Through the lens of James Baldwin’s black intellectual imagination, Quentin Tarantino’s slave revenge fantasy, Django Unchained, becomes a terrifying allegory of white progressive identity in America today.
Tarantino’s films expose the Binx Bolling in us all, restless until we have a tidy border of cultural reference within which we can claim our stake. Most of his intricately scripted and arranged films are hardwired into the idea that his audience has nostalgic connections to all the bits of media history he is tossing out at us.
The lineup for the 2009 Festival de Cannes was released today. Many notable entries here, but I know I and at least one other Filmwell critic have been rejoicing that Pixar’s Up is opening the festival – the first animated film to ever do so. Other fabulously notable directors with work at Cannes will be […]