the time it came out, you were bored with it and had moved onto something else.  You began working on Emancipation, a 3CD magnum opus to be released when your contract with Warners was over, and promised fans more new music than they could handle.

For a while, it seemed like a dream come true.  You started a phone line, and opened your vaults for the 3CD Crystal Ball set, but it was the NPG Music Club that truly broke new ground.  One of the first of its kind, NPGMC was a direct link between the fans and the artist - a way to release as much material as you pleased outside of the archaic industry system - and all the profit went directly into your coffers.  It was a forward-thinking, and surprisingly well-run service (the same could not be said of 1-800-NEW-FUNK).  Then, like everything else, you got bored with it and moved onto something else.

Despite the ever-changing landscape of technology, the NPG Music Club is still a valid idea today.  iTunes has become the world's largest music store.  Amazon has their own mp3 service, while smaller sites such as Beatport focus on niche markets like electronic music.  It's easy and convenient for the end user to find and purchase what they want, but the stores still take a percentage of the profits for themselves.

The 1998 Crystal Ball set was a good idea in theory, but in practice it ended up falling short of expectations.  Some questionable song selections aside (a remix of "Love Sign" and an edit of the already-released "Good Love"?), one of the biggest problems is that many of the classic songs that had been circulating on bootlegs amongst fans for decades were clearly altered.  "Sexual Suicide", "Crucial", "Calhoun Square", "Movie Star" - all featured small changes ranging from overdubs to inexplicable cuts and edits that not only bothered fans, they failed in their goal of making bootlegs obsolete.

In order to fully understand, you'll need to see it from our perspective - the fans.  Why do we buy and download bootlegs?  Ultimately, because we love the music.  We can't get enough.  There is something about your music that speaks to us, and we want every note we can get our greedy little hands on.  What we don't love is the system.

Consider: in the 80s and 90s, the going rate for a single CD bootleg was $25, and 2CD sets were at least double that.  Not a penny of that money went to you, the artist, but we were still willing to pay it to get often inferior quality material.  Don't you think the same fans would happily pay you for soundboard recordings of live shows, instead of something recorded from the back of the arena?  Wouldn't we rather have perfect quality versions of our favorite unreleased tracks?  I think the answer is obvious.

But there are some caveats.  In order to eliminate the need, and thus the market, for bootlegs, you need to release songs as they are.  I know your religious beliefs may not jive with some of the lyrics in your earlier works, but for the sake of history, you can't change them.  Doing so would only make the bootleg versions that much more necessary.  It's your prerogative if you don't want to swear in concert anymore, but when it comes to your vast back catalog, leave it as it was when you recorded it.

Furthermore, there are numerous services that press made-to-order live performance CDs.  Pearl Jam used to have a big problem with bootleggers, until they started releasing every show.  Peter Gabriel often releases unedited live recordings, warts, miscues and all.  Even if you made shows available through a digital distribution service, such as your new 20pr1nc3.com website, fans will pay for them - especially if given the choice between mp3s and a lossless audio format, like .flac.  But again, leave them as-is.  No overdubs.  No edits.  No "correcting mistakes."  Those are all part of the live experience, for better or worse, and that's what fans want.  When we listen to a live recording, we want to feel like we are there in the crowd, grooving with everybody else.  Altering live recordings only gives the bootleggers alternate material to release.

If you've read this far, I'm sure you've grasped my point.  If you want to stop the Dakota shows from being released, or at least make them useless and obsolete, all you have to do is release them yourself.  Fans buy bootlegs only out of necessity, and I think I can safely speak for each and every one of us when I say we'd much rather get perfect quality releases directly from you than pay exorbitant prices for audience recordings and stolen material. 

