Django Unchained

It was ok, a victim of hype though. It felt rather uneven and I found myself losing interest, which has only ever happened in one other QT movie: Kill Bill Vol 2. In fact, I'd say this is his second worst movie just in front of that one.

Acting was solid, quirkiness of QT's writing/directing was present (though more subdued it seems), soundtrack was mostly great (the rap music didn't work, imo), cinematography was excellent, and the story was interesting enough. I just didn't think the overall experience really worked, or at least not as much as his previous work or as much as I was anticipating.

Also, I have to say this is the first QT film that I felt wasn't superbly edited. Afterwards I remembered that this was his first film without longtime editor Sally Menke who unfortunately passed away in 2010. Her absence was noticeable.
 
!!!! SPOILERS (seriously though, you should have seen it by now). !!!!!!!!

Absolutely freakin loved it up until Waltz died where the movie then fell apart like Lindsay Lohans career.

9/10 Most the movie
3/10 The last acts(s?)
 
Yeah, and he died kind of stupidly, too. That entire sequence was not believable, and IMO, outside of King's character as it had been established throughout the movie.
 
My thought exactly Dave. How he decided to die (?) was absolutely out of character. From that very moment it dive bombed.
 
tmnt said:
My thought exactly Dave. How he decided to die (?) was absolutely out of character. From that very moment it dive bombed.
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I loved the action scenes after Waltz died because they were so out of no where and so much fun.

Quentin actually does address this question in an interview but I can't find it right off.
 
David Jimerson said:
Yeah, and he died kind of stupidly, too. That entire sequence was not believable, and IMO, outside of King's character as it had been established throughout the movie.
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Couldn't disagree more.

That "you REALLY want me to shake your hand" scene will be remembered as one of the most memorable deaths in modern (or otherwise) film history.

And the "I'm sorry" bit? I felt complete empathy for Dr. Shultz's apathy.

It was a pure What-the-poo poo-does-it-matter-at-this-point moment, and one of my favorites.
 
CallaghanFilms said:
Couldn't disagree more.

That "you REALLY want me to shake your hand" scene will be remembered as one of the most memorable deaths in modern (or otherwise) film history.

And the "I'm sorry" bit? I felt complete empathy for Dr. Shultz's apathy.

It was a pure What-the-poo poo-does-it-matter-at-this-point moment, and one of my favorites.
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No, I don't buy that. I don't think it'll be remembered as a great death scene, if for no other reason that Waltz was competing with his own Inglorious Basterds performance, and through no fault of his, the previous film had better material. The scene is outshadowed by what he did previously.

I also don't buy the character saying "screw it." He was a pragmatic survivor, not a nihilist. Everything up that point says he would have shaken Candie's hand and left, perhaps to catch up with Candie later on more favorable terms. His suicide -- which is what it was -- came out of nowhere.
 
I did not see it as a nihilistic decision. Schultz had clearly been struggling with the cruelty he had witnessed at Candyland, and being asked to shake Candie's hand in a monetary trade for human life was just more than he could take at that point. He killed Candie out of anger.

Was it slightly out of character? Probably, but Schultz had also probably never met someone like Candie before.
 
DJANGO was one of few flicks from the last couple a' ten years to make it on to the CALLAGHAN TOP 100...
And, along with PULP FICTION, the second Tarantino-helmed picture to do so.


Cinema at its purest.
 
I know it's the oldest tale in the book "there is no accounting for taste", but nonetheless I'm still astonished how wildly different people's perceptions are. And btw. I by no means claim that somehow my taste is superior to anyone else, no way, no how. To me, it's an odd thing about Tarantino's films - in my estimation, Reservoir Dogs is his best film, and a very good film it is indeed; then comes Jackie Brown, and then it's downhill. I don't particularly like Pulp Fiction, except for a few things and a few scenes. Never saw Four Rooms, Kill Bill is again a scene here and there, but pretty meager, I liked Death Proof overall, Inglorious Basterds is really the opening scenes of Landa doing his thing which is pretty darn good, but once they got to Paris, it was all pretty much worthless; and then Django - somewhat entertaining, but not great cinema. It's OK as what it was intended to be, an homage or takeoff on the Spaghetti Western, and Waltz was very good indeed, as was DiCaprio. Like anyone, I can extensively defend my opinion, give reasons etc., but it's a matter of taste isn't it?

Stuff either works or it doesn't. Yes, you could pick Django apart - and I too felt that the way they bought the wife so easily was something that didn't feel real - but I think that misses the larger part that the whole enterprise wasn't meant to be analyzed so closely - after all, almost nothing there is realistic; the only thing you could ask for is "film realism", meaning did it feel psychologically consistent, or did certain actions and events throw you out of the movie - and yes, there were plenty of those. The pacing was awkward. Not to say there weren't some pretty fantastic elements - the idea about having the giant tooth wobble on the carriage was genius!

But you want a great - perhaps the greatest Spaghetti Western - that's clearly The Good, The Bad and The Ugly... heads, and shoulders (and feet) above Django Unchained. Though, I'll give it this much, Django Unchained was better than Django - far more entertaining. But it broke no new ground cinematically; the story was nowhere as tight as TGTBATU, the acting was nice, but again nowhere near TGTBATU, the characters - again, no contest, the music again vastly superior in TGTBATU (plus the rap mixed in didn't work, IMHO), and so on down the line (though of course TGTBATU has its flaws - like f.ex. the whole civil war sequence was weak).

