EDITOR’S NOTE: The following two film reviews offer competing perspectives on Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” a movie about a former slave who sets out to free his wife from bondage and exact revenge on a sadistic Mississippi slave owner.
‘Django’ Criticisms Are Predictable, Misguided
By Jazmyne Z. Young
In a way, I’d been looking forward to seeing Quentin Tarantino’s new movie, “Django Unchained,” before I’d ever even heard of it, since the moment I drove away from the theater so thoroughly entertained by his previous film, the revenge-full “Inglourious Basterds.” (If you aren’t familiar with that film, but did see “Django Unchained,” you’ve done yourself a great injustice.)
“Inglourious Basterds” — now there’s a movie where the director took liberties with historical accuracy and was still able to tell a damn good story, all while keeping the spirit of the era (World War II) intact. At the time I’d thought to myself, “Wow, I’m not even Jewish and I still felt a sense of satisfaction when the Nazi’s head got bashed in with a baseball bat… I wish there was a movie like that for Black people!”
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