Perhaps you're worried about piracy, but you need to accept that there are just some problems you simply cannot control.  There has always been music piracy, and there will always be music piracy.  You cannot possibly hope to curtail it, much less stop it altogether, so it's a waste of time, money, and energy to try.  What you can do, however, is eliminate the need for bootlegs in one swift, simple stroke.  Bring back the NPG Music Club, or the 3rd Eye Club, or whatever you want to call it, and release unedited soundboard recordings of the Dakota shows.  Open your vaults and let fans buy previously unreleased material as it should be heard.  Even if there are ten different versions of the same song, we will buy them all (and why not?  We did on overpriced bootlegs). 

Take it from a young(er) person who is firmly entrenched in internet culture: this is how you stop bootleggers.  What need would there be for anyone to buy the upcoming Eye Records Dakota set if they could spend less money to get better quality versions direct from you?  It's just pure logic and basic economics.

It may be a costly endeavor, but I'm sure your pockets are deep enough.  If you want to break the system, you're going to have to spend a little cash to ensure solid hosting and hire a good web designer, but it will be worth it in the end when fans eagerly snatch up each new release.  Just think of it: decades of material at our finger tips!  The very thought of it makes me want to apply for some new credit cards!

Hopefully you've stuck with me through this, and if you have I thank you, not only for reading, but for three decades of incredible music and live performances.  More importantly, I hope you'll take my words to heart. 

Sincerely,
Matt A., Media (and especially Prince) Junkie

Bootleg Review: Prince - Tokyo '90 (Love or Money)

Many years ago, Prince's classic performance at the Tokyodome from August 31st, 1990 would be my first ever Prince bootleg DVD.  Sure, I'd had a copy on video cassette for over a decade, but the thought that fans were converting their old tapes to DVDs hadn't even occurred to me until I stumbled across the disc.  To make matters worse, I was still stuck on dial-up and I had to beg a friend who isn't even a Prince fan to download and burn it for me (which he graciously did). 

Shortly after, I finally upgraded to high speed internet and a whole new world of bootlegs seemed opened up.  In a few weeks, I'd connected to the now defunct Prince Hub and downloaded dozens more DVDs from the Prince newsgroups, which are now a ghost town. 

It seems fitting that the first bootleg DVD review I'd publish would be for the first show I got on DVD, albeit a new version.  After a questionable and highly overrated reissue by Fullasoul's Digital Archives (FDA), video wizard Uci has teamed up with Confusion Records to make a visually and aurally enhanced release of this brilliant broadcast that is now the definitive version.

Dubbed "a Love or Money" release, this is apparently sourced from Uci's own tape, which is either an earlier generation, or he did some superb cleanup work on it.  It's not a giant leap past the Brave Records release, but is much improved compared to the overly soft FDA version.  A side-by-side-by-side comparison of my three copies of this show reveals considerably less noise and pixelation, an overall sharper image, beautiful and natural colors and fleshtones, and nearly perfect sound quality.

Brave

FDA

Love or Money

As you can see from the three screens (captured with VLC Media Player), the Brave records release clearly has a sharper image than the FDA release, but the colors are also more washed out.  The Love or Money release corrects both problems, with the sharpest image yet and incredibly natural skin tones.

Brave

FDA

Love or Money

You can see here the color variance between the three releases.  The Brave release is again considerably sharper, with finer detail on the stage (look at the stairs, for example), but the FDA release has a wider color range.  Notice how the yellow light to the left of the stage appears green in the Brave release.  Comparing both to the new Love or Money release, you get the best of both worlds with increased defintion, and an even wider color range than FDA's release!

Brave

FDA

Love or Money

This is perhaps the most interesting comparison shot.  Check out the jagged crossbeams on the stage behind Prince and you can see the Brave release seems artificially sharpened.  Contrarilty, in their efforts to reduce grain, FDA was clearly overzealous with softening the image, not taking into account that grain is natural and inherent in film.  The other side effect of this is it gives the entire concert a film-like appearance, unlike the original broadcast.  The Love or Money release retains the grain, doesn't sacrifice sharpness, and is the most faithful to the look of a live telecast in motion.

