We saw "Django Unchained" and it was Quentin Tarantino

[drwex]

This was certainly no Pulp Fiction nor even Jackie Brown (though I may be the only person who liked that movie) but it was a good Tarantino film, even if it's a bit long. If you don't like Tarantino, skip this one.

Django is nominated for best picture, no way it's getting that. It's a solid B+ if you like this sort of movie.

The film doesn't start out feeling like a Tarantino film. It starts out like a sort of twisted buddy movie - twisted by the fact that it's set 1-2 years before the Civil War and one of the two "buddies" is black, which makes the majority of the film be about America's slavery-infused past. The major plot involves an attempt to rescue a slave, and the main villain is a cruel slave-owning plantation boss (DiCaprio). Every black character must either be a slave or explain why he/she is not; slaves are horribly treated - most of the action is set in Mississippi which is sort of iconic for bad slave treatment.

All of the main actors give good performances; my only quibble is with Christoph Waltz whose character is supposed to be a German but whose accent wanders all over the place. Waltz is a good actor and his character is probably the most emotionally infused of the film. Kerry Washington is the first-listed female character but her role is largely confined to screaming and fainting. That's not her fault, but it's a huge problem with the movie. There really are no female roles here.

The other problem is the movie's length. It moves along reasonably well, but there are a lot of elements Tarantino wants to get in there and although he does a good job of connecting the dots it's just... long. The film is also up for an Oscar for its script and it would be interesting to see if Tarantino lands that one.

Comments

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

Waltz is actually from Vienna, with Austrian and German parents, so I'm a bit surprised at the accent.

[drwex]

Yeah, I looked him up online. His German is flawless, and much of the time he does a reasonable accent. The problem seems to be that many European (and UK) actors are trained to speak English on screen or stage without accent. You'd have to see the film to see what I mean - he just slips in and out of the accent. Sometimes between sentences, even.

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

I did see the movie, but I think I was preoccupied with trying to decide whether or not I liked it. :)

[drwex]

LOL. What did you end up deciding?

[badseed1980.livejournal.com]

It hasn't been easy! I think that while I liked some of the acting, the movie kind of made me angry because I feel like it was almost a fetishization of the horrors of slavery. YMMV.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

Given that Tarantino's entire body of work can be seen as fetishizing "the horror of" bad movies, you might be on to something there.

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

It's funny you should say that, because he sounded exactly like every single one of my German-accented relatives straight through. I didn't find that his accent wandered. The German-ness just came out more in times of stress, which is pretty much exactly what happens with my relatives.