Quentin Tarantino's INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

[Johann]

There's gonna be a red carpet premiere of Quentin Tarantino's latest work at the Scotiabank Cineplex next Wednesday night and I'll be there.

QT and Eli Roth will be there in person.
Hella yeah.
Maybe I can get an autograph, photos.
I'll let you know how it goes.

[Johann]

I just read one review and the writer said that this film is the one where Tarantino goes from director to MASTER.

I'm getting pumped...

[Chris Knipp]

I saw it yesterday but am holding my review till the US opening day. You have reason to be pumped. It's got a lot going on it it. The trailer if you have seen it is a bit misleading, just shows one good moment from it. But I like that. A trailer that doesn't give it all away -- probalby another example of Tarantino's smart directorial control.

[Johann]

I went to the Canadian Premiere of Inglourious Basterds last night. (I'm not telling you how I got two passes- that's my little secret) and Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth were on hand to introduce the film, which packs one hell of a wallop!

I was late in getting there (I got there ten minutes before showtime) and Quentin was outside the Scotiabank theatre, on the red carpet, talking to reporters. It was a nice little gala- army camoflage nets up, vintage WWII ammo boxes everywhere, "extras" in vintage uniforms and ladies dolled up to look like Miss Hammersmarck? And a deuce-and-half army truck parked right near the entrance. It was awesome, and of course, I decided not to take any pictures because I wanted to get into the theatre and I figured I'll be able to get shots with QT and the setting outside after the movie. Not to be. Security was INSANE.
They took my camera. They took everybody's camera. Everybody's cell phone. Any suspicious looking backpacks- not going in. You get the airport screening with the metal detector, the whole nine yards. I was waiting for the body cavity search.
They were not fucking around with the recording of the movie.
No twittering no nothing.

This was one sold-out capacity crowd that I didn't mind being in.
Even though I was in the very first row, looking straight up the whole time, it kicked ass because I was five feet from Quentin and Eli as they introduced the film onstage.

They were introduced by the host of Canada A.M. and Quentin came out first, to a roar of applause. He looked great, black suit jacket with a t-shirt that had some kind of cartoon character on it, black slacks and the coolest pair of dress shoes I've ever seen. They were black, with silver melded into them and they were really shiny. I want to know where he got them.
He said he loves Toronto and that he was first here to promote Reservoir Dogs in 1992, was back in '94 for Four Rooms, was back again for his girlfriend Mira Sorvino's premiere, and other times since. He said he's been in many of Toronto's bars. Awesome. He introduced Eli Roth (to another round of applause) and Eli said he loves Toronto too because at the premiere screening of Cabin Fever two ambulances were summoned.
He praised "working with this man" and pointing to Quentin, saying We're all fans, right?.

Then Quentin got the audience to shout in unison:
ELI ROTH YOU'RE A BASTERD!!!!
Then he introduced the movie shouting: GET READY FOR INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS!, while throwing the microphone down like a gauntlet, so hard it bounced and rolled off the stage to the floor.
I couldn't believe I was actually there.

I'd give you a review now, but Chris is waiting for the opening next week to say anything and so will I.

[Chris Knipp]

Wow! I had no idea there would be a "Canadian premiere" of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS at this point in time -- did you? When did you find out about this? . You're luckier than I was now. Your account shows this was a most vivid and memorable event. Obviously everything was done to insure that.

I think everybody involved is stoked about this show. As you probably know, or at least as is my impression, Tarantino took it on the chin for this at Cannes. I may be wrong but I don't think it was very well received there generally, though the Variety reivew is very favorable. This gave the misleading impression that the film was a disappointment. I think you'd agree that's not the case.

Forget about QT's shiny shoes -- they most probably come from the megabucks movie bigwig shop!

The showing I went to was more full than press screenings out here usually are, but not a full house by any means and tame stuff compared to what you witnessed.

Thanks for holding your remarks to the opening day.

[Johann]

It's hard to hold back on saying anything.
I wanna blast with both barrels...

I heard about it over a week ago and an angel gave me two passes. To prove I was there, I'll post pics on facebook of the pass I didn't use and the ticket of the one I did.
I'm not shitting you, I was front fucking row.

The audience was great. They seemed to get it that this was a special evening. You could hear a pin drop when it started and everyone reacted to the scenes/chapters in the way I would hope intelligent people would. Especially three sequences in particular...Holy fucking shit!
This film surprised me very much.
I was not really expecting what ended up being the finished picture. Sure it's Tarantino, all the way (Baby!), but this one is quite different from the others..you can tell he's shifted gears in his career. Some shots are glorious indeed. The women..Great God almighty...

I'm still in shock that I was 5 feet from the man last night and that I was actually at the premiere. It must be a dream. lol

[Chris Knipp]

You sly dog, you sure trumped my relatively quiet (if well filled) San Francisco press screening with this one. Let's not tell too much about the actual film till opening day though, please.

[Johann]

No more posts from me on it until then.
Hey, I said in my opening post here that I was going.
Nobody seemed to care...lol

[Chris Knipp]

Sorry I missed that. But did you give the date? I did not imagine it would be over a week in advance of the general opening date.

[oscar jubis]

I love your vivid account of the experience Johann. Thanks. I'll probably come a bit late to the discussion of the movie. I am playing catch up. I don't remember August being so crammed with interesting movies. I still haven't seen JULIE AND JULIA and IN THE LOOP, for instance. And the new Miyazaki has arrived. And DISTRICT 9 looks like a must-see. I also want to rewatch MOON because I dozed off for about 10 minutes. Does that ever happen to anyone else?

[Chris Knipp]

Definitely JULIE & JULIE AND IN THE LOOP need to be seen. They are all dwarfed by INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS though. It and Jarmusch's THE LIMITS OF CONTROL are the two most exciting new American films of the summer. Didn't know about DISTRICT 9 but will see it, thanks for the heads-up on that. PONYO is not my thing, but I'm sure it's good if it's by Miyazaki.

I would also recommend, seen in NYC recently:

LORNA'S SILENCE (Dardennes)
LOREN CASS (Eric Fuller)
THE ENGLISH SURGEON (Geofrey Smith)
THE VANISHED EMPIRE (Karen Shakhnazarov)
FLAME AND CITRON (Ole Christian Madsen)
SOMERS TOWN (Shane Meadows)

As I said in my review (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2574) in late June of "Moon doesn't dazzle but gives pleasure in its low-keyed conviction." I didn't doze off during it and rarely do but it can happen when one is very tired. It happened to me a bit during Park Chan-wook's Thirst. (I have not reviewed it.)

[Johann]

Chris is right with saying that Jarmusch and Tarantino have delivered the exciting goods.
But let's not forget Michael Mann and his brilliant Public Enemies, still my favorite film of the year.
Jarmusch's film is possibly the greatest work of the year too.
This is great year for cinema.
And it ain't over.

[Chris Knipp]

This invitation came in to get a front-of-the-line pass. I probably will miss it though I'd like to see Tarantino.
Woohoo! I’ve been able to create some room in my special screening of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS featuring a Q&A with Quentin Tarantino. It’s after deadline, but I’m still happy to invite you to attend. (Sorry I couldn’t get this cleared before everyone attended the press screenings.) This will not be a typical screening, so please read the following very carefully.

IMPORTANT
· We are NOT accepting guests (Sorry! Please don’t ask.)
· We will NOT have a reserved press section. I can give you front-of-line access, but seating will be open soarrive early.
· RSVPs are for the entire event. No one will be admitted once the screening starts, and no one will be admitted just for the Q&A.
· There will not be a red carpet, nor will there be photo or interview opportunities at the event.
· Please do not forward this invite to anyone. We are not accepting new press list inclusions to be considered for this screening.

How to RSVP:
Please reply directly to me! You absolutely must have an RSVP confirmation from me to attend.
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS featuring Quentin Tarantino Q&A
Wednesday, August 19
7:00 PM
Castro Theater
429 Castro St
San Francisco
Doors will open at approx 5:45 PM. General audience admission will begin at 6:15 PM.
I have a complete press kit for the film which has a lot of interesting anecdotes about the making of.

