Django Unchained

Some parts of Django Unchained dragged, and overall it was too long, but there were a lot of great scenes. Waltz' character was kind of annoying, but Foxx was fine, and DiCaprio was awesome. If you like Tarantino's stuff, it's worth watching while you can still catch it at the dollar show.

I've actually wanted to see the original Django for a few years now, but it hasn't happened yet. I didn't think I needed to see this one at the theater, although I'd always planned to see it at home. But then yesterday I saw that it was available on iTunes, and I thought, "How many times are you going to get a chance to see a Tarantino movie in the theater?" Lucky for me, it was still at the dollar show (which is actually $3.50, but I think that's reasonable).

You could tell what kind of movie this was right from the opening credits. Tarantino was definitely having fun with it. I'm glad he got to do a movie like this, and it's an interesting concept. It goes on for so very long, though. There was a lot that could've been cut out. Self-indulgent, you might even say.

They definitely could've cut out the part with Tarantino himself. Ugh. What was he doing there? Both in terms of, why was he there, and what the heck was up with his acting? I need an explanation about what he was going for.

I was surprised that they killed the Brittle brothers so quickly. I thought, "What's the rest of the movie going to be about, then?" Boring things. Lots and lots of boring things. I liked Don Johnson as Big Daddy. He didn't have a big part, but it was fun to see him, even for a little bit.

After the first few blood fountain spurts, I thought, "If Tarantino ever makes a movie without all this blood and gore, I won't complain." I get that it's his thing, but it's not really my thing. I wanted to see more blood when Django was whipping that one Brittle brother, though. He was carrying on like it hurt, but I didn't see any evidence of him even getting hit. Maybe that was the point; just to show that he was a big wuss, barely even getting hit, and acting like he was being flayed. Sometimes I need a commentary to shed some light on these things.

I enjoyed the character of Dr. King Schultz (weird name, though), but I hated the accent/voice he did. It was bizarre. It was silly. I didn't like it. It seemed like a weird transition from dentist to bounty hunter, too. It doesn't really seem like the same skillset.

 I didn't like the outfit Django picked out for himself at first. He looked ridiculous. Couldn't the doctor give him a little advice about the outfit, and tell him he looked terrible? Obviously I know he was *supposed* to look ridiculous, I'm not the only one who thought so, but it didn't work for me.

I haven't really seen any movies from the genre it's an homage to, but I picked up on some of the references. I liked the little text summary of how the winter went. The blood spatter shot on the cotton after the Brittle brother on the horse got shot was amazing. I loved all the funny dramatic camera swoops. Those should've gotten a laugh from the audience, more than the things they actually laughed at did.

Being an homage, it kind of gets a free pass in certain ways. When Django shot Lara, she went straight backwards, even though that was a totally wrong angle from where Django was. It was probably part of the homage, but you don't really know unless Tarantino says whether it was or not, and even then I guess you don't *really* know. But it's a big enough oversight that I guess you just have to assume it was intentional.

I don't have any major complaints, aside from it just going on and on and on forever. Jamie did a good job with the role. I liked that Tarantino had the guts to show his balls when he was hanging upside down, and the rest later in the scene. I hate when movies have to work so hard to hide that stuff – case in point, The Avengers, when Banner is naked. Of course, The Avengers doesn't have the rating that Django does, but still. It's not that I'm that excited about nudity, it just bothers me when they go to such lengths to hide it. I just want to see the scene shot as it would be if no one were naked, and that's exactly what Tarantino did.

Candie-Land was a truly inspired name for the plantation. DiCaprio was great. I got lost in the character more than I have with him before, I think. I forgot all about who he was, and I only saw Candie. He was a terrible person, though. I was hoping Django and the doctor would come back and kill him. I liked how the doctor was always so moral about everything. I support Tarantino's decision not to show the dogs killing D'Artagnan, too. We didn't need more gore.

The doctor burning Candie about Dumas being black was perfect, probably the highlight of the film for me. That white cake looked really good. I liked how there was a reference to cake earlier in the movie. It made me think, at the time, about how it must have been rare to have a cake, out there on the plains like that. And then, later, there's the juxtaposition – Candie's got this elaborate three-layer cake, that he can have made whenever he wants.

The fight between Django and all of Candie's goons was great. I loved the bloodstained walls; it was like The Shining. When Candie was talking about the skull, and it seemed like he would never stop, I loved the moment when he slammed his hands down on the table and the mood changed completely to action. That was a weird setup with the skull, though. At first I thought he had done that before, brought out the skull for other people, in other scenarios, but then he sawed into it, and I wondered if it even belonged to who he said it did, or if he was just in the habit of ruining numerous skulls and lying about who they belonged to.

Another great moment was when Django tricked the Australians. I was kind of sad that he shot them. They seemed like okay guys. I guess they were slave traders, or aiding them, so they weren't totally free of guilt, but still. It was awesome when Django blew up Tarantino, though. I guess that's the part of the scene that I actually liked. At the time, I was thinking that I'd be fine if they ended the movie there. We can assume he went back and rescued his wife; we don't really need to see it. It was satisfying to see the revenge part happen, but it's not necessary even for that. The only reason I like it better, getting to see it, is that we saw them ride away together, and I liked that.

I wasn't expecting the doctor to die. That was super sad. But it really was Django's movie. It wasn't a buddy movie. Django had to stand on his own eventually. It sucked that his wife not being able to act like she didn't know him was what brought them down. I really wished there had been a way around that/that it hadn't happened that way.

There were a lot of slow, laborious parts to this movie, but I guess somebody might like them. There were some great parts, and it's unique enough to be worth seeing.