Oh I'm sorry, Did I Break Your Conversation........Well Allow Me A Movie Thread by S&T
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Im watchin Django at 10 tonight down here in San Diego.
Will post later with review. Spoiler free.
Will post later with review. Spoiler free.
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Saw it. Loved it. My favorite movie of the year.
And it is just as racist as Spike Lee says, if you can't get over the fact that they're using slavery for flavor and jokes, instead of approaching it in a meaningful way. I think the people who hate it wish this could've been American slavery's Schindler's List instead of Shaft mixed with Blazing Saddles. And the word ****** is water to this script.
I loved it though. I'll post more after I catch up on that thread or something.
And uh...Samuel L. Jackson steals the show.
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big j 33
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Just watched Your Sister's Sister. I definitely liked it, but if someone told me they hated it, I wouldn't really argue. If that makes sense...
An interesting take on what could have been a very bland and predictable movie based on the premise. It didn't hurt that Emily Blunt is adorable and Mark Duplass is a really solid actor. Plus I liked that it was set in one location with only a few characters.
An interesting take on what could have been a very bland and predictable movie based on the premise. It didn't hurt that Emily Blunt is adorable and Mark Duplass is a really solid actor. Plus I liked that it was set in one location with only a few characters.
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My Django Review:
The “s” word has been shunned in Hollywood for a long time now, it’s almost as taboo and harsh as the dreaded “n” word itself; which has made for a lot of vilification of Quentin Tarantino’s latest spaghetti western, or southern as he’d prefer, Django Unchained.
Slavery is nothing to joke about, it’s a point in our history that we’d all wish wouldn’t have happened like many other unspeakable acts that have taken place. But if you’re not going to take what Tarantino did as a form of entertainment then don’t bother watching this. If you’re expecting a factual representation of the cotton fields and genocide of slavery then this isn’t your film.
What Django Unchained really is, is a story of two bounty hunters who become partners and search for their bounties along with Django’s wife, all under the backdrop of 1858 America.
This is obviously a Tarantino film through and through and he never lets you forget about it. From the over the top blood splatter to the hilarious scene of the KKK wardrobe malfunctions, Django Unchained is filled with scenes we’ll be talking about for years to come much like with Pulp Fiction.
We open to four slaves trekking through Texas when a German dentist riding in a horse drawn buggy, stops them in hopes that they could help him identify the location of the men he’s looking for. During the opening questionnaire he discovers that one of the slaves in line knows what the Brittle brothers looks like and intends to buy him for his services. And thus the start of a beautiful friendship of Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) and Django (Jamie Foxx) begins.
The two become quite fond of each other as Schultz dazzles Django with guns and the English language all while letting him roam free unlike any black man at this time. This dynamic-duo of Waltz and Foxx are buddy cops in a comedy before such a thing even existed. As their friendship grows and the Brittle brothers are brought to justice, Dr. Schultz makes an offer to Django saying if they partner up for the winter as bounty hunters, when the ice melts he will help Django try to rescue his wife Broomhilda.
The two are peas in a pod; probably the most enjoyable part of the film is seeing these two in action, form a bond and kinship. As the winter fades and the two have made money – it’s time to go get Django’s wife. A trip to Tennessee leads to information of Broomhilda’s whereabouts at “CandieLand” the plantation owned by the evil Monsieur Calvin Candie, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Candie is a mean slave owner who takes pride in his property; always seen smoking, his yellow teeth are always on display as DiCaprio’s Cheshire cat smile looms large in the face of darkness.
We’re further introduced to a wild house slave in charge while Candie is away, Steven, played by the diabolical, shrewd and fast-tongued Samuel L. Jackson. His disdain for Django being free and prancing about like a white man sets off alarms that further lead to drama at the plantation.
Tarantino shows off his skills throughout the film with an impeccable script that turns an uncomfortable subject into one of hilarity. He does so by not exploiting slavery but instead use it as a vehicle for Django to prove everyone wrong. In a time where the social norm was for blacks to be in chains and shackles, Django is a free man, running around killing whites for money. This shifts the balance of power and as Django says when asked to be a bounty hunter: “what’s not to like.” It allows for harsh dialogue and crude jokes about a touchy subject, some may be too ashamed to laugh, but when you look around the theater everyone will be joining you.
This was the first Tarantino film without Sally Menke, who passed away in 2010 and it unfortunately showed. The film at a robust 165 minutes is far too long and begins to grow tiring late in its second act. It could have easily been trimmed 20-30 minutes and had a greater effect on the audience. During the first 90 minutes I really stopped myself and thought this was one of the best films of the year, up until that point, hoping it wouldn’t tank as the second act approached. That being said, my only other real issue with the film was the dramatic change in tones starting in hour two. The film goes from a wild, fun, hilarious, best-QT-film-ever, to a very serious, messy and muddled finale that really loses it’s spunk from the first half of the film.
