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ENTERTAINMENT
Saturday, Dec. 29, 2012
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Western features a lot of love TARANTINO’S NEW MOVIE PAYS HOMAGE TO THE WORKS OF OTHER GREAT FILMMAKERS Django Unchained Three stars (out of four) Rated: 18A Listen carefully to Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and you might hear the sound of not one but two sets of lovebirds cooing. This may be difficult to discern amidst all the bullets, blood, rough language and racist inhumanity (including torture). PETER But the romances are there, HOWELL and they’re keys to understating the thinking behind a film that might otherwise be dismissed as another work of violent style by a man who is no stranger to overkill. The first love story is the film’s main narrative driver. Jamie Foxx is the title Django, a suddenly freed slave in pre-Civil War southern America (historians call it the Antebellum South) who aims to get back his beloved wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) — and also to get some payback. Broomhilda has been taken from Django and forced into sexual bondage by Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), the childlike owner of a vast Mississippi plantation called Candyland. Enslaved blacks do Candie’s bidding and also that of his devoted house slave Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson). Django’s rescue/vengeance quest teams him with German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), who shoots people mainly for money but also does pro bono civil rights advocacy out of some quaint European notion of conscience. Now for the second love story, which is the reason for the first. Django Unchained is Tarantino’s valentine to the spaghetti western genre, specifically the blood-splattered grindhouse movies of his 1960s-to-1970s youth made by Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci. He goes so far as to take his title from Corbucci’s 1966 movie Django, and to use that film’s star Franco Nero for an amusing barroom cameo in Django Unchained. Besides paying homage to two Sergios, Tarantino also tips his Stetson to three bloody Sams — Fuller, Raimi and Peckinpah — who also share his filmmaking sensibility that all blood should come by the bucketful. To that end, he employs Peckinpah’s infamous exploding “squibs” (condoms filled with blood and meat) to maximize the visual splatter. Tarantino also salutes a Monty, as in Python, in such scenes of lunacy as when Django and Schultz encounter a gang of Ku Klux Klan vigilantes who not only can’t shoot straight, they can’t see straight. Their hood eyeholes were badly sewn by a KKK member’s wife, you see — or rather, you don’t see. Jonah Hill makes a stunt cameo appearance for this scene, but Eric Idle and John Cleese might have been better picks. Tarantino is clearly having a grand ol’ time with Django Unchained, and so are his actors, every one of whom are more than willing to share in the writer/ director’s filmic vision, no matter how ghastly it may be. The picture is also a grand long time. It indulgently runs to just 15 minutes shy of three hours, and since it lacks the looping structure of Tarantino’s masterwork Pulp Fiction, you feel the flab.
MOVIES
Photo by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Christoph Waltz, as Schultz, and Jamie Foxx, as Django, start in Django Unchained, directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film centres on a slave trying to rescue his wife from a Mississippi plantation. It’s a full hour before Django and Schultz even reach Candyland and meet Calvin Candie. Prior to that, they’re busy turning the Deep South into the Wild West, which includes a visit to a Tennessee plantation run by a slave trader named Big Daddy (Don Johnson). This interlude seems more like an excuse to revive the career of Johnson, whom Tarantino was a fan of long before Johnson’s ’80s stardom in TV’s Miami Vice. Tarantino long ago decided he was just going to do what he wants to do in his films, and that includes using 21st-century profanity in a 19th-century setting (though he swears he’s historically accurate) and employing an eclectic (and effective) soundtrack that ranges from Jim Croce to Richie Havens to James Brown and 2Pac. Yet Django Unchained is most certainly not a sendup of spaghetti westerns. Tarantino is making the type of film he has long adored, and working with ac-
tors familiar and new whom he wants to work with. Nor is it just violence for the sake of violence, something everyone is sadly attuned to in the wake of recent tragedy in gun-obsessed America. Tarantino is unstinting in his depiction of how slavery and racism worked on a daily basis in the Antebellum South. This included using men for blood sport (torn apart by dogs and in brutal Mandingo wrestling) and using women for vile sexual gratification. These things are part of Django Unchained, in between the chuckles and carnage, because that’s how things were in 19th-century America, Tarantino asserts. He wants us to think about this, to really think. You can’t say that about every Quentin Tarantino movie. Peter Howell is a syndicated Toronto Star movie critic.
