Kerry Washington Covers Self Magazine Kerry Washington is covering the latest issue of Self magazine and revealing her bangin’ bawdy since delivering her daughter Isabelle Amarachi. According to Kerry however, she’s in no rush to get her “post baby body” back because she’s not “about going backward in life.” She also added that her body is “the site of a miracle.” Via Self Magazine: “A few weeks ago, my manager asked: ‘Do you feel like you’re back? I feel like you’re back.’ She meant it as a total compliment, but we had this great conversation where I was like, ‘You know what? I try really hard not to use that language, because it’s not about going backward in life,’” the Scandal actress, 38, says. And, as the Django Unchained star explains in SELF’s September issue, “I’ve been really focused on not being ‘back’ to anything, but being the best version of myself right now. My body is the site of a miracle now. I don’t want to be pre-miracle.” The TV star welcomed a daughter, Isabelle Amarachi, in April 2014. Since then, her daughter’s schedule has dictated Washington’s workout schedule. “I try to get it in so I can be back with my kid early. I have to take care of myself in order to live life the way I want to. It’s important to have rest days,” the actress tells the magazine. “But in the long run, if I don’t work out for, like, three days, I feel worse, not better.” What do YOU think about Kerry’s post baby body in Self??? Hit the flip for another photo.
Donald Trump Says Django Unchained Was A Racist Movie Motor-mouth meat head Donald Trump is back talking isht, but this time he surprised a few folks when he voiced his opinion on the controversial award-winning Tarantino film “Django Unchained.” via The Grio Believe it or not, director Spike Lee and conservative business mogul Donald Trump have something in common: They both hate Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. During a series of tweets he unleashed during last night’s Academy Awards, the polarizing reality TV star saved some of his most vicious words for the hit slavery-themed Oscar winner. “Django Unchained is the most racist movie I have ever seen, it sucked!” he tweeted. Trump further explained his objections to the film during an appearance on Fox & Friends. “I thought it was terrible and a disgrace,” Trump said, adding that when people “talk about guns and gun control, that movie — people should watch that.” Sounds like the Donald is salty that Django Unchained racked up so many awards at the Oscars last night. Or he could just be mad that he took a picture with his hair looking like that. Who knows.
SMH. Quentin Tarantino continued to push Spike Lee’s buttons during the press conference following his Golden Globe Awards win. Via E! News reports : Less than a minute into his press conference backstage at the 70th Annual Golden Globes, the Django Unchained winner dropped the N-word. The usually bustling press room fell silent for a second; a reporter could be heard letting out a whistle, as in, “Oh, boy.” The filmmaker’s choice language came as he fieldied a question about his controversial, slavery-era spaghetti Western. Tarantino was not apologizing. Critics who think the N-word should not have been spoken by his 19th century characters, the mile-a-minute Tarantino argued, are “saying I should massage. They’re saying I should whitewash. They’re saying I should lie.” Don Cheadle, a winner for House of Lies, who took the stage right after Tarantino, couldn’t resist picking up the thread. “Please no [N-word] questions,” Cheadle told reporters. “Black people questions are all right.” For the record, Cheadle said he hadn’t seen Django, but was looking forward to checking it out. Is Tarantino going too far by using the word outside of the film? Is he just trying to make a point or do you think he’s actually fond of this particular racial slur? Is it EVER okay for whites to use the n-word?
