With photoshoots this hot, I have no clue why Jessica-Jane Clement isn’t a household name yet. It’s not fair that a nobody like Kim Kardashian has a camera crew following her everywhere, while a hottie like Jessica-Jane goes unnoticed. Well, not here. And I hope she remembers that when she finally hits the big time thanks to the “Tuna bump.” All I ask for is a few “private” pictures sent my way in return. Related Articles: Jessica Jane Clement Picture Moment Jessica Jane Clement Is Awesome Jessica-Jane Clement Breasts Are Perfection Jessica-Jane Clement Is Too Hot For Meo
I know a lot of people get stressed out this time of year, but personally, I love the holidays. Especially when they’re being celebrated by supermodels in their underwear. So for all you Grinches out there, here’s Bar Refaeli wishing everyone a Happy Holidays by modeling her new collection from Under.me. I don’t know about you, but these pictures just made my heart grow a few sizes. Related Articles: Bar Refaeli Bikini Pictures Bar Refaeli Bikini Pictures Bar Refaeli In Super Sexy Lingerie Bar Refaeli Topless In Arena
Lindsay Lohan has enlisted the help of a spiritual advisor to counsel her and urge a judge to keep her out of jail at her hearing in January … you can’t make this stuff up. Lohan’s spiritual guru (yes, she really has one ) will write a letter on her behalf, with Lindsay believing that the letters will help prove jail is not the best option for her. The hot mess faces up to 245 days in the slammer for her recent probation violation (she’s on probation for necklace thievery), triggered by her recent legal altercations. Lohan was arrested for punching Tiffany Mitchell at a club, and also charged criminally for lying to police in the aftermath of her Pacific Coast Highway car crash. She’s convinced a letter from the spiritual advisor will have a real impact, specifically because he’s been helping her since 2008 … a lot of good that’s done. Lohan’s angle, despite her laundry list of legal woes, is that she’s benefited from counseling in the past, and her advisor can and will vouch for that fact. She allegedly admits she needs professional help – not coincidentally, when it’s the last alternative to eight months in the can – and is praying a judge will agree. The judge has the option to send her to counseling instead, and Commissioner Jane Godfrey, who will arraign LiLo, is seen as one who may actually grant that. Should she? Or should LiLo do TIME? Yes, that train wreck brat will never learn otherwise! No, quit trying to make an example out of her, haters! View Poll »
The Real Housewives of Atlanta made us wonder who would say, “I Do… But, I Won’t” as the Anguilla adventure continued. We recap all the love, romance, and tramp stamps in our THG +/- review We dive back into Anguilla with Kenya asking Phaedra which of her friends she’d give Apollo as a birthday present. What?!? Minus 18 . Kenya doesn’t find the question the least bit inappropriate but Phaedra’s not laughing. Phaedra comments that Kenya needs to, “put some ice in your panties because it’s just not a good look for you.” Plus 8. I’d give more points if she’d have said that to Kenya’s face. Did anyone else notice how uncomfortable Kenya and Walter looked at dinner when the rest of the couples were joking about how much sex they were having on the trip? Huh? So Kenya’s comfortable flirting with every man who crosses her path but couples talking about working the third shift is a problem. Minus 10 . That’s just weird. Wasn’t she just joking about having a threesome with Phaedra’s husband? Although I really didn’t need to know that Kandi and Todd christened the hot tub. Minus 12. Where is Phaedra and her Lysol when you need it? NeNe calls Kenya out, telling her she doesn’t think she and Walter are the real deal. Plus 5 for being direct. At least she says it to Kenya’s face instead of just behind her back. But the big event is Peter’s surprise vow renewal with Cynthia. When he tells the men about it Gregg offers him a couple of viagra. Minus 13 . So that explains Gregg hanging all over NeNe. He’s making sure he’s ready but I’m pretty sure Peter’s able to man up drug free. The vow renewal ceremony is beautiful. Peter and Cynthia have survived a lot of crap and they deserved this wonderful day. I may not always be Peter’s biggest fan but he did it right this time. Plus 30. And to keep the romance going each couple lights a lantern and sends it off over the waves, which sounds lovely unless you are Kenya or Kandi. Their lanterns crashed and burned instead of sailing off towards the heavens. Minus 11. Is that a bad omen or just pure dumb luck? NeNe damn near body blocked Kandi to get to that bouquet. Plus 7 because it was actually kind of funny. Gregg looked so thrilled you’d think those silly flowers sealed the deal. But everyone is happy for Cynthia and Peter…except Kenya who can’t stop thinking why not me ? She’s already a little unstable when her sit down with Porsha begins. And why is Porsha rehashing their argument? Minus 18 . These two women were silently loathing one another this entire trip. Can’t we leave it at that? Apparently not. Porsha wants it all out on the table. Well, be careful what you wish for. Before you know it Kenya’s calling Porsha a b*tch and Porsha’s telling her to, “take your hood rat ass back to Detroit.” Kenya gets all kinds of upset when Porsha calls her a tramp. Minus 10. Kenya’s not the one with the tramp stamp but honey, you were just rubbing your booty on another woman’s husband the night before so if the tramp stamp fits… But who expected to see Ms. NeNe in the role of mediator and bouncer. Plus 15. She has to physically keep these two women apart while trying to broker some sort of peace. When Kenya finally leaves the party with her flowing dress proclaiming, “I’m Gone With the Wind fabulous” I began to wonder if she was off her meds. And then I laughed out loud when NeNe gave that incredulous look, raised an eyebrow and asked, “B*tch, is it movie night?” Plus 22. And to think Anguilla’s not over yet. More next week. Episode total = -5! Season total = -199!
