by Bob Martin | Dec 27, 2012 | Actors, Art, Concerts, Directors, dvd, Exhibits, Film, Movies, music, Writing and Speaking
Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx
Quentin Tarantino, the over hyper creative genius, and his new film Django Unchained flirts with mastery. The film is maybe 15 min too long but its close enough(more about the 15 min later). If you’ve seen a ton of movies in your life, you will find a reference to just about every one of them in Django Unchained, that’s what Tarantino does, except in this one “The Guys with the White Hats” loses out. Directors like Sergio Leone, Alfred Hitchcock, George Stevens, Tim Burton and many more have contributed unknowingly to this creative effort and again this is no knock on Tarantino’s creative talents, it is his creative talent in using themes we are all familiar with and in some cases turning them upside down that makes us laugh and maybe even think.
The film makes no pretense that the story of Django is based on anything remotely true and yet still is able to paint an ugly picture about this country’s past. The movie is often hilarious, heart breaking (for some of us) and outrageous. Tarantino has created an African America Super Hero who rides a horse that mimics Trigger and thus slaps down the fable of “Guys with White Hats” being the good guys. There is room here for a sequel(s), the son of Django Part 2.
The movie is gory, so if you find vampires, Bruce Willis, Jason Bourne or Bambi disturbing you should avoid Django and not see it. The dialogue at times is that of two 9 year old inner city kids acting out scenes from a movie, with a child’s emphasis on vulgarity. As promised, the wasted 15 min: Cutting the number of times the N-word is used in half to about 70 would make the film shorter giving Tarantino his masterpiece. Spoiler alert, no other movie that I’ve ever seen has approached the subject of Black Slavers (Blacks who enslaved other Blacks) and while its not gone into in great depth it has not been swept under the rug either and I am not sure how open Black America is to this fact. In addition Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) is an important and complex character in the film, similar to, but a more repulsive, Colonel Nicholson (Bridge on the River Kwai) who are both blinded to their own culpability.
Django Unchained is enormously entertaining and not a source for cultural or political debate and yet people will feel a need to see it as some referendum about current, past or future events. What can be debated is that Tarantino got to do a film that no African American director would be allowed to do, and that should be debated (and not with me). Django is a movie, just like Les Miserables, Jack Reacher, Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook are all just movies. Django just happens to be really good.
- Django Unchained: A love Story (visionarywateringhole.wordpress.com)
-
- Django Unchained is a heroic love story
- http://sonofbaldwin.tumblr.com/post/37790755920/to-be-unchained
by Sandy | May 4, 2012 | Blogroll, Directors, Film, Movies
I was reading a movie review and the writer described the film as “Felliniesque”. No reference to the director, for whom the term was coined, just – “Felliniesque”. I got it. 
Federico Fellini (Dec. 1924 – Dec. 1976) was one of the most influential Italian writer/directors of his day.
His films were character driven, people and plots sometimes bizarre and outrageous, but the inhabitants of his pictures were closer to the reality of the everyday world than what was usually seen on screen during the 50s and 60s.
Four of his films won the Best Foreign Film Oscar: La strada (1954), with his wife Guilettea Masina and Anthony Quinn, Le Notti di Cabiria (1957) (Nights of Cabiria), 8½ (1963) and Amarcord (1973).
But, his film La Dolce Vita (1960) with Marcello Mastroiannibrought him worldwide fame. The famous/infamous frolick in the fountain scene with Marcello and Anita Ekberg seemed such wild decadence in the 60’s, but, pretty tame now.
BTW : “Felliniesque” is often used to describe films that put a character’s inner thoughts/memories into dreamlike sequences, and/or scenes that move backward/forward in time. (Ya gotta pay attention with his movies)
Federico Fellini films to find on DVD:
by Bob Martin | Apr 3, 2012 | Art, Cable, Directors, HBO, Movies
Simultaneously, as we began to understand the characters and their dynamics on the HBO series “Luck” we learned that the series had been cancelled, because of the concern for horses that might be used in the production of the series. Ironically the series was beginning to paint a bleak portrait of the “sport” of horse racing, the people associated with the sport as well as the care for these magnificent animals once they are no longer able to race, leaving some people to wonder if the heat that HBO felt (and reason for cancellation) was about the death of 3 horses or the exposure given to the seedy side of this sport.Unfortunately races horses die from racing and not from being filmed. So the cancellation of show is about politics and not horses, so ending the series did do much for the horse.
Growing up in an urban area, I’ve had a fascination with horses and believed that they were always treated like “Scout” or “Trigger” the always appreciated sidekicks of the Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers, respectfully and that the people surrounding the “sport” of horse racing were the type of people you see at the Kentucky Derby, woman with flowered hats, and owners in white linen suites. “Luck” put to rest this fantasy.
Like everything that turns out to be worth watching, the series “Luck” was about more then just the horses and any one single thing. A well acted, written and directed portrait of people whose background story we seldom hear about. It was the bazaar and conflicting human story that was just beginning to unfold and there just didn’t seem to be enough time (episodes) to tell the whole story. Like the “Sopranos” and “Deadwood” it would have been the second season (I believed) that would make the series a hit.
I am sorry to see the series end. Maybe the next time they will use puppets.
by Bob Martin | Mar 30, 2012 | Directors, Film, Movies
Art awakens us to the truth.
When I first viewed White Ribbon I overlooked one element that the film highlights, that was “privilege”. Privilege came with blue eyes, fair skin and Christianity in the 1930 and 40(s). It’s now 2012 and hope for ending the discrimination of people who comprise of over 80% world population has remained just a hope.
Recently with the murder of a young black man in Florida, the people responsible for the murder, its investigation and prosecution, all claimed that they were not racist or bigots and therefore the killing of a young man on his way home could be justifiably ignored. There was no deeper consideration and that is the sad and sickening part. The young dead man was left with the burden of proof.
We all have become so comfortable with telling ourselves lies, that we let the obvious escape us.
White Ribbon” is wonderful and disturbing movie. “Like the truth.
Some movies are best filmed in Black and White. The lack of color gives the story a factual realness and solemness that suggest violence. No need to see the gore. White Ribbon is an elegant movie wonderfully directed and shot that got great reviews when it was first released.
Most of the reviews that I’ve read speak to how the director Michael Haneke may have painted a picture of the origins of Nazi Germany and World War Two. I on the other hand thought about what is it that is being preached today, disguised in bright glorious colors and apocalyptic rhetoric, that might be leading this world toward another horrific adventure.
by Sandy | Jan 17, 2012 | Art, Blogroll, Exhibits, Film, Movies, Museums
Hopefully, everyone gets a chance to see the new film “Red Tails”, which tells the true story of African American World War II pilots – the Tuskegee Airmen. It opens on Friday January 20, 2012. But, just in case you don’t do movies, but are still fascinated by black “flight”, the Smithsonian has both an online and a traveling exhibit called “Black Wings”. 
“The historic flight of the Wright brothers in 1903 sparked a universal enthusiasm for flying. But as in most areas of life, formidable obstacles and discrimination faced black Americans who had dreams of flying… Black Wings tells the story of how one group of Americans overcame enormous obstacles to break into aviation.”
(Images: Aviatrix, Bessie Coleman in 1923, poster for “Red Tails”)
by Bob Martin | Jan 12, 2012 | Directors, Film, Movies, Poem
Just see this movie, make up your own mind and then see it again and come to a different conclusion and repeat. Give up on getting it right or choosing sides – it’s great or it’s horrible – take your side.
