#christoph waltz film history

[christophfanalways]

32 Years Ago - April 6, 1992 - Christoph Waltz in Die Angst wird bleiben aired!!

[cloud3francois]

Inglourious Basterds: Hans Landa

[cieuxgris]

Tulip Fever (2017)

[ein-der-traum]

Wahnfried, 1986

dir. Peter Patzak

[slasherinc-links]

𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝟏. . . 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐑.

tldr.

ellie, el or nobi! • 18 years old • she/her pronouns + unlabeled • brazillian (indigenous) • adhd and will use tone tags • writer’s block happens a lot so i’m sorry if i don’t send your ask quickly!

full text.

hi, i’m ellie, but you can also call me el or nobi! i’m a brazilian woman with very strong indigenous ancestry, so i’ll always write with this in mind, but i’ll always try my best to make the fics as racially ambiguous as possible, so everyone can enjoy! on that topic, i will only write for fem!readers, but if requested it can be a gn!reader. i’m not comfortable writing for male readers since i don’t understand how they feel (i hope this makes sense, i really don’t want to sound mean! /srs).

hi, i’m ellie, but you can also call me el! i’m a brazilian woman with very strong indigenous ancestry, so i’ll always write with this in mind, but i’ll always try my best to make the fics as racially ambiguous as possible, so everyone can enjoy! on that topic, i will only write for fem!readers, but if requested it can be a gn!reader. i’m not comfortable writing for male readers since i don’t understand how they feel (i hope this makes sense, i really don’t want to sound mean! /srs).

i have adhd, so most of the time i will use tone tags since they help me, and others, with comprehending messages/texts, etc.

i’m pretending to be a teacher and graduate in history and sociology, but for now i am not enrolled in university, so i’ll be a full time writer (as much as i can be). i am known for having writer’s block, so i’m really sorry if i didn’t send your request quickly, it really sucks that it happens to me and it saddens the both of us.

before doing anything else on my blog, i suggest you read the blog’s guidelines, the rules for requesting and my explanation of me not wanting minors to interact with my content.

also, keep in mind that english is not my first language, even though i’ve been practicing it for more than five years now and i am 100% fluent, i will probably make some mistakes here and there, so please forgive me for any of those mistakes. <3

𓆩*𓆪 — LIKES!

writing. films. baking. history. books. coffee. learning new stuff. talking shit. old men. comic books. women in general. my culture. monster high.

𓆩*𓆪 — DISLIKES!

stress. my adhd. frogs. insects. tea. pressure. hate. bad music.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐕𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐒.

𓆩*𓆪 — CHARACTERS!

morpheus/dream of the endless (ts). obi-wan kenobi (sw). red hood/jason todd (dc). the punisher/frank castle (marvel). jim hopper (st). abby anderson (tlou). arthur morgan (rdr2). carlos oliveira (re). leon kennedy (re). ada wong (re). jill valentine (re). john price (cod). simon ‘ghost’ riley (cod). kyle ‘gaz’ garrick (cod).

𓆩*𓆪 — MUSICIANS!

kali uchis. frank ocean. sza. twice. exid. megan thee stallion. lana del rey. tyler, the creator. baco exú do blues. the weeknd. slipmami. aespa. exo.

𓆩*𓆪 — FILMS!

whiplash. the empire strikes back. black swan. gone girl. enchanted. trainspotting. x. scream. django unchained. everything everywhere all at once.

𓆩*𓆪 — SHOWS!

the office. brooklyn 99. cobra kai. bojack horseman. glee. fleabag. peacemaker. the mandalorian. daredevil. euphoria.

𓆩*𓆪 — ACTORS!

laura harrier, pedro pascal, john boyega, jessica alba, lupita nyong’o, steven yeun, willem dafoe, christoph waltz, daniel brühl, henry cavill, jon bernthal, keke palmer, bruna marquezine, xolo maridueña, cillian murphy

[byneddiedingo]

Heaven's Gate (Michael Cimino, 1980)

Cast: Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, John Hurt, Sam Waterston, Isabelle Huppert, Brad Dourif, Joseph Cotten, Jeff Bridges. Screenplay: Michael Cimino. Cinematography: Vilmos Zsigmond. Production design: Tambi Larsen. Film editing: Lisa Fruchtman, Gerald B. Greenberg, William Reynolds, Tom Rolf. Music: David Mansfield. 

