Django Unchained

Remember being a little kid waiting for Christmas?  There was a big anticipation for the wonderful gifts you may receive and from a few suspicious packages under the tree, you guessed it would be all you wanted and more.  That’s kind of how I was waiting for Quentin Tarantino’s new film, Django Unchained, to release on Christmas.  Thing is, instead of unwrapping a remote control helicopter, new bike or whatever would make your head explode into instant joy, Django was like finding an odd kind of gift your lovably weird uncle picked up at a mystical thrift store.  It’s still so unique and undeniably cool, but I’m not sure I know what to do with it yet.  I genuinely like the film and am thankful for it, but I’m not sure if I love it or if I will grow to do so.

Django (Jamie Foxx) is a slave in the American south about two years before the Civil War.  You know, the height of southern arrogance, or elegance, depending on your point of view.  Anyways, he is freed by a German dentist turned bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz).  He asks Django to help him find and kill the Brittle brothers and earn a share of the profits.  The two become a team and as Django puts it, “Kill white people and get paid for it? What’s not to like?”  When they get word that Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), is on a large plantation owned by Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) plantation, they concoct a plan to buy her and save her from the slave life.

While they are only supporting, Waltz and DiCaprio are the biggest forces driving this film forward.  We clearly see that Django would be nowhere without his quirky German friend, his silver tongue and charismatic reasoning brings them in and out of danger as smooth as the tide.  And DiCaprio is a perfectly evil southern gentleman that we love to hate.  During the dinner scene, his unexpected burst of anger is amazing and made me jump.  He can just seethe that intangible arrogance and disregard for his slaves that we can’t even imagine a real person possessing.  Best of all, he can drink out of a coconut chalice like it’s not a joke.  I wish both men had the Oscar nomination, but I’m happy Waltz is in the game.

Django Unchained is nominated for five Oscars total.  Beside’s Waltz’s Supporting Actor nomination, the film also holds Cinematography, Original Screenplay, Sound Editing and most importantly a Best Picture nomination.  I was surprised Tarantino was not up for best director, but there have been greater tragedies.

The scene featuring early clan members is one of the funniest scenes I’ve ever seen in a Tarantino film.  The band of about thirty half-wit white men on horses has met out in the middle of nowhere to ambush Dr. Schultz and Django’s camp, but there’s one problem: their masks suck.  An argument brews about them, “I can’t see shit!”  Jonah Hill has a fun part here trying to make his eye holes bigger only to make it worse.  Best of all, the man who supplied the masks gets all huffy about their ingratitude and rides off.  The whole scene works wonders to poke some fun at the KKK and allege that their beginnings were just born out of pure stupidity.

In fact, the way Tarantino treats most of the white southerners feels like such fun and sweet revenge.  They are all either hilariously stupid or so evil that you love to hate them.  That may sound like his treatment of the Nazis in Inglourious Basterds, but it feels much different here.  It’s kind of like how Spielberg treats the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but cranked up to eleven.

Django has all your basic Tarantino elements and keeps them fresh.  There is plenty of blood splashing, gun slinging, slave whipping violence that could be a bit much for the casual film fan.  There is plenty of flowing dialogue, led mostly by Waltz and DiCaprio while Django is a badass hero of few words.  The soundtrack is nowhere near the 1850s, but the selections give such a perfect tone to the film that we shouldn’t care.  Let’s see, there’s also a Mexican standoff, a few fun explosions, and enough use of the N-word to burn the ears off the most politically correct.  It’s a very Tarantino film.

Like I said, I really liked Django Unchained, but I think I need more time and more viewings to find out if I love it.  To be fair, I didn’t love Pulp Fiction at first viewing, and I didn’t even like Kill Bill the first time I saw it, (blasphemy, I know).  But I do know I like Django, this weird Spaghetti Western/Blaxploitation inspired revenge film full of blood, quirky characters and unexpected hilarity.