Tarantino gave us an entertaining film. I don't feel I wasted my time watching it. But it was not a film that moved the art of cinema forward. It was an entertaining flick, which is quite a lot these days - so good on QT. But it is not a film that even deserves the kind of detailed analysis you reserve for films that actually contribute to the art of cinema - it can't sustain it... you wouldn't spend oodles of time analyzing some entertaining trifle you caught on late night TV, because it doesn't have the heft of a work that can be subjected to deep analysis.

Of course, others will differ in their opinion - but that's your classic "de gustibus non est disputandum".
 
SPOILER ALERT

Am I the old person that felt that the Waltz character knew he was dead anyway? That shaking hands was only a way to make it more convenient for DiCaprio at close range (maybe he had his own gun-up-the-sleeve trick. My mind was screaming, "Don't do it! Don't move any closer to that son of a *****. You're a dead man." And I think he knew it, so he shot first.
 
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OldCorpse said:
I know it's the oldest tale in the book "there is no accounting for taste", but nonetheless I'm still astonished how wildly different people's perceptions are. And btw. I by no means claim that somehow my taste is superior to anyone else, no way, no how. To me, it's an odd thing about Tarantino's films - in my estimation, Reservoir Dogs is his best film, and a very good film it is indeed; then comes Jackie Brown, and then it's downhill.
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Another odd thing about QT films is how they can change in your estimation too. At least that's my experience. I saw 'Inglorious..' in theaters when it was first released and I thought QT had lost both his sanity and his creativity. Then I caught it again at a later date and it started to work for me. By the third time I'd caught it on dvd, I absolutely loved it. Still do and I think it's one of his best films.

And guess what, more recently I caught 'Django Unchained' in my local theater. I wasn't particularly impressed with it, but I know now that may be not the full story and that a repeat view might reveal a better film than I remember...
 
cyclone said:
SPOILER ALERT

Am I the old person that felt that the Waltz character knew he was dead anyway? That shaking hands was only a way to make it more convenient for DiCaprio at close range (maybe he had his own gun-up-the-sleeve trick. My mind was screaming, "Don't do it! Don't move any closer to that son of a *****. You're a dead man." And I think he knew it, so he shot first.
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Why would Candie need to resort to that kind of trick in his own house? If he wanted Schultz dead, all he had to do was snap his fingers and no one would ever miss him.
 
David Jimerson said:
Why would Candie need to resort to that kind of trick in his own house? If he wanted Schultz dead, all he had to do was snap his fingers and no one would ever miss him.
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Wow, we're down to "Counting bullets"!... It isn't that kind of movie at all. I liked the movie, but you need to understand it for what it is; QT's ode to Spaghetti Westerns and an excuse to eat movie theater popcorn. Schultz died so that the 3rd act could start and let the carnage begin. I mean for Pete's sake... it ended with a big explosion and a dancing horse... The "Seventh Seal" it ain't!
 
David G. Smith said:
Wow, we're down to "Counting bullets"!... It isn't that kind of movie at all. I liked the movie, but you need to understand it for what it is; QT's ode to Spaghetti Westerns and an excuse to eat movie theater popcorn. Schultz died so that the 3rd act could start and let the carnage begin. I mean for Pete's sake... it ended with a big explosion and a dancing horse... The "Seventh Seal" it ain't!
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We're not "down" to anything. He asked if anyone else saw it a certain way; I didn't, and explained why. No one else brought it up it in their impressions of the scene, so it doesn't look like too many others saw it that way, either.

But even so, pet peeve of mine: being told I "need" to see things a certain way, especially when it comes to the old "it has X, and you're worried about Y??????" Sometimes it's appropriate to worry about Y even in the presence of X. If it's not important to YOU, then it's not important to YOU. But that doesn't "need" to apply to ME.

(Most egregious manifestation: "it's sci-fi; it doesn't HAVE to make sense!" Most annoying one: "you just didn't GET it!")

Chad, above, calls it "cinema at its purest," which is rather a different thing than a mere homage to Spaghetti Western "popcorn eating" flicks, as you see it. I don't agree with that, either, but I don't tell him he "needs" to stop thinking of it that way.
 
David Jimerson said:
We're not "down" to anything. He asked if anyone else saw it a certain way; I didn't, and explained why. No one else brought it up it in their impressions of the scene, so it doesn't look like too many others saw it that way, either.

But even so, pet peeve of mine: being told I "need" to see things a certain way, especially when it comes to the old "it has X, and you're worried about Y??????" Sometimes it's appropriate to worry about Y even in the presence of X. If it's not important to YOU, then it's not important to YOU. But that doesn't "need" to apply to ME.

(Most egregious manifestation: "it's sci-fi; it doesn't HAVE to make sense!" Most annoying one: "you just didn't GET it!")

Chad, above, calls it "cinema at its purest," which is rather a different thing than a mere homage to Spaghetti Western "popcorn eating" flicks, as you see it. I don't agree with that, either, but I don't tell him he "needs" to stop thinking of it that way.
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"Lighten up Francis"
 
David Jimerson said:
Why would Candie need to resort to that kind of trick in his own house? If he wanted Schultz dead, all he had to do was snap his fingers and no one would ever miss him.
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Yes, but I felt that Candie wanted the satisfaction of PERSONALLY killing him, not passing that off to his henchmen. ANd since he wasn't as well-versed in killing as his henchmen, he wanted his prey right up close. He might even use a knife, to watch the victim up close.
 
cyclone said:
Yes, but I felt that Candie wanted the satisfaction of PERSONALLY killing him, not passing that off to his henchmen. ANd since he wasn't as well-versed in killing as his henchmen, he wanted his prey right up close. He might even use a knife, to watch the victim up close.
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I just don't see him as the type who does his own wetwork.
 
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