Django Unchained

[ian]

Jackie Brown - excellent. Classic noir

Reservoir Dogs - excellent.

Pulp Fiction - good cinema, I loved the multip-facted story and the way that he builds up a story for more than one character.

Inglorious Berstards - Stupid style over substance. Stay away from historical events.

Kill Bill etc. Style over anything. meh

This really.

Inglourious Basterds was pretty awful after the intro, turning into hackneyed film-buff panto. Kill Bill(s) were simply indulgence. I doubt QT asks for or gets much criticism, and as such, he needs it more than most. It's a bit like no one being willing to tell Elvis that he didn't need another burger.

It's not normal, mundane dialogue that made Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown so good. People don't talk like that, not in the real world. It's extremely stylised dialogue, but it's clever, and riffs. If it has actually been genuine mundane dialogue the movies would have never worked like they did. I'll wait for Django Unchained to appear on a seat-back, but I don't have high hopes.

[redshift]

This really.

Inglourious Basterds was pretty awful after the intro, turning into hackneyed film-buff panto. Kill Bill(s) were simply indulgence. I doubt QT asks for or gets much criticism, and as such, he needs it more than most. It's a bit like no one being willing to tell Elvis that he didn't need another burger.

Well that's true of a few other directors too.  Peter Jackson is also currently suffering an attack of belief in his own publicity.

[LEE]

I'll see your Peter Jackson and raise you a George Lucas.  A downward graph if ever there was one.

[Andrew]

I'll not have you saying anything against my mate Peter!

Nah, it all seriousness, I thought LOTR to be tedious and overly long. I'll not be going anywhere near The Hobbit.

Another tedious claim-to-fame; I went to see the Ralph Bakshi version of LOTR with Jackson when we where around 13. He was very much into animation at the time (Bakshi's 'Fritz The Cat' was the first - and only? - R rated cartoon??) and that was more his interest than LOTR per se. At the time, King Kong was amongst his favourite movies, and pretty much all the Ray Harryhausen movies. Seems well odd to think back now.....

[Charlie Boy]

Saw this last night. My first trip to the movies for 12 years so don't expect a Barry Norman review.

The horror of the slave trade / period was brought home. Yes, there is violence, one scene especially involving a recaptured escaped slave, that we (3 of us went) couldn't watch and plugged our ears. But there are some very strong performances and a good plot. There are some lighter comedy moments too.

It was 2 hrs 45 mins but didn't drag on.

[ian]

This really.

Inglourious Basterds was pretty awful after the intro, turning into hackneyed film-buff panto. Kill Bill(s) were simply indulgence. I doubt QT asks for or gets much criticism, and as such, he needs it more than most. It's a bit like no one being willing to tell Elvis that he didn't need another burger.

Well that's true of a few other directors too.  Peter Jackson is also currently suffering an attack of belief in his own publicity.

Yes, and no one said "Erm, Ridley..." during the making of Prometheus either. They really should have.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Seen it now. One of the worst films I've seen in my life

(click to show/hide)

Ok, maybe not the worst.

There are many good scenes. Where the doctor frees the slaves at the start. The doctor explaining the legend of brunhilde. Django revenging himself on the overseers who whipped himself and his wife. The whipping scene itself is very very well done. A few others.

There is a huge incredibly bloody shootout near the end. It's pathetic. Constant slo-mo that actually retracts from the impact and is just an excuse to display blood spraying around. Very, very unrealistic looking blood at that. Comically so. The audience were actually laughing.

For a QT film this one lacked guts, impact.  It seemed a mishmash of cinematic shooting styles that simply didn't work.

Oh and the backing music. Starts with something that is a 'omage to 50-60s western theme tunes. Then mixes in rap. FFS

[LEE]

This really.

Inglourious Basterds was pretty awful after the intro, turning into hackneyed film-buff panto. Kill Bill(s) were simply indulgence. I doubt QT asks for or gets much criticism, and as such, he needs it more than most. It's a bit like no one being willing to tell Elvis that he didn't need another burger.

