One glorious bastard: "Inglorious Basterds" left me decidedly unimpressed save for one thing: Christoph Waltz. (I lie: Tarantino is a good dialogist, and the farmhouse scene was good). It's been downhill since "Pulp Fiction." Why the nerds over at IMDb currently rate it the 106th best movie ever, I'll never know. Oh yes I do--they're nerds.
You guys get to serve as the pal I turn to as I leave the theater and say, "That kinda sucked," because I see so many movies alone. Even "Julie and Julia" was too violent for my wife cuz Amy Adams had to bone a duck. Vive la difference!
You guys get to serve as the pal I turn to as I leave the theater and say, "That kinda sucked," because I see so many movies alone. Even "Julie and Julia" was too violent for my wife cuz Amy Adams had to bone a duck. Vive la difference!
6 comments:
Its seems like there's been a lot of Nazi movies lately? I think the Left-Establishment is getting nervous over the white middle classes movement into ethnic consciousness, and these movies are an attempt at "reminding" people how dangerous white identity politics are.
I agree to a certain extent. I left having enjoyed it, but only so much, feeling there was a lot left on the table.
Tarantino made a choice. The conventional movie fitting his characters or not? He chose not. Usually I'd applaud the road less traveled, but here, overall, it was a mistake.
The conventional movie about the "Inglourious Bastards" was some version of the Dirty Dozen. We are introduced to them in a similar "Squad-leader-inimtadates" induciton scene ala Dirty. I'm expecting some lengthy training scenes then afterward missions where I get to know them leading up to the "big mission finale."
That didn't happen. We went straight from their induction to a when they are already the boogeyman of every nazi infantryman. This was the key mistake.
We do this jump essentially to accomodate the story as to the cinema owner. That was the unconventional part. But I'm story, her story just wasn't very interesting. As a character Tarantino took the time to establish she had all the motivation, but still, I just didn't care. We got long scenes of her at her moviehouse, scenes of her at a restaurant, scenes of her in a bar. These were dead scenes.
He took so much time with her, we never had time for what was up with Pitt's troop. All we get is one scene in the forest and that bar scene. Even the bar scene lacked interest because we didn't know any of the characters. the Brit was introduced the scene before. Kruger we are just meeting. The main Nazi too. The scene was interesting from a dialogue standpoint but didn't involve characters we were invested in. (I have to believe an earlier draft of the script had Waltz as the baddie picking up their trail. Cmon, another Nazi linguist?)
This movie needed to play to its strengths. The Waltz character was its strength. Fantastic. This needed to be a conventionally plotted movie with him chasing Pitt's troops about until a powederkeg "blow up the death star" final act. We would have got to know Pitts troop as individuals, their personalities, and cared about them. We would have got to see the more Waltz and maybe little genius deductions he makes along the way.
As a final note, I had no problem with the historical revisionism. Here, Tarantino gave us the orgasm it seems every previous war movie teased us with but snatched away at the last second from out of misguided sensible grown-upness. That part WAS ballsy genius.
Ive grown to prefer documenturaries to movies, with little need for drama or suspense. "Just the facts".
If I want to see a movie, then Ive grown to almost wanting it to be straight-up comic or farcial, poking fun at life and people's indiosyncracies----not a revisionist history lesson or "conscious raising" of any kind. At least not from a Hollywood movie. "City of God" for instance, would have registered as a conscience rasing "film", but I dont think that was a hollywood joint (I could be wrong on that, but I think it was foreign).
Once in a while Hollywood can do one right admittedly however, as Valkyrie proved, but even in that film they didn't have the art direction completely right as some officers who supposedly were to be wearing swastikas on their arms were not, probably to facilitate a more smypathetic portrayal of the Germans involved in the plot (one of the plots, there were some 15 of them in reality) to kill Hitler. I thought that movie, Valkyrie, was an attempt at some authenticity that was not sensationalized beyond recognition.
As frequent commenter Whiskey/T99 has noted, Hollywood has become such a gay/leftist "ghetto", one doesn't expect too much out of them anymore, hence I see very few movies now. Its not that I dont really love a great show, I do. Its just they make so few now that are really entertaining that dont insult your historical intelligence or dont lie to you in some way, that its hard to get fired up to go blow 2-hours.
** The last two James Bond movies, even though the plots and chases/fights were very improbable, were "impressive" things to behold. The last "Mission Impossible" movie had the same effect. It was impressive to look at, but the plot was too fantastic to have any chance of being true. I remember the movie, "The Fugitive" with Harrison Ford from the early nineties, and leaving the theatre thinking that was about the best "exciting, yet could have happened" movie I think I ever saw.
-Its seems like there's been a lot of Nazi movies lately? I think the Left-Establishment is getting nervous over the white middle classes movement into ethnic consciousness, and these movies are an attempt at "reminding" people how dangerous white identity politics are.-
Too bad the left/jewish establishment just can't help themselves. The NYT ethicist, Cohen has basically said it is OK for Jews to cheat gentiles to teach them a lesson. Good to know.
Also, the leftist/Negro whining that oppositon to Obama is racist isn't so smart either.
Such brinksmanship can backfire in a very nasty way. Is Tarantio a closet Mussolini fan?
Dear Ray Midge:
Thanks. You nailed it. I'd definitely pay to see your version. Reduce the movie theater owner to the role of lady-in-peril, maybe add some romance between her and Brad. (Yeah, I know it's cheezy, but why shouldn't a Tarantino movie be cheezy?)
I think Tarantino should direct other people's screenplays (maybe punching up the dialogue a little) and save his own writing for the theatre, where his verbosity would be a virtue.
Post a Comment