Review: Django Unchained (2012)

Cast:
           Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, Don Johnson, Laura Cayouette, Dennis Christopher, James Russo, James Remar, Tom Wopat, Misty Upham, Rex Linn, Cooper Huckabee, Doc Duhame, M. C. Gainey, Bruce Dern, Ned Bellamy, Franco Nero, Jonah Hill, Zoe Bell, Robert Carradine, James Parks, Tom Savini, Michael Parks, John Jarratt and Quentin Tarantino.

Director:
                   Quentin Tarantino

Cannes 2013: Blue Is The Warmest Colour wins Palme d'Or.

I haven't been quite active on my blog this year unfortunately and i missed doing Cannes 2013 coverage which is very important to me. I regret it but still trying my best to come back to my regular maddening and obsessive routine. To start things off, the winners were just announced for the main prizes at Cannes. I have been following every review, tweet, news etc because Cannes is a royalty and they always get great movies to screen, so many stars are there and its definitely the biggest celebration for World Cinema that we get to see. This year's jury was a stunner! Led by Steven Spielberg and included Daniel Auteuil, Vidya Balan, Naomi Kawase, Ang Lee, Nicole Kidman, Cristian Mungiu, Lynne Ramsay and Christoph Waltz. The prestigious Palme d'Or was awarded to the French movie "Blue is the Warmest Colour", its always awarded to the director of course but a different move was taken this time and both the stars of the movie were awarded an honorary Palm as well. This is a French epic length drama that features its lead Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux as two girls exploring there sexuality. In other words, its a Lesbian drama. After the impressive response it got from critics there, many hailing it as a masterpiece and the best movie in competition, i was quite sure it will win the main prize. But its jury who decides in the end not critics so i had my doubts still. The movie was the talk of the town thanks to its lengthy explicit sex scenes, glad that jury/critics saw much greatness beyond all that. I am now really looking forward to watch it.

The Grand Prix which is like 2nd best film went to my 2nd most anticipated film of the year, "Inside Llewyn Davis" by Coen Brothers. While the Jury Prize or the 3rd best film went to "Like Father, Like Son" which was considered by many to be in Spielberg's territory so a Palm upset was expected. Screenplay and Directing prizes went to "A Touch of Sin" and "Heli", the latter one is shocking for me while the former one is surprising. I was hoping that both these prizes might go to Soderbergh, Coens, Farhadi, Sorrentino etc but alas! This is the second year when the directing award went to the booed/notorious/bold movie, last year being "Post Tenebras Lux". I guess the most daring and experimental directing achievement will be winning from now on. Talking about the two acting prizes, Berenice Bejo and Bruce Dern won for "The Past" and "Nebraska" respectively. Bejo got superb praise and was a shoe-in until Adele Exarchopoulos started getting praise as well but it went to Bejo afterall. I am happy for Bruce Dern deep down but the reviews i read didn't really praised his performance as something great. I was hoping Michael Douglas would win for "Behind the Candelabra" but that didn't happen. The movie itself along with few other buzzed films like "La Grande Bellezza" and "Borgman" didn't win anything.