Brave

FDA

Love or Money

Finally, we can see once again not only the color variances between the three releases, all of which are different with Brave being the brightest, but most washed out, and the difference in clarity.  One look at Prince's hair reveals the Love or Money release is vastly superior to both of the prior releases - particularly the strand hanging over his face, which is a nearly invisible blob on the FDA release.

Aurally, the Love or Money release also comes out on top.  I always thought Fullasoul's release sounded quieter than the Brave release, but Love or Money bests them both.  The depth of the sound is stunning, with great echoes, excellent bass, and very little hiss.  There seems to be one minor hiccup during the moment where Prince addresses the crowd prior to "Take Me With U", but it's negligible.

The concert itself is the same content we've all seen before, including those killer arrangements of "Housequake" (using the backbeat of "The Future"), "When Doves Cry", and a scintillating performance of "The Question of U".  It has been reorganized from the original broadcast, which showed the songs out of sequence, but there's one tiny little thing missing: the credits.

I know, who cares, right?  Well, in this case, the credits featured a snippet of Rosie Gaines performing "Ain't No Way".  It's not complete, but it was part of the original broadcast, and should be included as a result.  Brave edited this performance into the middle of the show, where it would have taken place, with a montage of images, while FDA left the credits intact.  This release does neither, nixing the credits and the song entirely.

Also missing is the additional footage on the Fullasoul release.  This is less bothersome, even though it's cool to see Prince backstage, however briefly, but I can understand not wanting to edit footage from a separate source into this release.  Thankfully, the other thing missing from the FDA release is their stupid, ill-advised "anti-piracy" crawl which warns against viewers being scammed for purchasing the DVD.

Forgetting for a moment that bootlegs, by nature, are piracy, I was never quite sure who this message's target audience was.  It was nothing more than an irritant to people who downloaded it for free, and if someone had already bought it, it's unlikely they'd seek a refund from the shady seller, and even less likely they'd get it.  It's my belief that this was nothing more than ego-stroking on Fullasoul's part, believing the release to be so superior that it required the crawl to prevent bootleg labels from pressing their work and selling it.

Why was Fullasoul's release so highly praised?  Politics.  FDA was a closed and gated community, open only to "elite" fans whom they deemed worthy.  Rather than objectively critique their work, people blindly praised it as the best for fear they'd be kicked out of the inner circle.  In most cases they were right - Fulasoul's releases are typically the best and a lot of hard work went into them - but in this particular instance, Brave's earlier release was the better version.

No matter; we have an undisputed new champion now.  The minor gripes are easily overlooked when the rest of the footage is so spectacular.  This is undoubtedly the best version of one of my favorite Prince shows, eclipsing both prior versions pretty handily.  If this is any indication of what to expect, hopefully this is the first of many enhanced re-releases from Uci.

Required Viewing: Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playbook
The Weinstein Company/Mirage Entertainment
R
122 minutes
2012

I once wrote that romantic comedies are all essentially the same in the end; it's how you arrive at the ending that makes the difference between a great one and a generic one.  David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook may have a predictable ending, but the time spent with its dysfunctional, pitiable, sympathetic, and often hilarious characters make it worth it.

It's rare to see a romantic comedy that isn't so clichéd that you can see every plot development before it occurs.  Perhaps it's due to the large crazy-on-some-level cast of characters, or a concerted effort to avoid the usual trappings of the genre, but whatever the reason Silver Linings Playbook is a textbook example of how to make a great character-driven drama, full of comedic, truly touching, and often heart-wrenching moments.  The characters are so well developed, you feel as if you've known them for years, and every actor without exception gives an impeccable performance.

This should be the new blueprint for the genre.

Bad Cinema: Graffiti Bridge

Graffiti Bridge
Warner Bros.
PG-13
95 minutes
1990

I have a confession to make.  It's a dark secret that has stuck with me for years, haunting my every move, and threatening to bring the empire I have built with this blog crumbling down.  It could destroy my credibility as a reviewer in the process, but I'm going to get it off my chest. 
 
I saw Graffiti Bridge in theaters.  Twice.  And at the time, I liked it. 
 
Don't you judge me!
 
