"Django Unchained" Theatrical Trailer

Quentin Tarantino has been in a rather mixed area over these past couple years, though to call it self-indulgent would be a misstep. True, "Death Proof" reeks of a half-hearted effort, and it was evidently built to be so. "Kill Bill, Vol. 2", however, just seemed like a step in a rather unadventurous direction. With "Inglourious Basterds", Quentin was doing something different, trying to drill into a rather deeply significant subject, though his own style somewhat throws him off from being something greater. With "Django Unchained", Q.T. seems to be getting back to his good-timer roots of throwing something rambunctious and lively to the screen.

OSCAR 2012: Weinstein spreads options wide

I don't really know if it's at all wise to predict nominations so hastily ahead of the game. I usually refrain from doing it even when we get far enough into the game, but I want to be hands on the coverage of this year's awards season. For once, I don't want to miss a beat, like I felt no issue in doing last year. It was a very dull season, and this year promises to change up the formula to some degree. I'll admit that I'm quite pleased with that, since Oscar has been kinder in the past to some of the more challenging directors debuting flicks this year. Take Paul Thomas Anderson for example, who made a film called "There Will Be Blood" a few years back that seemed utterly too dark for the Academy, but it made the cut anyway on sheer ingenuity.

Anderson is back this year with "The Master", a project five years in the making that reaches us this fall. I must admit a high degree of excitement, mostly surrounding the project's mystery. For so long we didn't even really believe it was called "The Master". It was just Paul Thomas Anderson's 1940s religion project, but even that arouses all kinds of fun debate. It's one of plenty major films the Weinstein Company is opening towards the close of the year, also including Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained". Tarantino has been off for quite some time, not in terms of making films, but making great films. Since "Kill Bill Vol. 1", the guy's skewed a little over-indulgently.

Quentin Tarantino's Next is "Django Unchained"

I'm an earnest fan of many of Quentin Tarantino's films, most vitally Kill Bill Vol. 1, for bold ingenuity and spectacular technique, and more sublimely Inglourious Basterds, a rollicking good time that maintains excitement not through gore but suspense. I'm totally game for him taking on the western genre with full intent, rather than the remnants of spaghetti westerns that dangle between most of his films anyway. We've been hearing about this film for a long time now, and now we're getting some solid details on the film. For one thing, the title of the feature is Django Unchained, and it tackles what very few Americans have the balls to go all out on: slavery.

You can expect there to be a revenge scheme in here, and the chapter by chapter structure is also a solid bet. There are rumors that Christoph Waltz is going to reunite with Tarantino to play a German bounty hunter who guides the main character in his quest. I do approach this news with apprehension, because I know how distrustful such early news can be. In any case, it all rings a bit familiar, but Tarantino always finds ways of telling a similar story in different ways. It almost always rings as appropriate. The only fears that I can find in this particular case have solely to do with protectors of the western genre. I believe that it's taken a while to revive this all important genre in American cinema, but I also don't believe that Tarantino is making a traditional western. In actuality, it feels like he is making an alternative western. It doesn't make me nervous, because the man knows what he's doing. He knows how to make a good popcorn flick, which always plays well with me.