Django Unchained - not your father's Western

5/5/13, Django Unchained, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, 2012

I think I am going to figure out who makes the fake blood used in movies and buy stock in it before Quentin Tarantino makes his next movie, because that is my retirement fund right there, baby. Holy guacamole. I've watched enough of his movies to feel ambivalent prior to watching, some I could not even finish (sorry, I know for some this is blasphemy, but what was the point of Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill?), then I watch something like Inglorious Basterds or Django Unchained, and think fabulous movie. Go figure. This was my second movie over the weekend that featured Jamie Foxx aand Kerry Washington (Ray) as a married couple. There was a lot of controversy surrounding the movie because of the language and the violence; for a Tarantino movie, I don't think you expect anything else. I could have used a little less of each, but Tarantino keeps the pedal to the metal for the whole movie (2 hours and 48 minutes, but it really didn't seem that long). Foxx plays Django with this tension and anger that are just beneath the surface, but you can feel it. He has to, though, because his life and the life of his 'partner' in the bounty business, Dr. Schulz (Christoph Walz), depend on it. Dr. Schulz is a German immigrant who used to be a dentist but is now a bounty hunter and takes the 'dead or alive' very literally, preferring the dead option; Dr. Schulz frees Django with the hope that Django can help locate some bounty targets; Django is looking for revenge, but also hopes to find his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). That's all you need to get started, I would hate to give anything else away. Walz picked up his second Best Supporting Actor in two tries, both in Tarantino movies (Inglorious Basterds). I was skeptical because my sentimental favorite this year was Tommy Lee Jones in Lincoln, but after watching Walz's performance of the erudite, smooth talking stone cold killer, I think he deserved it. Leonardo DiCaprio is the chief villain, Calvin Candie, who in Tarantino's twisted screenplay, is a francophile, but cannot speak French and is insulted if someone speaks it (correctly) to him. Candie is evil or vile, whichever anagram you prefer, and even when he performs a 'kindness' you cannot let your guard down. He has a bizarre relationship with his slave, Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), it's almost like they are an old married couple, bickering with each other, but the only one who can disagree with the other. QT (tired of typing his name) also won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and I can get behind that decision. He has a great appreciation of language (the plethora of profanities notwithstanding), word play, painting great pictures as the words roll of the tongues of his cast. My big gripe with him - he is a crap actor, or at least really bad at Australian accents. QT had a small role toward the end of the movie, and I suppose when you direct, you can put yourself in the movie if you want to, he just should not have done it. I couldn't understand a word he said. There are a lot of cameos in the movie: Don Johnson (Miami Vice), Tom Wopat (Dukes of Hazzard) Lee Horsley (Matt Houston) and a many more; see if you can catch them all, I could not.

I'm still not in a hurry to see his older movies (again or for the first time), but I do recommend Django Unchained.

Also, a disclosure, or apology, if you prefer: many of my friends know I am huge fan of comic book movies, regularly counting down the days until a movie is released. That being said, I have let some people down by not reviewing the recently released Iron Man 3. That's only because it has not been nominated or won an Oscar....yet. So, filing this under the category of 'Wishful thinking' - I enjoyed it. I did not see it in 3D because very few things are worth 3D and I'm cheap. I thought the effects were great, the dialog was fun and had elements of dialog you would find in a comic book; Robert Downey Jr. IS Tony Stark/Iron Man. There are references to the first Avengers movie (partially filmed in my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio; side note: this is the 75th birthday of Superman, who was created by two young Cleveland boys, Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster and the reboot of Superman is coming out this summer too). I think that Ben Kingsley should be nominated for Best Supporting Actor as the Mandarin. Feel free to disagree, but I thought he was strangely brilliant.