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Kerry Washington and I were both blindfolded if not gagged when we spoke about Django Unchained. Metaphorically, you'll understand. Neither of us had yet seen Quentin Tarantino's latest revisionist revenge flick when we found a window in her schedule to talk but talk we did.
Kerry Washington as "Broomhilda" in Django Unchained
Amusingly we had quite different feelings about not having yet seen it. I was desperate to attend a screening. Kerry was, apparently, not. When I asked her if she enjoyed watching her films she laughed with a "No!" and a shudder...
It's a process I force myself to endure. Usually not more than once.
For the rest of us the prospect of seeing one of the screen's most stunning actresses is a lot more enticing than 'something to endure'. Since Kerry's big screen roles have rarely been as sizeable as her talent, a key role from an A list auteur is something to treasure while we have it.
In Django Unchained, Kerry found herself in the unusual position of playing a relatively non-verbal part considering the dialogue heavy nature of Tarantino pictures. She plays Broomhilda von Shaft, the wife of freed slave Django (Jamie Foxx) who aims to rescue her from the sadistic plantation of Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) where she currently resides.
Our conversation about Django, her TV work, and the politics of her screen career is after the jump.
Auteuse Theory has co-written a book on Mamma Mia! of all things "Mamma Mia! The Movie: Exploring a Cultural Phenomenon" Gawker Audrey Plaza has a nude painting of herself on full display in her home The Wrap the best and worst performances by the same actor this year. Interesting concept but SO annoying to pretend Anne Hathaway is anything less than stupendous in Les Misérables Badass Digest Here's something unexpected. A piece on the vineyards of France and drinking in the time of Les Miz.
My New Plaid Pants obsession with Amanda Seyfried's 'magical slutty powers' is one of my favorite things on the internet, month in and month out. I know everyone was excited to read me interviewing my Nicole but I'd honestly pay good money to watch a sit down with JA & Amanda ME Says is disappointed with Jessica Chastain in The Heiress. This seems to be going around! That won't hurt but can't possibly help her Best Actress bid in Zero... Awards Daily Sasha crunches numbers on Best Director and predicts doom for Tom Hooper without the Globe nod. Which might well be the case. But the thing I don't quite get, from other pundits, is why everyone has such sudden enthusiasm for Quentin Tarantino's chances. Tarantino movies ALWAYS open with a flurry of people crying "masterpiece" but that's because critics and bloggers are big stans of Quentin (with good reason but I hope you here my point.) Is this "late surge" for Django Unchained real or just a product of Weinstein Co's goodwill with the Globes?
The Playlist The NRA is blaming the movies again for all these gun massacres. I'd LOL if it weren't so terrible. Way to hang on to your destructive agenda in the face of ever more damning proof that it's just that! They are seriously a hideous blight on America. Speaking of... Penny Arcade has a fine comic about this
Click on the image for more of the comic...
List-Mania Pop Matters I am embarrassed for all my film friends who love Cloud Atlas but I have to link to Matt Mazur's top ten anyway because otherwise it's interesting! Critic Wire asks film critics to share the best pieces of film criticism they've read this year. Lots of articles name-checked worth checking out AV Club best scenes of the year Pajiba has a great list of enjoyable supporting performances that won't win any awards... let alone Oscars Screen Crave on the most disappointing films of the year from Django Unchained to The Avengers Slate ten best of 2012 from How To Survive a Plague through Zero Dark Thirty
And here is Kevin B Lee's 12 Best of the Year Video Essay from Fandor. (I keep meaning to do more video work and never get around to it. Argh.)
Even most of my critic friends love Silver Linings Playbook. I just don't get the love! But at least it's not a hideous bloated blight on the good name of cinema like Cloud Atlas.
The Hollywood Reporter A former sitcom writer "kvells and kvetches" about The Guilt Trip and Parental Guidance starring Babs and Bette PopWatch Mark Harris on Hollywood's love of gun violence. I highly recommend reading this but I highly caution NOT reading the comments because as per usual the gun crazies come out. They'd have us all packing and I so don't want to live in their preferred world. Cinema Blend Katey & Eric on 12 Unfairly Overlooked Movies of 2012 from Hello I Must Be Going (Yay, Melanie!) through Cosmopolis
Awards Daily Whoa. Ann Dowd is footing the bill for her own Oscar campaign. The Hollywood Reporter talks to Emayatzy Corinealdi on her breakthrough in Middle of Nowhere. You know. I've been trying not to talk about this because I can't figure out a way to say it that doesn't sound indelicate but in some ways I really hate falling in love with new black actresses in the same way that falling hard for new theater actors can be nerve-wracking. Chances are (unforgivably) strong that no one will give these gifted performers another plum opportunity after their breakthrough and that truly sucks. So I'm crossing my fingers for Corinealdi but I'm still waiting for something real to happen for Pariah star Adepero Oduye, last year's breakthrough actress of color. And I'm still trying to wrap my head around the non-career of the brilliant Kimberly Elise so...
