Quentin Tarantino is back again with yet another scrappy yet captivating ode to genre cinema of years past, this time with his love letter to westerns, Django Unchained. After previously tackling the “Macaroni Combat” genre of WW2 films with Inglorious Basterds, he’s gone to the opposite end of old italian cinema and is diving headfirst into bringing his own personal spaghetti western for all of us. The plot is fairly simple and by the numbers: Slave gets freed by bounty hunter, bounty hunter teaches a slave to bounty hunt, slave vows to find his wife who is being held at a sadistic slave ranch, BUT slave ranch holds slave battles ran Thunderdome style by cruel slave owner! Will he get her back? You know, the usual sort of stuff you see in every western.
Great, but how do I get this shot of the gun to be an ‘homage”?
If it wasn’t apparent, the cast is typical Quentin Tarantino “Weird-at-first-but-actually-works.” style casting, with Jamie Foxx as the titular Django, Christoph Waltz as the bounty hunter, and Leonardo DiCaprio as the slave ranch owner, who is named, no kidding, Calvin Candy. That slave ranch? Candyland.
No wives until you escape the chocolate swamp!
Overall I’m excited for the movie, because westerns are great, and spaghetti westerns are always something special. It stands to reason that QT seems intent on trying really really hard to emulate Sergio Leone with his last few movies, and whether or not he’ll be successful is really up to how the whole thing comes together. I’mma homage you so hard… I’mma homage you so hard… Inglorious Basterds, while entertaining, was a movie that was definitely less than the sum of its parts, but its opening scene was classic Leone emulation, right down to the fitting Morricone soundtrack. Granted it’s easy to make anything seem epic and grandiose with that man’s score, but it was one solid, perfect nugget of gold in that movie that absolutely worked perfectly. If Django Unchained can be a whole movie like that scene, it’ll become one of the very best modern westerns of all time, if not though… well we’ll see. Who am I kidding, I know come December 25, I’ll be heading to see it with Christmas cash in tow. I’mma homage you so hard…
Interesting news arrives as the cast from the remake of 1981’s The Evil Dead, is finally rounded up by Sam Raimi. Initially helming the project with himself in place as director, he has picked a new director and finalized the cast, who will make up the unfortunate victims of the dark forces lurking in our favorite evil cabin in the woods. The cast themselves are young upstarts who have all had various small roles in television and a few movies, the most notable of which being Jane Levy, who some might know from ABC’s Suburgatory, and Jessica Lucas, who you’d recognize as ‘Lily’ from 2008’s Cloverfield. The original lead of the film was going to be Lilly Collins of Priest and The Blind Side fame, but scheduling problems led to Jane Levy being given the role. Along with newly chosen first-time director Fede Alvarez, the new Evil Dead won’t be lacking fresh blood. So to speak. Continue reading Update on ‘The Evil Dead’ remake, ‘Evil Dead’ Lawsuit?→
It’s that time again where an old-yet-familiar intellectual property gets the time tested, sometimes proved, sometimes failed reboot. As many of you are assuredly aware, The Amazing Spider-Man gets brought to the silver screen, only now it’s more of an adaptation of the Ultimate Spider-Man comics, in which he was younger, in high school, but still trying on the tights. This Spider-Man seems to be focused around getting us to watch this origin story yet again. This time they’re dangling the elusive prospect of “hidden secrets” about Spider-man we’ve never seen before. From what the preview material would have you believe, it has something to do with his parents and how they died, and implies they were murdered. Were his parents cruel Colombian drug lords? New Yorker mob hits? Genetic scientists experimenting on human/spider DNA fusion? Well, probably not that last one, I hope. Whatever the reason, they’re deliberately trying to bring some freshness and possible subversion of expectations this go ’round.
This Spider-Man totally loves dubstep bro. WUB WUB WUB.
I have to admit, I’m still skeptical about the direction of the whole thing. For every moment or line that they get right, another rubs me the wrong way. I suppose it’s a feeling similar to the much ballyhooed “event fatigue” that many Marvel fans claimed to be suffering from, starting with 2006’s Civil War, continuing now with Avengers VS X-Men. I think we’ve had a lot of Spider-Man in our media, from that terrible third movie and it’s subsequent terrible third video game, to the main Marvel comic being published 3 times monthly, to the Ultimate comics where he “dies”, to the current Spider-man movie being a re-telling of a re-telling. They say you can only skin a cat so many ways, although why they say that I don’t know, because that’s a creepy idiom, but I believe it stands in this case. That’s not to say that I don’t find the interpretation of this actual Peter Parker and Spider-Man character welcome. The wisecracking Spider-Man/shy Peter Parker dynamic is kept, and done much better than it was. On the flip side, you’ve got things like the Lizard, who is a B-villain at best, who has been mentioned many times by the internet crowd out there, to look like a Ninja Turtle.
Pizza Power!