The Castro is a classic big movie house and this would be fun, if a big hectic, but not worth the hassle for me given that it's hard to get there and I've already seen the movie. (I may see it again later; probably will, but later would be better.)

Anyway Johann, nothing could beat your description above anyway. But this is another sign of the showmanship surrounding the opening of this movie.

[Chris Knipp]

I wish I could see Tarantino at the NYFF, but that is not to be. It's Cannes or nothing with him. He's a Cannes boy. Tarantino loves this place. "There's no place like Cannes," he said at the press conference for his latest, "Inglourious Basterds," a May 20 article opens.* (He was at that point perhaps referring not just to the festival in general, though that has served him well, bu to specifically to the Grand Lumiere theater where the premiere of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS was about to be shown to a full house.) Fifteen years ago PULP FICTION won the Golden Palm at Cannes -- and went on to make a lot of money. in the US, a rare combination. But Cannes reviews of the film were mixed and some were terrible. In perhaps the worst one, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian said it was "an armour-plated turkey," "Gott awful," "a bore." (Some reports are there were tweaks based on Cannes reactions.)

*Guess who came through with a fair, balanced, and informative review of the movie at Cannes time? Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune (http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/talking_pictures/2009/05/cannes-may-20-quentin-tarantinos-inglorious-basterds.html), he of the new TV At the Movies duo with A.E. Scott.

Quotes (http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5juzfDDIB3PFSJI0AuGevagTd92TQ) from Tarantino in recent interviews (LA. dateline, but the photo and the newspaper are Canadian and refer to the recent Toronto appearance).

[Johann]

Tarantino is doing a blitzkreig of premieres for this film all over the world. Canada is just one stop. He was here only for the one night. And yes, he took it on the chin at Cannes.
Not well received there. Aside from acting honors.
Chris, do you think that the "Jew Hunter" deserved his Best Actor award at Cannes? I sure did. What a delicious performance...
Critics who pan it are idiots. Anyone who pans it is an idiot.
If you know Tarantino's M.O. (i'e. penchant for glorified violence) then stay the fuck away from the theatre! It ain't for you, no way no how!
Nothing boring about this.
I think QT pulled a Kubrick move- "Don't give 'em what they want. Give 'em what they don't know they want yet".
Tarantino fans will not be disappointed.
You have to be patient while watching this one.
A freight train is waiting...

[Chris Knipp]

Ha! Well, there's a certain amount of politics always, but I think Christoph Waltz chews up the scenery with appropriate delight. He's very good in the role and riveting to watch. I don't even know what the other nominees were for this award. It doesn't seem very easy to find the list of them. It appears that Waltz is another actor whose career Tarantino has rehabilitated, and Waltz acknowledged that: "You gave me my vocation back," he said in accepting the award.

[Johann]

Today I watched a profile of Tarantino that was put together by a local TV station. They used clips from the premiere and Tarantino praises Toronto's audiences: (paraphrasing) I love taking my films to Toronto. Some cities you go "Ah, I don't want to take my movie there". But Toronto..Toronto moviegoers are up for anything. A zombie movie, one of my movies, a foreign film- they're THERE. And I don't mean just for the Toronto Film Festival. Toronto has perfect audiences. I loved how they reacted to "Basterds" tonight.
So he watched us watch his movie!
Huzzah!

And Eli Roth was interviewed as well, saying how he wants to bring to his sets the same kind of "knowing your character" that QT made every one of the cast do. Apparently he has group meetings, where they flesh out characters BEFORE any read-throughs or costumes or sets or anything. Roth said he would grill you on your character: "What's your history? How did you feel about so and so joining the Basterds? How would you react if this happened? or that?" Eli said he's never worked on a movie where that kind of "getting into character" was emphasized like it was with Tarantino. He said by the time cameras started rolling everybody knew what was going on, what everybody else's motivations or roles were. It made it that much easier to go for it.





***EDIT*** I talked to one of the ticket taker staff members at the Scotiabank theatre when I went to see District 9 and he said that Tarantino was not in the movie theatre very long that night.
He worked the premiere and he said that Quentin & Eli left fairly soon after the movie started, within a half hour. So take from that what you will...

[Chris Knipp]

I don't think it's news that Tarantino's an actor's director. He has done wonderful things for actors. His casting is not only brilliant, but enormously human, in the way he revives careers and plays around with the cast member's personal histories and resumes in tuning their roles.

I've heard long ago that Toronto was a great movie town. So naturally it would be a great place to bring a new movie and promote it.

The method of working actors into their roles is not unique with Tarantino (think of Mike Leigh) but certainly is one that often improves actors' experiences.

[Chris Knipp]

I think this is recent. If it's not, correct me. The byline on KungFu Cinema is "by Mark Pollard | August 17, 2009." Tarantino has made a list of his 20 favorite films since 1992 when he became a director himself. You can get him presenting them on YouTube here. (http://www.kungfucinema.com/quentin-tarantinos-top-20-films-since-1992-9912) (Actually that is the KungFu Cinema site's page for it.) This list begins with his overall favorite and the rest are alphabetical (a practice I agree with):
1. BATTLE ROYALE
2. ANYTHING ELSE
3. AUDITION
4. THE BLADE
5. BOOGIE NIGHTS
6. DAZED AND CONFUSED
7. DOGVILLE
8. FIGHT CLUB
9. FRIDAY
10. THE HOST
11. THE INSIDER
12. JSA
13. LOST IN TRANSLATION
14. THE MATRIX
15. MEMORIES OF MURDER
16. POLICE STORY 3: SUPERCOP
17. SHAUN OF THE DEAD
18. SPEED
19. TEAM AMERICA
20. UNBREAKABLE Watch the video to get his special favorites on the list and why he cose some of the odd ones. Others, he simply lists without explanation. BOOGIE NIGHTS, FIGHT CLUB, THE INSIDER, and LOST IN TRANSLATION he doesn't say anything about unfortuantely. Not here anyway.

[Johann]

Thanks for that link. I enjoyed hearing his "20 faves".
Half on his list I haven't seen.
They just moved up on my must-see ledger.

I like his praise of Trier's Dogville and of the stunts in Supercop.
High praise there.
But of all films on his list, Battle Royale is the one I'm keenest to see. I'm with him in his praise of Unbreakable
(underrated Shyamalannadingdong movie- forgot about that one).
You can tell that Quentin likes to ENJOY a movie, not be too too critical.

[Chris Knipp]

I don't share QT's tastes, but I like what comes out of them through him. I don't really like Dogville either. But so what? Von Trier is an original too, and I respect and over time have begun to understand him. I thought I said that Shyamalan was good through Unbreakable. I have also not seen a lot on the list. I would have liked to know, but he does not tell, why he selects -- from all the generally admired movies of the period -- only BOOGIE NIGHTS, FIGHT CLUB, THE INSIDER, and LOST IN TRANSLATION. Why those, in particular? Well, I can see BOOGIE NIGHTS. But why not MAGNOLIA? I can see FIGHT CLUB. But why THE INSIDER nd LOST IN TRANSLATION,which are in such a different vein and so much more low-keyed?

[Johann]

I think he may just be throwing support to Sofia Coppola, P.T. Anderson, Michael Mann and David Fincher, giving them a nod as directors, as if to say "good job! nice work!".
That's what I got out his mentioning the Woody Allen- it was a shout-out to Jason Biggs, in particular.

I would also like to know why he didn't pick Magnolia, which I think is much much better than Boogie Nights. (But Boogie Nights Rules, I must add!)

I thought he might mention Gaspar Noe or Harmony Korrine or Donnie Darko. Or Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger or American Psycho.
Or maybe even Watchmen or V For Vendetta.
But, that's fine.
His list reflects his interests, and they are what they are.

