Django Doesn't Deserve Its Oscars

Django Unchained won two Academy Awards on Sunday night, one for Christoph Waltz as Best Supporting Actor, and one for Quentin Tarantino for writing the Best Original Screenplay. The film deserves neither – spoilers ahead.

Why Django won its Oscars isn’t all that hard to figure out. Around Christmas, Lincoln was the favourite to sweep all before it as one of those classically Oscar-worthy movies, like Ghandi or A Man for All Seasons. And then two things happened. Firstly, Argo built up momentum and chimed with the inherent US patriotism that saw the Academy Award go to The Hurt Locker ahead of Avatar a few years ago. Secondly, people began to realise that Lincoln, while worthy, is deathly, deathly dull.

Lincoln is three hours of CNN political reporting. It’s one of those movies that will be shown in secondary school history classes from now until Doomsday, while the pupils nod off silently in the dark through generation after generation.

However, the issue of slavery was in the air and Django must have collected a lot of votes as a second-best option for Hollywood to show that actors are aware that slavery is wrong. And Tarantino has been the most exciting director since the young Scorsese in the 1970s so how bad if he gets his moment in the spotlight?

The problem is that Django just isn’t that good. It’s not bad, but it’s heartbreakingly disappointing. And it’s heartbreakingly disappointing because Django could have been the best US slavery movie since Gone with the Wind, and Django’s failure to realise that potential, having been so very close, stings more than if it had not been so very close to glory. We can forgive a popcorn movie for being a popcorn movie because it never pretends to be anything else, but Django is a lost masterpiece, and that should not be celebrated on cinema’s greatest night.

By the start of Django’s fourth act, when Django and Dr Schultz have met Calvin Candie and are making their way to Candieland to free Django’s wife, Broomhilda, the film is outstanding. Truly outstanding. We eagerly await further twists in the tail as master of puppets Tarantino pulls our strings.

But that’s not what we get. That’s not what we get at all. What we get instead is a cheat, a massive cop-out, an utterly phony and completely wrong deux-ex-machina where Tarantino forces one of his characters to break character to facilitate a plot point. All suspension of disbelief is lost at this point. We realise that Tarantino is struggling. That his decline is continuing, and that he will never achieve the maturity that his early career promised.

This is the spoiler. Final warning.

The problem with Django is this. By the end of the fourth act, Django and Dr Schultz have won. Calvin Candie has signed Broomhilda’s letters of freedom, and is taking no steps to avenge himself on our heroes over their attempt to con him. None. It’s a clear win for Django, Broomhilda and Doctor Schultz, and there is nothing to stop them living happily ever after.

Nothing except the half an hour of film that Tarantino has yet to fill. Who knows what his original plans were – a massive slave fight, familiar to fans of cobble-fighting here, perhaps. But he found himself stuck at this point, and escapes his spot by having Dr Schultz behave as we cannot imagine him behaving heretofore.

It’s utterly out of character for Dr Schultz to refuse to shake Calvin Candie’s hand after their deal is done. He’s been in the South for years – he’s shaken hand with worse men than Candie. Equally, he’s seen slaves maltreated before – why would he break now? Because he hears Lara Lee playing Für Elise on the harp and it breaks his heart? I think not. He’s seen and done too much to get sentimental now.

The only reason Dr Schultz breaks, refuses to shake Candie’s hand and eventually shoots him is because Tarantino knows this film has to end on a bang, not a whimper, and this is either the only way he can do it, or because Tarantino was too lazy to figure out another ending.

And the whole film falls away to pieces after that. There’s a good scene between Stephen (and if anyone was getting an Oscar for this, shouldn’t it have been Samuel L Jackson?) and Django in the barn after Calvin’s shooting, but Django’s escape from hapless Aussie larrikin slavers is worse than pathetic. Tarantino should be better than this, and he’s not.

As for Christoph Waltz, he seems a nice man and I hope he’s enjoying his time in Hollywood and making every dollar he can. The astonishing, and not very cheering in terms of the culture, thing about Waltz is that he’s now won two Oscars for playing the same character, The German with the Curl. When he’s good, freeing slaves in the ante-bellum South, he’s very, very good, but when he’s bad – being a Jew-hunting Nazi, say – he’s horrid. And if that’s not ham, then I’m Kevin Bacon.

Jamie Foxx - Oscar Fishing?

Do Hollywood stars attend each others’ movies? And if they do, do they play close attention? An immanent new release, The Soloist, suggests that this is exactly what they do.

The Soloist looks quite awful, judging by the trailer currently in the cinemas. Based on true story, the movie stars Jamie Foxx as a gifted musician who doesn’t play and lives rough in Los Angeles because he’s crazy as a bag of hammers. He’s discovered by Robert Downey, Jr’s cynical journalist, they two men go on a journey together to discover the beauty within.

Wretched, I know. But watching Downey talking to Foxx in the trailer, Foxx all shrugs and twitches and rolling of limbs, your correspondent’s mind flashed back to the last movie Robert Downey, Jr was in, and An Spailpín Fánach couldn’t help but wonder if Foxx had been to see it. And brought a notebook.

The last movie Robert Downey, Jr, was in was Tropic Thunder. Downey played an Australian actor, Kirk Lazarus, who is so into the method school of acting that he becomes black to play a black man in a war movie. Downey is utterly politically correct, truly inspired and would have been a worthy winner of this year’s Best Supporting Actor Award – even the fact he was nominated was a victory of sorts.

But what makes Tropic Thunder germane to the current discussion is a scene between Kirk Lazarus and Tugg Speedman, an action hero movie star played by Ben Stiller. Speedman had been in a movie called Simple Jack, which was his shot at making his bones as a legit actor, rather than an action hero. It bombed, and Downey's character explains to Speedman why he was never going to win an Oscar for it.

