"The D is silent." -Jamie Foxx in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained.
That catchphrase lit up the twittershpere as journalists streamed out of the Weinstein Company's show and tell Monday evening in Cannes. Harvey was on hand to present just over four minutes of Paul Thomas Anderson's THE MASTER, three minutes of David O. Russell's THE SILVER LINING PLAYBOOK, and a whopping seven minutes plus from Quentin Tarantino's DJANGO UNCHAINED. Each sizzle reel was cut like a trailer and all three films look really, really promising. If you are the kind of person that wants to stay completely in the dark, then you should probably stop reading this now. I hesitate to call anything beyond a spoiler, but you should be able to get an idea of what was shown.
THE MASTER
Shown just a few hours after the internet was treated to the film's first teaser, the assembled journalists were buzzing about whether we'd see the same minute and a half or something more substantial. The footage started with the same Joaquin Phoenix dialog but with a different cut of the visuals. It then went on to a much more substantial trailer that featured both Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams extensively. Adams looks like she will particularly shine as what would appear to be the wife of Hoffman's character; the two of them working to "fix" Phoenix's disturbed WW2 vet. Production design was at the forefront in a film that looks highly stylized to its late 1940s/1950s setting. The film will be released on October 12th in the US.
THE SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
The least was known about David O. Russell's upcoming romantic comedy before Harvey unspooled his three minute trailer (the shortest of the three). Adapted by Russell from a novel by Matthew Quick, the film stars Bradley Cooper as what would seem to be a mentally unstable Philadelphia man trying to reconnect with an old love and finding Jennifer Lawrence instead. Lawrence stole the trailer but there were some good lines delivered all around. Robert De Niro, Chris Tucker, Julia Stiles, and John Ortiz (who Luck fans may know as Escalante) all make appearances as well. This crowd pleaser is set for release on Thanksgiving in the US (Nov. 21).
DJANGO UNCHAINED
The anticipation in the crowd was palpable as the first shots of Quentin Tarantino's slavery era epic hit the screen. Many journalists didn't even attempt to hold back their whoops of joy as Christoph Waltz's Dr. King Shultz pulled his horse Fritz to a stop alongside a line of slaves, a giant tooth comically bobbing atop his wagon. The seven plus minutes of footage was filled with plenty of gun slinging, blood drawing, and a whole lot of Tarantino humor. There was quite a bit of plot revealed as well , focusing on Waltz's freeing of Jamie Foxx Django and the manhunt the two undertake from there. This eventually leads them to Don Johnson's plantation, though Leonardo DiCaprio works his way in there as well. What was pretty obvious from the footage is that Waltz is front and center, there's a kickin' 70s soul soundtrack, and fans of QT will not be disappointed. It sounds like we'll have to wait until Christmas Day (Dec. 25th) to see much more than this; a wait that for most journalists there today, will now be excruciating!
Cannes 2012: Weinsteins Show Off DJANGO UNCHAINED, THE MASTER, & THE SILVER LINING PLAYBOOK