I was young!  I didn't know any better!  I was blinded by my admiration for Prince and his work, and as everyone knows, there's a level of forgiveness inherent with being a fan of anything.  I have defended Prince's second major motion picture, Under the Cherry Moon, as being a silly but entertaining musical comedy/romance, and it's a belief I'll take with me to the grave. 
 
With age often comes wisdom, however, and as I matured I began to appreciate the art of filmmaking more and more.  I began to suspect there was a reason there were no more than a dozen people in the theater either time I saw Graffiti Bridge, and several of them decided it wasn't worth staying past the halfway point.  Resultantly, I could no longer deny the truth.  Graffiti Bridge is a cinematic disaster on every conceivable scale.

Movie Review: Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty
Annapuma Pictures/Columbia Pictures
R
157 minutes
2012 (limited)/2013 (wide)

It's almost impossible to review Zero Dark Thirty without your own personal politics skewing your objectivity.  It's even more problematic when you take into account the film's opening disclaimer: "The following motion picture is based on first hand accounts of actual events."

I try to review every film as a piece of entertainment, nothing more, and this statement creates a conundrum.  Is Kathryn Bigelow's follow-up to the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker a documentary or, like so many other films that have plastered that tagline in bold type before their openings, a fictionalized version of events?  Certainly, it tries to portray itself as a factual account of one of the most undercover intelligence and military operations the United States has ever embarked on - a decade-long manhunt for the mastermind behind the September 11th terrorist attacks, Osama bin Laden.  It even opens with heart-wrenching calls, mixed together in a cacophony of noise, from that fateful day.

How you review Zero Dark Thirty then depends on how much of it you take as factual, and how much you view it as a piece of entertainment.  This is not the place for crackpot conspiracy theories about 9/11 being an inside job, or who really killed bin Laden, and anyone thinking of leaving a comment of that nature on this review should be warned that TypePad logs your IP address when it notifies me of new comments.  I will have no qualms about posting said IP address on every dark corner of the internet.  This is not a political discussion, whether you're a patriotic American or the opposite; this is a movie review.

Having said that, Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty is, at times, a fascinating, riveting film, but I can't help but feel its almost universal praise is due more to patriotism than objectivity as a piece of entertainment.

The Controversy That Wasn't: Racism in 'Django Unchained'

It seemed like a simple question to reporter Jake Hamilton, one his guest had probably heard before.  It was seemingly a hot button issue, and he certainly wouldn't be the first to bring it up.

"There's been a lot of controvery surrounding the usage of the n-word in this movie." he began. 

Before he could finish, his interviewee, Samuel L. Jackson, who reunites once more with director Quentin Tarantino for his latest film Django Unchained, interrupted.

"'No?'  'Nobody?'  'None?'  The word would be?"

Hamilton was taken aback.  "I don't wanna say it," he whispered with an uncomfortable smile.

"Why not?" Jackson prodded.

"I don't like to say it," Hamilton answered honestly.

"Have you ever said it?"

"No sir."

"Try it."

"I don't... I just..." Hamilton stuttered.

"Try it!"

Hamilton squirmed in his seat, looking off-camera.

"Really, seriously?" he said, exasperated.

Jackson, stern-faced, watched him squirm, with only a hint of emotion.  Was it anger?  Was it glee?  "We're not gonna have this conversation unless you say it," he gloated.

Hamilton sat in stunned silence, his finger on his chin, before Jackson gave him an out.  "You wanna move onto another question?"  Hamilton, visibly relieved, fumbled with his index cards and muttered "awesome," prompting uproarious laughter from the star actor.

In fact, Samuel L. Jackson had heard the question before - more than fifteen years ago after the release of Pulp Fiction.  Understandably, he seemed tired of hearing it.
 
