Friday, June 28, 2013

'White House Down' Showboats Absurdity in Typical Roland Emmerich Fashion

John Cale (Channing Tatum) protects President Sawyer (Jamie Foxx) in White House Down.



















Isn't one hostile takeover a year enough for the White House to handle? For director Roland Emmerich, perhaps not. Back in 1996, Emmerich sicked a 15 mile-wide mother ship on America's seat of power in blockbuster hit, Independence Day and in 2013, nearly similar to Antoine Fuqua's Olympus Has Fallen a few months ago, there's no reprieve for the structure in White House Down.

Channing Tatum plays John Cale, a Capitol Police officer, who at the start of White House Down interviews for a post in the Secret Service, protecting President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx). Concurrently, several key structures around Washington including the White House are targeted by a pack of terrorists motivated by financial and personal agendas. As the White House is compromised, Cale finds himself in the crossfire and teams up with the president to reach a safe point outside.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Tarantino's 'Django' Drives Old-Fashioned Revenge Home on Blu-Ray

Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) stands in the way of Django (Jamie Foxx) reclaiming his enslaved wife.




















One of the perks of being Quentin Tarantino is wielding the power to end the lives of countless onscreen characters in the most stylistic bloody ways imaginable. Feel free to say that's a sadistic manner of thinking, but for Tarantino, that alone defines him as a director he is today and answers the reasoning behind the Spaghetti Western bloodbath simply known as Django Unchained.

After his recent cult classics, Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino has no issues amping up his blood-stained cinematic canvas set against a touchy subject such as American slavery and what's necessary to be free of the shackles of servitude. Enduring many years of hard service, Django (Jamie Foxx) finds himself freed by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) and now with the means to seek revenge on a charismatic plantation owner keeping his wife all for himself.