The Dirties (2013)

"Two best friends are filming a comedy about getting revenge on the bullies at their high school. One of them isn't joking."

If you're expecting "The Dirties" to be another "Rampage" (2009), think again. "The Dirties" is amateur handycam crap of the highest order with semi-decent acting wasted on an unoriginal plot which ultimately peters out and stops dead just as the excitement begins. It's all talk, very little action, and mostly unconvincing characters.

Apart from the location, "The Dirties" is far too similar to Samuel N. Benavides's "None Left Standing" (2005) for those of us who know our low-budget movies. Although "The Dirties" isn't a blatant rip-off and doesn't focus on a descent into madness as well, it's certainly in the same vein. Both are about a trio of students making a film with one of them being dangerously obsessive.

The difference, of course, is that "The Dirties" uses a no-budget student film within another no-budget student film as its novelty "meta" contrivance. The levels of metafiction reach their peak with Matthew Johnson not only acting as himself but also being the director and writer of this disappointing drivel. He doesn't do a bad job for a jack-of-all-trades (and master of none), but I would love to see Canadian filmmakers come up with something more original rather than lazily reworking American movie tropes to death.

Because of its borrowings, I'm not sure if "The Dirties" is supposed to be "found footage" of some kind or if it's meant to be a bizarrely filmed "fly on the wall" drama. Either way, it failed for me aesthetically and stylistically. The unseen cameraman (who I think is called "Ed" at one point) brings up too many questions about who is filming what and why, and it threw me out of the movie several times.

As far as stories about high schools and bullies go, "The Dirties" is full of the usual clichés; jocks versus nerds and all that bullshit which, as a Brit, I never encountered and can't identify with no matter how many times the same stereotypes are forced on me. There's nothing that any of the kids do in this movie that a good old-fashioned punch in the mouth wouldn't have solved if only the emasculated characters stood up for themselves. I know this is Canadian, but Americans and Brits are usually so mouthy about expressing everything that I can't even get my head around the internalisation which leads to isolation, self-destruction, or murder. In Canada, where the myth is that everybody is nicer and less selfish, the frustration caused by repression is maybe less puzzling.

Prior to watching "The Dirties", I came across an interesting documentary called "Bullied to Death: The Tragedy of Phoebe Prince" (2010) which covers the subject of American high school bullying and its psychological effects a lot better. But, as someone whose only experience of attempted bullying has been as a "victim" of the online geek-cliques of hypocrital prudes, their whiteknights, and "flaggots" who I laugh at for being so childish, I still don't quite understand how such things are allowed to escalate. Maybe kids need to find better ways to deal with their frustrations like going outside once in a while, helping someone less fortunate, or stroking a cat.

Teenagers are nasty buggers anyway, and every modern movie and documentary which shows the younger generation and their infantilised parents is an argument to bring back corporal (and capital) punishment. In my day, a few hard whacks with a cane would've sorted everything out. But enough of me on my soapbox. Suffice it to say that the predictably violent but very brief (and punch-pulling) ending of "The Dirties" is the culmination of what happens when you spare the rod and spoil the child.

"The Dirties" isn't a movie recreating Columbine or any of the other famous school shootings, nor is it meant to be, but what it's trying to say as a drama about teenage relationships, loneliness, and a kid who can't tell fiction from reality anymore doesn't work either. It's all too tame, and even an old British kids' TV show like "Grange Hill" dealt with the topics in a more controversial and satisfying way over 30 years ago.

If you're looking for something gritty, I recommend skipping this one.

The Family (2013)

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Django Unchained (2012)

"With the help of his mentor, a slave-turned-bounty hunter sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner."

If it wasn't for director Alex Cox's "Videodrome" series on BBC back in the '90s, I would never have known who or what "Django" was. Sure, I'd seen a fair amount of "Spaghetti Westerns" over the years, but apart from the big three Clint Eastwood ones, I couldn't have cared less about them. The thing with "Django" though which made it stand out was its bloodiness. If you've never seen it, you definitely need to check out the original 1966 movie starring Franco Nero.

Obviously, all this was long before Quentin Tarantino started slinging his invented word "grindhouse" about as if everyone would automatically know what it meant and pretending that he was making 20th (and now 21st) century equivalents along with his buddy Robert Rodriguez. I never bought into the hype and, apart from "Pulp Fiction", I can't say that I've enjoyed any of Quentin Tarantino's films until now.

Everyone's tastes changes as they get older though so I was willing to give "Django Unchained" the benefit of the doubt in spite of already knowing the huge plot and race changes that didn't inspire me with any confidence. I'm still not a Tarantino fan, but I actually enjoyed a lot of what he had to offer this time.

The story is fairly unoriginal with huge borrowings from every "white guilt" movie set in the days of American slavery along with more than a hint of "Maverick" and "Unforgiven" thrown in for good measure. In some ways, "Django Unchained" seems hell-bent on dividing the races as much as "Braveheart" tried to do with the English and Scots due to its historical inaccuracies. Obviously, it's designed to be as controversial as possible, but "Django Unchained" is far more accurate in other ways than even "Roots". No matter which race or country you belong to, there's always a lot to hate about American history.

But enough of that. I'm not here to write an essay about slavery or racism in America. You only have to browse a few YouTube videos to know that it's as real today as it ever was. I'm here to write about films and, in particular, this film (such as it is) with all of its subtextual preaching and in your face action scenes.

In my opinion, the blood, gore and psychological more than physical torture in "Django Unchained" is worthy of any horror movie. In nearly every gunfight, gunshots cause over-the-top blood to splatter even onto the camera lens with big lumps of meat following. Can I hear the word "Lush!" from anyone? Oh, yes, there will be and there is blood! Don't watch this if you love horses either!

The characters are mostly likeable too although Christoph Waltz easily steals every scene. Django will always be Franco Nero to me, and in spite of metaphorically handing over the reigns in a bar scene cameo, there's no way that I will ever accept Jamie Foxx as his replacement. I tried to, but Jamie Foxx goes through so many personality changes during the film that it's impossible to take him seriously. Can anyone please tell me why he chose to play Django as a gay for the last 10 minutes? I don't understand that at all.

The biggest standouts are Don Johnson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tarantino's favourite Samuel L. Jackson. While Big Daddy (Johnson) also brings an unfortunately comic "Klan" scene with him which only serves as unnecessary padding, Calvin Candy (DiCaprio) and Stephen (Jackson) have some of the best chemistry in the whole movie. In fact, they have more chemistry than Django and his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) which is quite disconcerting.

At the end of the day, "Django Unchained" is a rather enjoyable cowboy-action movie with lots of gunfire, explosions and a backdrop of Southern American slavery to make it look like some thought went into it. Change a few races and you'd have an episode of the "Maverick" or "Alias Smith and Jones" TV series with all their quirky scams. Remove the Wild West gunfights and you'd have the first season of "Roots" without any sympathetic characters.

As a "popcorn flick", "Django Unchained" is one of the better ones. It's a bit too long at 2 hours and 45 minutes, but there isn't a lot of lag unless you absolutely loathe the Western genre or contemporary music being used anachronistically.

Has Quentin Tarantino redeemed himself? Almost, but no, not really. Be warned, he can't do a convincing Australian accent either.