"Check it out. Dustin Hoffman, Rain Man. Looks retarded, acts retarded, not retarded. Counted toothpicks, cheated cards. Autistic, sho'. Not retarded. You know Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump. Slow, yes. Retarded, maybe. Braces on his legs. But he charmed the pants off Nixon and won a ping-pong competition. That ain't retarded. Peter Sellers, Being There. Infantile, yes. Retarded, no. You went full retard, man. Never go full retard. You don't buy that? Ask Sean Penn, 2001, I Am Sam. Remember? Went full retard, went home empty handed."

And now, one year on, here’s Jamie Foxx sawing away on his cello under the Los Angeles flyovers, doing his best for another Oscar. Looks retarded, acts retarded, not retarded. Still. Suits him better than picking on schoolgirls I suppose.





Technorati Tags: culture, movies, The Soloist, Jamie Foxx, Robert Downey, Jr, Tropic Thunder, Oscars

Oscars 2007

The Oscars have always been one of An Spailpín Fánach’s great vices. When he was nine years old, An Spailpín learned for the first time just how unfair life is when – for reasons that still baffle – the greatest motion picture in the history of human civilisation, Raiders of the Lost Ark, did not win the Oscar for Best Picture and some damn film about two Tans running won it instead. Get the *%@# out of here, as one of this year’s nominees was to catchphrase some years later in Beverly Hills Cop.

The Oscars are a fraud, of course, and many films have won Oscars that are now unwatchable. American Beauty springs to mind, as does the last Lord of the Rings picture, and that’s just from the last ten years. But still, people that love cinema love drama, and we’ll get it in spades from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion – just think back to the expressions on Burt Reynolds and Lauren Bacall’s faces when Robin Williams and Juliette Binoche went up to collect their Oscars and you’ll realise just how worth it the Oscars can be. So without further ado and making room in our hearts for schadenfreude, the most delicious of all emotions, let’s take a peek at the categories.

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Little Miss Sunshine was one of those movies that people couldn’t really find fault with, no matter how hard they tried. Not that that will save veteran Alan Arkin in this. Eddie Murphy is a lock for this, he can’t be beaten – the man has made the industry millions and millions of dollars over twenty years, and don’t think the industry isn’t grateful.

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Someone once said that 42nd Street or A Star is Born is the quintessential Hollywood movie – “you’re going out a nobody but you’re coming back a STAR!” As such, Jennifer Hudson is the nominee here for the intelligent punter. From what diligent research can tell your faithful narrator, Ms Hudson suffered a bad beat as a contestant on American Idol and if there’s one thing America loves it’s the plucky underdog coming out on top.

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
This has been Helen Mirren’s to lose since The Queen was released. Yanks love the British royal family – probably from having got shot of the freeloading wretches so early – and that gives Ms Mirren added zip in the running. Judi Dench – I found her very moving as M in the new Bond, didn’t you? – and Curvy Katie Winslet keep the British end up but it might be a mistake to rule out La Streep’s challenge. Jane Fonda and Helen Hunt both won against all-British fields for Klute and As Good as it Gets in 1971 and 1997 respectively, so Meryl can take comfort from historical precedent. To confess a personal bias, An Spailpín hopes Meryl does it – she and Dustin Hoffman co-starred in one of the most miserable movies of all time, Kramer versus Kramer, twenty-five years ago but both she and Hoffman have mellowed out considerably since then, and have both relaxed and realised that hey, it’s only show business. Meryl has got very good indeed at the scenery-munching lately and she seems like fun to be with. La Streep, then, to dust off the Dames and win it for the US of A - and Penelope Cruz to look just fantastic in her Oscar frock, of course.

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
An Spailpín has yet to see The Last High King of Scotland but even in the trailers Forest Whittaker looks impressive. It’s the sort of casting-against-type career defining performance that’s traditionally been richly rewarded by the Academy, and that’s why Whittaker is the ante-post favourite. Peter O’Toole is the sentimental favourite, but the movie he’s in could be a bit too slight to push him over the line. He should be good crack on the talk-show circuit trying to get it though. Leonardo DiCaprio’s nomination leaves your faithful popcorn-muncher baffled, quite frankly.

BEST DIRECTOR
Scorsese. Next!

BEST FILM
Now here’s an interesting one. Traditionally the Best Film is the one that’s been directed by the Best Director, but this doesn’t always apply, as when Chicago won Best Film but Polanski won Best Director, chiefly because the Academy felt very, very sorry for Polanski, what with the California PD on his case for thirty years. So, if Marty does win it this year it’s nothing to do with The Departed, it’s more a thanks for the memories sort of vote (which he wouldn’t get from An Spailpín, by the way – your eagle-eyed attendant at the Astoria finds Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and the King of Comedy all unwatchable, frankly, and I’m not too gone on Mean Streets either. An Spailpín is nothing if not brave enough to stand alone).

So if The Departed doesn’t get it – and let’s face it, what’s all that remarkable about the picture anyway? Exactly – we must search further afield. We’re looking for a picture that’s uplifting, ideally, and that makes the movie industry, which is going to make so much money this summer from Fantastic Four 2 and Spider-Man 3 and that sort of stuff it’s unbelievable – feel a lot better about itself. Some rich dame in London, England isn’t going to do it. No picture in gosh-darned Japanese will win it – unless Mel directed it, of course – and Babel is so last year. So step forward, the last man – or woman – standing and take a bow Little Miss Sunshine. Tonight you’re a star at last.

Technorati Tags: culture, movies, film,
Oscars