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Thursday, June 30, 2011

A New Tarantino Film, You Say?

Yes, news of Tarantino's next film being Django Unchained has been around for what seems like a million years now, and I am sorry that it's taken me, a huge fan of Quentin's, this long to get around to saying anything about it. But I really kind of wanted to wait and see if it actually was happening. As in, no joke, this is the concept that he's going to develop into his next film. And now that we know this will, indeed, be his next film, let's discuss it.


Here's what we know: it's a spaghetti-Western set in the antebellum South, or as Tarantino calls it, a "Southern." It's a tale of Django, an escaped slave who teams up with a German to take down his former master. With the whole race thing, it's going to be unnecessarily controversial. Why unnecessarily? Because even though we like to be politically correct nowadays and pretend that a lot of travesties never happened, therefore making us feel better about ourselves, the antebellum South was a very racist place. That should be pretty obvious, considering the whole slavery thing, and if Tarantino is going to make a movie that is set in that location at that time with that story, well, race issues should be expected. That's just history, people.

So far, in terms of who we'll be seeing here, the role of Django was originally rumored to be offered to Will Smith, which would have been a terrible mistake because, well, this just isn't the sort of thing Smith would want to do. Now it's being offered to Jamie Foxx, which could be interesting, but man, wouldn't it be great if it was offered to some lesser-known or even unknown talent? Perhaps someone who briefly flirted with fame once long ago, only to be brought back thanks to Tarantino (see: John Travolta, Pam Grier). Just please, don't give it to Chris Tucker, as was briefly mentioned.


Christoph Waltz has already signed on to play the German, which, come on, how can we not be excited about that? Waltz has proven to be the best part of some less-than-stellar films since his breakout role as Col. Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds, and his reunion with Tarantino certainly is tantalizing. Also joining the reunion: Samuel L. Jackson, who has had a part of some sort in almost all of Tarantino's film. Jackson is an actor who really needs a good director for him to shine, and Tarantino usually brings out the best in him, and his role as Django's former slaveowner's right-hand man sounds exciting. That part of the slaveowner, by the way, is being offered to Leonardo DiCaprio, which...well, we'll see how that works out. Leo could probably do something interesting in it, but he's really going to have do something special to succeed here. Sure, Brad Pitt worked Tarantino's trademark dialogue well, but can Leo do it? If he's confirmed, I suppose we'll find out.


Am I excited about this film? Of course; it sounds like another great revenge flick from a man who's made that his calling card for the past decade to almost perfect returns (we'll forgive Death Proof, right?). Controversy be damned, if he can turn in something on par with Kill Bill or Inglourious Basterds, this is going to be a whole lot of fun.

2 comments:

Aditya said...

Wow ! thanks man, been waiting to hear something about Quentin's next. Leo as the slave owner, I think he can pull this one too splendidly. Big Leo fan and with the way he has raised his game in the last decade ,would be interesting to see him do this. Just out of the box n may be stupid but I would love to see Cuba Gooding Jr. play the slave part , he has been down n out for long n may just pull this one off.

Jason H. said...

I hadn't even thought about Cuba. He needs a good comeback.