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As an avid fan of Quentin Tarantino, there's a level of quality that I expect from each film that he makes. I expect to connect with his characters, but not necessarily like any of them. I expect to see a film that satisfies the film geek in me. More than anything, I expect to see a film that entertains throughout the prerequisite bloated running time.

"Django Unchained" is nearly three hours long. But it never feels that long, it entertains and surprises every step along the way. When I first checked my watch, we were already two hours into the film. All of Tarantino's films are usually about this long. Tarantino has been having fun with fictionalizing historical periods lately. This started with 2009's "Inglourious Basterds", which was easily one of the best films of that year. My eighty-something year old grandmother, who lived through the time that the film depicted - World War II - said that if events actually happened as they did in that film, that we would be living in a better world today. I think that's a pretty high compliment, especially since my grandmother is not Tarantino's target audience. He was able to design a great story - not an idealistic view of that time period, but still a pretty fascinating one.

"Django" is about slavery...a taboo subject in any film, a strangely popular one, recently, as the same time period is explored in "Lincoln". It's about Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave who is bought and then freed by Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz, one-upping himself from the fantastic performance he gave in "Basterds"), a dentist turned bounty hunter. White supremacist slave owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) bought and enslaved his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), and Django and Schultz are out to correct the grave injustice done to both of them, and this doesn't mean just capturing and killing Candie, but many others who are responsible for the trauma experienced by Broomhilda.

Christoph Waltz has got to be one of the finest living actors in Hollywood. He's incredibly charismatic, but he cares about his character, first and foremost. As the prime antagonist in "Basterds", he was positively horrifying. In this film, he's the hero, but at the same time, he's anything but that. He brings humor and depth to a character that wouldn't have worked this well otherwise. Jamie Foxx does a good job as well, but I don't necessarily see him winning anything this Oscar season.

I'm half-tempted to call "Django" Quentin Tarantino's superhero movie. Django is by no means that, he's an oppressed figure with no real "super powers", however he's a kick-ass guy who the audience roots for from the very beginning. He even has his own theme song! We don't know how he appears to be more literate than other slaves, and he is somehow always able to outsmart those around him.

"Django" shows Tarantino having slightly more respect for genre than he ever has. It's a western revenge epic, first and foremost. It's also kind of a comedy, with some of the most clever dialogue I've heard in a film in 2012. It's also a romance, displaying the forbidden love between Django and his wife. But it's first and foremost a western, and Tarantino sticks to that.

This film isn't perfect, however. One thing I expect from Tarantino is well-developed strong female characters. We don't have that in "Django". I was hoping that Kerry Washington, who is also badass protagonist Olivia Pope in ABC's "Scandal", would be smart and strong-willed enough to get herself out of the problems which are out of her hands. I was hoping for Tarantino to give her some snappy dialogue, to show that her character is, like Django, superior to all of the other slaves around her. She isn't. She just kind of stands there and whimpers. She's helpless, and I wasn't expecting that from Tarantino, who has written some of the best female protagonists in film.

Other than this, "Django Unchained" is a masterful film. It takes a lot for a nearly three hour long film to be engaging the entire way through, and it is. It's wickedly funny, and at the same time, extremely dramatic. With its graphic violence and filthy mouth, it isn't for the faint of heart. All of the actors here, especially DiCaprio, seem to be having tons of fun here, and it shows. Tarantino loves to fictionalize history, and if such films are as good as "Django Unchained", I think he should keep doing it. It's a vision of history that only Tarantino can bring us.

Grade: A-

Director Robert Zemeckis has enjoyed the lucrative and profitable business of animated films for the past decade or so - making wholesome family films like The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol. The director of Forrest Gump and Cast Away is back where he belongs with Flight, an insightful, mature and thrilling character study.

Flight documents the internal struggle of an addicted man. Denzel Washington gives an incredible and nuanced performance as William "Whip" Whitaker, a pilot who pulls a miraculous stunt in midair, saving the lives of 96 of 102 passengers on a doomed flight from Orlando to Atlanta. Thought of in the media as a hero, Whip's history of drug and alcohol dependency is completely ignored until it's shown through a blood test that he was drunk at the time of the plane crash, blurring the line between hero and criminal.

Zemeckis's last live-action film Cast Away is all about external struggle, beating the odds around you to save your own life. What's interesting about Flight is that it's about a completely internal battle. The actual plane crash lasts for about the first twenty minutes of the film, and from then on, it becomes a cautionary tale about addiction. Whip's problem doesn't stop at drinking too much. He's also addicted to cocaine, which he needs to wake up after a heavy night of drinking. Whip quits drinking and relapses many times throughout the film. He befriends a woman who he meets in the hospital, post crash, who is there because of a heroin overdose. She tries to "save him", but fails multiple times until he's faced with having to save himself.