Heaven's Gate, for all its history as a calamitous flop, is not so much a bad movie as an inchoate one. You can see it go awry from the very beginning, when it tries to pass off the ornate architecture of Oxford University, where the scenes were filmed, for the spare red brick and granite of Harvard Yard. The film opens with a frenzied commencement for the Harvard class of 1870, which devolves into a swirling dance to the "Blue Danube" waltz. It's potentially an exhilarating opening, but it goes on and on and on, and serves almost no purpose in the rest of the film, except to introduce us to James Averill (Kris Kristofferson) and his friend William C. Irvine (John Hurt), members of the graduating class. Then the film jumps 20 years, to Wyoming, where Averill is marshal of Johnson County. We never learn why Averill, who is a wealthy man, winds up in this hard and thankless job, living in near-squalor and hooked up with Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert), the madam of a brothel. As for Irvine, with whom Averill reunites during a stopover in Casper on his way back to Johnson County, he has somehow become involved with the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, a group of cattlemen led by the sinister Frank Canton (Sam Waterston) who are trying to keep immigrants from settling on the land they want to graze. It's clear that director-screenwriter Michael Cimino at some point wanted Irvine, who is presented as an effete intellectual, to serve as a kind of chorus, commenting on the action, and as a foil to the more robust Averill, but Irvine keeps getting lost in the turns of the narrative and the excesses of Cimino's ideas. (The shooting took so long that Hurt was able to film David Lynch's The Elephant Man during his down time from Heaven's Gate.) In Casper we also meet Nathan Champion (Christopher Walken), who works as a kind of hit man for the cattlemen. But Champion is also a friend of Averill's and a rival of his for the attentions of Ella. There is the core of a more conventional Western in the relationships among these characters, but Cimino isn't interested in being conventional. What he is interested in are the elaborate set pieces like the waltz scene, a later scene with dozens of couples on roller skates, enormous throngs of extras milling through the streets of Casper, crowds of immigrants making their way to Johnson County, and battle scenes in which the citizens of the Johnson County settlement retaliate against the troops led by Canton that are determined to exterminate them. There are pauses in the hullabaloo for quieter scenes designed to work out the triangle formed by Averill, Champion, and Ella, but their characters are so lightly sketched in that we don't have much sense of the motives behind their sometimes enigmatic actions. And yet, it's a somehow maddeningly watchable film, thanks in large part to the often breathtaking cinematography of Vilmos Zsigmond, a committed performance by Huppert, the Oscar-nominated sets of Tambi Larsen and James L. Berkey, and yes, the sheer extravagance of what Cimino throws onto the screen. Without a plausible screenplay it could never have been a good film, but occasionally you can see how it might have been a great one.

[certified-opinion-haver]

Pinocchio dir. Guillermo Del Toro (2022)

Netflix. Starring: Ewan McGregor, Gregory Mann, Christoph Waltz

Guillermo Del Toro's interpretation of the classic fairy tale Pinocchio, the story of a wooden puppet who aspires to become a real boy.

Starting right out the gate, the most impressive part of this film is the stellar visuals and animations, it's always a delight to see stop-motion animation be utilised and this is no exception. The characters are all filled with so much personality that you could put the film on mute and still perfectly understand how they all feel throughout the story.

The film is good, definitely worth watching. However the negatives can be irritating and really drag down a potential classic. The pacing was very bizarre I thought, the film felt like it was cut into 3 shorts films which were then slapped together one after the other.

The voice acting was also a let-down, some performances were excellent (David Bradley's Gepetto was a particular stand out) but others were rather poor, the main offender being Finn Wolfhard's Candlewick, the character themself wasn't incredibly interesting and Finn's borderline uninterested performance did the character no favours.

The film does place a large focus on the fascism of Mussolini's Italy which was interesting, it was fresh to see such a dark part of history tackled in a relatively light-hearted tale. Tom Kenny's absurd performance as Mussolini was particularly hilarious and reminded me a bit of Taiki Waititi's equally ridiculous rendition of Hitler from Jojo Rabbit.

