Lincoln

Tali: Lincoln tells the incredibly triumphant story of former US president Abraham Lincoln and the journey towards passing the 13th amendment into the United States constitution, thus abolishing slavery (and perhaps ultimately ending the Civil War). Having known very little about American history, I went into this film with a completely open mind about it's content, but was still very weary about it's long and winded premise I heard from folks who had seen it. And trust me, there are a lot of scenes of old white guys sitting around talking politics. For me, some of that was really exciting, as I enjoy the nitty gritty of the political process! But there were, a lot of white people in a movie that is ultimately about black history (in some degree) and the political elements of the movie were watered down to create this Spielberg epic. Daniel Day Lewis is also as brilliant as always - there is no video footage of Lincoln, but if there was, it would be this movie. Such dedication and skill as an actor that cannot be put into words. He will win the Oscar tomorrow, the movie overall should not.

Leo: Surprisingly, I liked Lincoln. I usually don't love slow-paced history movies, but I was surprised that I liked this movie similar to the King's Speech, though nowhere near as much. The most fun part of the movie was honestly pointing out all of the various cast members that only I would know from the collection of shows and movies I watched recently. The most amusing one was the antagonist in the Bourne Ultimatum as the secretary, and it was fun to think of comedic / plausible cross-over (operation Blackbriar was a black-ops assassination branch of the government). Back on topic....the performance by Daniel Day-Lewis was perfect as expected. He is my pick to win the Oscar without even considering the rest. The whole movie was basically riding on this, and he delivered. Overall, not exciting, not overly entertaining or suspenseful, but interesting and very impressive performances.