Better than "Death Proof"

Rating: 6/10 (26 September 2019)

I pretty much gave up on Tarantino after "Death Proof". He had been my favourite filmmaker in the '90s, but as far as I'm concerned, with that movie, he totally lost the plot. The signs were there: with "Kill Bill, vol. 2" I kept wondering what happened to his ability to write witty and original dialogue.
The dialogue was what was so great about his first movies. Back in the early '90s, movies used dialogue to advance the story. That was pretty much it. Watch an early '90s blockbuster like "Basic Instinct" for an example. Every time the characters talk it is only to communicate information that the screenwriters want the audience to know to help the movie get to its final destination. Tarantino's characters don't just talk because the movie needs them to. They talk because they have personalities of their own; there were no "Mr Expositions" in "Pulp Fiction" or "Reservoir Dogs".
In "Death Proof", however, Tarantino totally fell on his own sword. That was the one where characters talked. And talked. And talked. And talked. And died in a car crash. And were introduced. And talked. And talked.
The first time I watched "Django Unchained", I didn't get very far. There was too much Christopher Waltz, and of course, too much uninteresting dialogue. But I decided to give it another go just now.
What I can say about the movie is that it is nowhere near as bad as "Death Proof". The dialogue isn't endless and tedious to that extreme. It's also not that interesting, though. The movie often lost my attention; it was hard to care too much for the plot. It was enlivened by its set pieces and hand picked character stars.
It did not need to be almost three hours. I think most of the dialogue between Waltz and Foxx could have been cut out, and the details discussed shown, rather than told.
What the hell did Waltz win the Oscar for? If any performance in the movie was Oscar-worthy, it was DiCaprio's. Waltz was a plot device, and pretty one-note.