An Indiana man who allegedly threatened to “kill as many people as he could” at an elementary school near his home has been arrested – and 47 guns were found at his home. Forty-seven. Von Meyer, 60, of Cedar Lake, Ind., was arrested on criminal charges of felony intimidation, domestic battery and resisting law enforcement on Saturday. Cedar Lake Police officers were called to Meyer’s home early Friday after he allegedly threatened to set his wife on fire once she fell asleep, the statement said. He was being held as of Sunday afternoon without bond at the Lake County Jail, pending an initial hearing on the charges, police said in a statement. Meyer also threatened to enter nearby Jane Ball Elementary School “and kill as many people as he could before police could stop him,” the statement said. Meyer’s home is less than 1,000 feet from the school and linked to it by trails and paths through a wooded area, police said, making the threat even more disturbing. Police notified officials and boosted security at all area schools Friday, the same day 26 people, including 20 students, were killed in a Connecticut school shooting . On Saturday, officers served warrants at Meyer’s home and arrested him. The statement said police had learned that Meyer kept many weapons. They weren’t kidding. Officers searched the home, finding 47 guns and ammunition worth more than $100,000 hidden throughout the home. Many of the weapons were collector’s guns.
RZA is getting sued, and this time it isn’t by one of his fellow Wu-Tang Clan group members. Dutch singer Thea Van Siejaen alleges that the music producer and movie director failed to pay her a significant amount of money.
This is totally out of character for me, but I am actually very affected by the shooting that happened Friday, which is weird as I am normally the first to mock tragedy to get a rise out of people for no reason other than personal enjoyment, laughs and giggles….but the fact that they were kids, little fucking kids and is just too fucking twisted for there to be any spin on it…even “last day of school” jokes don’t make me laugh….the whole thing makes me fucking sick to my stomach. That said, here’s an interesting article that I read earlier today – that in the wake of the events, I think is a good story, written by Liza Long, a blogger over at Anarchist Soccer Mom who will be getting a book deal now that this has gone viral…in what I think may be the first viral article…something I find relatively exciting…because it means people still read…you should read it…because guns aren’t the issue…violence behavior and mental health is…. Three days before 20 year-old Adam Lanza killed his mother, then opened fire on a classroom full of Connecticut kindergartners, my 13-year old son Michael (name changed) missed his bus because he was wearing the wrong color pants. “I can wear these pants,” he said, his tone increasingly belligerent, the black-hole pupils of his eyes swallowing the blue irises. “They are navy blue,” I told him. “Your school’s dress code says black or khaki pants only.” “They told me I could wear these,” he insisted. “You’re a stupid bitch. I can wear whatever pants I want to. This is America. I have rights!” “You can’t wear whatever pants you want to,” I said, my tone affable, reasonable. “And you definitely cannot call me a stupid bitch. You’re grounded from electronics for the rest of the day. Now get in the car, and I will take you to school.” I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me. A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7 and 9 year old siblings knew the safety plan—they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me. That conflict ended with three burly police officers and a paramedic wrestling my son onto a gurney for an expensive ambulance ride to the local emergency room. The mental hospital didn’t have any beds that day, and Michael calmed down nicely in the ER, so they sent us home with a prescription for Zyprexa and a follow-up visit with a local pediatric psychiatrist. We still don’t know what’s wrong with Michael. Autism spectrum, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant or Intermittent Explosive Disorder have all been tossed around at various meetings with probation officers and social workers and counselors and teachers and school administrators. He’s been on a slew of antipsychotic and mood altering pharmaceuticals, a Russian novel of behavioral plans. Nothing seems to work. At the start of seventh grade, Michael was accepted to an accelerated program for highly gifted math and science students. His IQ is off the charts. When he’s in a good mood, he will gladly bend your ear on subjects ranging from Greek mythology to the differences between Einsteinian and Newtonian physics to