Django Unchained Is Going To Be Your New Favorite Thing Ever

By David Lowe-Bianco

To say that I’m a fan of Quentin Tarantino is an understatement to how many times I’ve listened to Stuck In The Middle With You while shaving. Frankly there are so few things in this world that I’m actually proficient at that I’m not opposed to writing “Tarantino Fandom” on a résume. And while I’ll be the first to admit that he’s not perfect (fuck Death Proof) his movies have consistently given me nerd-boners and geek-chills for all of my movie-watching life.

Or is it geek-boners and nerd-chills?

…I digress.

Assuming the rapture doesn’t put a hinder on things, Tarantino’s latest movie that your mom is going to think is dumb, Django Unchained, is scheduled for release Christmas 2012. So right off the bat I’m loving this movie purely from the ballsiness of this release date. Django Unchained releases in theaters the same month as Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and Zack Snyder’s Man Of Steel and just four days after Cthulhu rises from the underearth to reign supreme once more. Likewise, it hits theaters squarely on Jesus’ birthday (yay Jesus!) and the day before MY birthday (yay me!).

Now, admittedly, that last part is just a coincidence (or as my Mom puts it: “You ruined Christmas dinner.”) but the fact remains that the studio is obviously expecting big things of this movie, and for good reason. Django Unchained is the story of a newly freed slave who teams up with a German bounty hunter to rescue his still-enslaved wife from her master. Now if that description alone didn’t sell you, get out. Go to some other site. I suggest this one. Now for those of you still here, well, first of all, click that link. I’m way too proud of that joke. But for those of you that are STILL still here, you get to hear the juicy gossip that is the casting news!

Just this week, actor/singer Jamie Foxx was cast in the lead role as Django, beating out the likes of Idris Elba, Chris Tucker, and even Will Smith, who turned down the role because he’s a big dumb dummy. Or because of money. I don’t remember. And while this was fantastic news for me because of how much I loved Foxx’s performances in Ray and Collateral, a shocking amount of people have chosen only to remember Foxx from such Best Picture-nominees as 2006′s Miami Vice and this year’s Rio.

Pictured: Django

 
Now I’m not going to sit here and argue why I think Jamie Foxx is a good choice. You should know by now that I’m lazier than that. Plus I’m not good at arguing a point without cursing and I’m not sure yet where this site stands on that. Let’s put it this way: It could have been Chris Tuckerk.

Moving on.

Also making the cast list is Christoph Waltz as, surprise, the German bounty hunter. Waltz rose to prominence in 2009 after his Oscar-winning performance as Col. Hans Landa in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. It takes a special kind of actor to out-nazi Hitler in a movie but Waltz managed to do it without even breaking a sweat. And now, as if Tarantino wanted to help restore his image a bit, Waltz will portray the super not-racist Dr. King Schultz, a bounty hunter that frees Django at the beginning of the story… hence the title.

Rounding out the cast is Leonardo DiCaprio as slave-owner and main antagonist Calvin Candie, Samuel L. Jackson as Candie’s house slave Stephen, and Foxx’s Ray co-star Kerry Washington as Django’s damsel in distress, Broomhilda.
DiCaprio’s casting admittedly caught me a little by surprise. Not because of the villainous nature of his character, mind you. He was a total dick in Catch Me If You Can whether anyone is willing to admit it or not. It’s more so because as I was reading the long since leaked script I honestly thought the role was being written for somebody like Harvey Keitel or Robert Forster or really any of Tarantino’s stable of old white actors. The idea that the Hans Landa of this movie is going to be played by DiCaprio seems like a curious choice though he was initially offered that role in Inglorious Basterds so maybe Tarantino knows what he’s talking about. Though had he been cast like Tarantino wanted, we wouldn’t have Christoph Waltz… A conundrum indeed. And I guess while I’m making incorrect casting predictions — Uma Thurman would be great as Candie’s sister. BOOM!

You heard it here first.

And there you have it, everything I know about Django Unchained without straight up telling you what happens. Though if you’re really that interested, you can find the script on some shady Russian website like I did. I must warn you though: when I first heard of the script leak, I immediately scoured the Internet for it and, after a couple Trojan horses, finally found it and spent my afternoon delighting in its wonder. But what I didn’t know at the time was the personal hell I had just stepped into. Not a single person I know is willing to read the script before seeing the movie. As you’ve probably gathered from this article, I LOVE to talk about movies. All I wanted to do when I finished that script was talk about it but no one wanted to listen. It’s like that episode of the Twilight Zone.

The one with the pig faces.

…I like that one.

About Geek Life Editor

Raised in the Shire and bitten by a radioactive Time Lord, the Geek Life Editor has assembled a team of groovy people from all around the world to discuss and share their geek culture experiences. What sort of adventures will this friendly neighborhood geek and her amazing friends share? Only time will tell!

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