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Grade B-: The only Quentin Tarantino movie I’m not a fan of is Jackie Brown. I’ve watched it several times trying to see what others like about it but just wasn’t able to find anything I dug about the movie myself. I’d also say that the ending of Kill Bill: Vol. 2 drags on a bit too long as well. But his other films, his other films I like very much. I’m even a fan of his film Death Proof no matter what the other critics say.

And while I liked his most current film Django Unchained, I’d say if I were to rank my favorite Tarantino movies from most favorite (Inglourious Basterds) to least (above mentioned Jackie Brown), Django would appear on the list closer to Brown than Basterds.

In Django Unchained, it’s the mid 1800’s and slave Django (Jamie Foxx) teams up with bounty hunter King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) in killing and cashing in rewards for wanted men. But when Schulz learns that Django’s wife is being held on a plantation by owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), the two hatch a plan to save the wife and reunite her with Django.

I think that Tarantino movies work best when he tells lots of little stories interwoven through one larger story. In Pulp Fiction there are stories of Vincent and Jules, Vincent and Mia, Butch and Fabienne… In Inglourious Basterds there are stories of Aldo and his Apaches, Hans Landa and Shosanna, Shosanna and Zoller… But the story of Django Unchained is mostly about Django and King Schultz bounty hunting and working their way around to rescue Django’s wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington).

Compared to Tarantino’s other films, Django Unchained felt a little light and monotonous at times. Still, it’s not a bad movie and is probably one of the best films of ’12, it’s just not one of Tarantino’s best.

Grade B+: Zero Dark Thirty is an interesting film about a group of CIA agents, one women in particular, trying to find and kill terrorist Osama Bin Laden in the aftermath of 9/11.

Here, new agent Maya (Jessica Chastain) begins her career in the CIA hunting Bin Laden. She spends years helping with interrogations, flying around the world interviewing/interrogating people and finally heading up the investigation/interrogations herself as terrorist attacks rock Saudi Arabia and London and priorities shift elsewhere. When Maya and her team finally find what they believe to be Bin Laden’s hiding place after a decade searching, the next struggle is convincing those in control to raid the compound rather than taking the safe route and wait. I don’t think I’m ruining anything since a) the movie is based on fact and b) it’s featured so heavily in the trailers, but the last 30 minutes of Zero Dark Thirty is an on-the-ground view of this raid by Navy SEALS on the compound.

Watching Zero Dark Thirty I was struck with the idea behind the episode “Sometimes We Play Dirty Too” of the 1970 series The Sandbaggers. The notion here is that while we think our side is only doing good and would never do anything we find morally objectionable, in fact we sometimes play dirty too. Here, the initial kernel of information that sends Maya to eventually find Bin Laden comes from a stomach churning torture session on a suspected al-Qaeda financier that opens the movie.

It also shows the reality of a special forces raid where sometimes the wrong people are caught in the crossfire and in a world where anyone still breathing could set off a bomb it’s best to shoot wounded combatants laying on the ground to be sure they’re out of the fight.

But even with all this I never got the sense that the filmmakers of Zero Dark Thirty were saying that torture is wrong or right or that shooting wounded people like this is a good or bad thing. Just that like it or not this is how they found Bin Laden and this is what happened after.

Not an everyday shirt, but it would make great convention attire for sure.

More info here.

“Doctor Who: The Light at the End” will be released in November and will star Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann. That’s Doctors 4 through 8 for those who came to the adventure series only after his revival in 2005 with Doctor No. 9 (Christopher Eccleston).

But the Doctors aren’t the only classic characters making a return. Their companions are also joining them: Louise Jameson as Leela, Sarah Sutton as Nyssa, Nicola Bryant as Peri, Sophie Aldred as Ace and India Fisher as Charley Pollard.

And for the villain, Geoffrey Beevers is reprising his role as the evil Time Lord, the Master.

Via: ‘Doctor Who’: Five Doctors unite for an anniversary audio drama