[Chris Knipp]

I haven't found any truly insightful comments on this list elsewhere oneline, But National Post (http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2009/08/18/quentin-tarantino-s-idiosyncratic-list-of-the-20-best-movies-since-1992.aspx) (Canada) comments:
Listening to Quentin Tarantino rattle through his favourite flicks since he made his directorial debut with Reservoir Dogs is entertaining in that what-can-I-throw-at-the-screen kind of way: You'll certainly disagree with him flat-out on some of the choices (for your correspondent this was the reaction to Anything Else and The Matrix — I'd have put those on a worst movies list). However, he does make a case for re-renting a few others, such as Unbreakable and Speed, to see if he has a point. Using NYMagazine online as their source, National Post gives the list with the dates. I notice he has not included anything from the last five years but THE HOST. Others have remarked that "idiosyncratic" as the list is, there are some great movies on it.
Anything Else (2003)
Audition (1999)
Battle Royale (2000)
The Blade (1995)
Boogie Nights (1997)
Dazed and Confused (1993)
Dogville (2003)
Fight Club (1999)
Friday (1995)
The Host (2006)
The Insider (1999)
Joint Security Area (2000)
Lost in Translation (2003)
The Matrix (1999)
Memories of Murder (2003)
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Speed (1994)
Supercop (1992)
Team America: World Police (2004)
Unbreakable (2000)

[Johann]

Yes. Some great movies on the list, no question.
Team America: World Police especially.
That movie is one of the greatest "stick it to the man" features I've ever seen. I love that movie.
I'm gonna put a Jihad on you.
Laughed my ass off. Plus it has a serious message about the USA's foreign policy under Cush and Bheney..

I haven't seen Anything Else but if it's got QT's stamp of approval it must be worth seeing or he would not put it on a list.
A list of only 20, to boot.

He likes his action movies. Over half have lots of action in them.

[Chris Knipp]

Violent reactions to INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

The erudite Jonathan Rosenbaum, never a QT fan to begin with, goes positively bonkers (http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=16514) over INGLOIURIOUS BASTERDS, primarily for the obvious reaons -- the movie's lack of solemnity or reverence in approaching WWII history, and its violent re-imagining of Jewish opposition to the Nazis. QT's now movie is even "morally akin to Holocaust denial," he says, "even though it proudly claims to be the opposite of that. It's more than just the blindness to history that leaks out of every pore in this production (even when it's being most attentive to period details) or the infantile lust for revenge that's so obnoxious. ..." and so on. So Rosenbaum recommends we all read "'When Jews Attack' by Daniel Mendelsohn, a two-page spread in the August 24 & 31 issue of Newsweek." It's obvious many would find INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS offensive, and QT's application of his methods to the sacred topic of WWII is destined to arouse greater outrage than usual. I think this was one of the main motives behind negative reactions at Cannes. It's hard to bring a sense of humor and Tarantinoesque camp to a movie about WWII. And you have to do that to appreciate the film. JR decided to dislike INGOURUIOUS BASTERDS from scene one. Indeed he can hardly conceal his contempt even for the title (" [sic sic -- or maybe I should say, sic, sic, sic]") After all, in his Movies As Politics book, he wrote "You won't find any serious discussion of art, literature, or philosophy or any serious technical innovations in Tarantino's PULP FICTION.'

As for the "lust for revenge" being "infantile," perhaps JR should tell that to the Israelis when they retaliate ten-fold against Palestinian attacks. And that may be cause for reflection that macho Jews are ot the monopoly of Mr. Tarantino.

There is going to be tons of debate and fur flying over INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, and for now there is an excellent summing up of debates so far with multiple links on The Auteurs (http://www.theauteurs.com/notebook/posts/925) , which I've only just begun to follow up on. This incidentally gives a link (http://blog.spout.com/2009/08/17/quentin-tarantino-shocks-with-film-list-today-in-film-bloggery-081709/) to SPOUT blogger Christopher Campbell's rundown of "a zillion responses" to Tarantino's Top 20 movies list.

There is all this debate going on. But the best answer I can ever give is my own review of a film. I am, however, still going to hold off and wait till release day Friday (it opened in England today and Borys Musialak of FILMASTER (http://filmaster.com/account/edit-reviews/cary-fukunagas-sin-nombre-vicoria-para-nadie) said he's going to see it today). I started this thread to post my review, but since the distribution reps at the press screening requested that we hold our reviews till opening day, I will wait till Friday before putting up my review here.

[Johann]

I know this movie is gonna be treated like a football.
Jonathan Rosenbaum is really being a "critic" here.
Sure, you can rip it apart on historical grounds.
No question. It's an alternate depiction of WWII.
And it's loaded with comedy.
Hell, even Mike Myers spoofs himself in it!

I'll hold off until friday to write anything about it too.

[Johann]

And I started this thread, Chris.
Don't ever try to steal my thunder again.

lol

[Chris Knipp]

Sorry about claiming to start this thread! (:-)

I start so many of them. But so do you!

[Johann]

Here's a link to clip from the Canadian premiere.
I had just gone into the theatre when this was taking place!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJu2Yd5sivE

[oscar jubis]

I intend to watch this movie just like I've watched everything Tarantino has directed. But, as you guys know by now, I am not a fan. And what I get from the trailer is that this is a film that glorifies revenge, which totally turns me off. I actually think that this revenge factor, that Americans in particular enjoy so much, is philosophically tied to the fact that the US is the only "civilized" country where the death penalty is a legal response to crime. Tarantino's list of favorite films is indicative of what he values about cinema and reflects a worldview I find deplorable. Given the nature of his films, it is logical that his favorite film since he started making movies is the nihilistic Japanese exploitation flick Battle Royale. The only Tarantino film I would ever watch again is Jackie Brown. And it doesn't seem like he has any interest in developing that vein.

[Johann]

I actually offered my other pass to a friend and he recoiled in disgust: I hate Quentin Tarantino! His movies are so fucking stupid! Don't talk to me about Quentin Tarantino!
I couldn't believe it.
So I used one pass and have another as a historic souvenir..

Tarantino films have a very sharp violent incline to them. Agreed.
When movies like Coffy and My Bloody Valentine (Canadian slasher flick) are among his all-time faves, you know where he stands.
Love him or leave him, he's a "unique" man among directors.
Violence in his movies is "movie violence". He's said it repeatedly.

Oscar, you might want to stay away from this one completely if the violence in his films is a big issue with you.
He's got some set pieces in Basterds that top even Kill Bill in agressiveness.
To me, this film is a Masterpiece. His first true Masterpiece.
The acting, the premise, the camerawork...it's all stellar.
But you can judge for yourself.
I haven't stopped thinking about the movie since I saw it, actually.
It really stays in the mind's eye...but that's just me.

[Johann]

And "Basterds" is probably the Mother of all revenge flicks.
Seriously. Better than the Crow.
This is Jewish retribution in film form.
If I was Jewish (I'm not) I would be pumping my fist in the air at this film. Because this film takes care of Nazi's in a way that every Jew in the world should wish they were taken care of.
Exterminated.
With extreme prejudice..

[Chris Knipp]

If I was Jewish (I'm not) I would be pumping my fist in the air at this film. Well, you're not, and Jews mostly find such a gesture and such fantasies of retribution uncomfortable. Eli Roth is atypical of the American Jewish self-image. Armond White calls the movie "Jewish revenge porn." And the "basterds" story line is that.

[Johann]

Retribution is uncomfortable?
Then they don't believe that "every action has an equal and opposite reaction"?

I'm not even Jewish and I love how the Nazi's get their "just desserts" in Basterds. One sequence in particular (that I'll discuss tomorrow, with a spoiler warning of course) had me shouting FUCK YEAH! and rocking in my seat...

[Chris Knipp]

Retribution is uncomfortable?Yes. Uncomfortable because too brutal, too much like the perpetrators. You can look at Daniel Mendelsohn's Newsweek piece (http://www.newsweek.com/id/212016/page/1) -- not as strong as Rosenbaum's citing of it makes you expect -- which says
Do you really want audiences cheering for a revenge that turns Jews into carboncopies of Nazis, that makes Jews into "sickening" perpetrators? I'm not so sure.(See the whole paragraph.) Mendelsohn says QT's fantasy goes against the "never again" philosophy of Jews; that revenge only repeats the cycle and means there will be an "again." This is perfectly valid, and one must consider that Tarantino's viewpoint is morally dubious at best and resorts to an adolescent machismo. Nonetheless I would argue that as cinematic art one has to givie INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS its due as a remarkble effort nonetheless, in spite of those shorcomings, which are not new but typical of the director, and just happend this time to be applied to huge historical events.

