Saw 'Inglorious Basterds' tonight. Liked it a lot...if you saw it, how'd you like it? (SPOILERS)

[Danger Mouse]

Anyway, here's what I liked about it:

- Brad Pitt, Cristoph Waltz, and Melanie Laurent. Pitt was a lot of fun as Raine, I enjoyed pretty much every scene he was in. Waltz is perfect as the villain, Landa. He was menacing, charming, terrifying, but surprisingly pragmatic. Perfectly capable of realizing when a situation would be to his benefit and thus profiting from it rather than carrying around delusions of loyalty. Laurent's performance carried a lot of emotional weight. I really loved her character...

- The soundtrack. A lot of Ennio Morricone, which I will never object to. Apparently, Morricone was originally supposed to do the soundtrack, but was unable to, so they just used preexisting music of his instead. Anyway, it always fit the mood...one of Tarantino's strengths is really knowing how to use music in a film.

- The visuals. This is an incredible movie to look at. I felt this movie had a lot of tributes to Sergio Leone in it, the opening scene to me was like a re-imagining of the massacre scene from 'Once Upon a Time in the West.'

- Very tense, and good use of suspense. Sometimes the movie is a bit slow...a couple scenes go on a bit longer than they needed to, but the tension in some scenes is fantastically done.

- The ending. I totally didn't see it coming. I figured their plan would fail and they'd all end up dead. Instead, well, they throw historical accuracy to the wind and kill the living fuck out of Hitler. Awesome. And the scene where Shosanna's face appears in the smoke and her mocking laughter floats in the air as the german audience is roasted alive...holy fuck it is one of the most awesome scene Tarantino has ever done.

- Overall, I think I liked this better than any of his other movies. It's not as clever as pulp fiction or as fun as Kill Bill, but it felt to me like his best film artistically, thought not necessarily a movie I would watch on a regular basis. Hard to watch at times. I think the mutilation of Landa at the end might be approaching the ear cutting scene from Resevoir Dogs in terms of brutality.

I'd give it an A-

Here's what I disliked:

- The movie dragged at times. There were a few scenes that I felt went on longer than they needed to, especially the scene in the tavern. Tarantino movies are ALWAYS going to be dialogue heavy, and the dialogue is almost always very good, but he overdoes it at times.

- Tarantino's foot fetish. It's not that I don't approve of it, but it kind of annoys me that it shows up in practically all of his movies. It's just a minor irritation to me, really, it doesn't take anything away from my enjoyment of the movie, but it does make me roll my eyes a bit.

- I didn't quite like the way Shosanna died. I was almost certain she was going to die...but I figured she'd go up with the theater (I think she certainly planned on it). She didn't get to see her vengeance carried out, and I found that sad, and kind of unnecessary. Consider that nothing more than an artistic disagreement on my part.

- I wouldn't have minded a bit more action. I didn't need like tons of explosions or stuff like that, but I wouldn't have minded another opportunity to see the Basterds in action.

As you can tell, these are all minor quibbles of mine. None of them big. I will say this much:

If you like Tarantino's movies, you will probably like this one.
If you do not like Tarantino's movies, you should give this one a chance, but it's likely you will not like this one either.

As for me, I do like his films, and I liked this one a hell of a lot. I will most likely watch it again at some point.
Now, all of you guys and gals that have seen it, what do you think?

[EndersDame]

1. I loved this one as well and like you It would have been cool to see

the basterds in action more

[Danger Mouse]

2. Wasn't the ending awesome?

:hi:

[EndersDame]

3. it always brings a smile to my heart watchi;ng Nazi scum

get what they deserve :)

[armyowalgreens]

4. I had some philosophical issues with the "bat to the head" scene...

More so with the audiences reaction than the scene itself.

People were clapping and chanting through the entire scene. It was kind of disgusting, and I think they missed the point.



But, overall, it was a terrific movie.

[EndersDame]

5. I think everyone likes it when the oppressed get revenge on their oppressor

besides who does not like movie violence;)

[armyowalgreens]

6. I think everyone likes it when a nazi gets beaten to death with a baseball bat.

It's kind of disturbing.

[EndersDame]

8. I will admit I cheered when Hitler was killed!

I am anti bullshit war WW2 certainly was justified but I think alot of the reason people cheered because it was very stlyized Hollywood/Fantasy violence. I don't think anyone cheered during Saving Private Ryan

[Danger Mouse]

9. I didn't cheer, but I did love it.

And as much as Landa deserved it, the scene at the end made me squirm. A lot.

[EndersDame]

12. ooh yeah that was pretty gory

[armyowalgreens]

10. I'm actually still a bit haunted by the image of bullets tearing his face apart.

I didn't cheer. I just watched.

[EndersDame]

14. I think it would have been fitting if the Basterds shoved him into one of his ovens

Fuck Hitler- he got off to easy in the real world

[armyowalgreens]

16. That's assuming he wasn't mentally ill.

[EndersDame]

17. My liberal sensebilities go out the window everytime i look at pics from Auschwitz and Dachau

I know this will sound Arcane but the man was Pure Evil mentally ill or not. Part of me hopes that Hell is real so that he will get the punishment he rightfully deserved

[armyowalgreens]

18. When I see photos like that, It only affirms my belief that he was insane.

No one deserves hell.

[EndersDame]

19. that is were you and I will have to respectfully disagree

:)

[armyowalgreens]

22. Hell is an infinite amount of punishment. We are finite beings.

No one deserves hell. And I mean that in the most literal way possible.

