Inglorious Basterds review thread by OPPYH

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Inglorious Basterds review thread

POSTED BY: OPPYH
UPDATED: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 19:10
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Saturday, August 22, 2009 3:50 PM

Tarantino has my respect. He makes films the way he wants them made. When I entered the theater(early to catch all the previews) it was already filling up fast. By the time the film started, it was a packed house. I didn't know what I was in for. I've always fancied Tarantino films, if for anything his well written dialog and his unusual pacing for movies always has me hooked. Before the credits came up a vintage Universal studios logo graced the screen. The credits started rolling to a beautiful musical piece(The Green Leaves of Summer) as I had expected, Tarantino knows just the right music to use in his films.

Now, judging from the theatrical trailer you'd think this was a Brad Pitt vehicle from the beginning to end. Not even close. I think it would be a kind estimate to say he was in 45 minutes of the film(it runs 2 1/2 hours). No, the story is mainly about a Jewish gal named Shoshanna. A survivor (hiding her Jewish heritage) in France just waiting for the Nazi rule to end. NOTE: The film is basically spoken in French/German with english subtitles which was also a huge surprise for me.

When Shoshanna finds out the German high command(including Hitler) and many Nazi soldiers want to use the movie theater which she inherited for a propaganda Nazi film premiere, she is shocked. Her entire family was killed by the Germans years before, and she devises a plan for revenge.

Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo Rain is superb. Every line he speaks in the film is great. I wish he were in it a little more. He commands the Basterds. A group of Jewish soldiers dropped into Nazi-occupied France to brutalize, and kill Nazis. Demoralize them so to speak. They do their job all too well, even taking scalps from dead Nazi officers.

I have to admit, the film seemed to drag a little toward the half-way mark. I guess I was just hoping to see more of Brad Pitt's character instead of the Shoshanna storyline. No worries though, by the time the final chapter(Like Kill Bill it's divided up into chapters)"The revenge of the Giant Face" I was captivated. It starts with a great song by David Bowie that sets the tone, and dreamlike quality of the finale absolutely perfectly.
I felt like I was watching a French new wave film. Very un-Hollywood like.

Inglorious Basterds is on the verge of becoming my favorite Tarantino film. After I see it again, I'm sure it will be.
Highly recommended.

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Sunday, August 23, 2009 6:50 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...

Thank you. I've been curious about it, but hesitant because I couldn't figure it out from the previews, and because I'm always cautious about Tarantino films...mostly because of the violence.

But your review has my curiosity piqued more than ever now. I'm going to have to see it (tho' I'll wait for DVD, I usually do)...and I don't mind subtitles in the slightest. Since I usually watch movies I like more than once, I can ignore the subtitles after the first viewing and catch the more subtle aspects.

Sounds like a keeper!

________________________
Together we are greater than the sum of our parts

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Sunday, August 23, 2009 7:53 AM

BOOKREADER

Chapters 1 & 2 were great, chapter 5 was as well. The middle 90 minutes were a colossal bore.

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Sunday, August 23, 2009 9:12 AM

OPPYH

Quote:
Originally posted by BookReader:
Chapters 1 & 2 were great, chapter 5 was as well. The middle 90 minutes were a colossal bore.

I felt the pace of the film slowed dramatically in the middle, but I was never bored.

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Sunday, August 23, 2009 9:39 AM

BOOKREADER

Quote:
Originally posted by OPPYH:
Quote:
Originally posted by BookReader:
Chapters 1 & 2 were great, chapter 5 was as well. The middle 90 minutes were a colossal bore.
I felt the pace of the film slowed dramatically in the middle, but I was never bored.

It was not the movie it was advertised to be.

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Sunday, August 23, 2009 11:44 AM

OPPYH

Quote:
Originally posted by BookReader:

It was not the movie it was advertised to be.

I agree. It wasn't even close to what the preview alluded to.

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Sunday, August 23, 2009 1:20 PM

BOOKREADER

Quote:
Originally posted by OPPYH:
Quote:
Originally posted by BookReader:

It was not the movie it was advertised to be.

I agree. It wasn't even close to what the preview alluded to.

I might like a bit more the second time around, but I was not impressed with the center portion of the film.