[Chris Knipp]

Quentin Tarantiino: INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009)

Review by Chris Knipp


With its wealth of almost-themes and lush production values, amazing cast, stomach-turning spectacles, and morally dubious Jewish revenge theme, Quentin Tarantino's movie about movies about World War II is shocking, controversial, and a must-see.

W A R N I N G: S P O I L E R S

Tarantino's World War II feature Inglourious Basterds shows the director's best and worst features, but in a wholly new setting. Here is his propensity for sectioned films (there are five "chapters") with disparate plots with neat but wildly implausible interconnections. His love of elaborate extended set pieces where the dialogue takes over, sometimes at excruciating length. His playful, ingenious, and sometimes career-rehabilitating casting, which provides actors with irresistible opportunities to memorably strut their stuff. His mastery of old-fashioned camera-work, with bold and traditional uses of big close-ups. Jumping at the challenge of his subject, he tries out some pretty fancy production pieces, notably gun battles and a classic old movie theater rigged up for a Nazi gala, and these are never less than colorful and delightful eye candy. And also his indifference to reality or good taste and his moral blindness.

The new twist is the swing to Europe -- German-occupied France -- with tons of subtitled French and German dialogue, and even translating back and forth between them. A big question is this: can we really stomach a partly comic, partly grandiose, partly grind-house version of the war that is the most tragic event in modern European history? Can World War II be the basis for a movie about movies so fanciful that it seeks to resolve the war in that old Paris cinema with a host of Nazi bigwigs all on hand for a propaganda film? Besides the unbearably, cartoonishly brutal Dirty Dozen team of American Jews headed up by Brad Pitt's southern redneck and charged, as viewers of the movie trailer will well remember, to bring back "Nazi scalps" (a hundred each, in fact) -- something a little in the vein of Samuel Fuller's 1980 saga Big Red One, once planned in this long-contemplated project as a 16-episode TV series -- there's a not-so-secondary dual theme of concealment and identity. And the "Inglourious Basterds" story gets sidelined by the cinema story. But Tarantino has never been linear. And good taste or a firm hold on reality have not been his long suits. This is, no matter what, some splendid filmmaking, and however much it offends or annoys or tortures you to watch, it's a work of unquestionable proficiency, a reveling in the art of moviemaking.

Events begin without ceremony or prelude at a French dairy farm with a visit from the movie's most impressive and despicable character, Col. Hans Landa (played with relish and equal linguistic skill in French, English and German by Austrian-born actor Christoph Waltz), whose nickname is "the Jew Hunter." The farmer, Perrier LaPadite (Denis Menochet) is hiding Jews, and Landa finds them -- but it all happens in dialogue, followed by a violent rain of bullets. One of the hidden family escapes alive, Shoshanna Dreyfus (a touching Melanie Laurent), who reappears improbably several years later as the proprietor by inheritance of a Paris cinema, having taken on a French Christian name.

This dairy farm sequence is excruciating enough, but less so than the central set piece, a long and nerve-wracking scene in which an English OSS officer's posing as a Nazi officer, Lt. Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender), is gradually smoked out in a cellar bar. At a certain point in this sequence the excruciating becomes hard to separate from the tedious -- till all hell breaks loose. Central here is the German actress Bridget von Hammersmark (Diana Kruger), undercover for the Allies, who's caught out later like a doomed Cinderella, by a shoe that fits.

Meanwhile there are brutal scenes of the "basterds" bashing Nazis, Jews belying the stereotypically "meek" Jewish identity by becoming comic book superheroes, foremost among them Sgt. Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth of Hostel and Deathproof), "the Bear Jew," who kills Nazis by smashing in their skulls with a baseball bat, preferably in front of their comrades. And there are several Germans who pose as Nazis while their real aim is to kill them. And there is young German war hero Fredrick Zoller ( Daniel Bruhl), fluent in French, and in love with Shoshanna as well as with movies -- and he becomes a movie star, like a German Audie Murphy, beginning by playing himself in a propaganda film, but becomes increasingly detached from the image he's identified with and finally unable to bear watching the reenactments his own famous deeds. The ingenuity and parallelisms of altered or reversed identity are so fascinating one might wish identity were made more consciously resonant as a theme.

Tarantino also makes ample use of his fetish for ritual deal-making as a motor behind scenes and action. Col. Landa makes a tough deal with the dairy farmer in the opener. Lt. Aldo Raine (Pitt) is ready to bargain with Nazis, letting them keep their lives and their scalps if they'll give up German military information. At the end, Landa makes the biggest deal of all -- his life for, well, the Third Reich, basically.

A big element is the celebration of movies, not only by the climax in a movie house, but in the constant references to old ones, to the point that Inglourious Basterds, the title itself a deliberate corruption of the English title of a schlock Italian WWII film, Enzo Castellari's Quel maledetto treno blindato, becomes more than anything a war movie about war movies. At times the whole effort threatens to get mired in material that is too familiar -- the nasty Nazis, the drinking scenes, the face offs, the suspenseful plots -- tropes executed often and with more gravitas, if less panache, elsewhere. Though inherently sui generis, Quentin Tarantino's movies have never been about originality, any more than they're about "reality." They're ingenious fantasies, built up out of cinema, delighting in the magic of what can happen on the screen.

And after all World War II was always movies, too, and propaganda. The "Basterds" -- the team of Jews out to give individual Nazis horrible deaths -- carry out their actions primarily as a propaganda weapon, its effectiveness underlined by the film's moments of gruesome brutality. Propaganda also is the movie "Nation's Pride," made starring Zoller, depicting how he singlehandedly killed 300 men, For that, Tarantino gives us something it's surprising he's not done before, a movie-within-a-movie. Zoller calls himself "the German Sgt. York." Tarantino does not resist the temptation (how could he?) to put his versions of Goebbels (a very juicy Sylvester Groth) as well as Hitler, and even, off in the corner of a scene, Churchill, on the screen.

Also present is the quintessential Tarantino theme: revenge. The "Basterds" are having revenge for the annihilation of Jews. Zoller's insistence that the premiere be transferred to Shoshanna's cinema gives her the idea of wreaking vengeance on a whole auditorium full of Nazis for the brutal killing of her family.

Things get very complicated when three plots by the British, the "Basterds," and Shoshanna -- with her black French boyfriend Marcel (Jacky Ido) -- all converge on the premiere of "Nation's Pride" at Shoshann's theater (with some confusion of the continuity in the lead-up to this event).

Whether or not you buy (or at some points can even stomach) the whole thing, the production is lush, the acting is rich, the set-pieces, however torturous, are impossible to look away from, and there's a fascinating interweaving of almost-themes. This is Tarantino -- and his big team -- working at full-bore. Waltz (who won Best Actor for this performance at Cannes) carries the day, but the film is alive with all the people in it. Brad Pitt, with his down-home shtick, his heavily drawn rustic tough guy and deliberately campy Ozark accent, though his character is not as funny or as vivid as stuff in Full Metal Jacket, is still quite entertaining, the heart of a style of movie in which comedy constantly turns scary and horrifying. Pitt's Lt. Aldo Raine (his name itself a war movie tribute) in turn gets his chance, like so many others, to put on a (in his case comically clumsy) fake identity. There are only two important female characters, played by Melanie Laurent and Diana Kruger, but both are fine and memorable. All in all Inglourious Basterds is troubling, drawn-out, brilliant -- and not to be missed. The answer to whether we can stomach the outrage and irreverence is that we just have to: Tarantino makes his own rules.

[Johann]

Inglourious Basterds


WARNING SPOILERS









The first chapter of Inglourious Basterds is intense. It involves the Jew Hunter making an official stop at a French farm to look for Jews in hiding. He sips some milk, kinda like how Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction sipped his Sprite. I'm sure it hit the spot..
The farmers' three daughters are absolutely gorgeous.
They are asked to leave the farmhouse while The Jew Hunter and the farmer discuss "matters".
When this chapter opened I felt like I was watching perhaps a tribute to Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, with a long shot of the farmer chopping wood. (Redmond is seen chopping wood in the same manner in the Kubrick).
The chapter ends in a horrific way. That's all I'll say.

