Django is the best gift under the tree this Christmas

Rating: 10/10 (27 December 2012)

A Merry Django Christmas to all! The 10:00 AM Christmas morning premier of Django Unchained at a very large suburban Baltimore AMC Multiplex cinema was sold out. Not to worry, there is plenty more of Django to go around. Quentin Tarantino has given us the gift that keeps on giving. I believe that this was the first movie where I walked away wishing that I could read the book it was based upon. This will not happen anytime soon unless director/writer Quentin Tarantino releases Django Unchained as a novel. This story is not a remake of the 1966 "spaghetti western", Django starring Franco Nero. But I digress. Pulp Fiction thrilled most viewers, discounting the folks that showed up for Travolta's return to the big screen and found Tarantino a little too rich for their blood. Some of us rushed to see Reservoir Dogs and found our second Tarantino dish was a little rich for our taste. Moving on, I was first in line to see Jackie Brown. The umpire called a strike two on Quentin. Holy cow! And then along comes Kill Bill who knocks it out of the park. One more year and Kill Bill II would finish the set in fine fashion. Inglorious Basterds, the movie that changed so many spell checkers, was an anomaly. Quentin had the chutzpah to change history. Not everyone liked the fact that Quentin took the license to kill Adolph Hitler in this movie. By this time, I was swilling the Kool-Aid and let Tarantino drive the car. Django Unchained is more of the same, except better. The movie is funny, violent, profane, and remains true to the real evil slave-tender, i.e. the American history that sanctioned slavery. No need to make up any additional drama when it comes to a society that permits slavery. I counted (this is not official mind you) 66 times when the "N" word is dropped. This is perhaps the most wicked word in our vocabulary, and it is used with an excessiveness to remind us that the slavery-devil was calling the shots in 1858. Quentin drops Don Johnson into this story playing a wicked Tennessee plantation owner. Johnson is the trump card that QT holds with most of his movies. The question is, "which tried and true actor is going to get a chance to let the public see them in the sunshine again"? Don Johnson is the winner of this role in Django. Christoph Waltz, a brilliant actor who had faded from Hollywood (and is another spell- checker destroyer) won the Oscar for his role in Inglorious Basterds. Kurt Russell, David Carradine, and John Travolta showed their fans that they had plenty of stuff left in their tanks. (David Carradine' s tank was officially emptied with his passing) The movie shows off the hard work that is synonymous with Tarantino movies. The clip of Waltz and Foxx riding their horses in a couple of feet of fresh snow in poor lighting feels like a segment that the crew worked too hard to edit out of the movie. That's just my guess. Django Unchained gets a lot of the silliness out of the way early, and allows the stars, Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Samuel Jackson to do what they do best. Act. And act they do. Please pick your favorite roll after seeing the movie. None will disappoint. Samuel Jackson may be the most "out of character" as a despicable employee of DiCaprio. Leonardo scene with the skull of "old Ben" is one of his best ever. As he slams his hand on the table, I only wonder if the resulting laceration was on purpose. Did Tarantino let the camera roll and capture the moment as the thespian plied his skill? I am a sucker for a director who has a list of actors that show up again and again in his movies. Tarantino's cast for Django is almost as large as the characters of the Bible. He pays respect to Franco Nero, the original Django. Michael Parks delivers the goods as always. Quentin's does a bang up job in his role as an Aussie. Simply put, Quentin does a bang up job with his gift of Django Unchained. Next: Kill Bill 3.