I'm admittedly not a fan of media targeted towards younger audience, I have no problems with such products and in fact find it essential to have quality art created for younger viewers. This film, however, was surprising in that I was fully engaged throughout.

7/10

[themovieblogonline]

All of the Winners From the 2024 Oscars

After a year of phenomenal and innovative filmmaking, the 2024 Oscars winners are finally here to tell us what we already know: it was a great year for cinema. But it’s not all about personal opinions regarding what makes a great film. It’s about hardworking behind-the-scenes teams, talented cast members, and passion for the medium. The Academy Awards highlight some of the most talented folks, and we finally have our winners! So, let’s dig into the 2024 Oscar winners list and see who took home the gold from the 96th Academy Awards hosted by Jimmy Kimmel! The 2024 Oscars Nominees Who Won Big Most Awards Season followers had big predictions for Oppenheimer and for good reasons. The movie earned 13 nominations, including in the biggest categories. Close behind in nominations were Poor Things, Killers of the Flower Moon, and then Barbie trailing behind. Unsurprisingly, most of the films earned well-deserved awards, with Poor Things and Oppenheimer winning multiple awards each. The Zone of Interest was another big winner from the night, taking home two wins. There were no crazy surprises with any of the wins. Some races were too close to call before the night began, but Cillian Murphy for Best Actor and Emma Stone for Best Actress were exciting to see live. Still, Lily Gladstone's win would have been history-making, and it would have been lovely to see her on the stage. Highlights From The Academy Awards Ceremony The 2024 Oscar winners are the highlight of the night, but the ceremony is another big reason that fans gather to watch. This year's ceremony had no shortage of exciting moments, great speeches, and beautiful performances. The ceremony brought back an old trend of past winners presenting the awards in the acting categories. It helped put a spotlight on incredible roles while also bringing some of our favorite previous winners out, including Christoph Waltz, Nicholas Cage, Jessica Lange, Jennifer Lawrence, and more. One of the most anticipated events of the evening was Ryan Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie. The star did not disappoint, bringing dozens of Kens on stage and getting everybody out of their seat. Another highlight of the ceremony was the inclusion of Messi, the newest canine star, on the red carpet. Messi was a key performer in Anatomy of a Fall and would have won the award for Best Boy if there had been one. He was brought back for the end of the ceremony, where host Jimmy Kimmel continued his trend of making fun of Matt Damon at every opportunity by having Messi pee on Damon's star on the Walk of Fame. The Full List of 2024 Oscars Winners Best Picture American Fiction Anatomy of a Fall Barbie The Holdovers Killers of the Flower Moon Maestro Oppenheimer - WINNER Past Lives Poor Things The Zone of Interest Best Directing Justine Triet (Anatomy of a Fall) Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon) Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer) - WINNER Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things) Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest) Best Actor in a Leading Role Bradley Cooper (Maestro) Colman Domingo (Rustin) Paul Giamatti (The Holdovers) Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer) - WINNER Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction) Best Actress in a Leading Role Annette Bening (Nyad) Lily Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon) Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall) Carey Mulligan (Maestro) Emma Stone (Poor Things) Best Actor in a Supporting Role Sterling K. Brown (American Fiction) Robert De Niro (Killers of the Flower Moon) Robert Downey Jr. (Oppenheimer) - WINNER Ryan Gosling (Barbie) Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things) Best Actress in a Supporting Role Emily Blunt (Oppenheimer) Danielle Brooks (The Color Purple) America Ferrera (Barbie) Jodie Foster (Nyad) Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers) - WINNER  Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) American Fiction - WINNER Barbie Oppenheimer Poor Things The Zone of Interest Best Writing (Original Screenplay) Anatomy of a Fall - WINNER The Holdovers Maestro May December Past Lives Best Animated Feature The Boy and the Heron - WINNER Elemental Nimona Robot Dreams Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Best Documentary Feature Film Bobi Wine: The People’s President The Eternal Memory Four Daughters To Kill a Tiger 20 Days in Mariupol - WINNER Best International Feature Film Io Capitano (Italy) Perfect Days (Japan) Society of the Snow (Spain) The Teacher’s Lounge (Germany) The Zone of Interest (United Kingdom) - WINNER Best Animated Short Film Letters to a Pig Ninety-Five Senses Our Uniform Pachyderme War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko - WINNER Best Live-Action Short Film The After Invincible Knight of Fortune Red, White and Blue The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar - WINNER Best Documentary Short Film The ABCs of Book Banning The Barber of Little Rock Island in Between The Last Repair Shop - WINNER Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó Best Cinematography El Conde Killers of the Flower Moon Maestro Oppenheimer - WINNER Poor Things Best Costume Design Barbie Killers of the Flower Moon Napoleon Oppenheimer Poor Things - WINNER Best Makeup and Hairstyling Golda Maestro Oppenheimer Poor Things - WINNER Society of the Snow Best Original Song “The Fire Inside” from Flamin’ Hot (Music and Lyric by Diane Warren) “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie (Music and Lyric by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt) “It Never Went Away” from American Symphony (Music and Lyric by Jon Batiste and Dan Wilson) “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” from Killers of the Flower Moon (Music and Lyric by Scott George) “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie (Music and Lyric by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell) - WINNER Best Original Score American Fiction Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Killers of the Flower Moon Oppenheimer - WINNER Poor Things Best Production Design Barbie Killers of the Flower Moon Napoleon Oppenheimer Poor Things - WINNER Best Film Editing Anatomy of a Fall The Holdovers Killers of the Flower Moon Oppenheimer - WINNER Poor Things Best Sound The Creator Maestro Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One Oppenheimer The Zone of Interest - WINNER Best Visual Effects The Creator Godzilla: Minus One - WINNER Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One Napoleon The Big Winners of the 2024 Oscars Did your predictions come true? And did your favorite films take home the gold from the 2024 Oscars winners list? Let us know your thoughts on the winners, the ceremony as a whole, and if there were any films that you still wish had made it to the show!      

