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Quentin Tarantino’s Descent Into Sadism

Quentin Tarantino’s newest feature, The Hateful Eight (“The 8th Film From Quentin Tarantino,” as the opening credits remind viewers), is his most violent film ever. Every act of violence is similar to something from his previous films, but never has Tarantino devoted so much of a single film to non-stop carnage. It wasn’t always like …

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10 Best Movie Shootouts of All Time

Shootouts, unlike any other type of action scenes, put death in the forefront of the audience’s mind. Whereas a car chase draws the attention onto the race, or a fight scene onto the pursuit of victory, shootouts test the mortality of our protagonists and anti-heroes. It’s more than just a hail of bullets that matters …

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‘Django/Zorro’ #1 is an Entertaining Team Up and Genre Mashup

Even though historically speaking, Zorro and Django were contemporaries, they couldn’t be more different. First, there is their ages. Zorro is 95 years old whereas Django hasn’t even celebrated his second birthday as a fictional character. They come in different social classes and cultures (Mexican aristocrat and former African American slave) and are children of different genres with Zorro taking his cues from the pulp and superhero genres while Django is a product of blaxploitation and the Western.

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Quentin Tarantino officially confirms ‘The Hateful Eight’ moving forward

It’s Sunday and the final day of the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con, typically the quietest day of the convention. After a crazy weekend of Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Godzilla 2, Skull Island, Mad Max: Fury Road, Crimson Peak, a ton of TV, and comic news, we’ve got one last big film announcement. As reported by Deadline from the Dynamite Comic’s panel, while promoting the Django Unchained/Zorro crossover comic, Quentin Tarantino confirmed that he is officially moving forward with his new western The Hateful Eight.

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Quentin Tarantino is producing a ‘Django Unchained’ comic mashup with Zorro

Quentin Tarantino’s appearances in the news over the last few months have been a saga worthy of his own filmography. THR reported on Wednesday that the story of Django Unchained will continue in a new comic book series mashing up Django and Zorro. Tarantino and Matt Wagner (Mage, Grendel) will co-write the comic series and …

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Slavery in Cinema as Polar Opposites in ‘Django Unchained’ and ’12 Years a Slave’

Two films about slavery in the United States have been released barely a year apart. One is by a renegade American auteur starring American actors; the other, based on a memoir, brought to the screen by a British video artist and a cast led by Brits playing American. Despite their similar subject matter, they are …

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Argo and the Search for Historical Authenticity

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock since the Oscars, you’ve heard about the controversies surround Argo’s (lack of) historical accuracy. Whether it’s Iran threatening to sue Ben Affleck and George Clooney, Canada feeling relegated to postscript of history, or most recently the parliament in New Zealand motioning that Affleck “saw fit to mislead the …

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‘Saturday Night Live’ – Christoph Waltz and ‘DJesus Uncrossed’

Saturday Night Live hasn’t chosen the best of hosts this season. There has been at least three terrible episodes, and the SNL team hasn’t been able to produce a solid, much less, stand-out, sketch… until now. With only a few days left before Oscar voting closes, Supporting Actor nominee Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained), was given …

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The western to smite all westerns, racism

Did the “Baghead” scene in Django Unchained (2012) feel at all familiar? It was total Mel Brooks. We’ve seen bumbling baddies arguing with one another in the desert before. Blazing Saddles (1974), one of the cinematic funnyman’s best, shot a hole in westerns and racism with one bullet. While the majority of Quentin Tarantino films …

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BAFTAs 2013: Who is going to win? – part 2

Now that we are nearing the big awards of the season, it is time to revisit the nominations and predictions for the 2013 BAFTAs.  Part 2 will cover the following categories: (see part one here) Best Film Best British Film Leading Actor Leading Actress Best Supporting Actor Best Supporting Actress Best Director The EE BAFTA …

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2012 and the Box Office: It Was A Very Good Year

I hate being wrong. Really hate it. The only thing I hate more than being wrong is publicly admitting I’m wrong. And, man, when it comes to how 2012 played out at the movies matched up against what I’d predicted in my end-of-2011 box office wrap-up, I couldn’t have been more wrong. “Want a prediction …