Basically what happens in the next two and a half hours is the introduction of the Basterds and one highly decorated German privates' film career. (It also involves said Private's courtship of a gorgeous Jewish movie theatre owner who escaped from Landa's bullets).
The ending is an atomic bomb of a plot twist, which includes the incineration of Hitler and Goebbels.

Go see it now.
You won't fucking regret it.
Tarantino burned the house down with this Masterpiece.
I could watch it for infinity.

[Johann]

Roger Ebert gives the film 4 stars, saying it's one of the best films of the year.

His review is excellent and I'm so glad he's come out in defence of the film. (At Cannes he told Tarantino it could be one of the worst or best films of the year- glad he's settled his mind).

This film does indeed grow on you. For a short minute while watching it I felt it might be the one Tarantino movie that I wouldn't like. The "controlled uncertainty" of the opening *flawless* chapter for a minute just seemed to be a chapter that was jerking our chains. Then I realized he's just setting up Landa's character, making us get a real hate on for him.
Ebert says scenes aren't chewed in Basterds- they're "licked".
ha ha I like that. Licked scenes. Like wartime lollypops...

I could go into great detail about the scenes and what's in them and how I reacted, but I'd like to hear some other opinions before I say anything more.

[Chris Knipp]

I put in a spoiler warning, but the info I give is in the reviews I've seen.

Yes, Col. Landa in the opening scene is definitely like Jules.

LANDA: "This is very tasty milk." [His exact words I don't recall.]

JULES: "Mmm-mmmm. That is a tasty burger."

LT. ALDO RAINE: "If you ever wanna eat a Sauerkraut sandwich again take your Wiener Schnitzel lickin' finger and point out on this map what I wanna know."

I'll have a look at Ebert's review.

[Johann]

Ebert said he feels since this film debuted at Cannes, it's OK to let fly with spoilers. Enough time has passed.




The scenes with Lt. Hicox being smoked out that "ends with all hell breaking loose" was the sequence I was referring to when I said I was shouting "FUCK YEAH! and rocking in my seat.
And everybody else in the audience was just as shocked and rocked by it- loud applause broke out after that scene.

And then, the scene right after when Lt. Raine says "drop the gun or we'll drop grenades"- WOWZA. Miss Hammersmarck's survival was a shock. When she's called a traitor and then unloads..wow. Not expecting that at all

[Johann]

And also, that scene with the smoking out of Lt. Hicox has real similarities with a scene in Barry Lyndon where Captain Potzdorf (Hardy Kruger) says:
Sergeant! This man is unter arrest!
Barry replies in shock: Under arrest? Captain Potzdorf, I am a British officer!

Potzdorf: You are a LIAR! You're an imposter. You're a deserter. I suspected you this morning. You say your Uncle is the British Ambassador to Berlin with the ridiculous name of "O'Grady"..

[cinemabon]

FYI heads up!

Quentin Tarantino will be on Charlie Rose tonight. Check local PBS for broadcast times.

[Johann]

Are you gonna watch it? Give us a fine transcript? Yes?

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks cinemabon.

You can watch all Charlie Rose interviews online one or two days after they appear. Just go to his website http://www.charlierose.com/schedule/
Click on Guests and then on "recent guests."

[Chris Knipp]

The August 21, 2009 Charlie Rose interview, coinciding with the US release date of INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, which went for the hour, showed Tarantino in fine form and ought to be a nice living record for students of his passions and methods to draw on for statements about theses at this stage of the director's career. The interview will be available in its entirety on the Charlie Rose site as are all the previous QT appearances on the show; I'll put up a link to this new one here when it's available.

QT made clear that he revels in this opportunity to present his viewpoint and methods in an intelligent context with Charlie Rose to such an extent that he even looks forward to the next post-relase Charlie Rose exposition "during the writing process." This is Tarantino's ninth Charlie Rose appearance, and four of these, done in 1994, 1997, 2004, and 2009, are hour-long appearances coinciding with releases of his movies.

Tarantino put a big emphasis on the fact that he's a writer-director, that the writing process is central to his work. He said he'll never do an adaptation of somebody else's book again as he did with Elmore Leonard in Jackie Brown, though he noted that the "houty-toity" film critics (I think he was referring specifically to opinons in Film Comment) have decided Jackie Brown is his best work and the rest of his oeuvre is irrelevant and to be avoided. It's hard to face the "Everest' of the blank page, he said, and a director can keep going more smoothly and turn out more films by working from other sources, but then will wind up wondering where his "voice" has gone. He prefers the struggle, and plans to go on with it. But Tarantino repeated that he plans to stop making movies at sixty and write novels from then on.

Apropos of a brief pastiche of excerpts from his films at the outset of the interview, he expressed satisfaction with what he has done, said he's mainly competing with himself -- just as his critics say (they question whether anything else comes up to Pulp Fiction) -- but says that's a good place to be.

He compared himself indirectly with David Fincher, said Fincher is one of the important American filmmakers of his generation -- but is not a writer-director. (I kind of wish he'd mentioned that Paul Thomas Anderson is. Now there's some competition. But he refrained from comparing himself explicitly with any other director alive or dead, except to mention a certain passage in a film that he said he could never possibly equal.)

Similarly, still describing the importance of the writing process in his work and how that unfolds, he stressed that his screenplays grow not out of storyline but character, and that the characters write the movie, and he follows them wherever they take him. That is an explanation of the disjointed structure of Tarantino's films. Obviously character is built out of dialogue. I'd add: he has been both praised and condemned for slavishly following the unfolding of his dialogue whereever it takes him and at whatever length. You will see this particularly in the David Carradine-Uma Thurman (The Snake Charmer and The Bride) dialogue in Kill Bill: Vol 2, and in the underground cantina dialogue in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS in which the Engish film critic Lt. Archie Hicox posing as a Nazi officer is smoked out. Incidentally I forgot to note that Michael Fassbender, who plays Hicox (he is half German, half Irish), stars in (and starved himself for) the role of Bobby Sands in English artist Steve McQueen's powerful film Hunger (NYFF 2008). (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=20763#post20763)

An important pont: what about thematic undercurrents, "meta-stories" or "subtexts"? In a question about this from Charlie, Tarantino said at the Sundance workshop he did for Reservoir Dogs, the Sundance folks said "you think you know everything but you don't know this," and pushed him to analyze his subtexts, so he did it for a relatively innocuous scene of the movie. He found a lot of stuff going on in it that was interesting, mainly about father figures. Then, according to Tarantino, he said, "Okay, fine; I get it. Now I don't ever have to do this again." In his creative process he finds it essential to focus exclusively on the fundamental linear progress of the screenplay, and let the undercurrents take care of themselves; notice them later on, after the movie's been made (and he noted it will be at least three years before he himself can judge how INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS fints in and rates within his oeuvre). His process is intuitive, not analytical or self-conscious. And it's because it's this way, he asserted, that he comes up with screenplays nobody else could have written.

I found this very interesting because it is an answer to something I say in my reveiw about what I found was a major subtext or meta-story of the film, the identity theme: "The ingenuity and parallelisms of altered or reversed identity are so fascinating one might wish identity were made more consciously resonant as a theme." He just doesn't work that way.

There's a lot more, but I've already gone on at too great length. I hope others will watch the interview and can add their comments (Johann...?

[Johann]

Much thanks for that. I'll check it out.

Here's a quote from Eli Roth, from an interview Peter Howell did with him at Cannes on the deck of the Carlton Hotel, overlooking the French Riviera:

Q: You also got to do some directing for the film. You did Nation's Pride, the Nazi Propaganda film that screens within Inglourious Basterds. How was that?

ELI: I felt it was switching gears. It's so hard to come out of the state of psychosis and depression and anger I worked myself up into for that beating scene (as The Bear Jew). But actually doing Nation's Pride was the best thing. It forced me to stop. To make it, it had to be real...I want the Nazis rolling in their grave, thinking, "God, the movie that's the most-seen Nazi propaganda movie is directed by a Jew"

[Johann]

And the best part of the interview, which I feel is the perspective people should take when watching Basterds:





ELI: I felt like I had to be a Jewish Warrior. But this whole thing about kosher porn, although it's a Jewish fantasy, the more I think about it, it's a universal fantasy. Who wouldn't want to go back in time and kill evil and change the future to save millions? You think about it with September 11th, if we could go back and kill those hijackers who crashed those planes. It takes an artist like Tarantino to make a movie about fantasies like this, that don't have to abide by the rules of history.