Avalanche of new fare coming in January TELEVISION’S SECOND SEASON WILL FEATURE A LOT OF NEW STUFF IN THE NEW YEAR FOR VIEWERS BY BILL BRIOUX THE CANADIAN PRESS Canadians can look forward to toasting the New Year with some familiar friends. After that, an avalanche of new fare kicks off TV’s second season in January. CBC repeats the 22 Minutes holiday special on Monday, New Year’s Eve, worth a second look if just for that animated parody of the classic National Film Board of Canada short The Sweater. In the original version, based on the Roch Carrier short story, a young Quebec lad dreams of a new Canadiens hockey jersey. In the new, a child of the lockout era receives the modern equivalent — a Gary Bettman business suit. Taped in Toronto earlier this month, the 20th annual Air Farce New Year’s Eve special (CBC) features a real hockey hero — Team Canada goal scorer Paul Henderson — plus guest stars George Stroumboulopoulos, Yannick Bisson (Murdoch Mysteries) and Olympic trampoline champion Rosie MacLennan. A slimmed-down Craig Lauzon goes Gangnam Style as Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a Farce Films sketch. Plus there are the annual F-Bomb targets, with Toronto’s in-and-out mayor Rob Ford sure to be in range. Later, Cape Breton native Ron James returns with another New Year’s Eve dose of stand up and satire. His Friday night CBC series returns for a fourth season Jan. 7 at 8:30 p.m. James’ series is one of several re-
turning to the CBC lineup in January. Dragons’ Den and Republic of Doyle are moving to Sundays (starting Jan. 6) as CBC positions its highest-rated reality show and drama into TV’s mostwatched night. They’ll face stiff competition, especially in January and February as CTV rolls out the red carpets for The 70th Annual Golden Globes (Jan. 13), Super Bowl XLVII (Feb. 3) and The 85th Academy Awards (Feb. 24). The Amazing Race will also be back Feb. 17. Also opposite Doyle that first night Jan. 6 — the third season premiere of PBS’s Masterpiece hit Downton Abbey. January also brings one of the mostwatched shows of the year in Canada, the final game of the world junior hockey championship. TSN has it Saturday, Jan. 5 at 8 p.m. If Canadian network programmers made any New Year’s resolutions, it may have been to provide more original scripted Canadian content. CBC premieres the new psychological police drama Cracked Jan. 8 at 9 p.m. David Sutcliffe (Gilmore Girls) stars as a cop coping with post-traumatic stress disorder. The Halifax-based comedy Mr. D also returns to the CBC schedule Jan. 7, with comedian Gerry Dee back as the teacher you hope your kids never get. Murdoch Mysteries premieres its brand new sixth season on CBC the same night. Arctic Air also takes off for a second CBC season (Jan. 9). Jan. 2 is the start date for one of the most expensive dramas ever shot in
SHOWBIZ
BRIEFS
NBC takes ratings crown NEW YORK — Powered by football and The Voice, NBC took the ratings crown last week. But the Nielsen Co. said Thursday that even football couldn’t tackle CBS’ crime drama NCIS. It edged
Canada: Transporter. The HBO Canada thriller stars Chris Vance (Prison Break) as a driver-for-hire who can deliver any package. Shot in Toronto and Europe, the series promises plenty of action with stunt drivers flown in from France for the tricky road work. HBO Canada also picks up the crime drama Banshee starting Jan. 11. FX has two new scripted shows starting in January, the comedy Legit (Jan. 17) and Graham Yost’s new Cold War drama The Americans, starring Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell (Jan. 30). Citytv is premiering a pair of homegrown comedies in 2013: Seed stars Toronto native Adam Korson as a bartender and regular sperm-bank donor who suddenly starts meeting his extended family. The Halifax-based comedy premieres Mon., Jan. 28 on City. Package Deal, shot in Vancouver (and premiering later in the year), is a Canadian rarity — a four camera comedy shot with a studio audience. Harland Williams is among three zany brothers who come as a “package deal.” CTV launches the new hour-long police drama Motive Feb. 3 in the coveted post-Super Bowl slot. Kristin Lehman (The Killing) and Louis Ferreira (SGU Stargate Universe) star in this Vancouver-based “how-dunnit.” Bomb Girls is back for a second season on Global starting Jan. 2. Look for Rosie O’Donnell to guest as a reporter. Global also picks up the frothy drama Deception Jan. 7, with Meagan Good and Tate Donovan joining Victor Garber in the Revenge-like tale from NBC.
out the Seahawks-49ers game to become the week’s most-watched show. In third place was NCIS: Los Angeles, followed by the season finale of The Voice. NBC averaged eight million viewers in prime time for the week. CBS had 7.5 million viewers, with Fox, ABC and the CW following behind. NBC’s Nightly News topped the evening newscasts.
Winslet weds for third time NEW YORK — Kate Winslet has tied the knot again. The Oscar-winning actress wed Ned Rocknroll in
Later on Feb. 14, Global has NBC’s Zero Hour, a new thriller that brings Anthony Edwards (ER) back to series TV as a myth-busting magazine editor. Among the other big imports scheduled for the New Year is The Following, launching Jan. 21 on Fox and CTV. Kevin Bacon stars as an ex-FBI agent back on the trail of a serial killer in this dark, edgy crime drama seen as one of the best new shows of the season. Touch, Kiefer Sutherland’s new thriller, returns for a delayed second season Feb. 8 to Fox and Global. Lost Girl gets found again on Showcase starting Jan. 6. HBO Canada brings a second helping of Enlightened starting Jan. 13. Other returning network shows include Betty White’s Off Their Rockers (Jan. 8) and Smash (Feb. 5). The long-awaited return of NBC’s cult comedy Community bows Feb. 7. Shows coming back for final runs are Fringe (starting Jan. 11 on Fox and City) and the Winnipeg-based comedy Less Than Kind (HBO Canada). A late night favourite, Jimmy Kimmel Live, gets bumped ahead to a new time, 11:35, starting Jan. 7 on ABC. (City will continue to show it at midnight). And the highest-rated TV series of the past decade, American Idol, launches its 12th season Jan. 16 with new judges Mariah Carey, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban joining old dawg Randy Jackson. Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont., who writes for the Canadian Press.
New York earlier this month. The private ceremony was attended by Winslet’s two children as well as a few friends and family members, her representative said Thursday. It is the third marriage for the 37-year-old Winslet. She was previously married to film directors Jim Threapleton and Sam Mendes. The 34-year-old Rocknroll, who was born Abel Smith, is a nephew of billionaire Virgin Group founder Richard Branson. The couple had been engaged since last summer. Winslet won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance in the 2008 film The Reader.