The Carpetbagger on screenwriter Lucy Alibar's (Beasts of the Southern Wild) crash course in cinema The Onion "Top Movies of 2012" David Poland gives himself a new nickname. Or adopts one given. Vanity Fair Barbra Streisand talks about her legendary duet with Judy Garland in the 60s. Really interesting comment from Babs I think. MNPP joins the Zero Dark Thirty fan club
Oooh, look Quentin Tarantino pays tribute to Pedro Almodóvar saying that his filmography is "the one to beat" -damn straight! Nobody else in the modern era compares.
Finally, I want to extend my annual congratulations to the 25 films that are newly announced for preservation by the National Film Registry. They are:
"3:10 to Yuma" (1957)
"Anatomy of a Murder" (1959)
"The Augustas" (1930s-1950s)
"Born Yesterday" (1950)
"Breakfast at Tiffany’s" (1961)
"A Christmas Story" (1983)
"The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Title Fight" (1897)
"Dirty Harry" (1971)
"Hours for Jerome: Parts 1 and 2" (1980-82)
"The Kidnappers Foil" (1930s-1950s)
"Kodachrome Color Motion Picture Tests" (1922)
"A League of Their Own" (1992)
"The Matrix" (1999)
"The Middleton Family at the New York World’s Fair" (1939)
"One Survivor Remembers" (1995)
"Parable" (1964)
"Samsara: Death and Rebirth in Cambodia" (1990)
"Slacker" (1991)
"Sons of the Desert" (1933)
"The Spook Who Sat by the Door" (1973)
"They Call It Pro Football" (1967)
"The Times of Harvey Milk" (1984)
"Two-Lane Blacktop" (1971)
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1914)
"The Wishing Ring; An Idyll of Old England" (1914)
As per usual that's a lot of titles that I know nothing about but I'm most thrilled by The Times of Harvey Milk which is one of the most moving and important documentaries ever made. And on a sillier note, can we talk about how ever-watchable the female baseball comedy A League of Their Own is? Sometimes I pine for the 1990s. It's tough to imagine that movie breaking $100 million now but the 90s were a good time for girlpower narratives.
If you're a fan of A League of Their Own (who isn't?) I want to know which scene just popped into your mind when you heard that it made the list!
The one and only Kerry Washington is front and center on the cover of this month's Vibe, flanked by Django Unchained co-stars Leo & Jamie.
You can read the whole cover story @ Vibe. But I did want to throw this bit about politics and a cute video of the photo shoot out there for discussion...
Natasha VCMelancholiay Kiki was right. Noooooo.... MovieLine on Sam Raimi's purchase of Angelfall, the YA series that's meant to be the next Hunger Games. The only thing getting me through the endless repetitiveness of today's cinema culture is that most of these series have an end date. So once Hunger Games ends, people will be looking for the next Angelfall instead. (Can you tell I'm so excited that Twilight is over!!!?) HitFix talks to Matthew McConaughey about a Magic Mike sequel and all that weight he's lost for TheDallas Buyers Club. Movies Now profiles GKids, that winning animated indie distributor who should be taken seriously in each year's Oscar race
Awards Daily on the ever present narrative of Oscar's Difficulty with Race. Which, to be fair if you ask me, is not so much Oscar's problem as Hollywood's difficulties; Oscar is only a prism. Hollywood Elsewhere Newsflash: Jeffrey Wells apparently takes Armond White seriously (suggesting his partly negative Lincoln review matters)! Who does that?!? (White just takes whatever position is contrarian. That's why his reviews always come out later than everyone else's.) Gawker thinks Joe Wright's artistic gamble with Anna Karenina pays off. I'm noticing enough positive reviews to wonder if the worm is turning on this thing in terms of Oscar (people were so weirdly and prematurely down on it post Toronto from the lack of consensus I suppose) but maybe that's just wishful thinking since I liked it and thought Keira Knightley was truly fab in her divisive gutsy jaw-first way. i09 Five minutes of the new Star Trek film to play in select IMAX theaters before The Hobbit. Because I am not a Trekkie and don't pay close attention I had somehow missed that this film is called Star Trek Into Darkness and now I am embarrassed for everyone involved. Sounds SO hokey and jokey and pretentious all at the same time! A feat you might say. Vulture Sigourney Weaver pretended she was doing Shakespeare while acting in Alien (1979) "I was such a snob"
Today's Must Watch Tom O'Neill at Gold Derby talks to Tony Kushner about Abraham Lincoln's much-speculated upon sexuality and why there's precious little of it in Spielberg's Lincoln.
Thursday, December 27, 2012 at 12:29PM 
Kerry Washington as "Broomhilda" in Django Unchained 
In Django Unchained, Kerry found herself in the unusual position of playing a relatively non-verbal part considering the dialogue heavy nature of Tarantino pictures. She plays Broomhilda von Shaft, the wife of freed slave Django (Jamie Foxx) who aims to rescue her from the sadistic plantation of Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) where she currently resides.
