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Inglourious Basterds
| 1 star | 0 votes |
| 2 stars | 1 votes |
| 3 stars | 2 votes |
| 4 stars | 6 votes |
| 5 stars | 3 votes |
| Nymr83 Aug 22 2009 05:48 PM |
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It tried to be serious, it tried to be funny, it mostly failed to be either. Though there are occassional funny moments they weren't frequent enough, and there wasn't enough action to carry the boring plot along.
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| metirish Aug 23 2009 03:04 PM |
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What's with the intentional misspelling of both words? , smug fuck that Tarantino .
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| Edgy MD Aug 23 2009 05:54 PM |
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I was thinking it was a film about a hair metal band.
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| Vic Sage Aug 24 2009 11:01 AM |
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it's not about smugness... although he certainly is. This is not exactly a remake but a film inspired by a 70s Italian B-movie correctly translated as "Inglorious Bastards", which itself was an attempt to cash in on the DIRTY DOZEN. So he seems to have wanted to evoke the original title while not emulating it... same as the film itself does. Also, thematically, the misspelling is evocative but not factually accurate, just as the film is, in its creation of an "alternate history" of WWII. Narratively, it's a phrase created by the Brad Pitt character (the similarly "misspelled" Aldo Raine, based on b-movie star Aldo Ray) who can be read as a nearly illiterate hillbilly, with the phrase carved on his rifle. The movie has a lot of hits, but some misses. I'll take KILL BILL (either 1 or 2), and PULP FICTION over this one. But, despite its flaws, its a spaghetti-western style WWII revenge fantasy with some brilliant touches, and i found it highly entertaining. Its intertwining, episodic parallel story threads works as a structure, but fails to allow the Basterds themselves to get developed as characters we should care about, especially Pitt, who is funny but 1-dimensional and cartoonish. Still, the opening sequence, with its Morricone music, shot compositions, themes and even the narrative itself, is a remake of the opening of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. If QT had been able to maintain that sensibility, it would've been amazing film. However, the subsequent sequences vary greatly in tone and style, so the whole thing feels more like a mishmash than a coherently articulated concept. other great performances: the Nazi colonel Landa is a fascinating, complex villain. and the escaped Jewish girl Shoshanna is a doomed beauty. But everybody else is pretty limited. Aside from the appropriate Morricone music, there is a major musical misstep in the use of the Moroder/Bowie song from CAT PEOPLE remake ("Putting Out fire") that is jarringly anachronistic. there are some other self-conscious cinematic devices i found particularly annoying as well: the pointless use of a Samuel Jackson voice-over to explain the flammability of Nitrate filmstock; the use of drawn-in arrows and captions to identify key nazis in crowd scenes; guest cameo performances, as if it were an episode of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE. Another aspect of Tarantino's navel-gazing is his use of the movie-within-a- movie, and then another movie within THAT, and a charming old movie theater, and filmstock itself, as the vehicles by which final retribution is achieved. For a filmmaker, elevating film to such importance is a form of self-aggrandizement that is both revealing and irritating. Also limiting the film's appeal for me is its hypocrisy and/or cynicism. We watch Nazis watch a film about a hero sniper who kills 300 allied soldiers, and we are supposed to be appalled by their cheers and ecstacy as they revel in their hero's exploits. Of course, we have been watching our own "heroes" scalping nazis, shooting them, blowing them up, setting them on fire and bashing in their brains with baseball bats, so are we to take this as QT's indictment of our own voyeuristic bloodthirstiness? Nope. Unlike a film like Eastwood's UNFORGIVEN, our own behavior (and, therefore, Tarantino's) goes totally unjudged. We're just supposed to enjoy the revenge, no matter how much it aligns us with the Nazis. Of course, starting off a movie with "... Once upon a time" gives you extraordinary license, but it is not a license to be an arrogant, cruel cynic, even one with an affection for 70s pop culture.
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| Farmer Ted Aug 24 2009 03:47 PM |
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I was quite struck by the Nazi-genre film angle. Very interesting. Colonel Landa was very well played. I'd recommend it.
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| themetfairy Aug 29 2009 03:38 PM |
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Smug fuck or not, I love Tarantino. I get into his sick sense of humor.
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| LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr Aug 31 2009 12:20 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Sep 09 2009 09:38 AM |
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I enjoyed it, too... then felt a little guilty afterward, mostly for the violence. (It seems of a different, more outrightly sadistic timbre than that in previous movies; in those, the blood-and-guts-and-torture may have been the source of amusement or shocked guffaws, but it wasn't something meant to solicit cheers from the audience... just because the victims in this case are mostly Nazis doesn't make it any less squirmworthy.)
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| soupcan Sep 09 2009 08:13 AM Re: Inglourious Basterds |
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Liked it - gave it 3.
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| PiggiesTomatoes Sep 11 2009 08:40 PM Re: Inglourious Basterds |
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Saw the movie last week and loved it. He's a pretty good director but his writing is amazing. I don't believe it was intended to be serious or funny, but a typical Tarantino job (incredible characters, great performances and shit you woundn't think to put on screen given one hundred years).
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| Nymr83 Sep 12 2009 01:45 AM Re: Inglourious Basterds |
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the farmhouse scene was indeed well done, but it set the scene for a better or just more serious movie and then he didnt deliver. the bar scene was also good. but that was it.
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| The Second Spitter Sep 29 2009 10:30 AM Re: Inglourious Basterds |
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I watched this the other night. It's a great film, if you take it for what it is. It's pretty obvious that Tarantino was influenced by the "exploitation" genre from Grindhouse and it's arguable that "Inglourious Basterds" fits that genre more than "Death Proof". The thing about exploitation film is that it's easy to forgive shortcomings. But unlike most films of the genre, this film contained some great acting performances, most notably Christoph Waltz (Colonel Landa) and stronger characters, in spite of a nonsensical plot. I was kinda disappointed Julie Dreyfus (Goebbel's interpreter) was so underused.
Which was not the only example of that, but thought it was intentionally done so, to give the film an more "exploitation feel".
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| Vic Sage Oct 05 2009 01:00 PM Re: Inglourious Basterds |
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i agree it was intentional, i just thought the jarringly anachronistic choice outweighed the exploitation tone he was going for.
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| cooby May 23 2010 06:46 PM Re: Inglourious Basterds |
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Jst saw it from Netflix, enjoyed it a lot.
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| RealityChuck Jun 02 2010 02:09 PM Re: Inglourious Basterds |
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Loved the film. Weitz's Oscar was well-deserved; I can think of only one other film villain with the combination of cruelty and unpredictability (Mark Rydell's Marty Augustine in The Long Goodbye).
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