It's an interesting point Jackson raised.  A prominent African American actor who is almost as famous for his potty-mouth as he is his iconic roles, Samuel L. Jackson owes much of his success to Quentin Tarantino.  The actor was cast in the writer/director's seminal Pulp Fiction at a time when Jackson's roles were limited mostly to bit parts as common criminals.  Prior to that, his most memorable role was likely Ray Arnold, the control room operator in Jurassic Park who famously muttered the line, "hold onto your butts."
 
It was Pulp Fiction that made him a leading actor, however.  In that film, Quentin Tarantino himself appears as Jimmy in the final act (my favorite of the film's three) and asks his friend Jules (Jackson), "Did you see a sign on the front of my house that said 'dead nigger storage'?"
 
The same faux-controversy followed Pulp Fiction's runaway success.  Was it appropriate for Tarantino, a white man, to make liberal use of the dreaded "n-word," regardless of context?  Numerous characters of both colors use the term throughout the film, but the focus seemed to be on the skin color of the film's writer/director.  Nobody complained when Spike Lee or John Singleton used the term in their films.  Even worse, nobody bats an eye when less talented filmmakers use it copiously in ethnic comedies that pander to the lowest common denominator.  There, it's accepted as common vernacular.
 
Yet we're having the discussion again - or rather, people are asking the question in the very definition of yellow journalism.  We've all seen articles with absurdist headlines that we all know the answer to.  "Is it OK to put a baby in a microwave?"  But this is different.  Here, the question is being asked but nobody wants to discuss the answer, and when confronted with it, the so-called journalist folds under the pressure of even uttering the word.
 
It could be argued, and I'll admit that it's probable, many interviewers are intimidated by racial stereotypes.  Jackson is a boisterous personality, but has always come off as affable and intelligent.  Despite his on-screen personas, which often have hair-trigger tempers, the man behind them often appears calm in interviews, laughing gregariously and cracking jokes.  Still, perhaps the interviewers are afraid Jackson's "blackness" will prompt him haul off and hit them for saying "nigger" in his presence, even on a dare.  If they were directing the word at the actor, perhaps they'd have good reason to be afraid, but when invited to speak about the blown up controversy over its use in a film that revolves around slavery, I think it's an important discussion that the reviewer neglected to have.
 
I can appreciate that Hamilton realized it could put his job in jeopardy.  Perhaps a press junket interview isn't the proper forum for such a discussion, as Jackson undoubtedly knew when he dared him to tackle a subject way above his paygrade as an entertainment reporter.  However, it's a discussion that needs to happen.  I understand his trepidation - I don't like saying the word either - but sometimes the only way past a problem is to confront it head on.
 
What's important to recognize is that "nigger" is an inherently offensive term.  It hearkens back to an ugly time in our nation's history when people of color were seen as less than people; they were a possession to be owned, used, and sold.  I daresay, however, that one cannot make a movie about slavery - even a fictional one that turns the portrait of John Wayne, the great white hunter, on its ear - without acknowledging the word.  Slavemasters were an ugly people, and would not attribute the dignity of referring to their servants by the politically correct terms of our modern age, and certainly not as "African Americans," because slaves were not seen as "Americans" at all.  It would be disingenuous to ignore this or to sugarcoat it.  It happened, and it should be acknowledged, confronted, and remembered, if not forgiven, in the same way we remember the horror of the Holocaust in Germany, but (hopefully) don't view every German citizen as a Nazi.
 
In the same way that decent people of all races, creeds, colors, and ethnicities are outraged and disgusted by Hitler's vile deeds, so it is with slavery.  It's important to remember that it happened, and to take note of how far we've come, even if there's still a long way to go or there's a small segment of the population who are still ignorant enough to hold onto such hate.  It isn't a case of "white guilt" anymore than the Holocaust is; it's a simple matter of right and wrong.  Sweeping it under the rug doesn't help anyone move forward, though, lest we forget George Santayana's famous quote, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
 
Context is what makes words powerful, but their definitions change and shift with the times.  Many people don't realize that "faggot" appears numerous times in the text of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, except it refers to a bundle of sticks and branches used for firewood.  Still, it's shocking to come across it in text because of our modern perception of it as an epithet.  "Gay" was originally a joyful term, and even appears in the theme song to the popular cartoon The Flintstones, long before it was adopted as a homophobic slur, then reappropriated by the very people it was intended to insult.  
 