The “D” is silent, though the name of Django Unchained ‘s eponymous gunslinger sounds like a retaliatory whip across the face of white slaveholders, offering an immensely satisfying taste of antebellum empowerment packaged as spaghetti-Western homage. Christened after a coffin-toting Sergio Corbucci character who metes out bloody justice below the Mason-Dixon line, Django joins a too-short list of slaves-turned-heroes in American cinema, as this zeitgeist-shaping romp cleverly upgrades the mysterious Man in Black archetype to a formidable Black Man. Once again, Quentin Tarantino rides to the Weinsteins’ rescue, delivering a bloody hilarious (and hilariously bloody) Christmas counter-programmer, which Sony will unleash abroad. After Inglourious Basterds and Kill Bill , it would be reasonable to assume that Django Unchained is yet another of Tarantino’s elaborate revenge fantasies, when in fact, the film represents the writer-director’s first real love story (not counting his Badlands -inspired screenplays for True Romance and Natural Born Killers ). At its core is a slave marriage between Django (Jamie Foxx) and Hildi (Kerry Washington), torn asunder after the couple attempt to escape a spiteful plantation owner (Bruce Dern, blink and you miss him). Brutally whipped and then resold to separate bidders on the Greenville, Miss., auction block, Django and his bride — whose outrageous full name, Broomhilda von Shaft, blends epic German legend with the greatest of blaxploitation heroes — possess a love too great to be shackled by slavery. But getting even with Dern’s character doesn’t feature on Django’s agenda. After settling the score with his former overseers early in the film, he cares only about reuniting with his wife. Django Unchained could also qualify as a buddy movie — an odd twist, considering that Corbucci’s original Django was a loner (as played by Franco Nero, who cameos in this film). Liberally reinventing a character bastardized in more than 30 unofficial sequels, Tarantino pairs this new black Django with a bounty hunter named Dr. King Schultz ( Christoph Waltz ). Posing as a dentist, Waltz’s charming figure first emerges in the dead of night driving an absurd-looking carriage with a giant tooth bobbing on top — the first indication of how funny the film is going to be. As in Basterds , Waltz’s genteel manner masks a startling capacity for ruthlessness. This time, however, he’s undeniably one of the good guys. Though he tracks and kills men for a living, the doctor is fundamentally fair, shooting only when provoked or justified. Happening upon Django’s chain gang, Schultz offers to buy the slave from his redneck escorts. When they decline, he leaves the traders for dead and liberates their “property,” enlisting Django in his bounty-hunting business. Tarantino’s on sensitive turf here, and he knows it, using these early scenes not only to establish the cruelty shown toward slaves in the South, but also to deliver the same sort of revisionist comeuppance Jewish soldiers took upon Hitler in his last picture. Ironically, as a well-read and clearly more enlightened German, Schultz is disapproving of Americans’ claims to racial superiority, which positions him as the story’s moral conscience. When the time comes, he will accompany Django to Candyland, the plantation where Hildi now resides under the thumb of the unctuous Calvin Candie ( Leonardo DiCaprio ). But the film seems to be in no hurry to get there, focusing on Django’s most unusual education — killing white men — for the first 90 minutes of the director’s longest feature yet. Tarantino freely quotes from his favorite stylistic sources, whether oaters or otherwise, featuring lightning-quick zooms, an insert of unpicked cotton drenched in blood and a shot of Django riding into town framed through a hangman’s noose. Early on, Foxx appears to be following Waltz’s lead, but once the snow melts on the bounty-hunting subplot (an extended homage to Corbucci’s The Great Silence ), all traces of subservience disappear and Foxx steps forth, guiding this triumphant folk hero through a stunning transformation. True to its spaghetti-Western roots, the pic reveals most of its stoic hero’s unspoken motivations through garishly colored flashbacks, though Tarantino and editor Fred Raskin (stepping in for the late Sally Menke) seem to realize that limited glimpses of such white-on-black sadism go a long way. Filmmakers who choose to portray this shameful chapter of America’s past bear a certain responsibility not to sanitize it. But here, even as it lays the groundwork for “Django’s” vengeance, dwelling on such brutality can verge on exploitation. To wit, the film problematically features no fewer than 109 instances of the “N word,” most of them deployed either for laughs or alliteration. While good taste doesn’t necessarily apply, comedy seems to be the key that distinguishes Django Unchained from a risible film like Mandingo . Both take a certain horror-pleasure in watching bare-chested black men wrestle to the death — the sick sport at which Candie prides himself an expert — but what better way to inoculate the power of a Klan rally than by turning it into a Mel Brooks routine, reducing bigots to buffoons as they argue about their ill-fitting