“I’m just a little more used to Americans than he is.”

Inglourious Basterds

More daring than a gritty war movie, is rewriting the history of WWII.  In Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds, we are taken to Nazi occupied France where we meet SS officer Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), nicknamed The Jew Hunter.  The riveting and mesmerizing opening scene establishes a few things: 1) Hans is very smart.  2) He’s viciously ruthless.  3)  He enjoys a good chase, leaving Shoshanna (Mélanie Laurent) to run.

Four years later, Shoshanna is the owner of a movie theater in Paris, where she is being forced to host the premier of the latest Nazi propaganda film Nations Pride.  The star of the film, young Nazi veteran Pvt. Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), lets his ego grow before his fame is known and tries to weasel a date Shoshanna.

Meanwhile, a band of American Jews, the Basterds, have been terrorizing the Nazis all across Europe.  Led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), they collect scalps of Nazis they kill and leave any survivors forever marked with a swastika on their foreheads.  When they hear that Hitler and other major leaders of the Nazi party will all be attending a movie premier in Paris, they concoct a plan with movie star Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) to get inside and set off explosives.  Little do they know that Shoshanna is planning to trap the Nazi’s within the theater and set the whole building on fire, with a spectacular surprise on the fourth reel.

If I wanted to compare the Oscars to a black tie affair, Tarantino always dresses his film in something slightly flashy and quirky, and is unwilling to compromise.  That’s what we love about his films and he fits right in, because he does this so well.  Here, he is turning WWII on its head, where a band of American Jews travel to Europe with a strict agenda to kick some Nazi ass and end up aiding in ending the war in a very different way than the history books read.  He also throws in his signature style of music and grind house inspired moments, like when we’re introduced to Hugo Stiglitz.  Even in this 1940’s setting, we don’t find these moments distracting because the whole film already has this quirky flare and each odd moment is done so quickly and cleanly.  To do this well takes practice, Tarantino has done a lot of that in his previous films.

Waltz is not a big, threatening looking guy, but he makes Hans look like a force to be reckoned with.  He is cunning, speaks many languages and is always looking out for himself, especially towards the end.  What I think really tipped the scales and made him the indisputable winner for best supporting actor was his ability to also be so funny.  That first scene is just starting to become very tense, and then he pulls out that ridiculous pipe and we can’t help but laugh, even though we’re nervous.  Right there, Hans puts on a funny hat and doesn’t even realize it, which makes it all the better.  And I dare anyone not to burst out laughing the first time they see the “Oooh, that’s a bingo!” scene.  I can’t remember another time that one simple line made me laugh so hard.

Do most people notice how much this story seems to circulate around the film industry?  The main plot is to trap all the Nazi leaders in a theater during their movie premier, in a fire fueled by highly combustible film.   There’s also Hammersmark, an actress who helps the Basterds gain entrance to the premier.  Then there’s the star of Nation’s Pride, who thinks that because he’s a big enough war hero to have his own Nazi propaganda film he can be with Shoshanna.  Thing is, all these movies, their stars and their political agendas need a place to be seen.

Even though Shoshanna is forced to hold the premier for Nation’s Pride, she ultimately decides what will be shown and how everyone will leave.  Tarantino makes a movie theater the ultimate weapon to end the war.  Imagine if more theater owners were so bold, you really have no idea how much your average theater employee can alter your visit.  I was part of that rat-race for four summers.  We really decide how much butter is on your corn or if your movie will be in the nice theater, the one that smells weird or the one with noisy crickets living behind the screen.  One of my favorite moments at work was to stand along the side of the theater, in the shadows and watch people like you during the best moments in the movies.  Why else do you think they make us wear such dark colors?  Honestly, I loved to see your reactions, some of you are quite entertaining.  That close-up shot of Hitler laughing like a maniac; I’ve seen many of you make similar faces.  And I think Tarantino knows it too.

“You know how you get to Carnegie Hall, don’t ya?  Practice.”