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Sunday, August 23, 2009 9:35 PM

SINGATE

As has already been suggested the movie was not as advertised. I honestly can't say if this is good or bad. What I expected was about 60-70 percent Nazi hunting and killing by the Basterds with the rest of the film spent on backstory and witty dialogue. The film I watched had only a few, albeit very effective, scenes depicting what the Basterds were all about combined with about 2 hours of Kill Bill(minus the kung fu) meets Anne Frank. While Shoshanna's story is interesting and the actress does a fine job I could not help but feel as if this was the B storyline of the movie. The movie is called Inglorious Basterds, is it wrong to assume they would be the focus of the film?

Brad Pitt is outstanding in this. His portrayal of Aldo Raine borders on comic genius. My favorite moment has to be listening to him speak Italian with that heavy, mountain man twang. Priceless. It's just too bad he wasn't featured a bit more.

As good as Pitt was my favorite character was Colonel Landa played by Chritoph Waltz. It has been a long time since I have seen a villain come across this sinister. The way he seemed to know everything that was going on was downright creepy. The scene where he orders milk for Shoshanna is chilling.

The coolest thing about the movie is how Tarantino has adopted the whole "what if" scenario instead of trying to make a factual WWII film. Just once it was great to see the higher ups in the Third Reich on the recieving end of some righteous vengeance. I don't know about everyone else but I always wanted to know what Hitler's face would look like if it encountered about 50 rounds at close range.

_________________________________________________

We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

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Monday, August 24, 2009 10:25 AM

OPPYH

Quote:
Originally posted by singate:

Brad Pitt is outstanding in this. His portrayal of Aldo Raine borders on comic genius. My favorite moment has to be listening to him speak Italian with that heavy, mountain man twang. Priceless. It's just too bad he wasn't featured a bit more.

Aint it the truth."My grandad was half apache, so I've got some Injun in me". "And I WANT my scalps" Just an awesome character. Perfection.

Quote:
The coolest thing about the movie is how Tarantino has adopted the whole "what if" scenario instead of trying to make a factual WWII film. Just once it was great to see the higher ups in the Third Reich on the recieving end of some righteous vengeance. I don't know about everyone else but I always wanted to know what Hitler's face would look like if it encountered about 50 rounds at close range.

You know that's the thing that really sold me on the film. I liked it just fine, but the "what if" aspect made me love the film. Like I said earlier the final chapter has a dreamlike feel to it. A really kick-ass vengeful dream. I'm going to see it again sometime this week.

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Wednesday, September 23, 2009 7:10 PM

PHOENIXROSE

You think you know--what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.

This was the first Tarantino movie I've seen *pause for gasps and exclamations* and it made me wonder a few things about him and his films.
1) Does he always spend 70% of the movie building tension? Or is it, in fact, all to build tension? Like a few others on this thread, I was bored in the middle of the film. Some of it was effective tension building, and the rest of it was a drag. I liked parts of the movie and I loved the ending. When that giant face started laughing and went up in flames, I got chills. I was excited by several sequences, but bored by far more. The movie was very long, and I think it could have been served a little better by some editing. The story could have all been there if a good half hour of it was cut out. Just my opinion.
2) Is he a feminist in the same club as Joss? Shoshana was quite a strong woman (which I've seen hinted at in the snippets of his other work I've seen) When she pulled her gun on the pushy nazi asshole soldier, I almost cheered out loud. When she crept up to see if he was still alive instead of putting another bullet in him, though, I thought that ranked with the stupidest things I've seen female characters do. The actress, too, was a fairly strong role. I can't remember what she was called beyond 'fraulein' but I liked her. She also had some slips of dumb, but I was impressed that she would put herself at such risk, and take a bullet with as much resilience as she did.
3) Are all Tarantino films that realistic? The portrayals of the violence and the pain were, well, disturbing, but I thought they were also more realistic than most. Most movies, someone gets pressure applied to a bullet wound, they might cry out, but they probably wouldn't thrash and scream in pain, and yet that response seems the more likely. Also, there's often far less blood shown on screen, though again more blood seems more likely. I'm not sure I really like it better that way, but it did keep me in the moment.

I still can't say how much I liked it. There was a lot of brilliance there. There was also a lot of 'omg get on with it already!' in parts; things that didn't advance the action or (imo) add anything to the overall story. I don't find myself wanting to see it again very badly, but I've certainly thought about it a lot...

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