[carterboehm]

Highest Grossing Western Films of All Time

The Western film genre has a rich history that spans many generations. The top 20 highest-grossing Westerns cover five decades, from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969 to The Magnificent Seven in 2016.

The highest-grossing Western film of all time is Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, and Leonardo DiCaprio. Released in 2012, the picture grossed nearly $450 million at the box office worldwide. It remains Tarantino’s most successful film and earned Tarantino numerous awards, including an Academy Award in the Original Screenplay category.

The second most successful Western at the box office, Dances with Wolves, was released 22 years prior to Django Unchained. Director and star Kevin Costner guided the film to a more than $424 million gross. Adjusted for inflation, Dances with Wolves surpasses the Django Unchained gross by $10 million.

Adjusting for inflation does not, however, make Dances with Wolves the most successful Western of all time. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid eclipsed $100 million at the box office in 1969, one of 16 Westerns to manage this feat. The roughly 70,557,900 tickets sold works out to nearly $645.5 million when adjusting for inflation, good for the No. 40 highest-grossing film ever made.

Other top-grossing Western films include The Lone Ranger, which made $260 million in 2013, and True Grit, which grossed $252 million in 2010. Many successful films use elements of the Western genre. Back to the Future Part III, for example, is set in the old West, though it also has elements of science fiction, fantasy, and adventure films.

[christophfanalways]

I can't believe February 24, 2024 marks 1 year since The Consultant aired on Prime!!

[jjorbles]

(Repost) Why James Bond will never fight Blofeld again

Note: This article was originally posted October 20th, 2015 on the Agony Booth, which I used to write for. Since that site is sadly no longer with us, I’m reposting my old articles here. Obviously, SPECTRE has since been released and you could tell from the title my speculations were VERY wrong here, so I'm mostly reposting this one for irony's sake.

Next month, a new James Bond movie comes out, and I’m pretty excited about it. I like Bond movies more often than I don’t, but what’s really got my attention is the title: Spectre. Say no more. A title like that can only mean the return of a villain not seen since the Connery era.

The Bond films, for the majority of their history, have been mostly self-contained stories. Ongoing plot threads like the ones seen in the Daniel Craig movies are a fairly recent development. But back in the early days, every time Bond hit the screen, he was menaced by the Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion. (They’ll never mention that SPECTRE is an acronym in the new movie, of course, because spy movies at some point decided they were too cool for acronyms, but they should, because it’s awesome.)

