What I did, with a cup of hot chocolate/tea and a meal of my choice (preferably takeout), is sit on the couch and watch my favorite winter movies.
Tonight, I've just come back from my first movie in 2013: Django Unchained.
You know of this movie. It's the one that was being criticized before it even hit the big screen. It's the one that's got a soundtrack involving a mashup of James Brown and Tupac. It's Jamie Foxx playing the slave given a chance to rescue his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) with the help of the bounty hunter who freed him (Christopher Waltz). The trail of blood they leave behind is so tangible you could taste it. When you watch it.
Now I've seen Inglourious. So I'll say what I know many were thinking; When I saw the trailer for this movie, I figured it was going to be the black version of that. It bothered me that there wasn't a planned coalition of freed slaves with a few undercover spies to take down the entire salve-holding corporation. But as I watched Django and Schultz roam the land, playing characters to gain access to the plantation and then skillfully picking out their targets with an ease second only to breathing, I could appreciate that this movie was meant to zero in on the vengeful triumphs of one man who deserved that chance more than anybody. As he had to tell the worst lies of his life, that would allow him to get close to the enemy, I saw, in painful detail, just how much of the violence he was used to. It magnified every murder and whipping of a slave, and sweetened the revenge exacted on the culprits, because it was only two guys causing rightful disruption in perfectly ordered inhumanity. Soon enough, everyone in the audience was laughing or clapping when a pack of slave owners thinking they could kill Django were taught how impossible that was.
This violence and pain was softened by the revenge AND the steadfast love story between Django and Broomhilda. Kerry Washington's depiction of the bucked and scorned house slave is captivating and riveting, considering that she barely says a word and doesn't truly materialize until over halfway through the movie. Oh, she appears before then: in flashbacks and momentarily in lakes and fields until Django blinks a second time. It is in those moments, those saddening and hopeful moments, that we see the fuel behind Django's fire. It begins to burn in us as an audience. When we finally see them reunite, not a dream or a flashback, that ache in your chest is relief mingled with awe at a bond so powerful it transcends all the ugliness surrounding the couple, even when it threatens to consume them. In other words, the scarcity of their interactions on screen magnifies their romance. Less was much, much more.
Additionally, Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson were phenomenal. DiCaprio plays Calvin Candie, Broomhilda's charismatic and repulsive slave owner. His performance reminds me vaguely of Waltz's performance in Inglorious as the comically horrific Hans Landa; you would laugh one moment and then cry out in disgust in the next breath. Samuel L Jackson, who played the despicable head servant Stephen, effortlessly pulls off his character's pitiful devotion to his Master, even helping him decode why Django and Schultz really came to his plantation. I started off nearly laughing at the two ("I can't take evil Leo and Samuel seriously!") and ended snarling at the scream ("you horrible sick loathsome..."). And this is what true acting is all about; making people forget your real name and falling for your fake one.
I think this is the longest review of a movie I've one yet, so you can see the effect it had on me was great. I strongly suggest that those with weak stomach do NOT see the movie until it comes out on DVD; then you can mute and walk away from the violent parts. For those who can handle it, be my guest and experience Django on a big screen. Either way, if a movie can make me write a review so effortlessly that I don't even realize who I've written until I've passed the third paragraph, then it can affect others in many different ways as well. So start off the year with a little Tarantino. :)
New movies are always fun, but usually for the first month of the new year, in my spare time, I tend to re-watch the classics of my childhood and the pleasures of my adulthood. Most of these movies, by the way, are romantic. Because winter, to me, is like Valentine's Day for three months.
Here are a few to name. Check them out yourself, and next time we speak again I'll be filling you in on what BOOKS you should check out. Happy New Year everybody.
1) Tootsie
2) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
3) Kate And Leopold
4) Love and Basketball
5) How The Grinch Stole Christmas
6) Brown Sugar
7) Stepmom
8) The Holiday
9) Love Jones
---CDM
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