Quentin Tarantino wants you to know that if his depiction of slavery in Django Unchained disturbs you, the reality was much grislier. “I’m here to tell you, that however bad things get in the movie, a lot worse shit happened,” the filmmaker told a British Academy of Film and Television Arts crowd after screening his hotly anticipated spaghetti western in London. Judging from a report in London’s Guardian newspaper, Tarantino intends Django Unchained to be a visceral, in-your-face depiction of slavery in America. “We all intellectually ‘know’ the brutality and inhumanity of slavery, but after you do the research it’s no longer intellectual any more, no longer just historical record — you feel it in your bones,” Tarantino said. “It makes you angry, and you want to do something.” As was the case with Tarantino’s Nazi revenge fantasy, Inglourious Basterds , the title character of Django Unchained , who’s played by Jamie Foxx , gets to exact a great deal of cinematic retribution against the movie’s slave owners and their accomplices. But Tarantino told the BAFTA crowd that his movie is about more than payback: “When slave narratives are done on film, they tend to be historical with a capital H, with an arms-length quality to them,” he said. “I wanted to break that history-under-glass aspect, I wanted to throw a rock through that glass and shatter it for all times, and take you into it.” “I did a lot of research particularly in how the business of slavery worked, and what exactly was the social breakdown inside a plantation: the white families that owned the houses, the black servants who worked inside the house, the black servants that were in the fields, and the white overseers and workers that were hired to work there.” Of special interest to Tarantino was the southern aristocracy which he called “an absurd, grotesque parody of European aristocracy.” From that same Q&A session, the website Bleeding Cool is reporting that Tarantino told the audience “I could conceive maybe someday doing a 30′s gangster picture, or something like that.” He also said that he could do “another Western, actually.” [ The Guardian , Bleeding Cool ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Re-writing the fate of Hitler’s Nazi Germany was just the start for Quentin Tarantino , whose American South-set spaghetti western Django Unchained , his follow-up to the Oscar-winning Inglorious Basterds , tackles another ugly moment in world history: Institutionalized slavery. But are audiences ready to process the tough reminder of America’s regrettable past that lies not-so-deep beneath the surface of Tarantino’s revenge Western? Tarantino and stars Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, Christoph Waltz and Walton Goggins hit Comic-Con to share footage from Django Unchained , the tale of a slave (Foxx) freed by a bounty hunter (Waltz) who sets off to rescue his wife from a Southern plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio). While grindhouse-esque violence , a bright pop canvas, an oily and evil DiCaprio, and Tarantino’s encyclopedic affinity for the genre have already made Django one of the most anticipated films of the year, deeper reflections demanded by the s-word — slavery — could make Django a real socio-historical conversation-starter. “When I read this script the first time I thought, this was going to start a revolution,” recalled Goggins, who filmed his part as Billy Crash, Candie’s right hand man, during time off from TV’s Justified . “Not necessarily people in the streets, but an inward revolution. I think it’s going to play a significant part in race conversations. I keep saying this over and over again: Make your dinner reservations now, because you’re going to want to talk after this movie.” In the film, Foxx’s Django is freed from bondage on the condition that he help Waltz’s Dr. King Schultz hunt down a pair of sibling outlaws, a set-up that allows Django to literally cast off his shackles and start kicking ass in retribution. But while Foxx seems to acquit himself quite while in the first promos, he points to castmate Washington for her bravery in the face of some of the film’s most difficult scenes. Between takes of a scene in which Washington is lashed, Tarantino piped in a song by gospel singer Fred Hammond through on-set speakers per Foxx’s request. The actor recalled the emotional scene. “The song was, ‘No weapons formed against me shall prosper,’” he said, singing the melody. “When that song was playing, one black lady [extra] from New Orleans who had never been on a set before, I see her hands go up like this. And I see her rocking back and forth with the child that she was standing with… You’ll see it on screen. You’ll feel it.” Washington, meanwhile, found strength within the love story at the center of Django (which reunites her with Foxx, who played her onscreen husband in Ray ). “One of the things I loved about this character is that she exists in a time when historically, black women were of a necessity independently strong, and the breakdown of the black community in order to maintain slavery began with the breakdown of the black family,” she said. “I loved that this film is about two people who, even though they exist in a time when in our Constitution they’re only 3/5 a human being, they so believe in their own humanity and so believe in the love that they share and their illegal marriage that they risk life to find each other.” While Washington’s Broomhilda isn’t the kind of action-oriented leading lady of Tarantino’s previous films, she marks a different kind of cinematic milestone. “The fact that Broomhilda gets to be the princess in the tower that gets rescued by her man in a way that kind of reclaims black marriage and black love, to me, is a different kind of strength,” Washington said. “I felt like the black woman as the princess in the tower who’s rescued is an archetype we haven’t been able to enjoy.” Diving into the themes and world of the antebellum South was tough for everyone on set, Goggins admitted. His Billy Crash — a “mandingo fight trainer extraordinaire” on Candie’s plantation — serves as one of the film’s antagonists, and required Goggins to go to some particularly ugly places in character. “While liberal Walton didn’t have anything to apologize for, I began every take with an apology because these are my friends, outside of what it means to a race of people and to everybody,” he said. “It’s not easy. It’s awful to say these things, but you’re in the service of something much greater than yourself and you’re telling a piece of history that is the biggest blight on our history as a country, and it needs to be retold.” Django Unchained hits theaters this Christmas . Read more from Comic-Con 2012 here. