A beautiful spectacle, Life of Pi is about a young man named Piscine, who gets ship-wrecked while relocating from India to Canada. He survives for months aboard a life-raft with only a handful of zoo animals for companionship. The dangerous journey soon becomes a spiritual one as we wonder if mistruths are acceptable if they serve a greater story - much akin to Big Fish. Sadly, the soundtrack throughout is dull and orchestral when it could have capitalised on the international flavour of the film. The loneliness of the subject matter also makes the runtime feel longer than it really is - like a prettier version of Cast Away. I also would've preferred 20 minutes less ocean and 20 more of his life after the ordeal. Criticisms aside, everyone should see this for its camera work at least.
7.5/10
Yet another righteous revenge movie from Tarantino, Django Unchained sums up our tale of a black slave's life a few years before the American Civil War. The story begins with a fortuitous encounter with Dr. Schultz, a forward-thinking bounty hunter who frees Django and trains him as his apprentice. Django excels and gains the confidence and wealth to challenge the social conventions of the time with the ultimate goal of freeing his wife from a slave plantation. The film hits all the right theatrical notes and masks it's lengthy run time quite well but there's an over-arching feeling that the story is a little too-cooked: with two-dimensional good guys and bad guys and a reliance on anachronism for emotional punch. The soundtrack is fantastic and well-placed throughout the movie but I couldn't shake the parallels of its subtler and richer cousin Inglourious Basterds. Still, it's definitely worth seeing.
8/10
