Before there was Django Unchained, there was Django, and the star of that 1966 spaghetti western, Franco Nero, can be found in the 1970 surreal comedy Compañeros, which also inspired Quentin Tarantino's upcoming anti-slavery opus.
The Film: Compañeros (1970)
Why It's an Inessential Essential: With Django Unchained on the way, it's a good time to revisit the films that inspired Quentin Tarantino's upcoming pastiche. The winningly surreal action comedy Compañeros is the third installment of a trilogy that spaghetti-western director Sergio Corbucci's shot with Franco Nero, the star of the original Django (1966) and the mysterious man who makes a prominent cameo at the end of the Django Unchained trailer. Like most spaghetti westerns, Compañeros is a mish-mosh of narrative tropes that takes the kind of mercenary outsider made popular in the genre by A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and Django and places him in the political, revolutionary-centric context of "Zapata westerns" like Tepepa (1969) and Duck, You Sucker! (1971). more »
Also in Friday morning's round-up of news briefs, the San Sebastian Film Festival unveils its roster of Spanish-language films for its September event. Sex and Sunsets production rounds out its cast; and a look at the coming weekend's new specialty releases including Killer Joe, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, Ruby Sparks and more.
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Re-writing the fate of Hitler’s Nazi Germany was just the start for Quentin Tarantino, whose American South-set spaghetti western Django Unchained, his follow-up to the Oscar-winning Inglorious Basterds, tackles another ugly moment in world history: Institutionalized slavery. But are audiences ready to process the tough reminder of America’s regrettable past that lies not-so-deep beneath the surface of Tarantino’s revenge Western?
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Hip hop artist RZA can now add "film director" to his already impressive resume. The co-founder of the Wu-Tang Clan completed his first feature, the action pic The Man with the Iron Fists, in which he appears along with Jamie Chung, Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu, Dave Bautista and more. RZA says Comic-Con itself inspired him by "coming across great art and lots of life." He also gives his take on Quentin Tarantino (RZA scored Kill Bill) who inspired him to make movie set in feudal China. Written by Eli Roth and RZA, the story revolves around a blacksmith who makes weapons for a small village and finds himself having to defend himself and his fellow villagers. Beyond the Trailer host Grace Randolph chats with RZA at Comic-Con who gives insight on how the movie got made and what kind of director he wants to be.
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At long last — since Quentin Tarantino fans have been dying for a glimpse since the first peek at that hand-scrawled script suggested that yes, this was really happening — comes the first trailer for Django Unchained, Tarantino's December 2012 spaghetti western about a freed slave (Jamie Foxx) shooting his way across the South. Because nothing says Christmas like slavery and vengeance!
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The Weinstein Co. has unveiled a batch of new images from Quentin Tarantino Christmas Western Django Unchained, including shots of Jamie Foxx as the former slave-turned-bounty hunter Django, Christoph Waltz as his German comrade in arms Dr. King Schultz, and Leonardo DiCaprio as the evil plantation owner Calvin Candie. But it's the image of Foxx sidled up to a bar next to Franco Nero — the original Django — that gets bonus points for film nerdage.
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Long queues formed outside the Palais des Festivals this afternoon in Cannes as attendees mobbed the building waiting to pick up their credentials. Marilyn Monroe presided over the scene; the now familiar image of the legendary actress blowing out a candle is this year's official image/poster of the 65th Festival de Cannes, which kicks off tomorrow evening with the debut of Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom, the first of 12 nights of red carpet premieres.
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Posters are fine and all, but you can't really get too breathlessly caught up in a movie's hype until there are glimmering first images from the set. Especially when they feature one of the world's biggest stars in in all his 19th-century slave-baron resplendence wielding a hammer. And sucking nefariously on a smoke. Yes, Leonardo DiCaprio, come on in! I'll let you repair my morning.
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When Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained hits theaters in December, it'll bring audiences face to face with a flurry of new grindhouse/genre references and influences, as any Tarantino flick is wont to do. Among those citations is the Italian exploitation pic Goodbye Uncle Tom (AKA Addio Zio Tom/Farewell Uncle Tom), the notorious 1971 pseudo-doc about a film crew documenting the horrors of slavery in the American south, which Django Unchained cast member Samuel L. Jackson discussed recently during an interview for his superhero flick The Avengers (a movie that does not, by the way, pay homage to questionably exploitative slavery explorations.)
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I love the first teaser posters for Django Unchained — just vague enough to stir the imagination and just explicit enough to sing the film's epic, violent intentions in a way everyone can hear them. Very retro, very minimal, very... Quentin.
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Considering how unabashedly Quentin Tarantino wears his cinephilia on his sleeve, it's always fascinating to get a peek inside that movie geek brain of his to see what's swimming around. And thanks to The Quentin Tarantino Archives, the world now knows which 11 films of last year topped QT's best-of list, which just missed the cut, and which movies, interestingly enough, earned his "Nice Try" award.
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Looks like Jonah Hill won't be joining Christoph Waltz, Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kurt Russell, Kerry Washington, Anthony LaPaglia, RZA and Don Johnson in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, even though he was offered a part. Hill revealed why he had to turn down the role with thundering poetic regret: "I got offered the new Quentin Tarantino movie, and I can't do it because of my schedule... Doing Quentin's movie would have obviously been amazing, but my schedule didn't work out, which sucks." Djonah Unavailable, more like! [MTV via /Film]
This week's new feature Anonymous is alluring for two reasons: It explores the possibility that Shakespeare didn't write his masterworks, and it looks unintentionally hilarious. If I could dress up for Halloween as Vanessa Redgrave's line-reading of "None of your plays will ever carry your name," I would. In tribute to this dubious drama, let's explore what the Bard's plays would sound like if they were written or retooled by current auteurs. Ready for Why Did I Get Jealous Too?
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Samuel L. Jackson has contributed indelible performances to the oeuvre of Quentin Tarantino, most notably as the cool Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction, which nabbed him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod, and as the unhinged L.A. gun-runner Ordell Robbie ("O-R-D-E-L-L R-O-B-B-I-E") in Tarantino's follow-up, Jackie Brown, which garnered him a Golden Globes nomination. Jackson even lent his voice to 2009's Inglourious Basterds and will appear in the upcoming Django Unchained. But which film does the frequent Tarantino player consider the director's best, in which "the action plays out suddenly and completely for every character?"
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Grindhouse icon Pam Grier blazed a trail through the blaxploitation era, was dubbed "the baddest One-Chick Hit-Squad that ever hit town" (a title that remains uncontested four decades later, one might argue), and commanded the screen with a combination of ferocity, empathy, and a look so striking Roger Ebert once described her as an "actress of beautiful face and astonishing form." Years later, in 1997, Quentin Tarantino paid homage to the work and the woman in Jackie Brown, adapted from Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch, one of the filmmaker's best and most underrated films and the spark that jump-started a career revival for its stars.
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