The World of Kanako

The World of Kanako is basically about drugs, rape, violence, mental illness...all kinds of gritty stuff. But the cinematography and soundtrack are beautiful, and I was captivated watching it play out.

The World of Kanako is a pretty crazy movie, but I'm generally into that kind of thing. I love how it hits you right out of the gate with violence; it's all stylized, and really well done. The movie as a whole looks great.

The music stood out, too, especially the parts when it was punctuating something happening on screen, like when it stopped in the middle of the scene with Matsunaga. The animated scene was great, especially the way it ended with the doorbell ringing. I liked the blood-splattered cuts anytime someone attacked Akikazu. Speaking of which, that guy was a superhero - he could really take a beating.

Django Unchained

Some parts of Django Unchained dragged, and overall it was too long, but there were a lot of great scenes. Waltz' character was kind of annoying, but Foxx was fine, and DiCaprio was awesome. If you like Tarantino's stuff, it's worth watching while you can still catch it at the dollar show.

I've actually wanted to see the original Django for a few years now, but it hasn't happened yet. I didn't think I needed to see this one at the theater, although I'd always planned to see it at home. But then yesterday I saw that it was available on iTunes, and I thought, "How many times are you going to get a chance to see a Tarantino movie in the theater?" Lucky for me, it was still at the dollar show (which is actually $3.50, but I think that's reasonable).

You could tell what kind of movie this was right from the opening credits. Tarantino was definitely having fun with it. I'm glad he got to do a movie like this, and it's an interesting concept. It goes on for so very long, though. There was a lot that could've been cut out. Self-indulgent, you might even say.