[EndersDame]

24. I like to think that our souls or spirits are infinite

Like I said I will have to disagree with you (respectfully of course some times the internet has a weird thing of making sound like a bitch :) ) I try not to be the judge of people and let The Universe sort it out but with people (and i use the term loosely) like Hitler his deeds were so Monstrous and Evil it scares me that they walk the earth among us. I think that his soul has a lot to work out and Karma is one big bad bitch

Edit -Have you ever seen that Twilight Zone in which a racist goes through various lives (a black man during slavery, Jew during holocaust etc etc)

[pokerfan]

20. I thought he was Wehrmacht

not Waffen-SS. Not everyone was Nazi. Of course, after the war, no one claimed to be a Nazi.

[armyowalgreens]

21. The guy that was beaten to death was an SA. Aren't those Nazis?

[pokerfan]

23. I'm not up on WWII insignia

[rockymountaindem]

30. That fellow is Wehrmacht

The gray uniforms are regular army and the SS is in black.

[Danger Mouse]

7. In the theater I was in got the point...there was no cheering during that scene.

I think I would've been bothered if people cheered it. :hi:

[EndersDame]

11. Quentin Taratino is a like a Ballet choreographer when it comes to composing death scenes

I heard him on Terry Gross' show and apparently he had liner notes on the choking scene. I rember he said choking is a purely human way to kill it all comes down to opposable thumbs and the will to go through with it.It is the most personal way to kill some one

[Danger Mouse]

15. It fits Landa perfectly.

[vixengrl]

26. Agree--his superficial mask slipped off and the total monster

he was was revealed. It was a very deliberate scene.

[armyowalgreens]

13. Also, I want to make babies with Melanie Laurent...

[vixengrl]

25. "Inglourious Basterds" was quirky but I enjoyed it a lot.

I think signature things like the fetishism and violence with Tarantino are like his cock-eyed pop-sense auteurism. Or something. For me, I see a distinction between violence and "action" in a way--this movie had enough of the former, and I agree, too little of the latter. For a movie named "Inglourious Basterds", I think that the unit was under-represented in the film, and that there are certainly enough John-Wayne style movies T could've cribbed from to insert a little more of the motley Yanks. But I "get" that there was more of an emphasis on the cinema that I admit I'm less familiar with--the European, and that the story-line depended upon establishing the other characters' motivations. (Or it could've been longer! Maybe he wanted to pull back from going the Kill Bill direction. But still--I wanted more Basterds!)

I think Shoshanna's death, from an artistic POV, was probably arranged that way as an ironic Liebestod. (The irony being that the film arranges how she meets the Nazi hero and everything to set them up as forbidden lovers in "movieworld", that contrived space where boy meets girl and things are supposed to happen, but she is disgusted by him rather the way she would be in real life. He is attracted to her because of cinema, and she only finds him accidently useful for her revenge. Everything between them is fake, but mortally so--they are united in death.) She doesn't need to physically be presiding over the conflagration because it was already as much as a fait accompli.

I did think it dragged, too. I snuck out to the wc during the farmhouse scene in the beginning and missed nothing. That went on a bit....but I have to admit that wasn't bad because I started to focus on Col. Landa because of it--repellent, but fascinatingly so! Christopher Waltz really stole that movie in any scene he was in.

I liked the dark humor. I especially loved the Basterds trying very incompetently to fake being Italian cinematographers. I also liked Mike Meyers' cameo more than I thought I would because I thought it would be rather clowny (considering his "Austin Powers" role)--but it was a good impression of sort of a stock tired old British military intelligence chap. I liked the make-up, there as well.

I don't think I'll sneak out to the theater to see it again (my husband is a "see-once" movie-goer, and I rarely have time to catch a flick alone--I'm not twisting his arm to take me again) even though I like to take in movies a couple times to try to take them in, in full. But I think I'll rent it whenever it's on DVD visit it again--I think it's a film that will hold up like that.

[Forkboy]

27. The foot fetish shit has got to stop.

I promised my friend he would work in a foot scene, and sure enough....

I want to see a director with a body casting fetish and see them keep trying to work it into their films. A foot fetish is too easy.

[Danger Mouse]

28. I knew it was coming, too.

It was like 'wow, what a shocker!'

[JanMichael]

29. Landa (Cristoph Waltz) OWNED the movie. He was amazing.

Sometimes an actor (a really good unknown actor) gets a little lucky with a script and this is the exceptional result of that luck.

If he doesn't get an Oscar nod (not necessarily a win) for his counter intuitive charming psycho killer goofball humourous portrayal then the system is broken. He changed facial expressions and demeanor incredibly fast.

That man owned the scenes he was in and you could feel his presence in the others.

[rockymountaindem]

31. I just saw it and it was a letdown for me

I thought it was going to be a lot more Basterd-on-Nazi violence than it actually was, and more graphically depicted (like a horror film). Ultimately we had to wait all the way until the very end until we saw something really hard-hitting when the Basterds hosed down Hitler's morbid face with their MP-40s.

I thought the best part of the movie was during the tee-ball session in the ravine where in the Bear Jew was revealed to be a Red Sox fan. I thought it was funny when he started screaming about "knocking that one onto Lansdowne street", since I am a Jewish Red Sox fan who is lucky enough to walk by Fenway every day at this point in my life. I thought "they could have cast me in that role!", except that I'm not huge. Oh well, can't have everything :)