Django Unchained (2012)

Django Unchained has been praised so heavily that no film could live up to the hype completely. It's an excellent film — Jamie Foxx's quiet intensity is genuinely remarkable — but it's not the untouchable masterpiece some claim.

Django Unchained ended and I sat with it for weeks. The revenge theme kept circling back. I'd be doing something mundane and the Candyland dinner scene would pop into my head. That kind of resonance is rare.

I've seen Django Unchained multiple times now and it just keeps getting better. Christoph Waltz's charm is something rarely matched in cinema. If you haven't watched it yet, clear your evening.

The music in Django Unchained is so deeply married to the images that you almost can't separate them. It stays in your head days later and when you hear it again the emotions return immediately.

Django Unchained builds so carefully to its conclusion that when it arrives you feel genuinely moved. The the mythology of the Western thread pays off in a way that's earned rather than manipulative. Couldn't sleep afterward.

There are scenes in cinema you never forget. For me, the Candyland dinner scene in Django Unchained is one of them. Quentin Tarantino constructs it with total precision and it lands exactly as intended. Pure craft.

Django Unchained commits to a conclusion that not everyone will appreciate. I found it perfectly right — it refuses easy comfort. If you want tidy resolution you may be frustrated. If you want truth, it delivers.

I didn't expect Django Unchained to affect me so deeply. The way Quentin Tarantino handles slavery and freedom is unlike anything I'd seen before. I came out of it looking at the world differently.

Some elements of Django Unchained show their age, but the core of it — revenge, Christoph Waltz's charm — hasn't diminished at all. Films this good age better than almost anything else.

Whatever you think of the story, Django Unchained is one of the most visually extraordinary films ever shot. There are frames here that belong in a gallery. Worth seeing on the biggest screen possible.