Similarly, "nigger," or it's colloquial variation "nigga," has become part of popular black culture.  It's a popular form of slang, used in everything from music to common speech, and has a brotherly connotation that puts an ironic twist on hate-speech.  The uglier definition of the word remains, and perhaps that is why whites feel so uncomfortable saying it, let alone hearing it, but it has been adopted as a term of endearment.  Some view this as debasing or degrading, but to others it strips the word of much of its power. 
 
In the context of Tarantino's Django Unchained, I feel the word, however ugly its use may be, is used correctly.  Yes, it's directed at black people, but by people who would indeed have used it thusly at a time when that kind of racism was commonplace.  In their efforts to stir up controversy then hide behind their "good intentions," these so-called journalists have removed the word from its all-important context and forgotten entirely that the film is, at its heart, a slavery revenge fantasy.  Much in the same way Inglourious Basterds fantasized about murdering Adolf Hitler in the most gruesome way possible at the expense of historical accuracy - shown with relish on screen as Eli Roth's character, Donny Donowitz, pumps round after round into the Nazi leader until his corpse isn't even recognizable - Django Unchained takes the predominantly white western genre and rewrites history for the sake of coming to terms with one of history's ugliest periods.  Even as a white man, I enjoyed watching Jamie Foxx shoot slavemasters every bit as much as I did Brad Pitt carving a swastika into Nazi foreheads as an everlasting reminder of their evils.
 
Spike Lee, ever the attention-seeker, has publicly derided the film, despite openly admitting he has no plans to see it.  Critics have cited the film for glorifying racism - again, forgetting that it glorifies revenge against racist characters.  What I find comical about it all is that the lead actor didn't have any qualms about appearing in it, nor did Samuel L. Jackson, who plays a villainous cohort of Leonardo DiCaprio's Calvin Candie - the quintessential "Uncle Tom" who serves his master, even if it means betraying his own people.  No doubt, Jackson saw the importance in playing such a role.  It's the inverse of black-face - a black actor playing a "house nigger" - but much like Al Jolson's famous use of the former in The Jazz Singer, it's meant to draw attention to an unfortunate but important part of history and the plight an entire race of people faced.
 
The truth is the only "controversy" surrounding Django Unchained is whatever the media has manufactured.  Some people will love the film, some people will hate it.  There's no doubt that it plays fast and loose with history - unlike the TV series Roots, based on African-American author Alex Haley's novel, which you'll note, receives little to no criticism for portraying slavery, violence, and racism - but it was never billed as a documentary.  Django Unchained is a rather ingenious piece of entertainment, taking a dark period of our nation's history and imagining what might have happened if a slave was given the power to get even, all within a genre that typically portrayed people of color and foreigners of all kinds as villains.  I suspect it's not far from the truth.

Required Viewing: Django Unchained

Django Unchained
A Band Apart/The Weinstein Company
R
165 minutes
2012

As far as I'm concerned, there is no better writer in Hollywood than Quentin Tarantino, and few directors are his equal.  His flair for dialogue is unmatched, even by the rapid fire words of Aaron Sorkin, and his uniquely dark sense of humor permeates everything he does, no matter how reprehensible the subject matter.

His latest opus, Django Unchained, is the second of his revisionist history films.  The bar was raised mighty high by his last film, Inglourious Basterds, the story of a group of Jewish American soldiers seeking vengeance against Hitler during World War II.  It was, in my opinion, a masterpiece and his best film to date.  I love it so much, I have a framed 27x40 lobby poster in my home theater, proudly displayed next to other favorite films of mine including Star Wars, Blade Runner, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and The Dark Knight.