white hoods? Using rap and other cheeky music cues to similar effect, the script repeatedly finds ways to use the characters’ racism against them, most ingeniously in its somewhat protracted second half. According to Schultz, if he and Django were to show up at Candyland and offer to buy Hildi directly, they’d be laughed off the plantation, so they hatch a plan to pose as men looking to buy a mandingo fighter. But there’s a flaw to their logic, since the direct-request approach worked fine with Don Johnson’s “Big Daddy” earlier, it allows the film to explore the complex caste system among slaves. There are two things Tarantino, as a director, has virtually perfected — staging Mexican standoffs and spinning dialogue for delayed gratification — and expert examples of both await at Candyland. Seductively revealing a dark side auds have never seen before, DiCaprio plays Candie as a self-entitled brat, spewing the character’s white-supremacy theories through tobacco-stained teeth. Like a Southern despot, he surrounds himself with menacing cohorts, none more dangerous than old Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson), who runs the affairs of Candie’s household and represents a form of toxic black-on-black rivalry still smoldering in American culture today. Gorgeously lit and lensed by Robert Richardson against authentic American landscapes (as opposed to the Italian soil Corbucci used), the film pays breathtaking respect not just to Tarantino’s many cinematic influences, but to the country itself, envisioning a way out of the slavery mess it depicts. In sheer formal terms, Django Unchained is rich enough to reward multiple viewings, while thematics will make this thorny “southern” — as the director aptly dubs it — perhaps his most closely studied work. Of particular interest will be Tarantino’s two cameos, one delivered with an Australian accent, and the other alongside Jonah Hill in the “baghead” scene. MORE ON DJANGO UNCHAINED : THE MOVIELINE REVIEW: Tarantino’s Django Unchained A Bloody But Bloated Affair Follow Movieline on Twitter.
We’re just as obsessed with the sneak peek of Quentin Tarantino’s latest as you are. By Kevin P. Sullivan Jamie Foxx in “Django Unchained” Photo: Columbia Pictures The trailer for ” Django Unchained ” is finally here, and if you’re here, you’ve paused the trailer long enough to read this, so thank you. We here at MTV News are just as obsessed with the trailer for Quentin Tarantino ‘s long-awaited Southern, so we’ve put together the trailer commentary below, and if you’re looking for an even deeper dive, here are the five secrets of the “Django Unchained” trailer: What’s In A Name? Tarantino has always filled his movies with some subtle (and not so subtle) references to the movies he admires. The title character in “Django Unchained” owes his name to the rich legacy of other Djangos in film. The original Django appeared in an Italian-made Western from 1966 by director Sergio Corbucci. In the original “Django,” the character is a mysterious drifter who drags a coffin around with him wherever he goes. Naturally, the coffin contains a machine gun. Dozens of other films ripped off the film, trying to repeat the original by featuring a character with the same name, but Corbucci and star Franco Nero only made one other Django movie, a 1987 sequel called “Django 2: il grande ritorno.” The Hidden Gun This tricky little pistol shows up twice during the trailer, but expect to see a lot more of it in the actual film. A contraption used by Dr. King Schultz, the hidden gun retracts up into the wearer’s sleeve and pops out when needed for a surprising blast. The device shows up pretty regularly in Westerns, and it even makes an appearance in one of Tarantino’s favorite movies of all time, Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver.” The Leo Zoom-In The first time we see Leonardo DiCaprio , Tarantino does a jarring zoom-in on his smug, smiling face. The move comes straight out of the spaghetti Westerns that the style of “Django Unchained” pulls inspiration from. The most notable director of the genre, Sergio Leone, directed four of its most famous films: “Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More,” “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” and “Once Upon a Time in the West.” Tarantino has borrowed from Leone and the spaghetti Western aesthetic on other occasions, including nods in “Kill Bill” and “Inglourious Basterds.” Don Johnson The lucky journalists at Cannes who got a sneak preview of “Django Unchained” left the theater raving about the performance of ’80s TV star Don Johnson. He actually appears in the trailer, right around the two-minute mark, as the Colonel Sanders-esque gentleman on a horse. Johnson has found himself in a series of intriguing roles in recent years, appearing in “Machete” and “Eastbound and Down.” It’s safe to say that “Django Unchained” will continue that trajectory. Franco Nero Right at the end of the trailer, Tarantino throws in one last Easter egg for hard-core film fans. That man next to Jamie Foxx when he speaks the “D is silent” line? That’s Franco Nero, the original Django. Check out everything we’ve got on “Django Unchained.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com .
