The Western has long been one of the quintessential forms of film. From John Wayne to Clint Eastwood, there have been plenty of classic cowboy flicks complete with shoot outs, romance, and suspense. Such films have garnered many fans, one of them being indie filmmaking maestro Quentin Tarantino, whose newest film Django Unchained is his own flavor of Western.
Starring Jamie Foxx as Django, Django Unchained tells the story of an escaped slave-turned-bounty hunter who comes up with an elaborate plan to buy back his wife from evil plantation owner Calvin Candie (played brilliantly by Leonardo Dicaprio). With an all-star cast and all the gore and outlandishness that we have come to expect from a Tarantino film, we get exactly what we should in a movie: sheer entertainment.
The soundtrack for the movie is a musical smorgasbord filled with traditional western tracks, amongst others. Quentin Tarantino has long been famous for his inclusion of some obscure musical gems in his movies (pulled from his own record collection), but the Django Unchained soundtrack also sees Tarantino reaching out to the world of contemporary hip-hop.
Tracks written specifically for the movie -- like Rick Ross' "100 Black Coffins," and RZA's "Ode To Django," playing over the closing titles -- proves that Tarantino really does know what's going on in the world of hip-hop. There was also a clever James Brown and 2Pac mash-up from Claudio Cueni, not to mention a beautiful acoustic piece sung in Italian by Elisa Toffoli and a track written by John Legend.
Django Unchained proves that all things are better with hip-hop, westerns included.
