After canceling a splashy premiere for Quentin Tarantino’s spaghetti western send up “Django Unchained,” The Weinstein Co. today (Dec. 22) released the movie’s fourth trailer. It’s considerably toned down from previous teasers. Was that on purpose?
Hollywood studios faced an onslaught yesterday from the National Rifle Association.
The NRA’s anti-gun law architect Wayne LaPierre, blamed the spate of mass shootings on the news media and movie and video game makers. He accused Hollywood of producing the “filthiest form of pornography.”
As it turns out, “Django Unchained” may be the most graphic and violent movie released this year. It will hit theaters on Christmas Day. Whether Weinstein is trying to make a statement by releasing the trailer is unknown. But it sends a signal that at least one company won’t be intimidated.
Tarantino categorically rejects the idea that violent video games and movies incite mentally unstable people to commit mass murder. “I make violent movies. I like violent movies. I’m on record about how I feel there is no correlation between art and life in that way,” he said in a Playboy magazine interview.
The movie takes on the South’s culture of racism and slavery in the years just before the Civil War. Django, played by Jaime Foxx is a slave who agrees to help bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christolph Waltz) find two desperadoes.
In exchange, Schultz agrees to rescue Django’s slave wife from nefarious plantation owner Calvin J. Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).
There’s still plenty of gunplay in the new trailer. Foxx as Django does most of the shooting. Ironically, Foxx is a leading proponent of stricter controls on guns in real life. Check it out and follow TheImproper on twitter for the latest updates on the gun control controversy.