Doctor Who. He’s in a good mood most of the time. But when he’s not, watch out. And it’s impossible to predict what will set him off. Several weeks into his new junior high school, Michael began exhibiting increasingly odd and threatening behaviors at school. We decided to transfer him to the district’s most restrictive behavioral program, a contained school environment where children who can’t function in normal classrooms can access their right to free public babysitting from 7:30-1:50 Monday through Friday until they turn 18. The morning of the pants incident, Michael continued to argue with me on the drive. He would occasionally apologize and seem remorseful. Right before we turned into his school parking lot, he said, “Look, Mom, I’m really sorry. Can I have video games back today?” “No way,” I told him. “You cannot act the way you acted this morning and think you can get your electronic privileges back that quickly.” His face turned cold, and his eyes were full of calculated rage. “Then I’m going to kill myself,” he said. “I’m going to jump out of this car right now and kill myself.” That was it. After the knife incident, I told him that if he ever said those words again, I would take him straight to the mental hospital, no ifs, ands, or buts. I did not respond, except to pull the car into the opposite lane, turning left instead of right. “Where are you taking me?” he said, suddenly worried. “Where are we going?” “You know where we are going,” I replied. “No! You can’t do that to me! You’re sending me to hell! You’re sending me straight to hell!” I pulled up in front of the hospital, frantically waiving for one of the clinicians who happened to be standing outside. “Call the police,” I said. “Hurry.” Michael was in a full-blown fit by then, screaming and hitting. I hugged him close so he couldn’t escape from the car. He bit me several times and repeatedly jabbed his elbows into my rib cage. I’m still stronger than he is, but I won’t be for much longer. The police came quickly and carried my son screaming and kicking into the bowels of the hospital. I started to shake, and tears filled my eyes as I filled out the paperwork—“Were there any difficulties with… at what age did your child… were there any problems with.. has your child ever experienced.. does your child have…” At least we have health insurance now. I recently accepted a position with a local college, giving up my freelance career because when you have a kid like this, you need benefits. You’ll do anything for benefits. No individual insurance plan will cover this kind of thing. For days, my son insisted that I was lying—that I made the whole thing up so that I could get rid of him. The first day, when I called to check up on him, he said, “I hate you. And I’m going to get my revenge as soon as I get out of here.” By day three, he was my calm, sweet boy again, all apologies and promises to get better. I’ve heard those promises for years. I don’t believe them anymore. On the intake form, under the question, “What are your expectations for treatment?” I wrote, “I need help.” And I do. This problem is too big for me to handle on my own. Sometimes there are no good options. So you just pray for grace and trust that in hindsight, it will all make sense. I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am Jason Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness. According to Mother Jones, since 1982, 61 mass murders involving firearms have occurred throughout the country. Of these, 43 of the killers were white males, and only one was a woman. Mother Jones focused on whether the killers obtained their guns legally (most did). But this highly visible sign of mental illness should lead us to consider how many people in the U.S. live in fear, like I do. When I asked my son’s social worker about my options, he said that the only thing I could do was to get Michael charged with a crime. “If he’s back in the system, they’ll create a paper trail,” he said. “That’s the only way you’re ever going to get anything done. No one will pay attention to you unless you’ve got charges.” I don’t believe my son belongs in jail. The chaotic environment exacerbates Michael’s sensitivity to sensory stimuli and doesn’t deal with the underlying pathology. But it seems like the United States is using prison as the solution of choice for mentally ill people. According to Human Rights Watch, the number of mentally ill inmates in U.S. prisons quadrupled from 2000 to 2006, and it continues to rise—in fact, the rate of inmate mental illness is five times greater (56 percent) than in the non-incarcerated population. With state-run treatment centers and hospitals shuttered, prison is now the last resort for the mentally ill—Rikers Island, the LA County Jail and Cook County Jail in Illinois housed the nation’s largest treatment centers in 2011. No one wants to send a 13-year old genius who loves Harry Potter and his snuggle animal collection to jail. But our society, with its stigma on mental illness and its broken healthcare system, does not provide us with other options. Then another tortured soul shoots up a fast food restaurant. A mall. A kindergarten classroom. And we wring our hands and say, “Something must be done.” I agree that something must be done. It’s time for a meaningful, nation-wide conversation about mental health. That’s the only way our nation can ever truly heal. God help me. God help Michael. God help us all.
