Sunday, February 24, 2013

Django Uncovered


I sort of always have mixed feelings after seeing any movie from Quentin Tarantino. On the one hand I respect his desire to tell stories differently and to pay homage to cinema, not to mention actors, from the past. My problem with Quentin is that he brings out the 'little ole woman' in me as I usually find his movies far to busy, noisy and exploitative in it's brutality and violence. I know the writer/director does it for a reason, but with all his smoke and mirrors, I don't think he succeeds as well as he may thing. If the goal is show the brutality of slavery, Roots set a standard. Slavery may have been the base of Django Unchained, but it was not the theme, revenge, bloody revenge, was what was really brought front and center on the screen.


One of the things I do love about a Tarantino and his films is the casting. I did not especially like Django, but I did enjoy many of the performances. In Django Unchained, Tarantino brought together a smorgasbord of men many of who have been hunking it up on screens for decades. Of course there are the usual suspects, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio. In DJ, Tarantino also brought in Jamie Foxx, Walton Goggins, Dennis Christopher, James Remar and an inspired turn by Don Johnson as Big Daddy. I could not help but thinking of the images of Don from the play 'Fortune and Men's Eyes' (first image above)when seeing him on screen as Big Daddy. (Check out my previous post featuring more images from the play HERE:). There were also blink and you'll miss him appearance by Tom Wopat, Russ Tamblyn, Don Stroud, Bruce Dern, Robert Carradine, Jonah Hill and Matt Houston's Lee Horsley.


There were also several hunks that were at one time associated with the film who either bolted, or were called away and didn't make the final cut. Kurt Russell, Sacha Baron Conen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt were also all connected with the film as you can see from the early movie poster above. Finally there is one actor I really wish Tarantino had left on the cutting room floor and that is Tarantino himself. Although I never was able to truly be fully involved with story, his appearance near the end of the film was jolting. Any impact there might of been was pulled savagely away with his clunky and far too jarring appearance. But I digress, this post is not to marvel at the film itself, but the men, many of whom have appeared in the past uncovered of Django Unchained!

Jamie Foxx

Jamie in Any Given Sunday

Christoph Waltz
Below: Christoph in 'Feuer und Schwert - Die Legende von Tristan und Isolde' (Fire and Sword)

Samuel L. Jackson
Below: in Pulp Fiction

Below: in The Caveman's Valentine

Leonardo DiCaprio
Below in 'Total Eclipse'

Dennis Christopher
Below in Nine Lives

Walton Goggins
Below: in Red Dirt

James Remar
Below: in 'The Surgeon'

Don Johnson

Below: in The Harrad Experiment

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