Django Unchained

I was afraid, I don’t like westerns, but I like Tarantino. Fortunately for me, Django Unchained is not even close to a thoroughbred western. It’s just a fun Tarantino movie in the Wild We… South mixed with blaxploitation. After 1200 comments in Filmbooster, it’s hard to come up with something original or interesting to say about Django, so what follows is a couple of personal incoherent rants and observations… The scene with the predecessor of the Ku-Klux-Klan is very funny. The carriage wandering around the American wilderness with a giant model of a tooth on the roof is incredibly cool. Hans Landa can be a nice guy. I wouldn’t like to run into DiCaprio with a hammer. Samuel. L. Jackson is a badass. I liked Inglorious Basterds better :) (02/02/2013)

A little inconsistent, but still the best western for the past god knows how many years. Django Unchained has three parts. The first is an enthralling introduction (the story about Siegfried), again dominated by the absolute genius Christoph Waltz. The second, wordy one, with cultivated dialogues, the amazing candy-muncher DiCaprio, who is surpassed only by Samuel L. Jackson as the (self-proclaimed) “filthiest darn nigger of all times". You can do nothing but revel in his masterfully feigned brown-nosing. The third part, for the most part an action inferno, where blood flows by the gallon, Jamie Foxx steals for himself. Personally I’m not usually his biggest fan, but here he’s perfect, he acts exactly how he’s supposed to and nails the entire development of Django as a person with ease. Camera, editing and direction are almost flawless, as is customary for Tarantino’s movies. The music is just right, mainly the old instrumentals by Ennio and Jerry Goldsmith. One of the movies of the year. Those lyin', goddamn time-wastin' sons of bitches... (07/01/2013)

Anyone expecting a regular spaghetti western will be sorely disappointed. It is more of a typical verbose Tarantino movie with western scenery than a tribute to the genre (or genres) with everything they entail. It was to be expected, but it is still a crying shame, because if anyone, Quentin should have tried to challenge the holy Italian Trinity of Sergios (Leone, Sollima, Corbucci) in their sovereign field. Anyway, it doesn't matter “what it is/isn't“, when it’s such a damn good and stylish movie. Of course, the more you watch it, the more references you notice, but ultimately it doesn't matter if you know which genre classic is referenced by the composition “Für Elise" being played on a harp in the saloon or by the other hundred allusions to this and that; Fans of Monty Python humor will also find something to enjoy in the scene involving the birth pains of a beta version of the Ku Klux Klan… There are only two blemishes. First, the length. It’s too short and therefore in many places inappropriately hurried. And then the finale which lacks a tension-building, face-to-face duel. Which is an unforgivable faux pas, Quentin! (15/01/2013)

Black dynamite. A provocative kick in the balls, which Tarantino inflicts with xenophobia and racism in the field of the "white man" genre, such as the western (but at the same time, in a way, he does not spare the "niggaz"). If I am to blame Django Unchained for anything, it would be that, in addition to the fact that some parts really look like they were edited by a high negro using autogen, then perhaps just its very digital look. I know that Tarantino simply wanted to give the western locations a modern patina, and I know he didn't want to unnecessarily tie himself down with spaghetti western conventions, but in some places Django Unchained looks stylistically quite weak (rather, it lacks style - I think it is important to see Django Unchained in the movie theatre mainly so that one can enjoy the choruses of laughter). But I would end the criticism there. Perfect punch lines (they don't hit you - they tear your balls out and stuff them down your throat), great acting attached to great characters, absurd black humor, irresistible volatility between sublime epics, blaxploitation and grind-house blood, dramatic timing that Tarantino won me over with despite my years of resistance in Inglourious Basterds. What I enjoy most about his new films is how he turns his light, bloody and disrespectful hand against great history and "sociocultural" concepts. This black version of the Nibelungs, where the white pride of the KKK can't see through the bags on the road and a German drinking beer is fighting against the colonels in white... well, it just grabbed me by the balls. (09/01/2013)

Quentin Tarantino professes his love for tough guys with a gun at their waist and no matter how he reshapes the whole Western world to fit his own image, he never sets foot for a moment out of the story, the homage, or the timely light-hearted mood. And regardless of whether there's rap playing in the soundtrack, the main hero is putting on sunglasses, or the irresistible Leonardo DiCaprio is wildly overacting, I still know that this is essentially a perfect genre film. It's just that its director, despite his outstanding work, is becoming a victim of himself. After the emotionally richer Kill Bill and the perfectly polished Inglourious Basterds, there is simply nowhere else to go with a quest for revenge or infinitely unsettling dialogue with a grounding progression. (15/01/2013)