[tabuno]

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is a rare movie for me because I didn't like it, I found it distasteful, and it brutalized and trivialized an important historical period in our World. Nevertheless, Tarantino is at the top of his game with brilliant psychological scenes full of fascinating dialogue and acting that has been rarely brought to the screen in contemporary films. I found the ultimate dispostion of most of the characters, abit far-fetched and took away some of the conflicted satisfaction I found in watching THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963). The characters were captivating if not well-rounded personalities and as such created an stereotypical context that permitted the black and white ravaging slaughter that appeared on screen, unlike Steven Spielberg's SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993). The trailers also did a disservice to the actual nature of this film which I found compelling and the storyline was solid and edited well together. Overall, this is not the movie I wanted to see, but I have to admit that it was technically well done and deserves its laudatory comments for those who accept the brutality and the two-dimensional characters and conflicted outcomes of this movie.

[Chris Knipp]

I do not agree with any of this. And the thinking Roth presents is confused. Revenge has nothing to do with changing the course of events, and as I cited earlier, people believe with some justification that revenge simply continues the cycle of violence. The phrase "kill evil' is thoughtless. "Kill the hijackers?" No, that is not a mentality I endorse, of "preventively" going around and killing people, on the theory that you are preventing them from doing something, as in US and Israeli drone attacks. However, in the case of that series of events, capturing the men and preventing their action would have certainly changed the course of history. But preemptively killing people is itself a form of terrorism.

I don't think Eli Roth is the best advert for Tarantino or for this movie. It has been commented not without reason that the movies Roth has himself directed are terrible. (One would hope that as violent as Tarantino gets sometimes, he would never veer into HOSTEL or CABIN FEVER territory.) Various bloggers and some reviewers have said that as "the Bear Jew" Roth is terrible in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS too, but maybe it's hard to judge that role objectively. It's interesting though that Roth got to direct "Nation's Priide," the movie-within-a-movie Nazi propaganda film. Now how good that is, is another question. We don't really get to see very much of it (and i think that has been criticized). Whether it is a nice irony -- or another example of Tarantino-esque illogic -- that a Jew got to direct a Nazi propaganda film is still [i]another question.

[oscar jubis]

I have to admit that it was technically well done and deserves its laudatory comments for those who accept the brutality and the two-dimensional characters and conflicted outcomes of this movie. (tabuno)
I went into the theater after having decided to forget the amorality and shallowness of Tarantino's cinema. I went into the theater to appreciate the film on purely cinematic terms, the way I was able to appreciate say... Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will or other morally dubious films like City of God. I went into the theater to appreciate the film as a sensory experience. I agree with you that the film is technically well done (did you have any doubts? It's "QT"). Making this film requires a certain chutzpah, no? I mean to use the word with both its positive and negative connotations. It's an affront, a provocation of sorts.
On the other hand, I was simply not prepared for the longueurs. I don't remember KILL BILL feeling this drawn out. Not a typical response to a movie, not from me, to sit there thinking: "get the fucking thing over with!" chapter after chapter. Not of the set pieces compares to at least two from Kill Bill, in my opinion.

he noted that the "houty-toity" film critics (I think he was referring specifically to opinons in Film Comment) have decided Jackie Brown is his best work and the rest of his oeuvre is irrelevant and to be avoided.
Funny that just a few posts ago I wrote yesterday (or was it the day before?) that the only Tarantino movie I would rewatch (maybe) is JACKIE BROWN.

[tabuno]

Oddly enough, it was the "long sequences" with a lot of narrative and the psychological interplay that I found the most compelling of the movie, these were brilliant scenes with the characters playing a sophisticated cat and mouse that required serious acting performances and a great narrative script. I was immersed into the intense drama that was playing in the mind - and I wasn't ever interesting in getting the scene over with as much as savoring the anticipation of how it was going to turn out, my emotions on high alert, anxious with fear and hope.

[oscar jubis]

I respect your opinion. For me, most of the time, the scenes induced boredom. Perhaps the lack of character dimensionality (I mean these characters were precisely who we thought they were) made me lose interest midway through some scenes.

[Chris Knipp]

Both of your are right. That's why I said the sequences are excruciaing, but also note that it is in his long set pieces that Tarantino excels. You can't really say that the scene between The Bride and Snake Charmer does not have longeurs; it's replete with them. Actually the basement cantina smoking-out sequence in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is more truly suspenseful, because it is electric with the tension of the resistance agent, Hicox, struggling to maintain his cover. In the Charlie Rose interview, Tarantino spoke of haveing been accused of his films not having suspense,and making a conscious effort to creat suspense in this one. But his greatest strength is also his greatest weakness. His free-flowing dialogue is where his genius emerges, but it can also weigh like a dead weight on any and all viewers who are not in on the game, who do not see the fun of it. I do not think that boredom is a sure indication of failure. Boredom may simply mean that you are not on the wavelength. Antonioni's L'AVVENTURA certainly had enormous longeurs when it first was watched in theaters. But then he was rewareded at Cannes for developing "a new cinematic language." And he had.

[Chris Knipp]

BOX OFFICE MOJO - NEWS BULLETIN
Sunday, August 23, 2009

'Inglourious Basterds' opened with a bang atop the weekend box office. Grossing an estimated $37.6 million, it hit the high end for World War 2 movies and for late August, and it delivered Quentin Tarantino’s biggest debut...

Brandon Gray Reports:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=2611&p=l.htm Looks like Harvey and Bob have a good one, and I can see now the trailer with Brad Pitt presenting a men-on-a-mission theme was shrewdly chosen to draw in the audience. DISTRICT 9 was also reported holding well for its genre.

[Johann]

I thought the "longeurs" (french for long scene?) were quite savory, not boring at all. But I can see how someone would be bored.

Tabuno: "emotions on high alert"- great turn of phrase there.
That's what I get out of every Tarantino film.
That's actually what I want out of every film, but so few directors are able to pull it off.

I think the final sequence in the movie theatre with Hitler and Goebbels is absolutely awesome. The celluloid piled up and ignited, the ending just DESTROYS. Loved it. Totally enthralling for me. Made the movie.

[cinemabon]

Actually, (I had to look it up, thanks a lot Oscar) the definition is: a long, boring, tedious and usually tawdry or vulgar passage. (meretricious).

I think you used this word on me once before, as I recall... hoity-toity indeed! (which by the way, means to be pretentious or to put on airs)

[Chris Knipp]

If I may put in my two cents, "longueurs," hoity-toity though it may be, is still a perfectly good word. In French its first meaning is simply "length." It's #two meaning is "long, boring passages."

People differ on whether I.B has them. I say the two big set pieces feel excrusiatingly long at times, but they are not really boring, because they are consciously and successfully suspenseful. The Guardian (UK) review, which is really nasty, says "Longeurs abound." But another UK website, "The List," (http://www.list.co.uk/article/19893-inglourious-basterds-quentin-tarantino-interview/) which has a QT interview, says the opposite:
Tarantino’s efforts have paid off. Clocking in at just shy of two-and-a-half hours and showcasing a series of extended set-pieces, Inglourious Basterds nevertheless feels tightly packed. Intertwining three storylines knotted together by a plot to assassinate high command of the Third Reich at the premiere of a Nazi propaganda film at a cinema in occupied Paris, Tarantino’s latest has none of the indulgent longeurs that occasionally deflated Bills 1 and 2, nor does it suffer from the (admittedly purposely) uneven pacing that virtually ground his half of Grindhouse to a halt. In terms of style, tone and the punch it packs, Inglourious Basterds is closer to Tarantino’s more cohesive earlier films, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, which is doubly surprising given its prolonged scrappy development. I thought, maybe Rex Reed would pan the movie, but he does not:
Like all Quentin Tarantino movies, Inglourious Basterds is exasperating, absurd, cruel, cynical, sneeringly arrogant, racist, elitist, naïvely derivative and viciously funny. It is also one whale of a rigorous entertainment.. . . .Facetious, and sprawling over two and a half hours, the film is often unintentionally hilarious but, I hastily add, never tedious. . . .I had a helluva time watching Inglourious Basterds. It’s as frenzied as a dog in heat. Mr. Tarantino lacks nuance, but he’s an erratic, awkward and often brilliant filmmaker. In time, he might even become a mature one. If you say the "Longueurs were quite savory," as Johann does, they you're saying, as I would, that some moments feel excruciatingly drawn out, but they're so suspenseful that it's a good pain.

