Quentin Tarantino returns to form after the just-okay Django Unchained with yet another masterpiece, a grandiose western potboiler that boasts his best dialogue in years and an Oscar caliber performance from Jennifer Jason Leigh.

I didn’t dislike Django, but I thought there was something a little off and sluggish about it. It definitely left me wanting more from Tarantino on the western front. I thought he had a better, grittier western still in him, and this film proves that he did.

Many of the Tarantino cast regulars return, including Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and Kurt Russell. Russell, who delivered what I believe is his best career work in Tarantino’s Death Proof as Stuntman Mike, gets another chance to go to town with a Tarantino script and he embraces it with much enthusiasm. Russell plays John “The Hangman” Ruth, a bounty hunter renowned for bringing in his prisoners alive so that their necks meet the noose in the end. Riding in a stagecoach to Red Hook, with the notorious Daisy Domergue (Leigh), his latest bounty, chained to his arm, he comes across bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren (Jackson), and this is where the fun begins. The party rescues one more man, future Red Hook Sheriff Chris Mannix (an outstanding Walton Goggins), from an oncoming blizzard.

The stagecoach heads for Minnie’s Haberdashery as a means of shelter, where they meet the rest of the cast and tensions soar. On top of being a terrific mystery containing one of the best screenplays Tarantino has ever turned out, this is also one of his very best looking films. Do not miss it on the big screen.

Director Adam McKay, the master behind such broad comedy gems as Anchorman and Step Brothers, flexes his slightly more serious muscles for this one, a take on the housing bubble that nearly destroyed the global economy.

An ensemble cast featuring Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt make this a funny-yet-scary look at how big banks nearly sent us back to the stone ages.

Carell is especially good as Mark Baum, a banker with a conscience who realizes a little too late that things are going bad, and his wealth is going to come at the expense of a many U.S. homeowners. Bale is typically good as Michael Burry, the man who saw the storm coming and made a boatload of money betting against the biggest monsters of modern finance. Pitt has fun as a financial guru who has taken to the hills in anticipation of the oncoming financial apocalypse, while Gosling gives the whole thing a nice Martin Scorsese vibe as a fast talking banker/narrator.

It’s a drama, but it’s often funny (Margot Robbie in a bubble bath…brilliant!). McKay shows that his chops go well beyond directing Will Ferrell with a fireman’s mustache. 

Let's be real: You're not going to want to do much on Jan. 1. You should plan to spend the morning curled up on the couch with some water, dedicating the first sober hours of the year to relaxing and taking care of yourself.

Maybe you should plan ahead and pick up a movie? It's time for our final Casa Video Top 10 of the year:


Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation

Ted 2

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

The second pairing of Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg isn’t as funny as their first offering, The Other Guys, but it’s still funny enough to warrant a look.

Ferrell is in bumbling mode as Brad, stepfather to a couple of kids who hate him and the husband of Sarah (Linda Cardellini). Just when the kids are starting to only hate him a little, Sarah’s ex husband Dusty (Wahlberg) comes back into the picture in a boorish bid to win back his ex’s love, reclaim his children and get Brad out of the house. This provides a setup that sees Ferrell’s Brad subjected to all forms of humiliation and injury, including a calamitous trek through his house on a motorcycle and a rendezvous with electrical wires after getting some impressive air off a half-pipe.

Ferrell and Wahlberg are funny together, and the movie does a decent job of making them both likeable idiots. Thomas Haden Church steals scenes as Brad’s obnoxious boss at the Smooth Jazz radio station, as does Hannibal Buress as a handyman who winds up crashing on Brad’s couch.

The film is nasty, but it’s neutered a bit by it’s PG-13 rating. It’s clear this is being marketed at families, but that’s a mistake right there. I’m sure there’s a nastier cut of this movie, and if I have a complaint it’s that the movie doesn’t go all the way with its sinister message.

It pulls some punches, keeping it from being the dark comedy it deserves to be, and making it more of a feel good film with some sinister undertones. Still, I laughed enough, and the film is recommended to fans of Ferrell and Wahlberg. 

Well, happy Friday everybody. As I said yesterday, we're shutting down the blog for a couple days to spend time with our family, friends and cats. We'll be back in business on Monday. 

