Django Unchained
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Written by Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins
The Weinstein Company
Rated R | 165 minutes
Release Date: December 25, 2012

“I need a hundred black coffins for a hundred bad men / A hundred black graves so I can lay they ass in.” – Rick Ross

Inspired by Django, the 1966 Italian film directed by Sergio Corbucci, Django Unchained is Quentin Tarantino‘s seventh feature-length film: a Spaghetti Western set in America’s Deep South.

The film blends Sergio Leone-style filmmaking and Tarantino’s signature themes of revenge and fetishized violence with fairytale fantasy to create Once Upon a Time in the South.

1863. Texas. Django (Jamie Foxx) is a freed slave on a mission to rescue his wife, Broomhilda, from the clutches of the deplorable Monsieur Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). His companion is Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a German-born bounty hunter with a salt-and-pepper beard who travels the American South collecting rewards on outlaws and other such nefarious individuals.

Waltz is best known for playing the insidious Colonel Hans Landa aka “The Jew Hunter” in Tarantino’s 2009 film, Inglourious Basterds. In many ways, Django Unchained is the spiritual sequel to that film, which provided the ultimate in revenge fantasy by having Jewish-American soldiers machine gun Hitler’s face off. Here, Waltz is not a despicable foil but rather a vigilante who serves as the Yoda to Django’s Luke Skywalker, teaching him the bounty hunting business so he can track down his wife and free her from the shackles of her master.

Her master, Calvin J. Candie, is a cruel-but-charming Francophile (who can’t speak a word of French) with an affinity for Mandingo Fighting. At his Candieland Plantation, Candie orchestrates brutal fights to the death between slaves. At this castle built of blood and cotton, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) is a house Negro – whored out to Candie’s guests seeking the finest in African flesh.

The Threat #2
Story by Mark Schmidt and Vince Chuter
Written by Mark Schmidt
Art by Daniel Wichinson
Letters by Mark Schmidt
Cover by William Allan Reyes
Stratum Comics
Release Date: October 2012
Price $3.99

Stratum Comics’ The Threat is currently the only title being released by the company. It’s a small publisher of passionate comic fans in Texas looking to make a dent in the independent cape and cowl comics scene. Waerloga69 reviewed the first issue recently (you can read that here.) Like that review mentioned, The Threat is about a future Earth where governments have fallen apart and been replaced by other entities. In Houston, where this story takes place, the people are governed by a corporation called AniTec.

Due to some experiments gone wrong (oh, comic books) we now have a portion of the population that has been mutated. These mutants are referred to as Virals. Now, there seems to be the implication that some of these Virals will eventually team up and battle the evil corporation. We aren’t quite sure when that will occur, but we are given some insight into each of the eventual team member’s lives. This second issue focuses on some character background and a pretty solid escape scene. We are still left a little in the dark as to the story though.

Batman Year One
Netflix Streaming
DVD | Blu-ray
Directed by Sam Liu and Lauren Montgomery
Starring Bryan Cranston, Benjamin McKenzie, Eliza Dushku, Katee Sackhoff, Alex Rocco
Warner Home Video
Originally Released: October 18, 2011

Speaking nostalgically, the Batman Year One comic series by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli instigates many happy memories for me. I, along with many other geeks, hold the earlier Miller Batman work in high esteem, and the Year One arc released back in 1987 is often regarded with much reverence. It, accompanied by titles like The Killing Joke and others, is often pointed to as being must-read material for new Batman readers.

Thus, when it was announced that Warner Brothers Animation and DC were going forward with an animated adaptation of the classic and timeless Batman Year One, it was a bittersweet moment. Would they stand true to the original material? Or make sweeping adaptations for the release?

Each and every one us has seen many sights that take up permanent residence in our minds, memories so horrible and traumatic we would do anything short of self-lobotomy to remove them forever. Walking in on your parents having sex, having to take your beloved ailing family pet to the veterinarian to have them put to sleep, getting bullied by your classmates in elementary school, the list goes on (and that is just my list).

Today I think we all have a new horrible memory to add to that list as the trailer for Scary Movie 5 has been released. You can watch the trailer here below, but if you decide not to no one here will think less of you.

Originally planned as a direct-to-video release, Walt Disney has decided to lock in a theatrical release date for their movie Planes, which is inspired by the world of Pixar’s Cars, and follows…you guessed it, airplanes.

Disney has reserved the August 9, 2013 spot for the movie, which will be made by DisneyToon Studios, not Pixar. Pixar legend and Cars director John Lasseter, however, will oversee the project, as he does for all DisneyToon and Walt Disney Animation titles.