When word got out that Quentin Tarantino’s next film would be a revenge tale starring Jamie Foxx as a slave-turned-bounty hunter, the buzz surrounding Django…
Sneak peek gives us a closer look at Quentin Tarantino’s wholly original next film. By Kevin P. Sullivan Jamie Foxx in “Django Unchained” Photo: The Weinstein Company You have never seen a cowboy movie quite like this. Quentin Tarantino ‘s ” Django Unchained ” is a western unlike any other. For starters, it doesn’t take place in the Old West, but in the pre-Civil War South. Secondly, it stars Jamie Foxx as a freed slave, out to save his wife from servitude. But what else would you expect from Tarantino? The first trailer from “Django Unchained” hit the Web on Wednesday (June 6), and we’ve taken the opportunity to break it down for you into our five key scenes. Django Is Off The Chain Right from the start of the first trailer, Tarantino lets us know how “Django Unchained” is going to handle slavery. While the auteur will obviously bring his own irreverent spin to the subject, he is not shying away from showing the ugliest parts of slavery. Once freed, Django stylishly throws off his worn-down blanket in ultra-cool slow-mo, but he reveals the scars and the reality of his captivity. The image perfectly captures how Tarantino strikes the balance between truth and style in what’s sure to be a controversial film. It’s Good to Be King But Django is only one half of a dynamic duo. His liberator, the dentist-turned-bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (notice the wordplay), is played by none other than Christoph Waltz , the scene stealer from Tarantino’s last film, “Inglourious Basterds.” Where Colonel Hans Landa was a merciless, if not reasonable, evildoer, Schultz is a simple-minded (but not dumb) kind soul, whose unfamiliarity with slavery makes him sympathetic to Django’s struggle to save his wife. He is an ally to Django, and — like Landa — gets many of the film’s best lines. The Bloody Cotton If one image had to capture what Tarantino is attempting to do with “Django Unchained,” this would be it. This movie is the first of its kind, a “bloody Southern,” Tarantino’s own genre of sub-Mason-Dixon Western action. He’s taking the look of the spaghetti Western — something he experimented with in “Kill Bill” and “Inglourious Basterds” — and transplanting it to the South during the time before the Civil War. It’s an entirely original mash-up, the kind we’ve come to expect from Tarantino. Leo Has Our Attention Perhaps the biggest attention grabber of this whole affair is former teen heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio as an egotistical plantation owner. For all his great roles, DiCaprio has never played such a clear-cut villain, and it’s clear he’s having one hell of a time in the role of Calvin Candie, who owns slaves and uses them for prize fights to the death. Yeah, that doesn’t sound like the Leo we know, and that’s exactly why we can’t wait. The “D” Is Silent Just in case you were wondering, you don’t pronounce the “D.” Jamie Foxx has only appeared in a handful of movies in the years following his Oscar win, but Tarantino has handed him a meaty and thrilling role that could very well lead to a comeback. His portrayal of Django is drastically toned down from Foxx’s usual roles, as Django is a relatively quiet character. Needless to say, he does get his share of badass one-liners in the trailer, and we’re just dying to hear more. A fun fact about that last shot: it actually contains two Djangos. The man to the right of Foxx is Franco Nero, the man who starred in the spaghetti Western “Django,” Tarantino’s inspiration for the title. Check out everything we’ve got on “Django Unchained.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com .
