Urgent Score Update - From Coral Gables, Florida: Thug U 90 Duke 63. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was sitting near several Duke fans during the game at Sloppys & those folks were in total shock during that 1st half run where the Canes outscored Coach K's boys 25-1. Seth Curry went 0 for 10 from the floor. Quinn Cook went 1 for 12 from the floor. Tyler Thornton went 0 for 7 from the floor. That's 1 for 29 for those 3 amazing Blue Devil stars. That's just north of 3%. And the defense was atrocious. Hall Of Fame shortstop Barry Larkin's son, Shane, embarrassed anyone that Duke had trying to check him. The oddest thing about the whole affair was Coach K's attire. Instead of going with his typical dark mortician style suit, Coach K went with a dark sport coat and charcoal hued slacks. Maybe his luggage was lost on the flight to Miami, I have no idea. But it was bizarre to see Coach K attired so shabbily. One of the Duke fans at Sloppys kept bitching about the officiating. I encouraged him to keep it up. There's little in life that amuses me more than witnessing Duke fans try to rationalize a shitty effort by blaming the zebras. I kept telling the Duke fans within earshot that they only have to wait about 8 more weeks before they can try and get out of the 1st round of the NCAA Tournament, so long as they don't draw Lehigh again...
I went and saw Django Unchained recently (the D is silent, as they repeatedly remind us throughout the film). And maybe I'm getting old or something, but I didn't like it nearly as much as I assumed I would. Historically, it's wildly inaccurate. But that didn't bother me much. Poetic license and whatnot. There's a scene featuring the KKK that's pretty funny, as the klansmen don't have big enough eye holes on the sacks that hide their faces. They keep complaining about not being able to see anything. The movie is set in 1858. The Klan wasn't founded until after the Civil War ended. Whatever. Watching Nash Bridges himself, Don Johnson, get murdered during the scene made up for it. I'm not sure why I didn't like the movie very much. There's lots of violence, which I thought was well done. The acting was pretty good, especially Mace Windu playing a house slave. I guess it just seemed very silly overall. In the end, all the white people are dead (killed by Jamie Foxx of all people) and Django and his wife ride off into the sunset.
As always in Tarantino's films, he casts himself in a part. In Django Unchained, Tarantino plays an Australian slave overseer (Jamie Foxx kills him too). Anyway, I know Tarantino is pushing 50 years old at this point, but he looks really fat. It was unsettling to see how much weight he's gained. At the rate he's going, Tarantino will be in Orson Welles territory before long...
Speaking of Tarantino, I really think that his best movie is Jackie Brown. When in came out in 1997, I didn't like it as much as Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction. But as the years have elapsed and I've re-watched all 3 of them more and more, it really is his best movie. It's the only one where you care about the main character (Pam Grier in this case). The rest of Tarantino's movies, while entertaining and funny and smart, are more exercises in showing off his genius as an auteur. Which is okay I guess. I'll continue to watch his movies. But the problem with Django Unchained is you are never invested in any of the characters. It's good. It's entertaining. It's worth your 7 bucks at a matinee showing. But you just sit there going, "that's interesting" or "that's a pretty funny line." And after 2 and 1/2 hours it ends. It won't resonate with you. It's kind of a shame.
Speaking of Django Unchained, Spike Lee has taken Tarantino to task for making a movie depicting slavery. I guess he doesn't think a white dude should be allowed to make a film that depicts slaves being viciously beaten, tortured, forced to fight each other to the death, and torn apart by rabid dogs. And maybe Lee has a point. But if Lee bothered to go see the movie, he'd quickly realize that Tarantino is not really saying anything profound about slavery as an institution. He's not trying to say anything profound about the plight of slaves. It's merely the only setting Tarantino could use to fulfill his fantasy of making a movie where a black man can justifiably kill every white person he comes in contact with. Nothing more, nothing less.
Lastly on this Django film, it was widely reported that Tarantino was trying to get Will Smith to play Django and Smith turned him down flat. I think I know why that might be the case. I'm guessing that Smith read the script and realized that the Django character is poorly fleshed out. He's a slave who becomes a bounty hunter, then goes to get his wife away from Leo DiCaprio and kills all the white people on Leo's plantation in the process. That's it. Django isn't a real character in any sense. You never get any sense of Django as a person at all. Thus, you can't really blame The Fresh Prince for taking a pass on the movie.
Okay, enough about that...
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