The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., left a nation in shock Friday afternoon after Adam Lanza gunned down 27 people, 20 of them children. Hollywood Tweeted up a storm in response, sharing love, condolences, prayers and heartbreak, but also anger, disgust and frustration in many cases. The Connecticut school shooting has once again raised debate about gun control and thrust it into the spotlight, as some of their Twitter reactions show: Demi Lovato: “Just in shock. WHAT is wrong with this world sometimes? Right before Christmas? My thoughts and prayers go out to Newton, CT.” Miley Cyrus: “Why does this happen? Why do bad things happen to such good people… Especially young ones. Sending blessings to CT.” Ian Somerhalder: “We are sad. Our hearts, thoughts & help are w/ you. Im so sorry to all affected by this. So sorry. May all the love in the world hug you in this time.” Kourtney Kardashian: “If this tragedy doesn’t change something in this country regarding guns…I just want to scream and cry. Deeply saddened. Praying.” Kim Kardashian: “In total shock over the school shooting in Ct!… What has this world come to…These kids come to school to learn, never expecting this tragedy to happen. They didn’t deserve this. Praying for everyone involved!” Lindsay Lohan: “This is absolutely horrifying. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families in Newton, CT. So unbelievably sad.” Ashton Kutcher: “Overwhelming feelings of sadness for something so senseless. My heart goes out to those in Connecticut.” Jessica Alba: “This is just awful. My heart goes out 2 all affected… So sad.” Zooey Deschanel: “I am filled with sadness in the wake of the sandy hook school tragedy. My thoughts and prayers are with all in Newtown, Connecticut.” Blake Shelton: “Stand strong and stand united everyone… We are Americans and we are better than this. What a sad sad disgusting day this is…My heart is so heavy right now… I can’t shake it off.” Kristin Chenoweth: “Our hearts are broken for you, Newtown.” Joe Jonas: “This is such sad news. Heart is broken for the children and their families.” Jordin Sparks: “Those precious children…I will never understand the evil in this world. On my knees praying for those families. I am in tears.” Susan Sarandon: “How much more suffering & loss will it take before we better regulate the sale of arms in our country? Let @NRA know how you feel.” Michelle Branch: “Gun control people!!! My heart is breaking. As a parent this is my worst nightmare.” Mia Farrow: “Gun control is no longer debatable- it’s not a ‘conversation’- It’s a moral mandate.” Dax Shepard: “I love guns. I have several, but I would gladly get rid of them if it would help prevent anything like this from happening again.” Christina Applegate: “There are just no words. Only sorrow. We are all shedding tears today for those families.” Bethenny Frankel: “These poor parents probably have Christmas presents for these poor babies. I can’t stop crying.” Maria Shriver: “My heart is breaking as this story unfolds. Let’s start a #circleofprayer for the children and their families.” Jennifer Hudson: “Yal, we need to pray! This can’t keep happening . My mama always said ‘ if u think you’ve seen it all just keep on living’.” Ashley Greene: “Some things are just bigger than me and impossible for me to understand. My thoughts and prayers are with the families in Connecticut.” Snoop Dogg: “Sending love 2 the families in Connecticut for their tragic loss. 2day I bow my head in sadness.” Josh Groban: “My heart is crushed with the news of this shooting.” Katharine McPhee: “I’m so saddened over the shootings in CT. In light of such an evil act, #PrayForNewton.” Kevin Bacon: “Just sick about the news from CT. Sending love to all those families.” Brooke Burke-Charvet: “Unfathomable news in Connecticut. I have no words. Holiday spirit just got sucked out of me. I’m sick..” Lea Michele: “There are no words to express the sadness of this unthinkable tragedy. Sending my prayers to the families in Newton CT.” Ben Stiller: “Shocked and saddened by what happened today in Connecticut. We have to stop the access to guns