12 Years a Slave by Steve McQueen, 2013 (R)

Nominated for the Oscars 2014 for the following categories: Best Picture, Actor in a Leading Role, Actor in a Supporting Role, Actress in a Supporting Role, Costume Design, Directing, Film Editing, Production Design, Writing Adapted Screenplay

The autobiography of Solomon Northup, a free black man who was abducted from New York state and sold into slavery in the mid-1800s, serves as the basis for this historical drama. Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Northup, and Brad Pitt plays an abolitionist.

This is a powerful movie, and it portrays the endurance of someone who knew freedom and got back to slavery. It is interesting that this story is not about good and bad, but how you slowly can loose your humanity surrounded by horror, and do things you'd never knew you were capable of. There is a wide range of white people from the South and the North portrayed, to make you rethink the different mentalities, and how bad can be worse, in perspective. The acting is so impeccable that there is nothing you can do not to hate Michael Fassbender, be as lost as Chitewel Ejiofor... No matter if you last saw Ejiofor in Kinky Boots or Fassbender in Prometheus... The only weak character that was a little moralistic was played by Brad Pitt, who guest stared as the Southerner with ideas of the North. He is so handsome and feels so much like the producer who wanted to have the good role, that it breaks the flow, although thanks to his character, Fassbender makes an important point: it wasn't that easy thinking differently in the South.

with Chiwetel Ejiofor (Kinky Boots, Dirty Pretty Things, American Gangster), Michael Fassbender (Trance, Prometheus, Haywire, A Dangerous Method, Shame, X-Men: First Class, Fish Tank), Benedict Cumberbatch (August: Osage County, Star Trek Into Darkness, War Horse, Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy, The Whistleblower), Paul Dano (Ruby Sparks, Looper, Knight and Day), Paul Giamatti (Saving Mr. Banks, Cosmopolis, Duplicity, Barney's Version, Deconstructing Harry), Lupita Nyong'o, Sarah Paulson (Mud, Game Change), Brad Pitt (Ocean's Thirteen, World War Z, The Tree of Life, Moneyball, Across the Tracks), Alfre Woodard, Garret Dillahunt (Looper, Winter's Bone), Scoot McNairy (Promised Land, Argo), Adepero Oduye, Michael Kenneth Williams, Chris Chalk, Taran Killam (The Heat), Bill Camp
From the director of Shame

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Django Unchained by Quentin Tarantino, 2012 (R)

From the director of Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill I & II, Reservoir Dogs and Inglorious Basterds
with Jamie Foxx (Ray, Valentine's Day), Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds), Leonardo DiCaprio (Marvin's Room, Titanic, Shutter Island, J. Edgar), Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson (Jackie Brown, The Avengers), Walton Goggins, Dennis Christopher, James Remar (RED), Michael Parks, Don Johnson

Accompanied by a German bounty hunter, a freed slave named Django travels across America to free his wife from a sadistic plantation owner. Quentin Tarantino directs this modern-day spaghetti Western.

Golden Globe for Best Performance of an Actor in a Supporting Role for Christoph Waltz and Best Screenplay.
Oscar Nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor In a Supporting Role (WON), Best Cinematography, Sound Editing and Best Original Screenplay (WON)

This movie is at the same time crazy and serious. Serious since it is telling the story of a freed slave trying to find back his wife, crazy because of the absurd dialogues and overflowing blood surrounding the quest. Of course, this is Tarantino's cinema, you gotta like it (Although he made my favorite movie "Jackie Brown" and changed history to kill Hitler in "Inglorious Basterds"). Still, I think it can only hold on as long as the humor is good, and from the moment the German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) dies, everything becomes too long, too bloody, not funny, perhaps because Django (Jamie Foxx) after all is not the one who makes the movie. Anyway, the beginning is witty, shocking (not because of the blood), funny, and only for that, and for Waltz's performance, I would recommend it.

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