Spaghetti is a dish best served cold ...

Rating: 7/10 (21 February 2013)

It's official; "Inglourious Basterds" and "Django Unchained" are only the first opus of a trilogy, to be concluded by a spin-off of the first film, titled "Killer Crow". I don't know how reliable this piece of information is, but if Tarantino changes his mind, here are other propositions:
 A young Gallic warrior witnesses the massacre of his tribe by the Romans, he becomes a gladiator then frees himself and finds the fat, decadent and truculent Roman senator (Oscar-nominated performance for John Goodman) who married the woman of his life and only survivor of the massacre, the film would be a clear homage to 50's/60's swords-and-sandals epics.
 Or a young Alien attacks Earth with a small group of space-smugglers, to avenge his planet blew up by a nuclear bomb while he was hunting for space-mushrooms in an asteroid, the film, would be a clear homage to 50's Sci-Fi B-movies...
 Or a young anthropologist (or make it a girl) goes back to the Amazonian forest in order to find and massacre the ferocious tribe of cannibals that ate her family, the film would be a clear homage to 50's Adventure B-movies and 70's/80's cannibal films.
Or maybe, it would have been better to consider "Django Unchained" as the last opus of a 'revenge' trilogy initiated by "Kill Bill", and after that 'glorious' conclusion, Quentin Tarantino could finally abandon his retro-business film-making, recycling the same old plot lines. I know "Django Unchained" is supposed to be a Western Spaghetti, but in all due respect, it's only a different dish cooked with the same ingredients :
 Totally unredeemable villains, after Nazis and slavers, maybe one day we'll have Islamic mass terrorists, so no one would care if their heads are reduced to pulp, especially by a bad-ass hero: Jamie Foxx as a black Clint Eastwood without the charisma.
 A scene-stealing smooth-talking villain: "Leo was a bingo!" and I wish he got the Oscar nod instead of Waltz who didn't bring much newness to the screen. I concede though that the casting of Samuel L. Jackson as an antagonist black character was disturbing, effective and the film's masterstroke.
 A bloody climax, the film features the biggest blood squibs you'll ever see, it gets a bit redundant and tends to undermine the seriousness of the subject Tarantino tries to sell. But it's even more unfortunate that the trigger was a very weak set-up, you'll judge it by yourself but Tarantino is such a great writer, he could have came up with a better idea.
Speaking of the obligatory 'orgy of blood':  It made sense in "Kill Bill" as the series was supposed to be a stylish homage to the Kung-fu movies, the over-the-top and choreographed directing elevated the film above the very standards it copied.
 But in "Django" as in "Basterds", as they say in French, Tarantino 'mixes his pencils', sometimes it's gritty and realistic in a very graphic way, and some others it's so exaggerated you can't take the seriousness of the subject, seriously.
 And it's even worse when you take it seriously as the 'unpleasant' aspect of violence is mostly due the way it manipulates our feelings: just because these guys are really bad guys, they deserve to die the worst way, or we're supposed to cheer at these 'geysers of blood' sights and their screams of pain. It's unpleasant because it efficiently desensitizes us from any form of guilt or sympathy.
And considering all the mass-murders that occurred in America in 2012, even in the name of action and style, i'm not sure watching a guy randomly massacring people is what American young audience needs to see. Sorry, but Tarantino makes it 'look cool', using all the super-villains archetypes as an excuse to justify it, just because it's Nazis, we can scalp them, just because they're slavers, they deserve to be shot in the bloodiest way. And as usual, we're the one who 'don't get it', because violence is 'everywhere  yadda-yadda.
Or maybe this was all part of the same old scheme intended to leverage the film's publicity on the typical controversy about violence? This is getting old seriously My problem with Tarantino, isn't that he should stop imitating other directors, he should stop imitating himself, it's like he knows people would love the movie first and go watch it after. Then why bother with a new idea, any Tarantino film is a good film. And the whole controversy on violence, Weinstein's lobbying, and a massive Oscar-campaign * will complete the publicity, if publicity was ever needed. I'm sure many fans would have found it average if the exact same film was directed by another name. But when it's Tarantino, woo-hoo, they all try to find reasons to love it, moved by a Pavlovian reaction.
(*all the tricks that prevented Spike Lee's masterpieces such as "Do the Right Thing", "Malcolm X" or "25th Hour" to get the acclaim they deserved, I don't expect everyone to be a fan of Lee, but ask yourself who is the most controversial or rebel director, who's the most politically incorrect? Tarantino avoids all the racist allegations while Lee is tagged of racist and anti-Semitic very easily)
Now, why shouldn't we accept that even Tarantino can lose his touch, after all, even Martin Scorsese, now that he's trying to imitate Spielberg, has lost it since "Casino". I used to love Tarantino, it was a time where he influenced cinema, now, it's cinema influencing him.
And talk about character's under-development, Django? Kerry Washington's character? More fascinating and absorbing than Mr. Blonde? Mr. Orange? Jules Winfield? Jackie Brown or Bill? I doubt so...
One positive mention though, because as much as I criticize "Django", I quite enjoyed it as a 'benign entertainment': the Ku-Klux-Klan was probably one of the funniest scenes I've ever had to watch in a long time