in our country.” Missi Pyle: “We should NOT STOP SCREAMING about this until we have better laws on GUN CONTROL. We have power. Lets DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS!” Sarah Silverman: “Band-Aids-on-Band-Aids @NRA people want MORE access to guns to combat all the people w access to guns.” Piers Morgan: “This is now President Obama’s biggest test – will he have the courage to stand up to the American gun lobby?” Chrissy Teigen: “it’s too easy for a monster to get a gun. solution: NO ONE GETS GUNS. sorry if this is an inconvenience for your complete need to have one.” Michael Moore: “The way to honor these dead children is to demand strict gun control, free mental health care, and an end to violence as public policy.” John Stamos: “Soulless coward pulls trigger, children die, officials express regret and then what -we wait for the next shooting? how do we stop this?” Questlove: “ok so….is now that time to have ‘the conversation’?” Rashida Jones: “Gun control is our only road to freedom. Freedom from the fear of senselessly losing children. I’m so saddened. WE NEED LAWS NOW…Gun loversare the first to remind you this should be a ‘day of mourning’. How about we mourn & make it harder to get guns on the same day?…Thanks, gun lovers, for all your hateful tweets. Good reminder of another endemic nat’l issue:a lack of humanity, civility & accountability.” Flea: “No civilians should be allowed to have guns. none…and i dont thinkthe cops should have guns either…change the constitution…and makequality mental health care free…god blessthe children…in many countries the cops have no guns and they do perfectly fine…peace and love to all…heartbreaking…the depth of sadness.” What do you think: Time for major gun control legislation? YES. Fewer guns, fewer tragedies! NO. It’s unconstitutional and won’t stop anything! View Poll »
Ryan Lanza is already grieving and no doubt floored by the deaths of his brother, Adam Lanza, their mother Nancy and the 26 other people Adam killed yesterday. As if that weren’t enough to process, he was erroneously named as the man responsible for the Connecticut shooting by overzealous media outlets at first. Many TV news outlets and websites were scrambling after reporting Ryan Lanza, 24, was the shooter, even though state and federal officials did not confirm this. It is now believed that Adam Lanza , 20, had an ID of Ryan’s on him, leading to the initial confusion. But for Ryan, it made for an interesting few hours at work. Ryan, 24, has worked at Ernst & Young in New Jersey for four years, following in the footsteps of his father, a former partner in the large accounting firm. Ryan was at work yesterday and not a suspect in the case for even an instant, but news outlets claimed his killed 26 people in Newtown, Conn. Some even splashed his photo on screen. Not surprisingly, he was inundated with posts, texts and calls, after which someone began posting on his Facebook page (presumably Ryan) that he is NOT the killer. Because he was not involved whatsoever, it’s unclear if he realized his brother was involved at the time the media was initially reporting the story. NBC, one of, if not the first to report Ryan’s involvement, later said that an ID bearing his name on Adam’s person made them believe Ryan Lanza was the culprit. Not the case, clearly. In any case, it’s the last thing Ryan and Peter Lanza care about now. They are said to be “in shock” over what happened, much like the rest of the nation and world. Both spoke to the FBI in Hoboken, N.J., but “are not suspects, they have no involvement ,” a source says. Ryan, the source adds, is as clean as they come. The Lanza brothers’ parents are divorced, and Adam lived with mother Nancy in the same town where the massacre – one of the worst in U.S. history – took place. It is believed the guns used were registered in her name. The first Adam Lanza photos were released to the media last night, along with a portrait of a young man whose troubles apparently went unrecognized. “It looks like there’s mental history there,” a law enforcement source says.
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.