[Chris Knipp]

Here's some comments from a film blog in French. One person wrote:
Mais ce n'est pas la longueur des scenes que j'ai trouve' ce film nul, au contraire, cela intensifie le suspense mais les nombreux anachronismes presents dans le film. = But it's not the length of the scenes that made me find this movie worthless, on the contrary, that intensified the suspense but the numerous anachronisms in the film...Another post:
malgre' quelques longueurs, je ne me suis pas ennuyee'...= Despite some longueurs, I wasn't bored. That shows both the #1 and #2 meanings of "longueur."

[cinemabon]

Websters:

lon·gueur (lông gûrÆ, long-; Fr. lôN gŒRÆ), n., pl. -gueurs (-gûrzÆ; Fr. -gŒRÆ).
a long and boring passage in a literary work, drama, musical composition, or the like: The longueurs in this book make it almost unreadable.
[1815–25; < F: lit., length]

[tabuno]

I came across Dana Steven's review from The Slate that captures my views of this film:

The Slate Review (http://www.slate.com/id/2225818?nav=wp) .

[Jason Shier]

Chris, I'm a quarter of the way through the Charlie Rose interview and I'll post after I see it all. (He has it up on his website now). So far so good. I also (as QT did) liked the "ouvre" clips at the beginning.

But to get back to your disagreement with Eli Roth's comments, revenge always gets a bad rap. There's a part of me that wanted to go along with George Bush's "revenge war" for 9/11. But my intellect told me that it was wrong all the way. Wrong in how he went about it. That's probably what angered me so damn much about Bush: he had the world in his hand and he threw it away, like he threw his brain away as soon as he was sworn into the oval office.

If you were a woman, and were raped, are you telling me you wouldn't want revenge? If someone killed your son or your wife or your mother you wouldn't want revenge? Forget about being too much like the perpetrators, they invaded your life. They invaded your "being". It's damn regrettable to dismiss morality in a situation like that, but I'm telling you, if something horrifically evil happens to me, I won't be dwelling on whether or not I'm gonna look or act like the perpetrator. I'll be dwelling on how best to get revenge. Is it by leaving it up to the "authorities", who stand a good chance of bungling the "investigation" in the name of "justice"? Or is it by nailing the bastard? I may be wrong on moral grounds, but at least I'd have justice in my mind. I don't want to take the law into my own hands, but sometimes, in life, some shit just must be avenged. And if you can do it, do it.
If you worry about God and "two wrongs don't make a right" or your conscience, then by all means, let the authorities deal with it.
I'm not saying go off half-cocked, like an unhinged loon, looking for justice. I'm saying think long and hard about it, (the context), and make sure you're ready to face jail time before you do anything in retaliation. Because there are definite consequences. Know what your doing, not forgetting your thinking cap, because emotions can cloud that. You could cause unforseen traumas or accidents- think about that too. Think about all of the possible outcomes. What's your contingency with your revenge? What are you exactly "revenging"? Is it worth it?
Killing Nazis? Burning them down to hell?

Lock and Load, Basterds!!!!!!!!
Jew Bear! Bring that fuckin' Bat!!!!

[Jason Shier]

Excellent interview. Very informative. Lots of grist for the film buff mill...

Quentin reveals a lot about his working methods and it's made me appreciate his films even more. He's very passionate about cinema, no argument at all on that, from anyone. I love his enthusiasm for his own work, for the Good, the Bad, & The Ugly and his knowledge. It's quite considerable. Loved learning about Wyler's Mrs. Miniver & the Goebbels connection.

It's an inspiring interview, actually. He explains why the music in his films is enough, that he doesn't have to make a musical. He talks about how "A Day in the Life of Elvis Presley" is more interesting than a whole bio-pic. He's right: seeing all the events of the whole day leading up to Elvis walking into Sun Records for the first time is way more interesting than a hammy "whole-life" story. I hope he makes that Elvis movie sometime. He'd do it severe justice. I can envision some of his scenes now..LOL

He's the Man. His point about the bravery of the German before he's killed by the Jew Bear is bang-on. A great refute to David Denby's scathing critique...

That is an interview you could watch over and over.
Thanks to Mr. Rose and Mr. Tarantino. Fine fine televison.

[Chris Knipp]

The new Charlie Rose Quentin Tarantino interview is here. (http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10567)

Revenge is a primitive and un-Christian. It deserves a "bad rap." But as a theme it is exciting and suspenseful and it allows Tarantino to play endlessly with references to Westerns and Samurai movies and other cinema he feels the greatest kinship with. QT's movies are such a guilty pleasure at times and so full of energy because he touches on animal impulses, on things so politically incorrect we can hardly believe how much they delight us. "Clarence Worley? Sound like a niggah name." God how I love that line! And: "I'm gonna get medieval on your ass." Terrific! The sheer panache of being able to write such stuff! These are primitive impulses, but pushing those buttons feels way better than some liberal softy PC film about the downtrodden like Frozen River.

Thanks for mentioning those points in the interview -- Tarantino's lack of need to do a musical, and his boredom with the biopic form, which indeed is mostly an excuse for turning out stuff that is repetitious and boring. One can see how the single day in the life of Elvis leading up to his walking into Sun Records for the first time would get QT's creative juices flowing much, much more and deservedly so.

Michuk (Borys Musielak) of FILMASTER (http://filmaster.com/) watched the interview at my suggestion and then went on to watch all the Charlie Rose interviews. A good idea; they're good. I don't think I've seen them all and want to. But this new one is particularly comprehensive and good.

By "ouvre" you mean "oeuvre," but QT mispronounces it himself and maybe you were trying to capture his flavor.

tabuno: will take a look at that Slate review.

[Jason Shier]

He talked about the suspense in Basterds being "stretched like a rubber band" until it snaps in the Charlie Rose interview.

He also said in another interview in a paper I read that Brad Pitt and him agreed to expose each other's audiences to each other: a win-win situation. Which is why I won't gripe too much about his casting, which I felt was wrong. I didn't feel his character was real enough, that a number of better actors could have done that role and made it more juicy, more memorable. I mean, at the premiere of "Nation's Pride", Raine looks like he's trying to mimic Brando in the Godfather- with the stuffed cheeks and weird eyes...

[Jason Shier]

He was a caricature for me, not a "character"

[Chris Knipp]

I like the opening part of the Slate review (whcih, by the way, is by Dana Stevens), where Stevens lists recent movies about Nazis and points out how abusrd or dubious they are. But I differ with him when he goes here:
As a cathartic fantasy about kicking Nazi ass, Inglourious Bastards falls short even of last year's pallid Defiance. The scenes showing the Basterds in action offer plenty of Nazi-bashing, but they're dramatically inert. We learn nothing about, for example, why the unit is under the command of the gentile Lt. Raine or how the soldiers relate to him or to one another. Defiance is pallid, and conventional, and INGOOURIOUS BASTERDS definitely is neither, nor is any moment in it "dramatically nert." And even if it were, waht would that have to do with why the "gentile" [sic] Lt. Raine is in command of the Apache Jews. Who doesn't know the reason for that? It's to put Brad Pitt at the top of the movie's cast and win huge box office, and that has worked. As for Pitt's performance, it works also, if you realize that despite its horrific moments, INCLOURIOUS BASTERDS is not meant to be either realistic or serious.

This is a good line to debate: "Like Spielberg, Tarantino is director enough to elicit cinematic wows even at his most reprehensible." And the set pieces "are near-perfect examples of taut, suspenseful moviemaking." In many ways Stevens gives QT his due. But he doesn't like it, and I guess that's where he and tabuno are in perfect harmony.