It's nearly impossible to top Basterds, but my expectations for every Tarantino film are always high and I've never been truly disappointed.  Even the comparably dull Death Proof, Tarantino's half of the Grindhouse double-feature, features his signature dialogue and one of the most amazing, not to mention lengthy, car chases ever filmed.  From the first time I saw the trailer, I knew Django Unchained might not necessarily exceed my expectations, but it would undoubtedly meet them.

Boy, did it.

Movie Review: Dredd

Dredd
Lionsgate/DNA Films/IM Global/Reliance Entertainment
R
95 minutes
2012

1995's Judge Dredd left a bad taste in filmgoer's mouths, even those unfamiliar with the comic book it was based on.  At the time, I'd never read a Dredd comic, but I distinctly remember watching the film on home video and thinking nearly every facet of it was wrong - Rob Schneider's unbearable and incessant prattling, Armand Assante's near-legendary overacting, an obviously forced love story, and even Stallone's titular character, who lacked any sense of personality (beyond "typical action movie musclehead") even when playing a guy whose face is never shown in the comics. 

For the better part of two decades, Judge Joseph Dredd remained a popular comic book character, but never got another crack at the big screen until writer Alex Garland (28 Days Later, Sunshine) began writing a script for a proposed film in 2006. 

Still Dredd's road to theaters wasn't easy.  First announced in 2008, the movie would enter a four year long production phase on a comparatively shoestring budget - at least when compared to big Hollywood productions.  With only $45 million to work with, it's a miracle such an ambitious project based on an established property got made at all.  Dredd is something of an anomaly in today's moviescape; a champion of independent filmmaking techniques, but with a blockbuster aesthetic - a cornucopia of violence and testosterone that seems like summer movie fodder.

Yet, somehow - against all odds - it works.

Movie Review: The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games
Lionsgate
PG-13
142 minutes
2012

I am man enough to admit when I'm wrong.  During the height of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games novels, I had brushed them off as teenaged melodrama along the lines of Stephanie Meyers' abominable Twilight novels and films.  Word of mouth can be a powerful force, however, and after several friends and relatives expressed surprise over the film's quality, I decided to give it another look.

I realize I'm extremely late to the party for both the film and the book it is based on, but The Hunger Games is nothing like what I'd imagined it to be.  It's a complex action-drama, a frightening, futuristic cautionary tale, and a damn good film.

Movie Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Warner Bros./New Line Cinema/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
PG-13
169 minutes
2012

It has been nine long years since director Peter Jackson's last foray into the realm of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth.  Since then, The Hobbit has had a difficult road to the silver screen, with rights changing hands, lawsuits, and even changing directors from Guillermo del Toro, whom Jackson personally recommended for the project, back to Jackson himself. 

Now that it's finally here, there are still plenty of concerns surrounding the film - or more specifically, the three films Jackson (and no doubt Warner Bros.) has broken Tolkien's 300 page novel into.  Criticisms of bloat and an overly long running time have permeated nearly every review, leaving many to wonder exactly how they plan to stretch out relatively little material into three two-plus-hour motion pictures.  To put it in perspective, The Lord of the Rings is around 1,300 pages long and though many sacrifices and cuts were made, was adapted into as many films as their single 300 page precursor.

The complaints definitely have some merit.  After seeing the first chapter of the film trilogy, subtitled An Unexpected Journey, I couldn't help but wonder how Jackson is going to squeeze two more films out of Tolkien's seminal children's fantasy, even if he translates every event to the big screen.  In all honesty, there were numerous points during An Unexpected Journey that I felt were superfluous and could have been excised entirely.  Whatever problems it may have had, from oversimplification and trivializing some of the more serious moments from the book, the Rankin/Bass animated adaptation of The Hobbit manages to depict nearly all of the major events in its sub-two-hour running time.

The opposite is true in Jackson's film.  Not only does he cover the first half of the novel in this first film, he adds several sequences that are not in it at all, cribs characters from other Tolkien lore and transplants them here, and extends some sequences well beyond their necessity.  An Unexpected Journey isn't a terrible film, but it feels too self-indulgent, and some clumsy writing gets in the way of the rather straightforward story.