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‘A Haunted House’ takes aim at an easy target, shoots itself in the foot

A Haunted House Directed by Michael Tides Written by Marlon Wayans and Rick Alvarez USA, 2013 Opens Jan. 25 in Toronto Have you ever opened up a history textbook and found that every single image of Josef Stalin was defaced with some sort of phallic or scatological graffiti? Or that his pictures were accompanied by …

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Essential Viewing for fans of ‘Django Unchained’ Part 3: ‘Day of Anger’ / ‘Death Rides A Horse’ / ‘Charey One-Eye

December was Tarantino Month here at SOS, and since January is dedicated to westerns,  I thought it would be best to whip up some articles spotlighting films that influenced Tarantino’s Django Unchained. Since I began my list back in December, I’ve noticed similar lists popping up online – all of which are somewhat suspect, since …

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Django Chained: Tarantino and the American Slave

In just barely over a week since its Christmas release, Quentin Tarantino’s eighth feature film, Django Unchained, has exhaustively become a source of public controversy for its setting amongst southern, pre-Civil War plantations where the height of the black man’s plight in the United States was the accepted norm. Not the least of the film’s …

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Look Back at the Best Films of 2012

“Hey You Geeks!!” is all about the bread and butter of Geek Cinema; comic book films, science fiction, action, horror and fantasy. Because these genres overwhelmingly embody the money-earning side of film, they tend to exist on an uneven plain where weeding out the good from the bad is an often tedious task. Along this …

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Staff List: The 40 Best Films of 2012

#10: The Cabin in the Woods (107 points) Written by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard Directed by Drew Goddard USA, 2012 Like Scream, it’s a self-aware slasher film, but where Scream was happy simply to turn the genre’s bloody glove inside out and examine the stitching, The Cabin in the Woods has more complicated ambitions. If Scream is …

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Essential Viewing for fans of Django Unchained’ Part 2: ‘The Mercenary’ / ‘Navajo Joe’ / ‘Legend of Nigger Charley’

December is Tarantino Month here at SOS, and in the week leading up our January month-long theme of westerns, I thought it would be best to whip up an article spotlighting some films that influenced Tarantino’s long awaited take on the western, Django Unchained. For my money, all of the films listed below are essential …

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Essential Viewing for fans of ‘Django Unchained’ Part 1: ‘Django’ / ‘Mandingo’ / ‘The Great Silence’

December is Tarantino Month here at SOS, and in the week leading up our January month-long theme of westerns, I thought it would be best to whip up an article spotlighting some films that influenced Tarantino’s long-awaited take on the western, Django Unchained. For my money, all of the films listed below are essential viewing …

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Tarantino’s new film ‘Django Unchained’ is a florid, entertaining Spaghetti Western

Django Unchained Directed by Quentin Tarantino Written by Quentin Tarantino USA, 2012 Quentin Tarantino wears his style on his sleeve. Homages, tributes, and callbacks to older films, forgotten performers, and oft-ignored genres are part and parcel of his filmography. But one element of his aesthetic has become more pronounced over the years: his fierce, almost …

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Ricky D’s 50 Favourite Films of 2012 (Part Two)

  25: The Dark Knight Rises Directed by Christopher Nolan Screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan 2012, USA The Dark Knight Rises feels as if it was made up of two equal halves, with the most critical moment of the film breaking the movie in half, almost literally. While the second half may have …

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Ricky D’s 50 Favourite Films of 2012 (Part One)

2012 wasn’t a bad year for movies. It was actually a great year. The problem is, the movies we were most anticipating, specifically the Hollywood blockbusters like Prometheus and The Hobbit, didn’t live up to our expectations. With that said I still managed to make a list of 50 films I loved. Maybe I just …

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‘Django Unchained’; Quentin Tarantino sans Sally Menke

Django Unchained Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino USA, 2012 If you ask a girl about the nuances of makeup, she’ll probably tell you that great technique is one where you barely notice the result. Ask a filmmaker about the nuances of editing and he or she will probably tell you the same. Ask Quentin …

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