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Nick Stoller took a moment while promoting his Five-Year Engagement to fuel speculation about the forthcoming (and Jason Segel -less) Muppets sequel, which he says Disney rather unrealistically wanted to release next summer. “It is a comedy caper,” he spilled to Collider . This sounds familiar — next stop Manhattan, Treasure Island and then, perhaps… space? “I think it’s similar to the first one in that the first one certainly had dramatic connections to the first Muppet movie, but it was a whole new thing, hopefully,” Stoller told Collider. “This is the same thing. We love The Great Muppet Caper and we love Muppets Take Manhattan and whatnot. So this has some elements of that, but it’s different because it’s in the tone of what James and I like to do.” Grain of salt: Stoller and co-writer/ Muppets director James Bobin are only 13 pages into their Muppets sequel, so, you know. If they don’t even know yet if there’s room for a Segel cameo, it’s hard to say now how the final product will turn out. That said, the Muppets sure knew how to throw a fun caper and the idea of the rebooted Muppets franchise following in the footsteps of the classic Muppets films falls in step with the spirit of reinvention and homage that made 2011’s a hit . [ Collider ]
This is probably the best unauthorized viral marketing that The Dark Knight Rises could ever hope for: Authorities in Arlington, Texas, yesterday fulfilled a 7-year-old leukemia patient’s wish to be Batman for a day. Yes, there’s video, and yes, it’s awesome. No, it wasn’t shot in IMAX , and the press on the scene do wander in and out of frame. Production values schmoduction values But as charitable public services -meet-large-scale cultural tributes go, it’s pretty adorable. Little Batman and Robin! Also: The Joker is kinda good, no? Anyway, at least stay around for the unmasking. Sniff . [via Gawker ]
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 ]
Jesus Take The Wheel! Slavery is still going on and its most innocent victims aren’t even born yet! Authorities in Nigeria revealed their recent bust of a “baby factory” located in the southern city of Aba, where the owner of a clinic known as The Cross Foundation was harboring pregnant girls with plans to sell their newborns into the country’s human trafficking and sex trade markets. According to Agence France-Presse, some of the girls (who ranged in age from 15 to 17-years-old) told police that the clinic’s owner Dr. Hyacinth Orikara forced them to sell their infants to him for less than $200 depending on the sex of the baby. The women were taken to the regional headquarters of an anti-trafficking organization. “We rescued 32 pregnant girls and arrested the proprietor who is undergoing interrogation over allegations that he normally sells the babies to people who may use them for rituals or other purposes,” police commissioner Bala Hassan said. Rituals??? These motherfu*kers are truly DERANGED!!! As wild as this may sound to us, baby factories/baby farms are reportedly common in western Africa, and according to UN numbers, human trafficking is the third most common crime in Nigeria after fraud and drug trafficking. In cases such as this, baby farms sell the newborns to the highest bidder and the children are used for work in factories and mines or as sex slaves. Dr. Orikara has denied the charges, telling Nigeria’s Daily Champion newspaper that the clinic simply cared for teenagers with unwanted pregnancies. Police say he could face up to 14 years in prison for selling babies. WHAT THEE F*CK!!! We live in a sick world people. Source
Here we have South Carolina Senate president pro-tempore Glenn McConnell dressed up in a Confederate general’s costume, alongside two African-Americans in “historical” garb. Oh man. What kind of slave party were they throwing down in Charleston, recently? More
Two Russian girls paid $3000 to come to America for work. They were told to report to a shady New York nightclub to become ‘hostesses’. A concerned friend posted about it on Metafilter. They were apparently saved. More
Starting this Monday, March 29, an eight day commemoration of the Jewish Exodus from the country of Egypt will be held, as called the Passover 2010 . During this Passover 2010 first seder , no leavened bread needs be consumed and meals which contains Matzo, meat and herbs as well as Harsoret, eggs, greens and such are prevented from eating. A lot of people are searching for Passover Recipes as the Passover 2010 or the eighth day of Jewish commemoration from escaping the slavery in Egypt from the Hebrews ends on the first month of the year in the Jewish calendar. Passover 2010 starts Monday, March 29 and thus ending on April 6 after eight days of Passover 2010 . Passover 2010 – Passover Story First Seder is a post from: Daily World Buzz Continue reading →
This article contains an open letter to Sean Penn when Maria Conchita Alonso made a post about her response in the form of an open letter to Sean Penn regarding the Sean Penn’s defense to the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. This open letter to Sean Penn is currently a top buzz in the internet world and gives a lot of insight to those who will be reading it. So if you want to find out more about the open letter to sean penn is all about, then click the link below for the open letter to Sean Penn . Open Letter to Sean Penn Open Letter to Sean Penn Surfaces the Internet is a post from: Daily World Buzz Continue reading →
