Fondue Unleashed, A Movie Review!: Django Unchained

If you're familiar with the past works of Quentin Tarantino, you probably are well aware of some of the elements that Django Unchained contains. Unique dialogue. Over-the-top violence. A soundtrack featuring songs which seem simultaneously both perfect and wildly out of place. Over-the-top violence. Samuel L. Jackson. Homages to film styles of the past. Over-the-top violence. All of these are present in Django, but it's still a unique film that is alternately brutal, wildly hilarious, and even touching.

I can't wait another paragraph to give a shout-out to Christoper Waltz, who plays one of the lead roles as a travelling dentist/bounty hunter. Waltz is responsible for one of the best, most intense film scenes in recent memory: the opening scene of Inglorious Basterds, in which he plays, "The Jew Hunter," a role which deservedly won him an Oscar. Well, he is is back to his scene-stealing ways in Django, in fact he completely owns the first half of the movie. Waltz delivers every line with a heaping tablespoon of charisma and a teaspoon of subtle humor. I hereby demand that he appear in all future Tarantino movies.

A lesser but nonetheless enthusiastic shout-out goes to Leonardo Dicaprio, who plays Calvin Candee, owner of the hysterically-named plantation Candee Land. I forgave him for Titanic quite a while ago, but at this point he's reached must-see status in my book. He does a nice job in a role that's a bit out of his element.

I can't believe I used "shout-out" even once, let alone twice. I'm sure Christopher and Leo will both be ecstatic to receive word of my shouting, but still...not a very creative choice of words by yours truly. My apologies, but I'm just going to roll with it.

Django starts out with a bang, literally and figuratively, but bogs down a bit about 3/4 of the way through. Still, despite it's nearly three-hour running time, it's a lot of fun throughout, and as one of my measures of how entertaining a movie is, even elicited a smattering of applause after it ended.

One of the things I admire about Tarantino is that he doesn't try to be something he's not. He does this genre, whatever you want to label it, extremely well and doesn't stray from it. Yet despite their stylistic similarities, each of his films is a unique experience.

The hardest part of writing a movie review for me is figuring out how to end it with something more saucy than "go see it," or "don't go see it," so my review has abruptly ended. Luckily, I have a fallback for my closing today, and I will just say Happy New Year to everyone who has stumbled upon this blog for whatever reason, and also to the most talented writer I know who just happens to write on this blog as well. Until next year...bye!