I caught Django Unchained at the Glendale 12 on Sunday. No Super Bowl (yawn) for me. Kudos for using the opening score from the original Django; that's one killer song!
Back to Django Unchained....
Tarantino cleverly manages to create a new genre - Spaghetti Western meets Mandingo meets Blazing Saddles meets Blacksplotation. Is this a Oscar worthy movie? No, probably not. Is it a must see movie that will have you forming opinions (no fence riding here) and creating interesting dialogue with your friends? Yes!
I laughed out loud, I gasped out loud, I cringed and shook my head many times. This is technically a long movie, but it really didn't feel 1 minute too long. I was delighted to see two actors I really admire who appear in two of my favorite television series. Eto Essandoh, who played the physician/pathologist on Copper, plays a slave who can't take the Mandigo fighting any longer. Walter Groggins, who played Boyd Crowder (oh so bad) on Justified, plays Billy Crash - a guy who can handle the torture handy work for Calvin Candie. Although Billy Crash only appears in a small part of the movie, Walter Groggins steals the scene from everyone else. He even comes up with the really evil swagger that just defies description. Can you slink along just a little bit more?
Similiar to the scene in LOTR that plays homage to Sean Bean's character Lt Col Richard Sharpe, where Boromir is holding a shard of the sword of Nassil and says, "Still sharp.", DU has it's own out-of-band-actor-homage with the original Django - Franco Nero. Django is sitting at the bar at the Cleopatra Club, and Franco Nero sits at the other end. There is a quite humorous dialogue about the pronunciation and spelling of Django between the two "Djangos".
I've never cared for Leonardo DiCaprio. Never. Until now. I cannot imagine anyone else who could've played such a spoiled, racist phrenology elitist. His insistence on following politesse protocols to the tee that soon erupt into a gun slinging fray is beauty. So polite.
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