Listen to our Django Unchained episode on:
- iTunes
- Stitcher
- aCast
- Google Play
- Overcast
- Podbean
- Player FM
- Pocket Casts
- RadioPublic
- Spotify
- TuneIn
- YouTube
A blood-spattered revisionist tribute to classic Spaghetti Westerns, Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained is a sprawling, flawed masterpiece starring Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz star as a pair of gun-toting bounty hunters who team up to rescue Foxx’s enslaved wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from the clutches of a sadistic plantation owner – played by Leonardo DiCaprio in full capital letters ACTING mode.
Clocking in just shy of three hours, the film has an epic sprawl with a huge cast of supporting characters including Don Johnson, Jonah Hill, Walter Goggins and – in an electrifying, barely recognisable supporting turn, Samuel L. Jackson.
Spoiler alert – as it’s a Tarantino film, not many of these characters make it out of the movie alive, making prospects of a sequel fairly slender, even without the caveat that sequels don’t generally seem to be Tarantino’s bag anyway. But like all his best films, the characters are interesting and dynamic enough to warrant speculation on where they might go next, or where they might have been before.
In this week’s podcast, we chew the fat over the distinction between a lead and a supporting actor (Waltz controversially won in the latter category at that year’s Oscars, despite having more dialogue than any other character in the film), Jamie Foxx’s impeccable suit game, the disappointing characterisation of Kerry Washington, that DiCaprio monologue moment and much more.
After that, we unwind with some drinking games before attempting to pitch our own sequel ideas to bring Django and company back to the big screen. This week’s ideas include a Widows-inspired gender flip, a series of origin stories and the unlikely idea for a Django Unchained Christmas movie…
You can download or stream this episode of Beyond The Box Set for free right now by following the links at the top of this blog post, or by searching ‘Beyond The Box Set’ on your favoured podcasting app. As always, if you enjoy the show please hit subscribe to receive a new episode straight to your inbox every Friday morning, and consider leaving us a rating or a review to help us build our audience.
Next week, we’re welcoming a returning guest to discuss one of the definitive cult movies of the mid-00s – and a film that one of us has spent the past 15 years actively avoiding. Until then, happy listening and remember – the D is silent…