Anchored by the best music of any film in 2012, the titular Django theme song by Luis Bacalov is one you’ll want to play over-and-over and I for one hope it wins an Oscar, it’s that damn infectious. From Rick Ross to James Brown to Tupac; Tarantino finds a way to insert them all into the medley of Django and amplify his scenes ten fold.
Christoph Waltz as Dr. King Schultz is one of the funniest characters Tarantino has ever come up with. This German bounty hunter has such a sense of humor that he can laugh in the face of bullet holes and stickups. It’s as enjoyable of a supporting role as you’ll see all year; I won’t be surprised if he gets nominated for an Oscar. In fact, you can make a case for Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx as well to get nods in the best supporting actor category as all three were off the charts. DiCaprio is clearly entering new grounds with this role and it’s one that will stand out and be talked about for his entire career. It’s refreshing no doubt.
With Foxx, this is the role that I feel catapults him from known name to Hollywood star, if not superstar. With an upcoming mega role in The Amazing Spider-Man sequel as Electro, Django Unchained should showcase his versatility to the masses and allow a nationwide audience to soak in his skills. And next year when he dons the super suit we can all point at his work as Django as the launching point of his stardom.
This is QT’s finest work in over 20 years as copious amounts of blood soak the ground that Django walks on. While the violence is a staple of Tarantino’s, Django is bound by more then just guns and the notion of slavery. It’s the colorful lead characters, timely cameos and a script that while verbose balances off colored humor with a kick-*** time.
Rating: B+
The “s” word has been shunned in Hollywood for a long time now, it’s almost as taboo and harsh as the dreaded “n” word itself; which has made for a lot of vilification of Quentin Tarantino’s latest spaghetti western, or southern as he’d prefer, Django Unchained.
Slavery is nothing to joke about, it’s a point in our history that we’d all wish wouldn’t have happened like many other unspeakable acts that have taken place. But if you’re not going to take what Tarantino did as a form of entertainment then don’t bother watching this. If you’re expecting a factual representation of the cotton fields and genocide of slavery then this isn’t your film.
What Django Unchained really is, is a story of two bounty hunters who become partners and search for their bounties along with Django’s wife, all under the backdrop of 1858 America.
This is obviously a Tarantino film through and through and he never lets you forget about it. From the over the top blood splatter to the hilarious scene of the KKK wardrobe malfunctions, Django Unchained is filled with scenes we’ll be talking about for years to come much like with Pulp Fiction.
We open to four slaves trekking through Texas when a German dentist riding in a horse drawn buggy, stops them in hopes that they could help him identify the location of the men he’s looking for. During the opening questionnaire he discovers that one of the slaves in line knows what the Brittle brothers looks like and intends to buy him for his services. And thus the start of a beautiful friendship of Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) and Django (Jamie Foxx) begins.
The two become quite fond of each other as Schultz dazzles Django with guns and the English language all while letting him roam free unlike any black man at this time. This dynamic-duo of Waltz and Foxx are buddy cops in a comedy before such a thing even existed. As their friendship grows and the Brittle brothers are brought to justice, Dr. Schultz makes an offer to Django saying if they partner up for the winter as bounty hunters, when the ice melts he will help Django try to rescue his wife Broomhilda.
The two are peas in a pod; probably the most enjoyable part of the film is seeing these two in action, form a bond and kinship. As the winter fades and the two have made money – it’s time to go get Django’s wife. A trip to Tennessee leads to information of Broomhilda’s whereabouts at “CandieLand” the plantation owned by the evil Monsieur Calvin Candie, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Candie is a mean slave owner who takes pride in his property; always seen smoking, his yellow teeth are always on display as DiCaprio’s Cheshire cat smile looms large in the face of darkness.
We’re further introduced to a wild house slave in charge while Candie is away, Steven, played by the diabolical, shrewd and fast-tongued Samuel L. Jackson. His disdain for Django being free and prancing about like a white man sets off alarms that further lead to drama at the plantation.
Tarantino shows off his skills throughout the film with an impeccable script that turns an uncomfortable subject into one of hilarity. He does so by not exploiting slavery but instead use it as a vehicle for Django to prove everyone wrong. In a time where the social norm was for blacks to be in chains and shackles, Django is a free man, running around killing whites for money. This shifts the balance of power and as Django says when asked to be a bounty hunter: “what’s not to like.” It allows for harsh dialogue and crude jokes about a touchy subject, some may be too ashamed to laugh, but when you look around the theater everyone will be joining you.
This was the first Tarantino film without Sally Menke, who passed away in 2010 and it unfortunately showed. The film at a robust 165 minutes is far too long and begins to grow tiring late in its second act. It could have easily been trimmed 20-30 minutes and had a greater effect on the audience. During the first 90 minutes I really stopped myself and thought this was one of the best films of the year, up until that point, hoping it wouldn’t tank as the second act approached. That being said, my only other real issue with the film was the dramatic change in tones starting in hour two. The film goes from a wild, fun, hilarious, best-QT-film-ever, to a very serious, messy and muddled finale that really loses it’s spunk from the first half of the film.
