Django Unchained (2013)

Only Quentin Tarantino could do a movie that was about slavery (at least as a backdrop to the story in the movie) that was at once brilliantly scripted and a spaghetti Western.  It is very challenging for me to describe his film style, but I know it when I see it, and it just keeps getting better.  I loved 'Inglourious Basterds', despite thinking that I surely would not, and I loved this movie even more (again, not having learned from 'Inglourious Basterds', I though this one would be out of my wheel house, but it most certainly was not).

So you should definitely see this one.  I watched it one early evening, and that was a mistake.  It is quite lengthy (2 hours and 45 minutes, with the last 45 minutes being almost non-stop action), but I thought starting at 6:00 pm would combat that, but no, it is really quite a revved up movie, and I felt like I had just downed 2 espressos in rapid succession once the credits were finally rolling.  Admittedly, I am someone who is completely emotionally available for movies.  If you are supposed to cry, I cry.  If you are supposed to be scared, I am scared.  I have no ability to filter when it comes to films. 

I am not going to run through the plot of this movie--which almost seems extraneous to its melllfluous dialogue.  The writing is brilliant, really impressive, and in the hands of Christoph Waltz it is brilliantly and deftly delivered.  He is the Jack in the Box, the man who pops out of nowhere with all knowledge that sets the film in motion, and who equally unexpectedly exits it, leaving Jamie Foxx to finish his job alone.  But Waltz is the stunner in this movie, the man who leaves you slack jawed, open mouthed that he could be so silver tongued.  The script and the actor both won Oscars for this film and they are wildly well deserved.  Brace yourself for the signature Tarantino blood splattering--it is excessive, even by his standards, but the film is so well crafted that even though the blood is improbably and the movie goes on forever, you won't be dissuaded to stay with it until the very end and leave hyped up but satisfied at the end.