Whoever was after Bond in any given movie inevitably answered to a mysterious mastermind whose face was always concealed, identifiable only by the white Persian cat eternally in his lap. Until You Only Live Twice, that is, when Bond finally came face to face with SPECTRE’s supreme leader: Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

Even if you’re not at all familiar with classic Bond movies, I’m willing to bet the image above is very familiar to you. But it probably doesn’t conjure up images of terrifying villainy or superspy intrigue. It probably just reminds you of this guy.

It’s been a while since the Austin Powers movies were popular. Hell, it’s been a while since Mike Meyers was popular. But the franchise still holds a place in our collective consciousness. You can go most anywhere in the United States, extend your pinky finger and demand “one meeelion dollars!” and you can generally trust the reference will be understood.

Why am I bringing up Dr. Evil? Because, dear readers, Dr. Evil is the very reason why we will never see Blofeld in another Bond movie again.

No, never. Yes, SPECTRE is returning to the Bond franchise for the first time in decades, complete with their signature octopus signet rings. Yes, there’s been much speculation that Christoph Waltz, cast as the film’s main villain and presumably SPECTRE’s leader, will be playing Blofeld. And yes, he’s even seen wearing a very Blofeld-esque collarless jacket in the trailer. But Waltz has publically stated that his character, Franz Oberhauser, is most definitely not Blofeld, and I believe him. Because honestly, how can you possibly bring Blofeld back in a post-Austin Powers world?

Sure, back in his day, Blofeld was the Moriarty to Bond’s Sherlock Holmes, his most persistent nemesis, and responsible for arguably the greatest personal tragedy 007 ever endured: the murder of his wife Tracy on their honeymoon. But unlike other famous arch-nemeses of pop culture, Blofeld has the odd problem of being weirdly obscure despite his massive influence. While Bond himself has remained a constant presence in pop culture, Blofeld hasn’t been seen since 1983, allowing him to become largely forgotten. So many villains since him have copied his iconography that he’s somehow become overshadowed by his own legacy.

Dr. Evil is the most obvious example, every bit as much a thinly veiled caricature of Blofeld as Austin Powers was of James Bond himself. The cat stroking, the gray suit, the bald head, the scars, the penchant for exotic lairs, doomsday weapons, and elaborate death traps, they all invoke the original image of the SPECTRE head. But a close second in infamy is Dr. Claw, rival to Inspector Gadget. Claw copied the earlier appearances of Blofeld, appearing only as a chair with its back to the audience, a single arm visible for yet more cat stroking. And his evil spy network MAD was an obvious reference to SPECTRE itself.

But you’ll notice a distinct difference between both those examples and their source: Blofeld wasn’t a comedy character. Aside from one weird moment where he dressed as an old lady for some reason (Diamonds are Forever was not a good movie), he was a legitimate threat to be taken at least somewhat seriously by the audience. Donald Pleasence in particular gave him a subtle, creepy menace. But Dr. Evil is a comic farce, and Dr. Claw is a literal cartoon character.

In fact, of Blofeld’s many imitators, almost all of them are parodies or spoofs. The “villain with a cat” trope has become universal shorthand for comedy villains. The Great Mouse Detective, Bolt, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers, and hell, even the friggin’ Spice Girls movie did it. Giving your villain a fluffy cat to pet is now one of the quickest ways to inform your audience that they’re not to be taken seriously.

With that is mind, is it any wonder Spectre bowed out of bringing back the evil organization’s iconic leader? The moment a bald, scarred Christoph Waltz walks onscreen carrying a cuddly kitty cat, theaters nationwide will burst into laughter. It would take modern audiences completely out of the movie. So for the sake of maintaining immersion, it’s perhaps best that they leave Blofeld at the bottom of that smokestack Bond dropped him down in the opening of For Your Eyes Only. Tragic as it is, he’s an idea too dated to work anymore.

Which is not to say we’ll never get some version of Blofeld in the future, but at this point, he’d have to be stripped of everything that makes him unique, so what would be the point? Suppose that at the end of Spectre, Christoph Waltz does indeed reveal that his real name was Blofeld the whole time, Cumberbatch-Khan-style. It’d be a cute Easter egg, but without the cat, the look, and the hidden volcano fortress under attack by ninjas (seriously, if you haven’t seen You Only Live Twice by now, you’re missing out), he’s not really Blofeld anymore.

