Early buzz out of Cannes suggests Django Unchained is awesome and surprisingly funny

May 22nd 2012, 2:50am

So the Cannes Film Festival is currently underway, and while Quentin Tarantino’s eagerly-awaited “southern” DJANGO UNCHAINED was not there to screen in its entirety, it did make an appearance with seven minutes of footage that has just about unanimously been praised by film critics, journos, and bloggers alike.

Here are some reactions from the Twittersphere:

OMFG, “Django Unchained” looks so good. SO GOOD. #Cannes

— Drew McWeeny (@DrewAtHitFix) May 21, 2012

Harvey Weinstein just presented 7 mins of Django Unchained. Looks ace. We’re tipping Fritz the nodding horse to be a breakout star. #Cannes

— Empire Magazine (@empiremagazine) May 21, 2012

DJANGO gets the most whoops. Plenty of blood, plenty of laughs. Looks like it will be the Cristophe Waltz show. “The D is silent.” #Cannes

— TWITCH (@TwitchFilm) May 21, 2012

Django Unchained looks f’n badass…7 minute trailer ending with Jamie Foxx shooting his pistol to James Brown ‘Payback’ “The D is Silent”

— Raffi Asdourian (@zaffi) May 21, 2012

Here are some more elaborate thoughts on the footage out of Cannes. First up, Quint of Ain’t It Cool News:

“This thing just looks like a ton of fun and while I was already excited for the movie I’m now officially giddy. All the location work makes the film look huge, Foxx is at the top of his game it appears, Waltz is loveable, funny and dangerous all at once and it just feels like everybody is having a blast.”

Now, a recap from Vulture:

“The big surprise? How funny this potentially controversial Western has turned out to be. In particular, Leonardo DiCaprio seems to be having the time of his life dropping N-bombs and smiling rotted teeth as plantation owner Calvin Candie, whom freed slave Jamie Foxx and bounty hunter Christoph Waltz must defeat in order to save Foxx’s wife Kerry Washington. You’ll get a periwinkle-suited Foxx shooting lumpy blood chunks out of racist hicks (and an innocent snowman in one scene), and you’ll laugh! You’ll get Don Johnson dressed as Colonel Sanders! And you’ll get an instant catchphrase from a cooly underplaying Foxx, when he’s asked his name: ‘Django. The D is silent.'”

And finally, some thoughts from critic Anne Thompson:

“Weinstein Co. is selling this as a bang-up western, packed with physical comedy and bloody action and hell-bent revenge. And yes, it looks like a classic widescreen Sergio Leone western, even if the setting is New Orleans and Mississippi two years before the Civil War. (The music on the trailer ranged from classic Johnny Cash to James Brown. No Ennio Morricone here. As yet.)… Tarantino is taking the revenge western to a whole new level as the two bounty hunters shoot their way through the unsuspecting South. It looks like the first Leone-esque section of “Inglourious Basterds,” and it’s about fighting injustice, except that this time it’s not Brad Pitt against the Nazis in World War II–it’s an angry black man getting his own back from racist white southerners before the Civil War… This is not your ordinary movie to sell overseas or domestically — or to the Academy. (I will not be surprised if the movie gets pushed back out of 2012.) But when Tarantino breaks the rules with style and panache, critics and audiences follow.”

So, what are your thoughts on these thoughts? I mean, would we expect anything less from Tarantino at this point?

Now give us a trailer!

DJANGO UNCHAINED opens this Christmas.