Anchored by the best music of any film in 2012, the titular Django theme song by Luis Bacalov is one you’ll want to play over-and-over and I for one hope it wins an Oscar, it’s that damn infectious. From Rick Ross to James Brown to Tupac; Tarantino finds a way to insert them all into the medley of Django and amplify his scenes ten fold.
Christoph Waltz as Dr. King Schultz is one of the funniest characters Tarantino has ever come up with. This German bounty hunter has such a sense of humor that he can laugh in the face of bullet holes and stickups. It’s as enjoyable of a supporting role as you’ll see all year; I won’t be surprised if he gets nominated for an Oscar. In fact, you can make a case for Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx as well to get nods in the best supporting actor category as all three were off the charts. DiCaprio is clearly entering new grounds with this role and it’s one that will stand out and be talked about for his entire career. It’s refreshing no doubt.
With Foxx, this is the role that I feel catapults him from known name to Hollywood star, if not superstar. With an upcoming mega role in The Amazing Spider-Man sequel as Electro, Django Unchained should showcase his versatility to the masses and allow a nationwide audience to soak in his skills. And next year when he dons the super suit we can all point at his work as Django as the launching point of his stardom.
This is QT’s finest work in over 20 years as copious amounts of blood soak the ground that Django walks on. While the violence is a staple of Tarantino’s, Django is bound by more then just guns and the notion of slavery. It’s the colorful lead characters, timely cameos and a script that while verbose balances off colored humor with a kick-*** time.
Rating: B+
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So last night I saw Django Unchained. (I won't spoil anything)
Now I don't really know spaghetti westerns too much, so I'm happy I finally saw the whole Dollars trilogy last month to at least catch some of the references and imagery that Quentin used here. And it probably helps that I watched all of Roots for the first time a couple months ago after my friends told me I was ******g up as a black person, having never seen it before.
This film wasn't what I wanted, until it had me wanting more of it every time it shifted into a new kind of film. If that makes any sense.
This is more Kill Bill than it is Inglourious.
Do you remember Tropic Thunder? When Robert Downey Jr. lost his mind, was in the zone and just killed a role in blackface? That's Django. It...like any Tarantino, is as much about the filmmaker as it is the film itself, but it's awesome. And he was in the zone. And all I could think is, could this movie never end? Because it's not one film. It's 4 films...with big sweeping arcs to each act that feel like entirely different movies. And the atmosphere it created. I remember tension in the theater with Inglourious Basterds. This was different. That was white guilt and cautious unease in my theater. Whether you hate what this film represents or not, you will never have a filmgoing experience like Django again, and you're a fool if you can like film or have an opinion on this and not go see the film.
No...it's not as polished as Inglourious was. You can feel it that this was a cutdown version of a longer movie. There are little character strands that don't go anywhere...shots of characters that make you curious, then disappear. But that's fine to me. If I can look past Avengers' editing, than this is nothing.
I've never seen anything like this in my life and I feel like I've been waiting for it. You could say this is Blazing Saddles 2, but ********. The cowboy in Blazing Saddles was more Bo Jangles than Jules Winnfield, like Django turned out to be. And it's not maudlin. It's not obsessed with the depressed reality of it all. I remember having a huge conversation with CP about Schindler's List vs. The Pianist and there's something special about rewatchability and making something painful accessible and small and focused. This is the extreme of that, in a way Inglourious couldn't be. This had slave whippings, torture, murder, exploitation (sexual, mental and violent), insidious and casual racism, dehumanization...a little bit of everything. But it never lost its focus. It'd wander around the corner to see what's happening, but it never lost it's gaze on Broomhilda, and everything Django and Dr. King (....
) had to do to pull that one thing off.
Christoph Waltz is great like usual. He's the good guy for once, and in a way he's the main character of the first half of the movie. His quirks are so smoothed out and mannered, that it almost feels like Christoph just winged it brilliantly. He's the eccentric and Jamie's the straight man, and the sudden shift from the first movie, this film is to the 2nd, makes you wish there was another half hour to just soak that film in. And Kerry Washington. Way down in the hole of the great things about this movie is her. You could say she's wasted, but she's all this film needed her to be. In a way, Django and Broomhilda were foils, there to expose the truths about the people around them.
