Django Unchained

Just saw it today....loved it! Classic Tarantino dynamics, dialogue, humor and some things taken too far....lol! Some nice cinematography in there and great performances as well.
 
KyleProhaska said:
I've never heard him talk like that. It just sounded like he was making fun of them LOL.
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I've seen him do it a couple times, but man, he FULLY committed this time. It's one thing to drop a word here and there with some flavor. But he went full out 70's negro...I don't think he's making fun of them. I honestly think he can't help himself.
 
Batutta said:
I've seen him do it a couple times, but man, he FULLY committed this time. It's one thing to drop a word here and there with some flavor. But he went full out 70's negro...I don't think he's making fun of them. I honestly think he can't help himself.
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I agree Batutta- I believe that's how he has such a knack for dialogue....I think he listens, then copies, then it's in his head when he's writing and the characters need to speak.
 
Tarantino in that interview sounded more urban than Samuel Jackson or Jamie Fox. I think Tarantino does talk like that, but being the only white guy in a room full of African Americans and sounding more urban than any one else in the room was kinda jarring. Can't wait to see Django. Going to check it out tomorrow.

I'll pay close attention to the soundtrack.
 
Gillvane said:
I think Tarantino does talk like that, but being the only white guy in a room full of African Americans and sounding more urban than any one else in the room was kinda jarring.
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He does not talk like that. He was talking this way because he was surrounded by black folks. This is how he talks--


This is a really good interview by the way!
 
Spike should spend more time making better movies instead of commenting on movies he hasn't seen...I personally have the suspicion that Spike is bitter of the fact that Tarantino got to do a slave epic, with the budget and talent he did, as I'm sure he's been trying to make one of his own for many years.
 
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Batutta said:
Spike should spend more time making better movies instead of commenting on movies he hasn't seen...I personally have the suspicion that Spike is bitter of the fact that Tarantino got to do a slave epic, with the budget and talent he did, as I'm sure he's been trying to make one of his own for many years.
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Often times artists, especially film makers, arent' very supportive of other artists IMO. pay attention to the fans, not what other artists think because they are always judging you in terms of their own art.
 
Saw it today. Most entertaining movie I've seen all year! Super fun, great cast, good story, I absolutely loved it. One of Tarantino's' best IMO.
 
Wow Spike Lee needs to see it if he wants to give a summary of the tone of the film. I thought Tarantino handled the issues that were serious with a serious tone...some very chilling scenes and characters that stick. The moments where he uses humor are done in an appropriate manner as well....at the very least as appropriate as Do The Right Thing.
Double standard much Spike?
 
I saw this yesterday and loved it.

Definitely a really well done piece on an incredibly touchy and hard subject.

I was really entertained and impressed.

The entire cast was phenomenal, to the point where I can't even identify a weak link among them.
 
Saw it yesterday, thought it was very entertaining, as any Tarantino film usually is.

...While waiting for the movie to start I overheard a woman behind me telling her husband that she expected him to "support her during the terrible violent parts of the film by closing his eyes just like she was going to". :-)
 
Saw this yesterday and I'm still digesting the film. On the whole, it was incredibly entertaining, to be sure. Every performance in the film was about as good as it gets, from Leo to Sam Jackson to Jamie Foxx to Christoph Waltz. Even the bit players were great. And Tarantino can write brilliantly tense and drawn out scenes that are riveting from first moment to last. But I'm having strange, conflicting feelings about certain aspects of it, mainly the violence at the end. I felt the climactic gunfights got excessively bloody and protracted, in a silly, over the top way which undercut a lot of the truly horrifying violence that preceded it. It somehow cheapened what came before. The preceding gunfights were quick and brutal, and worked great. That's what QT does best, drawing out the tension of a scene until it explodes at the end in an unexpected way. But the final gunfights degenerated into a ridiculous orgy of blood. There was a cruelty to it that didn't sit right with me and wasn't cathartic, but just gore for gore's sake. I got more catharsis out of Django whipping the crap out of one of his former tormentors earlier in the movie than the final gunfights. The resolution to the story didn't really fulfill me. Maybe this stems from the fact that I found the revenge and rescue story to be the least interesting aspect of the film. Seeing Django evolve and navigate the white world as a free man was the fascinating part of the story, and it's brilliantly explored by Tarantino. The revenge, rescue plot, I've seen it before a million times (even from QT who is starting to repeat himself). Perhaps QT needed that to wrap things up neatly, but I almost feel like the constraints of a 2-3 hour movie are limiting Quentin as a writer at this point. He writes such interesting, dimensional characters, and created such a fascinating world here, that I could have easily seen this as a 13 episode cable TV show where he could truly take his time to explore all facets of these characters and situations. Another minor note, and I don't expect many to agree, but stylistically I've never felt Robert Richardson was an ideal cinematographic match for QT. He's a great DP, and makes beautiful imagery, but I felt Andzrej Sekula (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction) had the right look for Tarantino. His lighting had a sharp, direct, almost comic book style to it which fit QT's tone like a glove. Richardson is too classically polished.
 