All that being said, the one thing I’m definitely looking forward to, is finally getting some good acting from a female lead in these movies. Kirsten Dunst could never hang, (oh god awful pun) but Emma Stone seems certainly more than capable of pulling off Gwen Stacy, which is a story I’m glad to see come to fruition, as the famous issue from the comics concerning her and Spidey is one of the best. I know spoilers are a big point of contention here on the internet, but when the story she’s famous for centers around and is literally titled “The Night Gwen Stacy Died”, I don’t think it’s too bad to say I’ll be looking forward to Andrew Garfield finding the right balance of pathos and energy to mourn his doomed new girlfriend. Check out an interview with both Peter and Gwen over on Splashpage. Spider-Man is British now. DEAL WITH IT.
Wot? Why, you Mewling Quim you.
The other good thing, that not many seem to be mentioning, is that Marc Webb is directing the movie, which may or may not excite and/or frustrate you, depending on what you thought of 500 Days Of Summer. I loved the movie, and thought it was a brilliant and accomplished directorial debut, although I admittedly really really love Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The guy has done a lot of music videos for… well terrible bands like P.O.D, My Chemical Romance, Jimmy Eat World and even Hoobastank. So I will be expecting a terrible soundtrack from the movie, if his work is any indication of his musical tastes. The amount of videos he’s directed indicates that he is capable of working with a broad spectrum of creative input and meshing it into a whole, which is something Spider-Man definitely needs. Fresh ideas like the creative depiction of POV aerial work as well as a more realistic approach to his web slinging will help keep it from the cheesy looking CG-fest every web slinging scene was in the previous three.
Despite the inherent tiredness of yet another Spider-Man movie, it definitely appears this one is shaping up to take back its source material and forge its own identity in our theaters. It could possibly pave the way for other, better films where we can see our favorite villains given a new life with their proper due, instead of being quick afterthoughts. *COUGH* VENOM *COUGH* I am cautiously optimistic about the movie, and initially I would have dismissed this, though the talent involved, and the direction it’s taking has proven to look interesting. The final verdict on it being Amazing however, will have to wait until it’s July 3 release.
1.) It’s the spiritual predecessor of the Alien films.
Multiple shots from trailers and clips have shown the plot to be centered in some fashion around the ubiquitous “Space Jockey” from the original Alien. Now, originally, it was just called The Pilot in the script, and was put there as a one off bit of foreshadowing towards the decidedly gory death that would befall the crew of the Nostromo. Anyone who’s watched Alien multiple times, has probably had questions about that weird elephantine looking pilot, who is surrounded by so much mystery and awe in the first film. Ridley Scott had also given thought to who this character was way back when the film first came out, and spoke of how it was “Really just a suit”. This of course lines up with some of the SPOILER images shown from the film, which depict a large bipedal creature, and not the elephantine enigma we’ve all come to love and enjoy.
2.) It’s a science fiction film made by Ridley Scott.
Granted, he’s only made two before this, but they were single handedly two of the most influential and captivating science fiction films of all time. Alien itself brought to the forefront the idea that science fiction CAN be taken seriously by a mainstream audience, and damn scary as well. Blade Runner, while not as critically appreciated in it’s time, is nonetheless regarded as a modern classic, teeming with philosophical, moral, and societal themes that all serve to rally around a singular question: What does it mean to be human? Both films revolutionized how we view aliens, artificial intelligence, body horror, fear and of course, being horribly mutilated by monsters and/or replicants. Both were also amazing, quintessential examples of their genre, and another entry by Mr. Scott is something to always be on the lookout for, regardless of its heritage. Its a damn, damn exciting heritage.
Charlize tells us how brilliant Ridley Scott is. Fun Fact: if you flip the D in Ridley Scott’s first name 180 degrees it turns into RIPLEY. COINCIDENCE? CONSPIRACY? You decide.
3.) It could lead to other, amazing, potentially game changing science fiction films by Ridley Scott.
Along with his proposed sequel to Prometheus, he’s mentioned getting a TRUE sequel to Blade Runner up and running, written by the original writer, giving us perhaps some finality and closure on the long running question of Deckard’s humanity, or telling an all new story entirely. It’s supposedly going to have a female lead, but I wouldn’t discount old Mr. Ford showing up in a cameo, and personally it’d be badass if it was ambiguous as to whether or not Deckard was old because his replicant time clock is running out, or if he’s just old because people get old and are old. Either way, if it’s got Scott behind the helm I’m all in for the ride, because trying to remake or reboot it just wouldn’t work without the OG crew in tow.
4.) It’s apparently set in the Firefly/Serenity universe.
I know what you’re thinking. “Whoa, what? How could that even be? They’re like two different things entirely Cheesebadger, you’re just making stuff up.” BUT YOU’D BE WRONG. BEHOLD!
That’s a screenshot of Mr. Malcolm Reynolds’ POV shooting a Weyland-Yutani cannon at Alliance cruisers. Go pop in your copy of the Firefly dvd DVD if you don’t believe me. It’s one of the first scenes in the first episode, where you see Mal lose hope as the battle of Serenity is lost. So what does this mean, other than horrific fan fiction where we see the fallout of weird alien sex clones made from River and Ripley? Nothing probably, but maybe… just maybe, if enough people see it… FIREFLY WILL GET PICKED UP FOR A NEW SEASON AND COME BACK, STRONGER THAN EVER!*
*Warning, may be entirely untrue and a horrible lie.
Grizzly Bomb 