Watching the movie, I felt so reminded of Argo. Each step of the way, we get these little treatises on people acting their parts. People having to fit a role in a twisted world, from Calvin who was born into slave-owning to Django and King, who constantly have to find clever ways to get around people's perceptions of them, whether it be murderers or just a white man with a black walking into a bar for a drink. But the real treat...the real showstopper is Samuel L. Jackson. My god. I didn't even know he was in the film, until randomly I saw him pimping it on Letterman. Argo was about a world in flux. People who thought they were safe, having to take on identities on the fly to save their own lives and get to where they need to go...all culminating in the airport scene. This film is that on steroids. Except these people aren't in a world in flux. They're in a world bathed in hate, driving towards the heart of darkness, a Mississippi plantation in 1860. And the ways that Samuel L. Jackson twists and turns and so knowingly takes the most perfectly ugly indentity for each crowd...in every different situation. It's comic gold and brilliant acting. I mean I get it. I get why Leo is getting so much credit, because I guess it's brave, being the golden boy and taking such an ugly, despicable role...and making it charming and magnetic without losing the ugliness or the seriousness, but how is Sam L. getting left out? It's so much more than just an Uncle Tom role. He adjusts and attacks every single scene in a different way. You never quite get the same version of him, because he's always aiming at something, no matter how low and ugly, and he means to hit it every time. And the humor.
This is the best Samuel L. Jackson has been in anything to me. Better than Jules Winnfield. Better than Mr. Glass. Better than Jesus in Die Hard. Better than A Time to Kill. Love to hate isn't the right phrase. You lose to hate Calvin Candie...you almost forget to hate him, until he reminds you. But Steven...you never forget with Steven. He's never anything short of scene-stealing. You try and figure out every smirk and groan and sneer while you're dying laughing, because he's the most bitter comedy gold of anything I've ever seen. Worse than Uncle Ruckus. The reason why he's overlooked?...It's like trying to give Michael Fassbender credit for Inglourious. Alright...but first you have to hit up Cristoph Waltz...then Melanie Laurent, then maybe even Diane Kruger or the big name, Brad Pitt. There's too much that was well done to pull this up out of it as the best.
Did Tarantino bite off more than he could chew? Without a doubt. He used up a lot of that goodwill and capital he had to get this through. I mean I completely understand why Will Smith said...nah I'm cool, JGL dipped, Borat dipped, Kurt Russell dipped...I get all of their choices to leave.
I get why this film would be so polarizing as well, and there isn't a good argument for this film to be the way it is. A black filmmaker could never get away with this. (Don't get me wrong, no one outside of Quentin really could) But a black filmmaker...never. This would be seen as hateful and angry. When I say Quentin used a lot of capital...it's not like people won't love this. Death Proof knocked him back more than this ever could. It's that the filmmaker would be on trial just as much as the film would. And if you flinched...if you abated and gave in to what other people would feel more comfortable with you saying in your film...then this would've been less for it. If you didn't have the sheen of a Tarantino, to pull in the talent that he did...then this would've been less for it. It would've been the film people say it is, if it wasn't so earnest and focused and of a singular voice. Now that's not to say Tarantino's brave or anything. I mean he's brave if he goes to the NAACP Image Awards this year, but that's about it. It's just...no one else would've had the juice, the balls and the clarity to make this.
And I know...I KNOW...a lot of the people angry about this film, are angry, because this is it. This is the big slave project of the generation. There was Roots, there was Glory, there was Amistad...now there's this. Look. Look at Red Tails. Look at what there is out there and how damn hard it is for a mostly black film to get made and get by, let alone a mostly black film about the worst thing that ever happened to black people in America. Some people are mad because this isn't black Schindler's List...because something like this might be okay, if a lot of other films had already preceded it, but they didn't.
It's mostly fine for Inglourious Basterds to trivialize and poke fun at Nazi-ism, because there have been dozens...maybe hundreds serious Holocaust and WWII films. But no black filmmaker could ever get the funding to make something like Django. They could never get the cast or the marketing push or even really the script to make this. They couldn't get the studio backing or distribution for a film like this and that's ******g aggravating. And no it's not Quentin's fault, but I think there's some LeBron syndrome in effect. Some "man you've got it so easy. You can do anything you want to. Why don't you just do it the way I want you to do it?" And that happens when you hear the n-word somewhere you don't think it was necessary...it happens when there's a KKK joke that really minimizes how terrible they were...it happens when Tarantino lingers on a black face in a way that maybe doesn't feel right, or when you stop and think...a white man made this. This isn't a black slave revenge fantasy, this is a white man's idea of a black slave revenge fantasy, where he thinks it's alright to have his actors say the n-word 200 times. I'm not saying it is, but I understand where they're coming from. There'd be room for this type of film if there were dozens of straight slave films, but the fact that no one has cared (outside of Roots and Amistad) about this type of film, and that in making a parody/fantasy, Tarantino has made the biggest slave film ever, is a really sad realization. It's like watching LeBron choose to go to the Heat on national TV. It's like if there was no Jay-Z, Tupac, Biggie, Kanye or Nas and Eminem came out with the biggest rap album of the decade called N-word, and it was all about him deconstructing it and really doing something creative with it. Yeah. And this isn't as deep or well made as Inglourious.
