Django Unchained

It should go without saying that adding Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained  to this year's extensive list of Oscar candidates is already a given.  Viewing this brilliant over-the-top epic was indeed a treat that only Tarantino could dish out, as he already proved with in Inglorious Bastards by taking difficult historical subject matter as a backdrop to tell a story.  This time around, that backdrop is slavery in America, injected with enough cinematic steroids and humor through Tarantino's updated use of the blacksploitation and spaghetti western genres.  The story and title is a nod to the Django of 1966 and a simple classic one of a man trying to find and save the love of his life of which  Tarantino is a master of giving these simple stories so much zest.  Recently freed slave Django (Jamie Foxx) teams up with bounty hunter Schultz (Christoph Waltz) to find and free his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), a slave of plantation owner Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). First off, an A+ cast are hitting on all cylinders here, as every performance is pretty damn brilliant, including that of the supporting cast in Samuel L. Jackson, Don Johnson, and Walter Goggins.  The most unexpected and surprising role would go to Sam Jackson playing Stephen, the slave butler of Candie.  Yes, cool, tough, black baddass Sam plays the biggest "Uncle Tom/Ruckus" you have ever seen, as his character's name would imply (think Stepin Fetchit).  Likewise, Don Johnson as plantation owner and KKK leader Big Daddy turns in also one of the most memorable and funniest performances.  At a running time of 2 hours and 45 minutes, there's a lot to take in and it's delivered like a five course meal.  The obvious brutal violence and racism of the time and of the characters is dealt with in your face, unfiltered, and often with perhaps an uncomfortable but undeniable humor.  A considerable amount of the dialogue throughout uses the word "nigger" and Quentin makes no apologies about writing as such, against the protest of folks like Spike Lee no less. Now this is where there is a real brilliance to Django Unchained.  A movie like this has something for all audiences, in confronting a historical and social issue still relevant that America hasn't dealt with directly often enough.  It does so unapologetically with style and vigor and entertainment, whether or not audiences are comfortable with the subject matter or are diluted into thinking that the existence of a Black President puts everything right with slavery/racism.  Without being preachy in meaning, it does what many of the best films do in starting a conversation within ourselves and with each other to look at our ideas, attitudes, and behavior.  One such obvious question would be why haven't there been more films made that dealt with the stories during the ugliest part of our American history.  Tarantino successfully manages to use the stylistic thread of blacksploitation cinema without really exploiting anyone, because the story is kept moving and focused on throughout.  How brilliantly and comically ironic is it that Django is freed, helped, and befriended by the only liberal White man in the story, a German bounty hunter?  So Django Unchained is off the chain in more than just the obvious ways.  Indeed the chains of our past still enslave this country, so the title and film itself serve as a very appropriate metaphor to unraveling that which binds us