ONTD

Here's an excerpt from Indiewire's scoop on the Django Unchained footage:

• While it's not sensationally exploitative like its predecessor "Mandingo," Tarantino's movie is designed to blow people's gaskets. He knows what he's doing... What the footage reveals is that for the moment, while Tarantino has described the film as a "southern," Weinstein Co. is selling this as a bang-up western packed with physical comedy and bloody action and hell-bent revenge. And yes, it looks like a classic widescreen Sergio Leone western, even if the setting is New Orleans and Mississippi two years before the Civil War. (The music on the trailer ranged from classic Johnny Cash to James Brown. No Ennio Morricone here. As yet)... Tarantino is taking the revenge western to a whole new level as the two bounty hunters [Dr. Schultz and Django, played by Christoph Waltz and Jamie Foxx] shoot their way through the unsuspecting South. It looks like the first Leone-esque section of "Inglourious Basters," and it's about fighting injustice, except that this time it's not Brad Pitt against the Nazis in World War II- it's an angry black man getting his own back from the racist white southerners before the Civil War.

Next, we have some thoughts on the footage from AICN:

• I'd say overall we saw about 4 or 5 minutes of Django Unchained and I gotta tell you... I wasn't anticipating the amount of humor in the movie... Much like Inglourious Basterds before it, I painted a different picture in my mind, in this case a sweaty southern gothic story. But once Christoph Waltz shows up in his carriage with a giant tooth bouncing back and forth from the roof, trying to negotiate a deal with a slave driver, I began to get the tone... Again, this thing just looks like a ton of fun and while I was already excited for the movie, I am now officially giddy. All the location work makes the film look huge, Foxx is at the top of his game it appears, Waltz is lovable, funny, and dangerous all at once, and it just feels like everybody is having a blast.

To top all of that off, here is Vulture's report on the screened footage:

• The big surprise? How funny this potentially controversial Western has turned out to be. In particular, Leonardo DiCaprio seems to be having the time of his life dropping N-bombs and smiling rotted teeth as plantation owner Calvin Candie, whom freed slave Jamie Foxx and bounty hunter Christoph Waltz must defeat in order to save Foxx's wife Kerry Washington. You'll get periwinkle-suited Foxx shooting lumpy blood chunks out of racist hicks (and an innocent snowman in one scene), and you'll laugh! You'll get Don Johnson dressed as Colonel Sanders! And you'll get an instant catchphrase from a cooly underplaying Foxx, when he's asked his name: "Django. The D is Silent." 

So, there you have it. It sounds as though the early consensus (based solely on the trailer shown) is that Tarantino looks to serve up yet another healthy helping of pulpy entertainment - one that proudly wears its spaghetti western influences on its sleeve, beyond either Inglourious Bastards or Kill Bill: Vol 2.  

Admittedly though, all the surprised reactions about the amount of twisted comedy in Django Unchained are a bit... well, surprising themselves. Isn't off-beat humor a Tarantino trademark, by this point? Moving on...

Django Unchained opens in theaters around the US on December 25, 2012.

Some tweets:

@empiremagazine: Harvey Weinstein just presented 7 mins of Django Unchained. Looks ace. We're tipping Fritz the nodding horse to be a breakout star. #Cannes

@DrewAtHitFix: OMFG, "Django Unchained" looks so good. SO GOOD. #Cannes

@Jake_Howell: Just saw trailer for DJANGO "the D is silent" UNCHAINED. Mind successfully blown.

@TwitchFilm: DJANGO gets the most whoops. Plenty of blood, plenty of laughs. Looks like it will be the Christophe Waltz  show. "The D is silent." #Cannes

@zaffi: Django Unchained looks f'n badass...7 minute trailer ending with Jamie Foxx shooting his pistol to James Brown 'Payback' "The D is Silent"

@jayhanson2: Django unchained gets a few minutes at #Canne2012 to hype up tarantinos latest. Leo doin his thing n the standard slick soundtrack we expect.

@AwardsDaily: Amazing footage for Django and The Master. Crazy unleashed. Hard core violence, nudity. Awesome shit. #cannes2012

@loganhill33: Django looks good as the spectacular script I'd read. Bad. Ass.. Slave turned redneck-killer. Score to James Brown's "Big Payback." #Cannes

@firstshowing: "Django... the D is silent." Ha oh man Django Unchained footage looks so unbelievably badass. I love Tarantino! Saw a good 7 mins - awesome!

@ropeofsilicon: Most intrigued by The Master footage, Django Unchained ext. trailer seemed safe but solid & Silver Linings seemed rather pedestrian.