If you're looking for something to do this weekend, hop on down to Casa Video. Their new bar is finished (Grand Opening on Saturday), their popcorn is still free and these are the Top 10 most in-demand movies of the week: 

1. Ted 2

2. Mission Impossible: Rouge Nation

3. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials

Like all things David O. Russell, Joy is a lot of fun. He crams as much as he can into each scene—personalities, conflict, set dressing—and if you cut anything, you’d have to cut a lot. Better to keep his style and the excess than be stuck with a compromise.

His unique rhythm thrives in the real life rags-to-riches story of a single mother who became a home shopping dynamo. Russell’s muse, Jennifer Lawrence, shines (when doesn’t she?) as Joy Mangano, inventor of the Miracle Mop, among other household devices. Her personal and professional struggles conspire against her and she realizes the only way out is up.

There’s more good work from Robert De Niro—whom Russell used to great effect in Silver Linings Playbook—and frequent collaborator Bradley Cooper, but this is all about one of the best tag teams around, Russell and his leading lady.

As a doctor points out in Concussion, the NFL basically owns a day of the week in America, so taking it on is a fool’s errand. Dr. Bennet Omalu did take on the NFL, refusing to back away from his research into chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease he was the first to diagnose, and the role football played in CTE-afflicted brains he examined from players who died far too young.

As a presentation of the facts, Concussion more or less gets it right. But the facts aren’t the story here. The NFL’s denial of CTE and the charade of its “we take head injuries seriously” stance are, but those don’t see much time in the film. Still, Will Smith is sensational as Omalu and it raises awareness about one of the many dark sides of football.

If only it wanted to make a change instead.

Doesn't everyone get sick the week before Christmas? It's freezing, everyone in the retail world are working long and stressful shifts, and the rest of us are overwhelmed trying to figure out last minute gifts for the family members we don't know very well. That's rough, and spending an entire Saturday on the couch watching movies and eating pho is obviously the best way to handle the weekend.

Or maybe you're in the mood for a movie but not willing to brave a jedi-packed movie theater. Either way, Casa Video has you covered. Here's our weekly list of DVDs you and everyone else want to rent this weekend:

1. Ant-Man

2. Minions

3. Knock Knock

UA Associate Professor Jason Jones doesn't think light sabers are very practical:

Jones, an associate professor in the University of Arizona's College of Optical Sciences and head of the Jones Research Group, knows a thing or two about lasers. And although he is a "Star Wars" fan who received a toy lightsaber for his birthday, he says laser swords are easier said than done for a couple of reasons — battery power and light physics chief among them.

Curiously, although they emit light, the lightsabers in "Star Wars" aren't made of it. They are said to be made of plasma — a hot, gassy blend of ions — wrapped in a "force containment field," which is probably some kind of electromagnetic field, Jones says. He adds that the lightsaber might be better off if it were made of, well, light.

Light is made of photons, which "don't like to interact with each other," so sword fighting with light would be futile. The physics just aren't there. But, say, cutting off a hand with it? Tricky, but not impossible.

Jones says that battery power would also be a problem:

Horror fans have had a good year in 2015. It Follows, We are Still Here, Bone Tomahawk, Ash vs Evil Dead all did a lot of good for genre lovers. While director Michael Dougherty’s Krampus isn’t quite up to the level of those I just mentioned, it does do the Christmas horror subgenre proud in many ways.

For starters, this sucker has a majorly grim attitude that it sticks with until the very end. There will be no happy Christmas message in the land of Krampus, so don’t take this one in if you have eggnog on your breath and are looking to get into the holiday spirit. It’s more of a film for somebody who pisses and moans when the Christmas decorations show up at Macy’s before Halloween.

Max (Emjay Anthony) still believes in Christmas and Santa Claus, and he takes a lot of crap for it from family members. When a bunch of family come to his house for Christmas, his cousins taunt him, while his parents (Adam Scott and Toni Collette) deal with an annoying aunt and uncle (David Koechner and Allison Tolman). Throw evil Aunt Dorothy (Conchata Ferrell) into the mix, and Max’s family is in for one lousy yuletide season. They eventually must confront evil Christmas demon Krampus and his scary henchmen.

It’s not a great film, but it qualifies as a fun, and nasty, diversion.