Well that's true of a few other directors too.  Peter Jackson is also currently suffering an attack of belief in his own publicity.

Yes, and no one said "Erm, Ridley..." during the making of Prometheus either. They really should have.

I fully believe Peter Jackson was given the go-ahead for "The Hobbit" on the one condition that he spun it out into 3 films.

There really aren't 3 films in the book but I think the Studios look at anything like this as a franchise now. Pay for 1 film and get 3. 

Don't be surprised to see "The Hobbit 2 - Son of Bilbo" in 5 years time.

I'd love to see them try and film the Silmarillion though...I think I made it through the first 10 pages before quickly checking whether it got any  more accessible later in the book.  It didn't.  It's in a draw somewhere, unread.

[urban_biker]

I have to say that I was surprised when I saw the Hobbit. Jackson may have stretched the plot a bit but it worked. He appears to have taken events described in the LOTR book (comments and explanations of the Hobbit book) and expanded them.

My children loved it anyway - and that's what it primarily is - a delightful childrens story. Unlike the LOTR which crosses the line into a more adult world.

[Bledlow]

I think Roots has the slave history perspective sewn up in the same way that jaws has the shark movie sewn up. Roots is a set text in some schools now.

I hope they remember to call it a novel, not history. I suppose highlighting the plagiarism that Haley had to pay someone compensation for, & the proven discrepancies in the timeline (supposed ancestors dying years before the birth of supposed children, being in North America years before being supposedly being captured in Africa, etc) would be too much to ask.

[red marley]

Watched this last night and I've not been able to get it out of my head...

(click to show/hide)

In most respects I thought this was a well crafted film with QT doing what he does best. A revenge fantasy, stylised dialogue, rich with reference to cinema. Samuel L Jackson as Stephen was outstanding, somehow managing to be both a supplicant Uncle Tom and terrifying threat at the same time. The scene at the dinner-table after Django's and Schultz's true intentions have been discovered by Stephen and Candie was one of the high points - measured dialogue hiding the menace of possible things to come.

As ever with QT, the music is integral to the film, and unlike MrCharly I thought it worked well with a classy selection. He mixes classic 50s and 60s style western crooning (Django theme), soul (His Name Is King), epic orchestral Morricone, country blues (Johnny Cash), country rock (Too Old to Die Young), protest folk (Ritchie Havens' Freedom) with a bit of Verdi, James Brown and 2Pac rap. The anachronisms of the music just serve remind us that this is a man using film to tell us a story.

Yet despite all this I am left with a queasy feeling of that QT is showing off at the expense of a more serious theme that is beyond him. His films have always been about story telling rather than the subject of the story. So I can cope with the stylised Pekinpah ultra-violence of the set-piece shootouts. I can even cope with the self-indulgence of cameos from him and his friends. But this all seems in poor taste when mixed with the "serious" violence of slaves being humiliated, tortured and killed. He uses the iconography of slavery (manacles, whips and nooses) in a way that demeans their power and left me feeling uncomfortable. I don't know why I was left with this feeling given that he did pretty much the same thing with Inglorious Basterds as did Mel Brooks with Blazing Saddles.

[Jakob]

I agree to some extent..I can't figure out how much he's taking the piss or if he's really that full of it.

I will say this: He is the first one in *ages* to bring up the subject and does so in non-preaching manner.
He also says as much in the Ch4 interview before it gets derailed: People are talking about slavery now.

Most other Westerns deal with the subject either through the Civil War or the aftermath..or completely ignore the issue.

I didn't like the last 2 shoot-outs very much, but can only assume that it was overplayed on to play it down.
It was so over-the-top that it could not in any way be interpreted as being realistic...

[Kathy]

Saw it last night. Could have been about ninety minutes shorter. 

It had good bits (mostly the bit with the KKK), but it needed a serious edit. And what was with the Quentin Tarantino cameo scene where they've all got Australian accents and are talking about "blackfellas"? 