And no it's not fair to compare this to Inglourious Basterds. You could do that if this film was set 15 or 20 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, or if the film took place in the North with Django chasing ex-slavers in hiding. Because Inglourious was about fancy Nazi's trying to hide the monsters that they were. They never brought their revenge fantasy/spoof to the gas showers of the concentration camps. They didn't show Germans beating, raping, killing and dehumanizing Jews. They didn't show it. It's different, I know. These were organized, intelligent people who thought they weren't monsters, doing it to other organized intelligent people. American slavery was brutal, hick businessmen doing it to generationally uneducated, broken people. Tarantino had to reach just to get some type of fancy environment for his story.
Is it a compliment saying this makes me less uncomfortable than Blazing Saddles? Django doesn't do what it does for comedy...not for the most part. It tries to understand the specific type of uncomfortable-ness its subjects create and uses that to find the ironies, quirks and memorable set-pieces of that reality. It's not as deep as it could be, and a lot of it feels like wasted potential. But so much potential is tapped and so much of it works so damn well, that I can't help but love this film for what it is.
My audience clapped at the end. Most of them were white and you could feel a general, edgy unease throughout the whole film. I loved it and I think almost everyone who saw it really liked it too.
9.5/10 my favorite film of the year
Now I don't really know spaghetti westerns too much, so I'm happy I finally saw the whole Dollars trilogy last month to at least catch some of the references and imagery that Quentin used here. And it probably helps that I watched all of Roots for the first time a couple months ago after my friends told me I was ******g up as a black person, having never seen it before.
This film wasn't what I wanted, until it had me wanting more of it every time it shifted into a new kind of film. If that makes any sense.This is more Kill Bill than it is Inglourious.
Do you remember Tropic Thunder? When Robert Downey Jr. lost his mind, was in the zone and just killed a role in blackface? That's Django. It...like any Tarantino, is as much about the filmmaker as it is the film itself, but it's awesome. And he was in the zone. And all I could think is, could this movie never end? Because it's not one film. It's 4 films...with big sweeping arcs to each act that feel like entirely different movies. And the atmosphere it created. I remember tension in the theater with Inglourious Basterds. This was different. That was white guilt and cautious unease in my theater. Whether you hate what this film represents or not, you will never have a filmgoing experience like Django again, and you're a fool if you can like film or have an opinion on this and not go see the film.
No...it's not as polished as Inglourious was. You can feel it that this was a cutdown version of a longer movie. There are little character strands that don't go anywhere...shots of characters that make you curious, then disappear. But that's fine to me. If I can look past Avengers' editing, than this is nothing.
I've never seen anything like this in my life and I feel like I've been waiting for it. You could say this is Blazing Saddles 2, but ********. The cowboy in Blazing Saddles was more Bo Jangles than Jules Winnfield, like Django turned out to be. And it's not maudlin. It's not obsessed with the depressed reality of it all. I remember having a huge conversation with CP about Schindler's List vs. The Pianist and there's something special about rewatchability and making something painful accessible and small and focused. This is the extreme of that, in a way Inglourious couldn't be. This had slave whippings, torture, murder, exploitation (sexual, mental and violent), insidious and casual racism, dehumanization...a little bit of everything. But it never lost its focus. It'd wander around the corner to see what's happening, but it never lost it's gaze on Broomhilda, and everything Django and Dr. King (....
) had to do to pull that one thing off.Christoph Waltz is great like usual. He's the good guy for once, and in a way he's the main character of the first half of the movie. His quirks are so smoothed out and mannered, that it almost feels like Christoph just winged it brilliantly. He's the eccentric and Jamie's the straight man, and the sudden shift from the first movie, this film is to the 2nd, makes you wish there was another half hour to just soak that film in. And Kerry Washington. Way down in the hole of the great things about this movie is her. You could say she's wasted, but she's all this film needed her to be. In a way, Django and Broomhilda were foils, there to expose the truths about the people around them.
Watching the movie, I felt so reminded of Argo. Each step of the way, we get these little treatises on people acting their parts. People having to fit a role in a twisted world, from Calvin who was born into slave-owning to Django and King, who constantly have to find clever ways to get around people's perceptions of them, whether it be murderers or just a white man with a black walking into a bar for a drink. But the real treat...the real showstopper is Samuel L. Jackson. My god. I didn't even know he was in the film, until randomly I saw him pimping it on Letterman. Argo was about a world in flux. People who thought they were safe, having to take on identities on the fly to save their own lives and get to where they need to go...all culminating in the airport scene. This film is that on steroids. Except these people aren't in a world in flux. They're in a world bathed in hate, driving towards the heart of darkness, a Mississippi plantation in 1860. And the ways that Samuel L. Jackson twists and turns and so knowingly takes the most perfectly ugly indentity for each crowd...in every different situation. It's comic gold and brilliant acting. I mean I get it. I get why Leo is getting so much credit, because I guess it's brave, being the golden boy and taking such an ugly, despicable role...and making it charming and magnetic without losing the ugliness or the seriousness, but how is Sam L. getting left out? It's so much more than just an Uncle Tom role. He adjusts and attacks every single scene in a different way. You never quite get the same version of him, because he's always aiming at something, no matter how low and ugly, and he means to hit it every time. And the humor.
