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Reviews
Django Unchained (2012)
Entertaining if a little long
There are some plot holes, as always with Tarantino but very enjoyable. It could have done with being 20 mins shorter and is drawn out in parts but some shots are spectacular in their execution. It's not his best work but not many works from anyone reach those heights. Tarantino shoves everything like this under your nose. Only he and Jackson could possibly have got away with that Stephen character: it is genuinely gasp-inducing. Slavery is a subject on which modern Hollywood is traditionally nervous, a reticence amounting almost to a conspiracy of silence – except, of course, in the explicit context of abolition. Good as they are, Foxx, DiCaprio, Waltz and Washington are utterly upstaged by Samuel L Jackson, who gives an extraordinary performance as Stephen, Candie's household attendant, an Uncle Tom figure utterly and aggressively loyal to the white master, with a deathly stare, a disturbing, Parkinson's-type tremor and a habit of dropping the N-bomb more aggressively than anyone else (and heaven knows everyone is dropping it pretty aggressively).
Cracked (2013)
Is this really the best that was around?
I have now watched two episodes hoping the second would be an improvement on the first, opening night jitters I thought. Never like to judge on one episode alone. Sadly, the second wasn't much better. It's stale and has little new to it. A show can get by with a reliable formula but this particular show has 3 terribly bad points. It's very boring, the writing seems clichéd and lazy and the acting. There is no chemistry between the actors and the actress who portrays Danielle is particularly bad. They ensemble cast look like they are acting, nothing is natural. I struggle to find how this show found it's way to TV. At no point did CBC stop and say "This is awful, we have to change this". If this is the best that was on offer I really worry for the future of Canadian TV writing. The good points. It's polished(Although i do prefer gritty) and there is a good core idea there. It's been executed very badly though. And i won't be giving it a third chance to find out if it improves.