Washington gives the stellar performance that his fans expect, and for the most part, his performance carries the film. However, some real talent lies in the film's supporting cast. Kelly Reilly plays Nicole, the junkie who Whip finds as a kindred spirit. At first it seems like she's nothing but a bad influence for this character who really needs to get his life together. However, her subtle performance gives an unexpected depth to the character. She's facing her own demons...she's not there just to be a tool in Whip's recovery. John Goodman is here for comic relief as Whip's cocaine dealer, who is a character straight out of The Big Lebowski.

One thing that might drive audiences away from this film is that the lead character is totally unlikable. He treats everyone around him like garbage, including the ex-wife who he doesn't talk to anymore, and the son who he neglects. The audience member knows that these strained relationships were directly caused by his alcoholism. But in the end, the damage he's doing to himself is the most inexcusable.

Washington's antihero reminds me of a similar character in a film I saw last year, Young Adult. Charlize Theron's character Mavis Gary is a writer of young adult fiction who hasn't grown up mentally at all since high school. Drinking heavy amounts of vodka and whisky just to get through the day, Mavis doesn't admit her addiction to anyone, not even herself. She ignores this as her big problem. Whip's story is a lot like this. However, the viewer doesn't have to be an alcoholic or a junkie for this story to resonate. Films like this illuminate the mental part of addiction, which I truly find fascinating. Its ending is a little too "happily ever after" for my taste, but it leaves a hopeful message. It also reminds me that a lead character doesn't have to be likable to be interesting. It's an old-fashioned melodrama, and it's all the better for that. The film's quality and resonance is what inevitably soars.

Grade: A

The very point of young adult literature is to give the few young individuals with an interest in reading, a world to immerse themselves in, and a character or two to root for, who will hopefully teach them a thing or two about the world they live in, and hopefully, about themselves. Such a character should be a role model for these young people. In 2012, we are left with no more "Harry Potter" films to be made. The "Twilight" series, which has albeit made a great deal of money, doesn't quite cut it for those of us who expect something more from our movie-going experience.

"The Hunger Games" has it all: a wonderful slew of characters, an unfamiliar and interesting world, real problems to overcome, not to mention a star-making performance by Jennifer Lawrence. One major problem that I find in the "Twilight" series lies in the lack of role models for young women reading them. Bella Swan is an idiot. She relies on men for every single thing she does, and doesn't change and become her own person over the course of the four books, ultimately becoming the epitome of anti-feminism, in this viewer's eyes.

Having said that, "The Hunger Games" is something of a godsend. Katniss Everdeen is headstrong, brutal, resourceful, witty, uncannily smart and a truly original personality. She knows when to back down, yet she knows when to take charge. She is an ideal role model for young people who will undoubtedly approach the film.

"The Hunger Games" takes place in the post-apocalyptic region of Panem, divided into twelve "districts". Once a year, an Olympics-style event takes place where one young man and woman from each of the twelve districts is forced to take part in a fight to the death on national television, where only one contestant can survive. A member of working- class District 12, Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) takes her young sister's place after she has somehow been chosen in her first year of eligibility. Katniss has essentially raised her sister, with a mother who has been useless ever since the father's death. She learns to put her knowledge to good use, becomes something of a badass in her quest to above all else, stay alive.

Like I mentioned, Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, is a revelation. She clearly knew the character she was playing. While her performance is strong and ever-commanding, the character of Katniss was never permitted to let her true emotions show, and Lawrence obviously understood that. She couldn't have been better. Josh Hutcherson does a good enough job as Peeta, the other contestant from District 12, who becomes a good friend to Katniss; and possibly a love interest? We'll let the next film in the trilogy tackle that.

The film has a tremendous supporting cast, including Woody Harrelson as Haymitch, the often-inebriated mentor to Katniss and Peeta, "30 Rock"'s Elizabeth Banks as the loud and flamboyant Effie, Donald Sutherland as the country's president, and the always-great Stanley Tucci, as Caesar.

My only gripe lies with director Gary Ross, who has previously directed "Seabiscuit" and "Pleasantville". His shaky camera-work works in scenes where we're seeing events from a character's perspective, especially when the "games", themselves, begin. However, shaky hand-held camera- work is present, even in scenes where only two characters are having a conversation. Why? It's distracting, and should have been done differently.

However, Ross did a well enough job interpreting this novel, which I believe many other directors could have screwed up. He made a sensitive, yet not-for-the-faint-of-heart film out of a novel that felt exactly the same way. Like the "Twilight" series, there is a love story in "The Hunger Games", but it's not the most important thing going on. The film could stand as simply an adaptation of a novel, or could be interpreted as social commentary, with obvious hints being made about the Occupy Wall Street movement, as well as the grim picture it paints of what our society could one day become. Yet it's quality entertainment that even the least discerning film-goer can appreciate. Bring on "Catching Fire".

Grade: A