Everybody acknowledges Tarantino's faults, but some go on to acknowledge his genius, and others don't.

[Chris Knipp]

Yes, Lt. Aldo Raine is a caricature, but some of Tarantino's characters usually are. They are the quintessence of something. He's a film pastiche. So is Christoph Waltz's character; he's just more suave and speaks more languages.

But that said, Brad Pitt was better, in fact priceless, as an actor in a Tarantino-authored film in his cameo as the stoner in TRUE ROMANCE.

[Johann]

Do I reply as Jason or Johann?
How I should reply from now on?
How about this: Jason sticks if accreditation comes through.
If it doesn't, then it's Johann forever. Deal?
So it's up to you, TIFF communications office....



Absolutely, Pitt was better in True Romance, a movie I love.
Everybody in Basterds is a caricature in a way, but I want them to be REAL caricatures..real in the sense of absolute identity.
Raine has kind of an unknown or shaded identity. He's just "there". He doesn't give me the sense that he's been in war forever, that he's an officer who's earned his stripes to be Commander of the Basterds squad. Yes, he's got a rope burn around his neck. So what? I didn't think about it at all until Tarantino mentioned it in the Rose interview. As a matter of fact, I would've liked to have had a little more background info on all the Basterds. Just a little more info. Not the whole enchilada, just some more clues into their "characters". Make no mistake, I worship this movie.
Loved it, through and through. And always will.
(It's a big movie event in my life, what with seeing QT and Eli Roth in person at the Premiere, and I'm so glad I love it. It would've sucked the big weenie if I had that priviledge and then the movie was a turkey to me). I'm just being nitpicky, really.
Tarantino made the movie the way he did, and to me it's excellent.
Excellent premise, excellent performances, excellent cinema.
I don't wanna get too nitpicky, as he said he doesn't delve too much into subtexts at all in his movies.
He likes to keep it on the surface.

[Chris Knipp]

It is important to see or meet filmmakers and stars, to cement an admiration. I've seen a lot of those at the Nyff, thanks to PMW's original push to cover it in 2005. I don't know why, but I always think of being in the narrow entrance hallway to the Walter Reade facing Penelope Cruz. And seeing Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman, Catherine Deneuve, and Catherine Breillat in person, as well as the loquacious (in two languages) Pedro Almodovar, and Mike Leigh, and many more. There have been some cute guys... I also love to sit through lengthy Q&As in French and Italian with an interpreter. The French one at FSLC is really good..

You can still review TIFF films whether you get this accreditation or not, and when you post in the Festival Coverage section, use Jason. Elsewhere I suggest when you post a full-fledged review, use Jason. For rants and debates, stick to the old familiar Johann.

[Johann]

That way I can hide, right?
No way.
My cover's blown now...HA HA!
I live at ------- ----- st.
My phone number is--- --- ----
LOL

I hide from NO ONE. LOL

Oh, the price of infamy...ha ha ha

[Chris Knipp]

We know where you are. We can go into your computer and read your hard disk.

[Johann]

I'm quite jealous now. Nicole Kidman? Breillat? Deneuve?Winslet?
Wow. That's some star power, right there.
And didn't you say Agnes Varda was at the Rendez-Vous?
Glad some "cuties" tickled your fancy...lol

[Johann]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
We know where you are. We can go into your computer and read your hard disk.


Do you hear that? I hear chopper blades overhead!
What was that?!
I think I just saw a S.W.A.T. man rappel past the window...

[Johann]

I notice nobody's mentioned the effective use of the David Bowie song.

Puttin' out a fire with GASOLINE...

[Chris Knipp]

It indicates that Agnes Varda was there, but I can't remember if she came to the press screenings. Sometimes they dont' for the Rendez-Vous. For the NYFF they more often seem to. Here's a FSLC pdf file (http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=11f4e136f45ca536&mt=application%2Fpdf&pli=1) I dredged up listing the French people who were expected for Rendez-Vous 2009.

I Tarantino appearance probably was more energetic than most of these, but when you have Christopher Doyle Bridgette Lim, and Wong Kar-wai sitting in a row, or people like that, it holds my attention as much as any cuties.

[Johann]

Well I must say, it was an electrifying experience being at the Canadian Premiere. (never been to one of those type of galas before). To have him introduce the film with Eli was pretty damn special. I still can't believe I was there. I'm not so much star struck as just feeling priviledged- it's not lost on me, trust me.
I don't take it for granted.
Seeing someone you admire in person is pretty damn cool, like when I met Henry Rollins, and the members of Riders on the Storm in 2005, when they had Ian Astbury with them.

I haven't had too many brushes with REAL celebrities.
That will probably change in the next two weeks tho...

[Michuk]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Michuk (Borys Musielak) of FILMASTER (http://filmaster.com/) watched the interview at my suggestion and then went on to watch all the Charlie Rose interviews. A good idea; they're good. I don't think I've seen them all and want to. But this new one is particularly comprehensive and good.

Indeed I did. And after doing that I watched Pulp Fiction two times in a row which made me love and appreciate this fantastic movie, one of the best in the history of cinema, even more.

But back to The Basterds... Many believed that even a quasi-serious war movie is too much for him. After being slightly disappointed by his latest features (Death Proof was a fine "carsploitation" film but I'm not a big fan of the genre, Kill Bill was good but too long and with too many fighting scenes which made it boring for me at times) I was very sceptical about the Basteds. I did not expect a masterpiece. But it got close to one! Christopher Waltz owns this film and even though the script could be better at times and some acting is out of place (think Roth and some of the other Basterds), great cinematography and acting of Waltz, Laurent and most of the crew make up for it. Funny and entertaining. Best Tarantino in years!

I wrote a review of the film on Filmaster so you can take a look here: Who's the bastard? (http://michuk.filmaster.com/review/whos-the-bastard/)

[Michuk]

By the way... yesterday I watched Almodovar's "Broken Embraces" and for the whole screening I had this crazy idea that the movie is very similar to Tarantinto's "Basterds". Of course the cinematography is very different, there are more gay people and fewer Nazi scalps and the stories have completely nothing to do with each other... but what they have in common is that both movies show the great love and affection for cinema-making in their own Almodovarish and Tarantinoesque ways.

This is what my first impression after watching Broken Embraces was:

What is the worst thing that can happen to a filmmaker? Someone cutting the movie for you! There is no doubt that Pedro Almodóvar was more lucky than the director in his movie, Harry Caine, and was allowed to make the final cut all by himself. In "Broken Embraces" he shows his great affection for cinema-making while still managing to tell us a fresh, funny and dramatic story about love, jealousy and sick desire. Very unique, one of his best.

I love both directors even though they are so different. But I love them mainly for this distinctive taste they brought to the world cinema. When you watch any of their movies, after nearly 5 minutes you can tell it's Almodovar or Tarantino. And not that many directors managed to achieve this. I can think of the Coen brothers, Altman, Jarmusch, Kieślowski, maybe a few more. And they are my favorite directors.

One could argue that making a movie about movie-making is inappropriate ego-centrism. It's like a writer writing about writing a book (it can go recursive as well). It's very personal and very true, but why would anyone care? Those are not real-life issues, right?
But if you look at the cinema not as you look at the novels (more or less you expect them to be serious and have something to say), but rather admire it for its pure, naive beauty and just let yourself be simply entertained, you may start to fully appreciate the geniuses of such art.

Did I go offtopic? Sorry for that... I just felt like sharing some of those feeling about cinema that I recently discovered in myself.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for the appreciations. Broken Embraces opens later in the US. I hope to see it in the NYFF, where it is a selection. Almodovar will probably be there. He and Richard Pena, the festival director are friendly.

[Michuk]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Thanks for the appreciations. Broken Embraces opens later in the US. I hope to see it in the NYFF, where it is a selection. Almodovar will probably be there. He and Richard Pena, the festival director are friendly.

Judging on your previous reviews (of which I read something like 20 just today :P) you are going to love it. It has all that a decent movie needs, highly recommended!

[Chris Knipp]

I sure hope so.