At long last — since Quentin Tarantino fans have been dying for a glimpse since the first peek at that hand-scrawled script suggested that yes, this was really happening — comes the first trailer for Django Unchained , Tarantino’s December 2012 spaghetti western about a freed slave (Jamie Foxx) shooting his way across the South. Because nothing says Christmas like slavery and vengeance! UPDATE: Sorry folks, the trailer is set to officially debut on Fandango later today. Check back for updated video… Foxx plays Django, a slave taken under the wing of a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz, looking delightful). Together they journey from plantation to plantation shooting bad guys on their way to rescuing Django’s wife (Kerry Washington) from the evil, oily Leonardo DiCaprio. Between the contained ferocity in Foxx’s eyes, the character actors that line the cast, Tarantino’s use of classic genre zooms and camera moves, that swaggering sense of humor, and the promise of seeing Django get the ultimate historical-revisionist retribution in his quest for “life, love, and the pursuit of vengeance,” the trailer packs quite a punch. And that’s even before Foxx’s Django sidles up to the OG Django , Franco Nero, and explains to him how his name is pronounced. Oh, references! Verdict: Might be a bit too genre for mainstream audiences, but my inner exploitation nerd can’t wait. Django Unchained hits theaters December 25.
When Quentin Tarantino ‘s Django Unchained hits theaters in December it’ll bring audiences face to face with a flurry of new grindhouse/genre references and influences, as any Tarantino flick is wont to do. Among those citations is the Italian exploitation pic Goodbye Uncle Tom (AKA Addio Zio Tom / Farewell Uncle Tom ), the notorious 1971 pseudo-doc about a film crew documenting the horrors of slavery in the American south, which Django Unchained cast member Samuel L. Jackson discussed recently during an interview for his superhero flick The Avengers (a movie that does not, by the way, pay homage to questionably exploitative slavery explorations.) In a video interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Jackson was asked about the film’s influences. “Quentin pays homage to a lot of different genres, and he would like to say this is a spaghetti Western — and I guess in ways it is,” said Jackson of Django Unchained , in which he plays a character described as a “house slave.” [ GALLERY: The cast of Django Unchained assembles in Mexico ] Jackson says he watched Goodbye Uncle Tom and other similar exploitation pics, including 1975’s Mandingo , which addressed slavery-centric themes. “It’s his take on those films, but it’s not like it’s not part of the fabric of this country, and it happened. We’ll deal with it as honestly and as Tarantino-esque as we can.” One of the great effects of Tarantino’s films is how they introduce mainstream audiences (at least, his segment of the mainstream audience) to the world of genre/exploitation/grindhouse cinema. When it comes to the topic of race in film, movies don’t get much more cringe-inducing than Goodbye Uncle Tom . (Fun fact: Riz Ortolani’s love theme from the pic was used in Nicolas Winding Refn ‘s Drive last year, which I’ve written about here before and will continue to do because I love taking every chance I get to bring up Goodbye Uncle Tom .) Watch a trailer for Goodbye Uncle Tom (warning: Extreme stuff here): Anyway, my anticipation couldn’t be higher for Django Unchained . Kudos to THR for bringing up something like Goodbye Uncle Tom at the Avengers junket , of all places. The official synopsis for Django Unchained : Set in the South two years before the Civil War, DJANGO UNCHAINED stars Academy Award®-winner Jamie Foxx as Django, a slave whose brutal history with his former owners lands him face-to-face with German-born bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Academy Award®-winner Christoph Waltz). Schultz is on the trail of the murderous Brittle brothers, and only Django can lead him to his bounty. The unorthodox Schultz acquires Django with a promise to free him upon the capture of the Brittles – dead or alive. Success leads Schultz to free Django, though the two men choose not to go their separate ways. Instead, Schultz seeks out the South’s most wanted criminals with Django by his side. Honing vital hunting skills, Django remains focused on one goal: finding and rescuing Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), the wife he lost to the slave trade long ago. Django and Schultz’s search ultimately leads them to Calvin Candie (Academy Award®-nominee Leonardo DiCaprio), the proprietor of “Candyland,” an infamous plantation where slaves are groomed by trainer Ace Woody (Kurt Russell) to battle each other for sport. Exploring the compound under false pretenses, Django and Schultz arouse the suspicion of Stephen (Academy Award®-nominee Samuel L. Jackson), Candie’s trusted house slave. Their moves are marked, and a treacherous organization closes in on them. If Django and Schultz are to escape with Broomhilda, they must choose between independence and solidarity, between sacrifice and survival… [via THR ]
