Django Unchained (2012), dir. Quentin Tarantino. Streaming at home, Thursday, November 23.

Still excited about Cinema Speculation, I decided to rewatch Tarantino’s most popular film, Django Unchained. Earlier this year, I rewatched Pulp Fiction (and was watching it while Godard died in Switzerland) and Inglourious Basterds, which still held up and is still my favorite of his. I won’t say much about Django, except that in many ways it’s his best film–its plot is tight and clever, the violence is both cartoonish and terrifyingly real, and its acting is pitch perfect, other than Kerry Washington (damn, she’s awful). I’d forgotten how entertaining this movie was (I’d only seen it when it came out), and how the violence, when it gets very real, is really disturbing. Then I went back and looked at reviews, and man, this movie sure got people yakking. Three articles in The New Yorker alone! Boy, did it make white critics look like shitbags, too. I was most taken in by Jelani Cobb’s take, which seemed measured, reasoned, and the only one that examined Tarantino on his own terms–honestly, I don’t know of a filmmaker for whom critics praise his talent and then go, “he really should make different movies, though…” Hell, man, Spielberg’s talented and makes shit movies–why don’t people write that about him? Cobb, who was teaching in Moscow at the time, has fascinating insight on Basterds and Django, and I love being challenged to rethink films that I enjoy. Worth reading.