in no way is this joint the best (or worst) anything this year. It was a solid "meh".

Like Longo said, it was not as corny/smarmy/ironic as a lot of QT's other films...(until the stupid-ass ending, but more on that later), but I wouldn't quite call it earnest, either. There's a little too much self-aware quick zooming and 70's film techniques on hand to keep the film honest. Also, the music works against the mood of the film more often than not.

The first 45 minutes was the best part of the movie. Walz is the only actor that can make Tarantino's yaking-ass characters bearable, and he was great in this. But everybody else? Just kinda there. DiCaprio was cool, Foxx was str8, Sam Jax owes a check to Aaron MacGruder (hell, so does this entire film, really) and Kerry Washington's quivery-ass top lip stays busy as hell in this movie. The rest of her don't really do shit tho.

It's not as scatter-brained as most other Tarantino films (which is my biggest gripe with buddy's shit), but it still drifts into pointlessness sometimes.

About the slavery images, it was interesting to see the coffles and headpieces and other facts about slavery that normally ain't shown in film on screen. But honestly, it was really all just kinda...there.

About the ending - okay, if there was any emotional weight built up in Django and his wife as characters, it was pretty much pissed away in the last couple of minutes of the movie. I ain't spoiling shit, but if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.

All in all, it's really a kind of bland movie, that has interesting moments, but nothing really great, or good even. It's gonna make a shit ton of money though becuz of 2 things, really:

1)Tarantinoia (yes, I made that up) will make everybody who don't see it feel unhip

and

2) A lot of black folks want to see plantation-era white people get shot the fuck up by an angry black dude onscreen.

Hopefully, this film will open the doors to better movies set in that era.

Oh yeah, there is literally nothing - *NOTHING* - thought provoking to anybody over the age of 18 in this movie. It's not deep, there's no symbolism, there's no virulent anything...it just kinda is.