This is the best Samuel L. Jackson has been in anything to me. Better than Jules Winnfield. Better than Mr. Glass. Better than Jesus in Die Hard. Better than A Time to Kill. Love to hate isn't the right phrase. You lose to hate Calvin Candie...you almost forget to hate him, until he reminds you. But Steven...you never forget with Steven. He's never anything short of scene-stealing. You try and figure out every smirk and groan and sneer while you're dying laughing, because he's the most bitter comedy gold of anything I've ever seen. Worse than Uncle Ruckus. The reason why he's overlooked?...It's like trying to give Michael Fassbender credit for Inglourious. Alright...but first you have to hit up Cristoph Waltz...then Melanie Laurent, then maybe even Diane Kruger or the big name, Brad Pitt. There's too much that was well done to pull this up out of it as the best.
Did Tarantino bite off more than he could chew? Without a doubt. He used up a lot of that goodwill and capital he had to get this through. I mean I completely understand why Will Smith said...nah I'm cool, JGL dipped, Borat dipped, Kurt Russell dipped...I get all of their choices to leave.
I get why this film would be so polarizing as well, and there isn't a good argument for this film to be the way it is. A black filmmaker could never get away with this. (Don't get me wrong, no one outside of Quentin really could) But a black filmmaker...never. This would be seen as hateful and angry. When I say Quentin used a lot of capital...it's not like people won't love this. Death Proof knocked him back more than this ever could. It's that the filmmaker would be on trial just as much as the film would. And if you flinched...if you abated and gave in to what other people would feel more comfortable with you saying in your film...then this would've been less for it. If you didn't have the sheen of a Tarantino, to pull in the talent that he did...then this would've been less for it. It would've been the film people say it is, if it wasn't so earnest and focused and of a singular voice. Now that's not to say Tarantino's brave or anything. I mean he's brave if he goes to the NAACP Image Awards this year, but that's about it. It's just...no one else would've had the juice, the balls and the clarity to make this.
And I know...I KNOW...a lot of the people angry about this film, are angry, because this is it. This is the big slave project of the generation. There was Roots, there was Glory, there was Amistad...now there's this. Look. Look at Red Tails. Look at what there is out there and how damn hard it is for a mostly black film to get made and get by, let alone a mostly black film about the worst thing that ever happened to black people in America. Some people are mad because this isn't black Schindler's List...because something like this might be okay, if a lot of other films had already preceded it, but they didn't.
It's mostly fine for Inglourious Basterds to trivialize and poke fun at Nazi-ism, because there have been dozens...maybe hundreds serious Holocaust and WWII films. But no black filmmaker could ever get the funding to make something like Django. They could never get the cast or the marketing push or even really the script to make this. They couldn't get the studio backing or distribution for a film like this and that's ******g aggravating. And no it's not Quentin's fault, but I think there's some LeBron syndrome in effect. Some "man you've got it so easy. You can do anything you want to. Why don't you just do it the way I want you to do it?" And that happens when you hear the n-word somewhere you don't think it was necessary...it happens when there's a KKK joke that really minimizes how terrible they were...it happens when Tarantino lingers on a black face in a way that maybe doesn't feel right, or when you stop and think...a white man made this. This isn't a black slave revenge fantasy, this is a white man's idea of a black slave revenge fantasy, where he thinks it's alright to have his actors say the n-word 200 times. I'm not saying it is, but I understand where they're coming from. There'd be room for this type of film if there were dozens of straight slave films, but the fact that no one has cared (outside of Roots and Amistad) about this type of film, and that in making a parody/fantasy, Tarantino has made the biggest slave film ever, is a really sad realization. It's like watching LeBron choose to go to the Heat on national TV. It's like if there was no Jay-Z, Tupac, Biggie, Kanye or Nas and Eminem came out with the biggest rap album of the decade called N-word, and it was all about him deconstructing it and really doing something creative with it. Yeah. And this isn't as deep or well made as Inglourious.
And no it's not fair to compare this to Inglourious Basterds. You could do that if this film was set 15 or 20 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, or if the film took place in the North with Django chasing ex-slavers in hiding. Because Inglourious was about fancy Nazi's trying to hide the monsters that they were. They never brought their revenge fantasy/spoof to the gas showers of the concentration camps. They didn't show Germans beating, raping, killing and dehumanizing Jews. They didn't show it. It's different, I know. These were organized, intelligent people who thought they weren't monsters, doing it to other organized intelligent people. American slavery was brutal, hick businessmen doing it to generationally uneducated, broken people. Tarantino had to reach just to get some type of fancy environment for his story.