[Exit Stage Left]

I suspect it's not for my generation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/25/bloody-mayhem-tarantino-django-seriously

[Andrew]

I suspect it's not for my generation.

I suspect I know what you mean. Perhaps it's all too post-modern-ironic for me or something. I only know that I'm not seeing what others seem to.

[Wascally Weasel]

I don’t think it’s a generational issue particularly, I think it’s a case of liking or not liking his style.  I liked Reservoir Dogs, loved Pulp Fiction but have tended to enjoy each successive film he produces a little less.  Ms Weasel really enjoyed Django, my 74 year old dad really enjoyed it and as far as I know my 20 year old nephew also loved it.

It’s also not a simple divide of liking or not liking violent films either – I like excessively violent films if it suits both the genre and context of the story being told.

I think the issue I have with the violence in both of Tarantino’s recent films is that the genre of the film changes as the violence comes in, especially in Django Unchained and it just seems overdone and clumsy in style to me.

And as everyone else said, the film is far too long.

[Manotea]

As this has become a general 'tino appreciation thread....

After seeing Jackie Brown I bought the soundtrack CD and had it on continuous play in the car for quite a while, including one holiday when family manotea headed off for a sojurn in france. The kids loved singing along to "The Tenessess Stud" though I insisted on skipping track2. Of course by the time we got back they were reciting it in unison. All together now, "Who's that?"...

  <a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/b_X_SWuwM7k&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/b_X_SWuwM7k&rel=1</a>

[Tigerrr]

I suspect it's not for my generation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/25/bloody-mayhem-tarantino-django-seriously

That is a really good review.
I will see this film, because I really enjoy blood spattered violent action movies, especially where there is a vengeance angle.  They get my pulse going. I expect its a form of porn really.  QT has managed the almost impossible feat of gore porn with a top dressing of intellectual/insider in joke knowingness so we can do film buffery while relishing the gore.  I recall in the 70's there was a porn movie called Emanuelle that achieved a similar thing - one could get a bit of a stiffy while admiring the camerawork.  On that basis this is clearly a very good film.  I dont thoink it matters if its long as long as the gore keeps coming which is what I will be hoping for.
Whenever I have seen him in interviews etc he has made my skin crawl though - he must be the smuggest person in that town full of very smug people.

[Exit Stage Left]

I doubt the violence would shock me too much, I've always liked Verhoeven. It's the thought of those anachronisms that puts me off. The young don't know enough to be put off by them, and the old have forgotten what they knew. If you're not interested in the period the same applies.

We had American Civil War bubble gum cards when I was growing up, so there's a residue of interest in that period, and stuff such as the Missouri Compromise. As much as I would wish to conceal my pedantry, it would detract from my enjoyment.

[Jakob]

I suspect it's not for my generation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/25/bloody-mayhem-tarantino-django-seriously

That is a really good review.
I will see this film.

You haven't seen the film, yet you think the review is good?

I personally think it's a load of tosh.

[mattc]

As much as I would wish to conceal my pedantry, it would detract from my enjoyment.

That's gonna ruin your enjoyment of many many works of fiction, I'm afraid! Not a QT issue.

Just learn to let go ...

[Exit Stage Left]

As much as I would wish to conceal my pedantry, it would detract from my enjoyment.

That's gonna ruin your enjoyment of many many works of fiction, I'm afraid! Not a QT issue.

Just learn to let go ...

I don't see why I should spend money to be offended by inaccuracy. I can get that for free in the modern world, that's what the internet has made possible.

[Wascally Weasel]

As much as I would wish to conceal my pedantry, it would detract from my enjoyment.

That's gonna ruin your enjoyment of many many works of fiction, I'm afraid! Not a QT issue.

Just learn to let go ...

I don't see why I should spend money to be offended by inaccuracy. I can get that for free in the modern world, that's what the internet has made possible.

The firearms were at least period authentic as far as I could tell.