Now, if somehow Waltz’s character loses his hands during the movie, gets a pair of robotic replacements in a post-credits teaser and decides to start calling himself Dr. No? That would be legendary.

[ausetkmt]

"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so think, and feel," declared President Abraham Lincoln in April 1864, less than a year before the American slave trade was abolished under his premiership. Yet, 157 years later, slavery is still by no means eradicated; according to the charity Anti-Slavery International, there is still a staggering 50 million people entrapped in modern slavery around the world. The trade has and forever will leave a blotch on societal conscience, a heinous, inhumane evil that is almost unimaginable to those in today’s civilized societies.

Amistad

Spielberg sets sail in his 1997 movie, Amistad, starring Djimon Hounsou, Morgan Freeman, Anthony Hopkins, Matthew McConaughey, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, the movie follows the story of a Spanish slave ship, La Amistad, heading for Cuba. Those enslaved spark a mutiny on board, led by Joseph Cinque (Hounsou), and successfully capture the ship and plan to sail it back to Africa. Cinque and his fellow countrymen entrust La Amistad’s navigators to plot a safe passage home, only to be betrayed.

Lincoln

Steven Spielberg’s two-and-a-half-hour epic won Daniel Day-Lewis his second Academy Award. The Phantom Thread actor stars in the titular role of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. The film concerns the latter period of the former president’s life as he attempts to unite a warring nation and bring an end to the devastating disease that was slavery, that ravaged the lives of so many. Lincoln represents a turning point in American (and world) history, an exploration of how abolition was achieved while also being right in the midst of a civil war.

Related: Here Are Some of the Best Cinematic Historical Dramas

Gladiator

Ridley Scott’s Gladiator isn’t a film that would immediately jump out as your typical film on slavery. Though, Scott’s representation of the slave trade within the Roman Empire is of accurate origin, with most gladiators brought to the arena in shackles and owned by the rich and powerful. Maximus (a great Russell Crowe) is a celebrated war hero with distinguished service to Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who offered him the title of Caesar following his death, despite his own son, Commodus (a wicked Joaquin Phoenix), being next-in-line.

Following Marcus’ demise via the hand of his own son, Maximus is sold into slavery and so his adventure as a gladiatorial entertainer begins. Gladiator is an undeniable epic, in scale, narrative, and critical reception. From the set-pieces in the Roman amphitheaters to the huge emotions and performances on display, it's a heartbreaking but honest example of how slavery is the byproduct of power, corruption, and the fears and jealousies of the people in charge.

Django Unchained

Jamie Foxx stars alongside Christoph Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio in Quentin Tarantino’s punchy Western Django Unchained. Dr. King Schultz (Waltz), a bounty hunter posing as a dentist, frees Django Freeman (Foxx) in return for his help identifying three wanted criminals. Subsequently, the pair team up and embark on a mission to locate Django’s wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington), a slave at the infamous Candie Plantation, run by the devilish Calvin Candie (DiCaprio).

Django Unchained is a picture that oozes style but backs it up with an abundance of substance. Jamie Foxx plays a slave reborn, empowered by his freedom, he’s feasibly the first man to ever make a prince aristocrat outfit look cool. Much was made prior to Django Unchained, of how Leonardo DiCaprio was yet to scoop an Academy Award, and while that wasn’t to come until three years later with The Revenant, his performance as the depraved Calvin Candie certainly deserved Oscar recognition.

Spartacus (1960)

Stanley Kubrick was all too familiar with the word “epic,” and his 1960 film Spartacus featuring the phenomenal Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier is precisely that. It is a story of bravery, courage, and vigor, which follows Thracian Spartacus (Kirk Douglas), a man enslaved his entire life, who takes a stand against his authoritarian owners, and is consequently sold to Batiatus (an Oscar-winning Peter Ustinov), a gladiator trainer. Spartacus’ life changes after he and his fellow gladiators escape their captors.