Is it a compliment saying this makes me less uncomfortable than Blazing Saddles? Django doesn't do what it does for comedy...not for the most part. It tries to understand the specific type of uncomfortable-ness its subjects create and uses that to find the ironies, quirks and memorable set-pieces of that reality. It's not as deep as it could be, and a lot of it feels like wasted potential. But so much potential is tapped and so much of it works so damn well, that I can't help but love this film for what it is.
My audience clapped at the end. Most of them were white and you could feel a general, edgy unease throughout the whole film. I loved it and I think almost everyone who saw it really liked it too.
9.5/10 my favorite film of the year
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See the movie. ASAP.
jpzx
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Seeing Django tonight! 
Watched John Carter... enjoy Taylor Kitsch in Friday Night Lights so I thought I would give it a try. It was alright in points, I actually enjoyed the ending considering it felt like a movie that was just churned out by Disney to make some dough. We all found out what the little girl has been dong.... But was that the little boy from Spy Kids as his nephew?
Walter White in that tiny, cameo-ish role
... Didn't even know Willem Dafoe was in it. One of the aliens, I suppose. Lynn Collins is gorgeous man, just gorgeous 
Mark Strong is just good as a villain. When he's bald the mother ****** just looks like one.
Watched John Carter... enjoy Taylor Kitsch in Friday Night Lights so I thought I would give it a try. It was alright in points, I actually enjoyed the ending considering it felt like a movie that was just churned out by Disney to make some dough. We all found out what the little girl has been dong.... But was that the little boy from Spy Kids as his nephew?
Walter White in that tiny, cameo-ish role
... Didn't even know Willem Dafoe was in it. One of the aliens, I suppose. Lynn Collins is gorgeous man, just gorgeous Mark Strong is just good as a villain. When he's bald the mother ****** just looks like one.
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Also going tonight, finally.. been trying the past few nights but been getting called into work.
tonight though!
tonight though!
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Damn guys nice reviews
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I can't possibly top the reviews that Venom and MrO posted , but Django is a must see. And by must see, I mean ASAP. And by ASAP, I mean if you have nothing lined up tonight, go tonight.
Best/my favorite movie of the year.
, but Django is a must see. And by must see, I mean ASAP. And by ASAP, I mean if you have nothing lined up tonight, go tonight.Best/my favorite movie of the year.
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I'm curious to see how Django fairs in the Oscar race. As someone who follows Oscar season closely, all I have left to see is Les Mis and The Impossible and I've seen everything.
Right now Foxx is being campaigned as lead actor while Leo and Waltz are campaigned for supporting. I doubt all three will get nominated, but I think two may. Leo probably over Waltz even though I think I enjoyed Waltz more than Leo.
As I mentioned in my review and to others who are doubting Foxx, this is the role that will catapult him into the top tier of recognizable names and "it" actors in Hollywood. Once he plays Electro next year in TASM2 he'll be on the Denzel level.
Right now Foxx is being campaigned as lead actor while Leo and Waltz are campaigned for supporting. I doubt all three will get nominated, but I think two may. Leo probably over Waltz even though I think I enjoyed Waltz more than Leo.
As I mentioned in my review and to others who are doubting Foxx, this is the role that will catapult him into the top tier of recognizable names and "it" actors in Hollywood. Once he plays Electro next year in TASM2 he'll be on the Denzel level.
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Loved it.
Probably my favorite of the year.
You could tell Tarantino missed Sally Menke, who had edited all of his films until this one since she died a few years ago, because it wasn't as smooth and evenly paced as it could have been. With that in mind, I need to read the screenplay because it might be one of the best I've seen. Each scene, character, line, word, was just phenomenal. Some of it could have been cut, extended, or altered, but what was there I thought was brilliant. Funny, tense, dramatic, poignant, it hit all the bases.
The theater applauded at the end and was laughing throughout. You could sense the tension and uneasiness during a lot of the scenes, the dogs and the two fighting in particular.
Foxx was fantastic. He had a lot of doubters beforehand, and I don't know why because he's shown to be a good dramatic actor and can obviously be funny.. and he more than delivered as Django. Waltz and Leo were both great, as expected. Jackson had probably the best performance of his career.
I'd write up a lot more, but I'm exhausted. I'll need to re-watch it, but right now I'll say it's my favorite QT movie since Pulp Fiction... and considering that's in my top 3-5 all-time, it's a good place to be.
Probably my favorite of the year.
You could tell Tarantino missed Sally Menke, who had edited all of his films until this one since she died a few years ago, because it wasn't as smooth and evenly paced as it could have been. With that in mind, I need to read the screenplay because it might be one of the best I've seen. Each scene, character, line, word, was just phenomenal. Some of it could have been cut, extended, or altered, but what was there I thought was brilliant. Funny, tense, dramatic, poignant, it hit all the bases.