After seeing the movie last night I'm surprised the only criticism the movie seems to be receiving is regarding it's language and violence. To me the movie seemed to be overly long, poorly paced, with a flimsy plot, and with key characters that act outside of their nature to serve the plot. The style of the movie seems to act as a smoke screen hiding the sub par story at hand. It think this is QT's worst film so far (and I've liked all the others he's made).

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I thought the story was moving along very nicely up until the point that Candie was introduced and the main characters posed as potential buyers for Candie's fighting slaves. They make their way out to the house and eventually the ruse falls apart and yet they still get to buy Django's wife and leave unharmed. Looking back at this section I remember very few laughs and a bit of tension build up that ultimately goes nowhere - this is after spending an hour in travel to the house. The fact that they were ultimately able to buy the wife back for a price (that appeared) so easy for them to pay and with no ramifications seems to undermine the entire ultimate fighting plot - I'm not sure anyone gets to edit QT's screenplays these days - 3hr movie with a 1hr asside that ultimately doesn't pay off is not good.

So, after the wife is returned to Django and they are free to go the Doctor (who we have seen throughout the movie is very clever) inexplicably decides to pull a kamikazi move by killing Candie while a gun is pointed at an unarmed Django. To be fair the movie makes an attempt to show that the Doctor has been scarred by the events he's witnessed at the plantation but to me this seemed pretty weak. It would have seemed much more plausible that they would have left with the wife and then, if the Doctor was set on killing Candie, they would have set up more favor conditions for themselves (both being armed and not being held at gunpoint). To me the sign of a poorly written story is one where characters are forced to behave in unreasonable ways in order to break a log jam in the plot - Django illustrates this problem perfectly.

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Thought the movie was great, but A Messenger does make a legit point here. Fair criticism.

Was pretty ok with the film's length though. A lot of westerns (Once Upon a Time in the West, Searchers, Duel in the Sun etc. etc.) have the same sprawling, odyssey-like quality and it did seem like what tarantino was going for.
 
A Messenger said:
To me the movie seemed to be overly long, poorly paced, with a flimsy plot, and with key characters that act outside of their nature to serve the plot.
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Just goes to show how tastes vary. One of the first things I said to my friend after the movie was that I LOVED the pacing of the film. Fun start, then a super tension builder at the Plantation with Candie, and after thinking hmmmm, this isn't going anywhere, a totally satisfying pay off of extreme action and violence. The escape from the Australians was just icing on the cake.
 
I think you nailed it right there(for me). I didn't really know what to expect but this was just too intense for me. Definitely, IMO QT's worst flick.

Batutta said:
Saw this yesterday and I'm still digesting the film. On the whole, it was incredibly entertaining, to be sure. Every performance in the film was about as good as it gets, from Leo to Sam Jackson to Jamie Foxx to Christoph Waltz. Even the bit players were great. And Tarantino can write brilliantly tense and drawn out scenes that are riveting from first moment to last. But I'm having strange, conflicting feelings about certain aspects of it, mainly the violence at the end. I felt the climactic gunfights got excessively bloody and protracted, in a silly, over the top way which undercut a lot of the truly horrifying violence that preceded it. It somehow cheapened what came before. The preceding gunfights were quick and brutal, and worked great. That's what QT does best, drawing out the tension of a scene until it explodes at the end in an unexpected way. But the final gunfights degenerated into a ridiculous orgy of blood. There was a cruelty to it that didn't sit right with me and wasn't cathartic, but just gore for gore's sake. I got more catharsis out of Django whipping the crap out of one of his former tormentors earlier in the movie than the final gunfights. The resolution to the story didn't really fulfill me. Maybe this stems from the fact that I found the revenge and rescue story to be the least interesting aspect of the film. Seeing Django evolve and navigate the white world as a free man was the fascinating part of the story, and it's brilliantly explored by Tarantino. The revenge, rescue plot, I've seen it before a million times (even from QT who is starting to repeat himself). Perhaps QT needed that to wrap things up neatly, but I almost feel like the constraints of a 2-3 hour movie are limiting Quentin as a writer at this point. He writes such interesting, dimensional characters, and created such a fascinating world here, that I could have easily seen this as a 13 episode cable TV show where he could truly take his time to explore all facets of these characters and situations. Another minor note, and I don't expect many to agree, but stylistically I've never felt Robert Richardson was an ideal cinematographic match for QT. He's a great DP, and makes beautiful imagery, but I felt Andzrej Sekula (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction) had the right look for Tarantino. His lighting had a sharp, direct, almost comic book style to it which fit QT's tone like a glove. Richardson is too classically polished.
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