A film that was deeply allegorical for the time (written by a blacklisted author about the McCarthy witch hunts), Spartacus remains a timeless depiction of the cruelties of the proverbial State, the inherent dignity of the individual, and the power that powerless people can create from unity.

12 Years a Slave

12 Years a Slave is a poignant yet horrifyingly disturbing depiction of slavery 20 years prior to its abolition. Based on the memoir of Solomon Northup, director Steve McQueen’s screen adaptation provides possibly the most comprehensively graphic illustration of the sheer scale of the atrocities of slavery. A free man and musician, Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor) lives in the state of New York with his wife and children but is drugged, taken to Washington D.C., and sold into slavery.

Related: Here's 5 Great Films That Fight for Civil Rights

His protestations fall on deaf ears, and while he’s initially sold to a relatively forgiving man, Mr. Ford, the unscrupulous and pathetically evil plantation carpenter John Tibeats takes a disliking to him, and soon Solomon is moved on to work for the menacingly brutish Mr. Epps. It’s at Epps’ plantation that Solomon endures the most persistent emotional and physical abuse at the hands of his slaver.

12 Years a Slave is littered with spellbinding performances. Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northup puts in a flawless display as a man who, despite the tyrannical circumstances he has been placed under, is resolute and unwavering in the face of extreme adversity. Michael Fassbender is terrifying as Mr. Epps, the face of thousands if not millions of evil slave owners over centuries, with this malevolent, crazed glaze over his eyes, and utter contempt for the human lives under his cruel jurisdiction. Lupita Nyong’o, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, and Paul Dano put in equally emphatic showings. In typical McQueen fashion, no punches are pulled, and no detail is spared — we are exposed to the horrors that were carried out and the inherent racially fueled prejudice of the trade itself. You may not want to watch it again, but everybody should see it once.

[palettescinema]

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

•Director: Quentin Tarantino

•Cinematography: Robert Richardson

•Production Design: David Wasco

•Costume Design: Anna B. Sheppard

•Colorist: Yvan Lucas

[flick-pics-blog]

Django Unchained (2012)

“I like the way you die, boy”

[byneddiedingo]

Viggo Mortensen in A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg, 2011) Cast: Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen, Keira Knightley, Vincent Cassel, Sarah Gadon. Screenplay: Christopher Hampton, adapted from his play based on a book by John Kerr. Cinematography: Peter Suschitzky. Production design: James McAteer. Music: Howard Shore.  Sometimes, as Freud said, a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes, as Viggo Mortensen, playing the man himself, demonstrates, a cigar is a prop that can help you win an acting contest. Because too often a costume drama based on a play becomes just that: a contest among actors to show who can come out on top, especially when the cast consists of actors like Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, and Vincent Cassel -- none of them exactly shy of showing what they can do before a camera. When I heard of it, I thought Mortensen was a decidedly off-beat choice to play the father of psychoanalysis, and he was in fact the second actor to be cast in the role, after Christoph Waltz, an almost inevitable choice, found he had a scheduling conflict. Mortensen had worked with director David Cronenberg twice before, but playing men of violent action in Eastern Promises (2007) and A History of Violence (2005), not a pre-World War I middle-European Jewish intellectual. And yet Mortensen gives a delicious performance as Freud: puckish, proud, intellectually combative. And the cigar helps, whether brandished elegantly or plugged defiantly in the middle of his face. By contrast, everyone else seems a little over the top. Fassbender (who was second choice after Christian Bale) is his usual handsome presence, but he frets a little too visibly and never quite establishes Jung as the challenger to Freud's authority that Freud seems to have thought him to be. Knightley acts the electrons off the screen as Sabina, almost popping out an eye and dislocating her jaw in her mad scenes, but recovers nicely in her later moments in the film. And Cassel, as the mad Otto Gross, takes his role to the extreme as the man who carries Freud's theories about repression to their logical extreme: Don't repress anything. Ever. The film's battle of ideas gets a little bit lost in all the emoting, and as so often happens in filmed costume dramas, the scenery and the sets capture the eye when the words should be capturing the mind. But Howard Shore's evocation of the melancholy side of Wagner's music is perfect for the era in which the film is set, the transition from 19th-century Weltschmerz into 20th-century bloodshed, a time when, as James Joyce punned, we were Jung and easily Freudened. Jung's prophetic dream of a bloody tide sweeping over Europe is cited in the film, as a warning that all of this intellectual (and sexual) palaver was about to be subsumed in war. 

