The Newtown revulsion of the last three days is very much in the air, and I don’t think this is going to do any favors for Django Unchained, which [NON-SURPRISING SPOILER] is drenched in blood towards the finale…bodies on the floor, blood on the walls. It would be one thing if Tarantino was an earnest, hard-core, straight-on filmmaker in the Michael Haneke mode. But he’s all about “attitude”, flip humor, irony and references to ’70s movies, and to pour blood on top of that? Doesn’t feel right in this climate.

It seems provincial and small-minded to say this, given the much larger ramifications, but I think Newtown has probably hurt Django a lot.

Right now, I’m told, it’s Tarantino vs. David O. Russell vs. Tom Hooper for the fifth Best Directing Oscar nomination. This assumes that Steven Spielberg, Ben Affleck, Kathryn Bigelow and Ang Lee are locks…but are they? I think QT is out right now and that the divided reaction to Les Miz speaks for itself, and that the five finalists are Spielberg, Russell, Affleck, Bigelow and Lee.