The theater applauded at the end and was laughing throughout. You could sense the tension and uneasiness during a lot of the scenes, the dogs and the two fighting in particular.
Foxx was fantastic. He had a lot of doubters beforehand, and I don't know why because he's shown to be a good dramatic actor and can obviously be funny.. and he more than delivered as Django. Waltz and Leo were both great, as expected. Jackson had probably the best performance of his career.
I'd write up a lot more, but I'm exhausted. I'll need to re-watch it, but right now I'll say it's my favorite QT movie since Pulp Fiction... and considering that's in my top 3-5 all-time, it's a good place to be.
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Theater here applauded as well, movie met my expectations.
The whole cast was brilliant.
Jackson/Leo were my favorites.
The whole cast was brilliant.
Jackson/Leo were my favorites.
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Has anyone watched The Raid: Redemption? Crazy...
Btw, I'm pretty close to being casted in the sequal to Pitch Perfect...srs. Early stages though
Btw, I'm pretty close to being casted in the sequal to Pitch Perfect...srs. Early stages though
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Son...the broken door bottom. :x ...I love that movie.
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1. Yes, it was awesome. One of my favorite action movies from the past few years.
2. I'm rooting for you. I just saw PP tonight, and I was let down because all you guys in here were hyping it up and letting your Anna Kendrick boners get the best of you. It was funny, but the funniest parts were in the trailers. Rebel Wilson saved the movie from being an almost-boring, yet cute, musical with one of the most attractive women in Hollywood in the lead. Soundtrack was decent though; that Phantogram song could have used more screen time. Good movie though, liked it for the most part.
Rook, I'm rooting for you for real.
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A girl I know saw Les Mis and said everything about it was amazing, except for Crowe .
I have no intentions on seeing it TBH, but that may just be me.
.I have no intentions on seeing it TBH, but that may just be me.
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I tried watching Pitch Perfect, but it was just too Glee for me. As long as you don't have to sing, good luck?
Les Mis...I remember the Liam Neeson/Claire Danes one, so I was kinda thrown that it was a musical.
Uma Thurman played Anne Hathaway's role, so she's gotta be better than that?
And that whole making them sing on the spot sounds...interesting? More interesting than King's Speech.
Iono...the only musical movie I liked was Sweeney Todd and that was rated R and bloody as hell.
Les Mis...I remember the Liam Neeson/Claire Danes one, so I was kinda thrown that it was a musical.
Uma Thurman played Anne Hathaway's role, so she's gotta be better than that?
And that whole making them sing on the spot sounds...interesting? More interesting than King's Speech.
Iono...the only musical movie I liked was Sweeney Todd and that was rated R and bloody as hell.
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As someone who isn't black, what I may have to say may not be right, but I'm not exactly sure this film is racist. If you say it's racist because the N-word is thrown around more than the word "the," then yes it's racist.
It's tongue-in-cheek, it's over-the-top, and it's ridiculous.
Although I really liked it, I don't think it was my favorite movie of the year. I enjoyed DKR and Skyfall more. I also liked Argo more. But it's still a damn good movie, and unlike anything I've seen before.
I felt Quentin had a harder time capturing the setting here than in Inglourious Basterds, but Django was great in terms of pacing and the humor was great.
I'll write some more on it tomorrow.
One thing I loved was the cameos. From Jonah to Tom Savini to Quentin too.
Really enjoyed it.
It's tongue-in-cheek, it's over-the-top, and it's ridiculous.
Although I really liked it, I don't think it was my favorite movie of the year. I enjoyed DKR and Skyfall more. I also liked Argo more. But it's still a damn good movie, and unlike anything I've seen before.
I felt Quentin had a harder time capturing the setting here than in Inglourious Basterds, but Django was great in terms of pacing and the humor was great.
I'll write some more on it tomorrow.
One thing I loved was the cameos. From Jonah to Tom Savini to Quentin too.
Really enjoyed it.
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Finally getting the chance to watch Lincoln right now.
I'm eerie only because the last movie I saw was in fact Django, and the pacing of Lincoln is going to be worlds different. Not sure if I'm ready for that, but we'll see.
I'm eerie only because the last movie I saw was in fact Django, and the pacing of Lincoln is going to be worlds different. Not sure if I'm ready for that, but we'll see.
jpzx
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Anyone seen Life of Pi? Seeing it in 3D tonight...
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Waiting on Django for this weekend... Running through a bunch of Tarantino's old stuff first... Watched Dogs and Pulp Fiction last night. Watched Basterds a couple days ago. Kill Bills on deck today.
Going to try and catch Life of Pi tonight... Need to find a 3D showing in my area.
Going to try and catch Life of Pi tonight... Need to find a 3D showing in my area.
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All the complaining about a white director writing a script using the N-word shows to me that most don't read enough novels. White authors have been using the word forever, and no one complains about it in the written form (except maybe angry middle school parents who don't want their kid reading Huck Finn).