[gayteensupreme]

okay im gonna spend a significant amount of time talking about no time to die on here probably but im gonna put everything under a cut so uh spoilers ahead. Consider this post my formal review of No Time to Die and the Daniel Craig era as a whole.

The Daniel Craig era of Bond was the refresher the series desperately needed, and No Time to Die was the perfect way to conclude it.

with a 4 year gap between Pierce Brosnan's last appearance as Bond and Daniel Craig's first, it was clear that the films needed a serious update, not just to keep up with the changing appetites of a cinema audience, but with the more refined set of social norms when it came to the treatment of women and other marginalised groups. Sean Connery's Bond, in the words of No Time to Die director Cary Fukunaga was "basically a rapist", and in my opinion it's hard to disagree with that statement.

Daniel Craig's era of Bond represented quite a few changes in the franchise. For one, despite still being something of a sexist womanising dinosaur, Bond's behaviour was no longer framed as something to be accepted or celebrated. In addition, Craig's Bond was set up to follow a more linear storyline, with the films having an overarching plot - as opposed to adventure after adventure with no real consequences after the movie was over.

The Craig Era introduced a more modern, grounded Bond. His films were still very much about the adventures of James Bond, in his fast cars with women following him around wherever he went, but underneath that was a subplot of sorts of a Bond slowly realising that the world was changing, and sooner or later he would have no place in it.

Nowhere is that more apparent, in my opinion, than in No Time to Die. James Bond pulls himself out of retirement to relive his glory days, working with his friend in the CIA. This time, not only does the target get away, and not only does his friend die in his arms, but Bond meets his replacement. The new 007.

The new 007 being, in contrast to the rule-breaking dinosaur that is Bond, a black woman named Nomi who does her spy work strictly by the book, portrayed brilliantly by Lashana Lynch.

Lynch gives us perhaps one of the best supporting characters in Bond history, and if anything I believe she should have had more screen time.

The real strength in Nomi's character is that she doesn't fit into any of the categories women have been assigned in most Bond films. She's not a damsel in distress, she's not the wife/lover of some evil villain, and she isn't attracted to James Bond at all.

With Nomi, we finally get a female character that doesn't depend on Bond's existence to be absolutely badass.

In regards to the other characters, all the performances are incredible, especially those by Christoph Waltz (Ernst Stavro Blofeld) and Ralph Fiennes (M). And I think an honourable mention is due for Naomie Harris' performance as Miss Moneypenny, however small her role was. Ben Whishaw was incredible as Q, and the short scene where Bond vists Q while he's preparing for a date is hilarious, and, however much of a throwaway the line it may be, the line where Q references his date and how "he" will be here any minute was a small touch that I thought was quite nice.

Léa Seydoux gives a great performance as Madeline, following in the footsteps of Diana Rigg, who was Countess Tracy di Vicenzo in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (which No Time to Die was, in my opinion, largely a homage to) as the only woman Bond could ever truly love.

And who can forget Rami Malek's performance as Lyutsifer Safin, the main villain of the film. It was absolutely phenomenal, giving us what I think is both greatly inspired by older Bond villains, while also giving us something new and modern.

And finally, I suppose it's only fitting to conclude this review with the conclusion of the movie, and how the impossible happened.

Bond was killed.

Bond's death in a fiery explosion, as he sacrificed himself to save the world, was the perfect ending to Craig's era of Bond. After breaking through so many restraints of the older installments, it finally broke through the biggest restraint of all.

The scene where it's revealed Bond has been infected with the nanobots that could kill Madeline and her child are heartbreaking, and perfectly sets up Bond's motivation to do what he does next.

With nothing left to live for, knowing that touching the woman he loved most even once could kill both her and her child could kill them both, he opens the blast doors to make sure the nanobot disease lab is destroyed in its entirety, and clambers to the top of the building as he awaits his explosive fate.

A great movie, and one that will forever remain in my memory as a groundbreaking installment in the Bond franchise.

All that's left to do is see who's chosen to portray Bond next, which should happen sometime next year.