Yes, No, Maybe So: "Django Unchained"

If Quentin Tarantino can make us wait an average of 2 years and ten months between each movie (I'm counting Kill Bill as one and assuming Django Unchained will arrive on schedule. But will it?) than you can all forgive me for not jumping on every piece of Tarantino news-- even the excitement of a trailer -- the minute it arrives. 

What's your name?"

His name is Django. The D is silent. Let's stay silent no more about the trailer ... or the teaser the teasler... the traiser? Aren't teasers support to be 1 minute long? We'll break this traiser into three pieces as we do.

YES

• Things that are off the chain: the shot of the blood sprayed cotton, the self-aware zoom-in on Leonardo DiCaprio casts gleefully against type, Django throwing off his coat, the shot reverse shot of Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington in the water (dream sequence?). More after the jump...

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Yes, No, Maybe So: The Great Gatsby

Jose here. The summer not only brings us cheesy special effects movies and superhero blockbusters, it also announces the start of something else in movie theaters: the arrival of Oscar season trailers! Yesterday we got our first glimpse at Baz Luhrmann's take on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby which, no surprise, showed us Baz at his Baziest.

Those of you who were expecting him to show some restraint will be highly disappointed (although didn't you learn your lesson with Australia?) while the rest will rejoice in the way he flahses his unique visual style. Anyway, before you pick a team, let's do our usual Yes, No, Maybe So...

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Three Notes On Two "Django" Photos

As you may have heard-seen, two official images from Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained have hit the net. Let's discuss both.

We'll start with Leonardo DiCaprio as the villain Calvin Candie

• Between this and the Great Gatsby, Leo may well just accidentally stretch himself this year leaving the Dead Wives Club (Rev Rd, Shutter Island, Inception) behind. Although in the case of his evil slave owner, perhaps there will be still be ghosts of women whose deaths he is responsible for. I'm speaking metaphorically so if you've read the screenplay don't be all "there are no ghosts in this movie I've read the screenplay!" reaction. Please and thx.
• Calvin Candie. What a character name, huh?
• Why is he holding a hammer: Amateur carpentry? I expect its for sadistic reasons because when it comes to hammers and the movies they're never used for good. I think the last time I saw a benevolent hammer in a movie was Witness (1985)... anyone remember that awesome church/barn building scene? When I think of hammers in movies I invariably think of Annie Wilkes Oscar-Winning Hobbling Instructions (1990) or that sick sick sick and infamous sequence in Oldboy (2003)

And here are Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx as Dr King Schultz and the titular Django

• No offense to Mr. Foxx but I still wish it'd been Will Smith because I always like to see what Tarantino can pull from certain actors. You know the kind. We think we've already seen too much to be surprised only to be very surprised. With Tarantino I like to see what he gets from megastars or from people who've never got the challenging role they deserve and Jamie Foxx is in neither camp of actor.
• I hope this movie is as crammed withmemorable characters as Tarantino's others so you can end up loving the movie without necessarily having any of the three leads as your favorite performance. Cups overflowing is how we like it.
• Despite the instantly recognizable stylings of Reservoir Dogs, the instantly iconic riffs and theatrical splendors of Kill Bill, and the impeccable glorious  Inglourious fashions, no Tarantino movie has ever been nominated for Best Costume Design. Ain't that a bitch? (Sharen Davis, who costumed The Help and Dreamgirls, does the honors this time in her first collaboration with QT)

Add your own notes. What 3 things do these first 2 photos say to you?

"Titanic" Times Three. And Forever.

I had grand plans for the Titanic centennial, plans filled with a supersize hubris not unlike the power players at the White Star Lines albeit without the deadly consequences. It would be the biggest boldest blog post ever and would compare every last detail of all film versions of Titanic from costuming to art direction to special effects to young loves lost in the icy waters.  Film Experience readers would feel as if they'd won the lottery for a first class ticket, no slumming in steerage required! But before I drive this analogy into an uncomfortably tone deaf iceberg moment -- like the one James Cameron collided with when he mixed "King of the World" bragging with that moment of silence for a 1517 souls lost on the tragic night -- I will stop and just get on with it. Picture time!

Titanic (1943), Titanic (1953), and Titanic (1997)

Here is a brief visual history of the Titanic sinking via the greatest of all art forms, The Movies. All images are culled from films named Titanic directed by Germany's Herbert Selpin, the Romanian Hollywood success Jean Negulesco, and Canada's box office colossus James Cameron in 1943, 1953 and 1997. These are hardly the only films about the infamous oceanic disaster even if you exclude the filmed narratives where the disaster is only a minor plot point in everything from one of the earliest best picture winners Cavalcade (1933) to today's popular British series Downton Abbey (2010-)

The three Titanics begin very differently... before settling in as narrative siblings.

The German film begins with a board meaning at White Star Line staging the event as a cautionary tale about big business. The 1953 picture begins with an eery human-free depiction of the forming of an iceberg that Malick might love (though it instantly flips back to a stuffy 50s drama). The 1997 blockbuster begins with a contemporary dive with an explorer (Bill Paxton) and an old survivor Rose (Gloria Stuart) about to reminisce... cue three hour flashback!!!

After that they're much more similar. We get...

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Someday My Link Will Come...

The Playlist P.T. Anderson's The Master is coming on October 12th. Five long years for a new PT.
Gawker Rich Juzwiak on the reign of PG-13 "safe, sanitized, and worth shitloads of money"
Cinema Blend "the envy of lady bookworms everywhere"... Mia Wasikowska moves from Jane Eyre to Madame Bovary.
Empire has an hour long interview w/  General Zod himself Terence Stamp.
La Daily Musto "Newsies is the new Annie" love that headline for this review of the film turned stage musical.

Movie|Line apparently Leonardo DiCaprio was just too busy to attend the Titanic 3D premiere. James, Kate and Billy made the time.
WOW Dakota Fanning in Wonderland magazine. She's looking a bit Carol Kane, yes?
Thought Killer an imagined conversation between four girl icons: Buffy, Bella, Hermione and Katniss from Hunger Games
The Capitol Interesting piece on Jennifer Lawrence and the career she might have if she plays her hand well.

Her presence is palpably earthy and unfussy, reminiscent of Ingrid Bergman, another natural beauty who seemed uninterested in playing up her looks.

Flavorwire on the music used in Hunger Games (strangely much of the score is not on the soundtrack album 
Zephyr A must for horror fans: what horror icons from the past might look like today. 
Old Hollywood awesome storyboards from Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver.

Finally...
NPR Snow White is having a moment. Why now?

... and I suppose this as as good a time as any to announced that I'm taking Jorge's suggestion. We'll do Snow White and the Seven Dwarves for the April 11th Hit Me With Your Best Shot.  If you join in your prince will come. Someday. Promise.