Top Ten: Django Unchained

This year for the Hollmann Awards, we're counting down my Top Ten of the Year -- one entry per day, coupled with two categories -- leading up the naming of Best Picture of the Year.

#4. Django Unchained 

dir: Quentin Tarantino

wr: Quentin Tarantino

cin: Robert Richardson

Django Unchained caught a lot of controversy since before its release. It's Quentin Tarantino giving the spaghetti western treatment to slavery in pre-Civil War America, sooooo yeah. Things were going to get testy. There's the constant use of THAT WORD, the near-silence of Django's apparently exceptional wife, the appearance of the white guys getting more to say and do than the supposed hero*. And there have been some good arguments made against the movie, but...well, obviously, I disagree.

Awards Preliminary: The 2012 Longlists

It is a tradition, when I do my Hollmann Awards, to submit a longlist of contenders in each category beforehand. Inspired by the BAFTA tradition of same, the longlists not only allow me to gather my thoughts, but to highlight films and contributors that may not otherwise make my final ballot. You will, of course, find an entry for every one of my Top 25, but you will also see titles you may not expect -- Step Up: Revolution, Detention and The Guilt Trip are three films that I'm not necessarily mad about as a whole (ok, I'm totally in the tank for the bookenders), but whose strongest attributes I felt needed attention.

Except where noted, each category has 15 finalists.