Volume
27: Quentin Tarantino Shoots Slavery in the Face
Django Unchained
Dir: Quentin Tarantino – Planned release
date: December 25
“The
new film by Quentin Tarantino” is one of those phrases that is guaranteed to
pique my interest along with a million other film fans, though much of the buzz
around his new project Django Unchained
hasn’t exactly been positive thus far. They are deep into production, yet it
was just a few weeks ago that more reports came out about actors such as Kevin
Costner, Jonah Hill, Sacha Baron Cohen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt all dropping
out. Most were due to scheduling conflicts—Gordon-Levitt in particular made it
clear that it had nothing to do with any objections to the project—but the
amount of actors that have left is rather strange.
However,
much of the negativity evaporated when Tarantino showed a good amount of
footage at Cannes that was greeted with universal praise. Now the first trailer
is online, and we are reminded of all the actors that are still on board: Jamie
Foxx in the titular role, Christoph Waltz as a German bounty hunter, and
Leonardo DiCaprio as the joyously evil Calvin Candie. I’m not sure I’m entirely
on board with the tagline “Django is off the chain,” but everything else here
seems to be Tarantino at his Tarantino-iest. He also seems to be going further
down the historical revisionism road that gave us Inglourious Basterds, and this is nothing but good news in my mind,
as Basterds is one of my favorite
movies he’s done. (It was also my favorite film of that year.) There’s still
much to be revealed about Django Unchained,
but so far so good. Above all, I’m really excited to see DiCaprio play a
character that actually smiles most of the time. It feels like the last few
years he’s been doing a whole lot of pouting.
P.S.
– It should also be noticed that Django
Unchained will be released on Christmas, the same exact day that we’ll be
getting Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby.
It seems we’ve got ourselves a regular Leo vs. Leo showdown.
Flight
Dir: Robert Zemeckis – Planned release
date: November 2
Ever
since What Lies Beneath and Cast Away were released all the way back
in 2000, Robert Zemeckis has done nothing but frustrate film fans with his almost
obsessive devotion to motion capture animation. Somewhat tragically, this
endeavor fell through, but the bright side is that we’re finally going to see a
talented filmmaker return to the world of live-action. The first film of his
second coming is Flight, which tells the
Sully Sullenberger-type story of pilot Denzel Washington and his “heroic”
efforts landing a plane in an emergency. The problem? Some things come up after
the incident that causes the public to question whether or not he’s a real
hero. Throw in the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” and it’s obvious we’ve got
ourselves some real human drama to deal with here. I’m a little put off by the
focus the trailer puts on making the plane crash look amazing—we get it, you
have CGI—but it’s good to have Robert back in the land of the living.
Les Misérables
Dir: Tom Hooper – Planned release date:
December 14
After
winning an Oscar for The King’s Speech,
director Tom Hooper has taken the rather obvious but perhaps fitting next step
of helming a new version of the musical Les
Misérables. This trailer doesn’t do much outside of giving us a taste of
Anne Hathaway’s singing and a few appropriately rainy shots of France in the
1800s. It looks almost identical to what you’d expect from a Tom
Hooper-directed Les Misérables, but
that’s not necessarily a complaint. This preview both nails the mood and is
likely to win over die-hard fans of the musical while also intriguing the
unfamiliar. It’s nothing more than a brief peek at what is to come, but at
first glance this looks like a film that has all the ingredients to rule the
holiday box office. If that happens, then the Academy Awards probably aren’t
far behind.
Wreck-It Ralph
Dir: Rich Moore – Planned release date:
November 2
When
looking at the upcoming animated film Wreck-It
Ralph, many are quick to call it Disney’s attempt to replace the Toy Story franchise. (Never mind that
new Toy Story films have allegedly
been announced.) They even have been able to lure over several licensed video
game characters to replace the Barbies, Kens and Mr. Potato Heads of the world.
It also seems to tell a very Pixar-esque story of an arcade villain who is sick
of being the bad guy and wants to find a new, wholesome life for himself. Is it
calculated? Sure, but all the pieces seem to be in place for Wreck-It Ralph to be a huge hit come
November. It also looks like it’s going to be gorgeous in 3-D, as animated
films so often are.
The Babymakers
Dir: Jay Chandrasekhar – Planned release
date: August 3
When
Paul Schneider left Parks and Recreation
to pursue a film career, I was worried that he would soon discover that maybe
he wasn’t exactly the leading man type. This trailer for The Babymakers, which seems to be pseudo-Broken Lizard project,
doesn’t exactly remedy these fears. He’s a funny and amiable guy, but he doesn’t
seem to have the je ne sais quoi to
be a typical movie star. The Babymakers
looks like a comedy doomed to be taken over by its cast of goofy supporting
characters, and the central couple of Schneider and Olivia Munn is probably
going to suffer for it. I should also note that it just doesn’t look all that
funny, despite the fact the premise—a bunch of guys decide to rob a sperm bank—is
actually quite inspired. This just reeks of a film that’s going to get a
limited release but not a ton of attention, and I hope Schneider is able to
find more projects that are right for him. As for Munn, I think she’s got a
good career ahead of her. The jury is still out on how great of an actress she
is, but she certainly has the look and the aforementioned je ne sais quoi that I think her co-star lacks.
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