Tarantino Unchained

Django Unchained is a piece of shit movie. I knew it would be but I was curious how bad Tarantino's movies are lately. Even with a talented cast (a shameful 7 Oscar nominees) this movie sucked ass. The worst thing I could say about it is that it's a story that does not need to be told. Fundamentally, it's a Tarantino/Weinstein suck-fest/vanity project.

I'll wager good money the principals were stoned out of their minds throughout the entire writing and production process because no sober person would think the majority of that script was interesting. Really, ten minutes of conversation in a hideout? Ten minute Flashbacks to something that happened merely 3 minutes earlier....in a scene that lasts 13 minutes? Is there an easier target than proto-KKK lynchers? Most of us used Junior High School to make our comic books about gratuitous violence but Tarantino waited for his 50s (and $100 million from Weinstein and Colombia). Painfully forced and irrelevant German and French dialogue? Exploding heads? This charmless movie really needed a dose of Will Smith humor (who wisely turned down the title role).

Tarantino's main attraction is his love of Sergio Leone...and he's been milking this fetish for 20 years. He enthusiastically loves good moves and can convince every stoned production chief that he can make a movie that demonstrates how enthusiastically he loves good movies. I can hear him saying, "Yes, it will be a derivative piece of shit, but I'll be stealing from the best." The emperor wears no clothes but as long as everyone in Hollywood is also naked then they can have a fuck-fest orgy of repulsive cinema all night long.

His movies do try to steal from the best, but fail. Tarantino gets in his own way and instead of an homage to a good movie we get another piece of shit that is basically all the parts that were edited out of the good movie. I was a little shocked to learn the retreat of three actors from minor roles actually made this tired film shorter when their roles were eliminated. Really? Tarantino originally imagined a longer piece of shit? What a boorish hand-job of a film, lacking coherence, accuracy, humanity, point, and restraint. I hated this trashy expose of Tarantino's ego and took no pleasure watching Tarantino's cliche cameo appearance blow up in an irrelevant and dragged out scene that was awful, awful, awful. I almost wished I were watching Kill Bill Part Fifty Million.

 I love Sergio Leone films also but that does not mean I should be making Leone tributes in the style of Leone. Tarantino has the Weinstein Company wrapped around his water bong so he does as he pleases. I really pray Daniel Day Lewis does not sell out one day and take the ridiculous money Tarantino must be offering to him for a role. Nothing is worth being directed by a stoned talentless hack. I forgive Ennio Morricone* for his soundtrack because Senor Morricone is a genius and his score stands apart from this hateful movie. In fact, his music is the closest Tarantino will ever get to Leone, by which I mean Morricone is still awesome and Tarantino has no talent but has the money to buy Morricone's time.

*After working on this film, composer Ennio Morricone said he would probably never again collaborate with Quentin Tarantino since he didn't like the way the writer/director "places music in his films without coherence" and "never giving enough time". Morricone and Tarantino had also worked together on three previous movies.