Inglourious Basterds

[BrassTax]

Although I might be new here and my words don't carry much weight, I thought it was an excellent film and more specifically Col. Hans Landa as portrayed by Christolph Waltz. Even though the gore in the movie was gratuitous (as it usually is with QT and i can't get the scene where Hitler's head is shot to peices) I think Tarantino did an excellent job creating a visually stimulating movie with a great story. @Catallaxy though you fail to see the "unambiguous" moral clarity of it all, The majority of western peoples certainly saw Hitler/Mussolini as evil and the moral thing at the time was to combat these 'evil doers'. Although the results of the war might not be black and white; the common consensus of WWII as good vs. evil in society and in pop culture remains.

[Oleg Bach]

Of course. That's more or less what I was trying to say earlier:

Why does World War II remain popular subject matter for movies (and video games, and documentaries, and fiction and non fiction books?) Because people love fighting and combat and action and espionage, and World War II is the only war in modern history where right and wrong are completely unambiguous.

You still believe in the market system, right? It must have occurred to you that the reason people keep giving Tarantino money to make movies is that they think it's a good investment?

You started off using the yardstick of box-office receipts as a means of scoffing at the wisdom of investing money in a Quentin Tarantino production, and now you're doubting the yardstick you yourself introduced.

Do you have some reason to doubt that this movie has been commercially successful? Some reason beyond "Tarantino isn't a good director"?

I doubt he "had" to go with anything.

With the exception of Grindhouse, all of Tarantino's movies have been successful to some degree, and some of them have been significantly successful.

Artistic merit is always debatable, but Tarantino's films are usually very well reviewed (present company aside.) Pulp Fiction in particular was immensely admired by critics as not just a good movie, but also an influential one.

-k

How can you respect this director writer who has stolen every last idea from every movie ever made - and tell me...what good does it do to have a scene where some human being is having his brains dashed by a super Jew killing a Nazi - Tarantino is a weasil - He looks like one and acts like one- and walks like one...I have no respect of actors at this point - most will cause create social and cultural decay so they can life in a fine home with a pool - and they don't care if the world is polluted by the trash they portray - money and a false status are paramount in importance to these little pigs - let them snort coke and work out till they have bulemic buns of steal - they offer NOTHING to the world - yet we reward them?

[bloodyminded]

How can you respect this director writer who has stolen every last idea from every movie ever made - and tell me...what good does it do to have a scene where some human being is having his brains dashed by a super Jew killing a Nazi - Tarantino is a weasil - He looks like one and acts like one- and walks like one...I have no respect of actors at this point - most will cause create social and cultural decay so they can life in a fine home with a pool - and they don't care if the world is polluted by the trash they portray - money and a false status are paramount in importance to these little pigs - let them snort coke and work out till they have bulemic buns of steal - they offer NOTHING to the world - yet we reward them?

Leaving aside whether one thinks Tarantino sucks or not, he is an artist. You don't have to think he's a good artist...clealry you think he's terrible.

But he has no obligation to "offer [anything] to the world"--art does that by its nature, or so I would argue.

His movies contain so many familiar movie scenes because he isn't making movies about reality--he's making movies about movies.

As for the violence--well, I don't have a problem with it, personally. There are a zillion similarly violent scenes in a million movies. And here, it is NOT a clear-cut case of justified head-bashing. Rather, there is some moral ambiguity going on...but since it is a Jew killing a Nazi, we-the-audience can get a sort of almost-vicarious thrill from it.

In this way, the audince becomes complicit in the violence, which is an artistic move on the filmmaker's part (again, whether successful or not is entirely another matter).

And I agree that Tarantino is a funny-looking guy, but I don't know why you consider that part of his moral failing.

[kimmy]

The Golden Globe awards nominations have been released, and Christoph Waltz is predictably nominated in the supporting actor category.

Less predictable-- judging from the opinions here at least-- are Tarantino's nominations for best director and best screenplay, and for the Bastard as best drama.

super Jew

You've mentioned this in a number of threads, and it always makes me wonder what the hell you're talking about.

Is a Super Jew faster than speeding klezmer, more powerful than a whole wheat bagel, and able to leap tall menorahs in a single bound?

I assume you refer to this character as a "Super Jew" for the same reason you described Israeli soldiers as specially bred Super-Jews in another thread. In your mind, a Jew is an accountant with a pencil neck and thick glasses. In your mind, Barack Obama isn't a black man because he's not out there in a pimp-hat and gold chains delivering speeches in ebonics, so I guess none of this is surprising.

-k

[August1991]

You still believe in the market system, right? It must have occurred to you that the reason people keep giving Tarantino money to make movies is that they think it's a good investment?

...

You started off using the yardstick of box-office receipts as a means of scoffing at the wisdom of investing money in a Quentin Tarantino production, and now you're doubting the yardstick you yourself introduced.

I merely said that reported Hollywood box office numbers are pure invention. It is tough to market a movie and every lever has to be pulled.

Now then, do Tarantino movies make money? I guess so if people keep giving him money to make them. Does that make Tarantino a worthy artist? No, and even Leftists will agree with me on that.

I haven't seen Inglourious Basterds but I guess now, I am obliged to rent it. (The last time you conned me into seeing a movie Kimmy, it was "The Watchmen". When I realized that it was a movie about cartoon superheroes, I balked and left the DVD on the rental shelf.)

I once had a "friend" who would never see a movie unless it had a shotgun. As he put it, "What's the point of a movie unless someone pulls out a gun and shoots something." I reckon that Tarantino has made a high-class movie for the "shotgun" audience. (I had another friend who, whenever I said that I had just seen a movie, invariably asked me: "Is there any sex in it?" He later explained that movies without sex are just boring. I venture to bet that there is at least one nude scene in Inglourious Basterds.) So, Tarantino has gone down market and is making fancy porno.

My quibble is that Quentin Tarantino has no idea what violence is like, and certainly no idea what violence in WWII was like. His movies, or those that I have seen, are cartoons.

I prefer my cinema/fiction to have some connection to reality.

The Toronto Film Critics Association has named two movies as the best of 2009. The association was split between Hunger, about IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, and Quentin Tarantino's Second World War movie Inglourious Basterds.

National Post

I rest my case.

Edited December 17, 2009 by August1991

[kimmy]

I merely said that reported Hollywood box office numbers are pure invention. It is tough to market a movie and every lever has to be pulled.

Now then, do Tarantino movies make money? I guess so if people keep giving him money to make them. Does that make Tarantino a worthy artist? No, and even Leftists will agree with me on that.

I don't think anybody has suggested that artistic merit can be measured by box-office receipts (or record sales, or TV ratings.)

If artistic merit were measurable by ticket sales, Michael Bay would be the new Francis Ford Coppola. He isn't. He's just a very very rich idiot.

Still, you seemed to think box-office receipts were meaningful when you thought they supported your opinion of Tarantino... now, they're apparently much less so.

I haven't seen Inglourious Basterds but I guess now, I am obliged to rent it.

Please don't; not on my account anyway. You've already decided you hate it; actually watching the movie isn't going to change your mind.

(The last time you conned me into seeing a movie Kimmy, it was "The Watchmen". When I realized that it was a movie about cartoon superheroes, I balked and left the DVD on the rental shelf.)

I can't imagine how you read my comments about that movie closely enough to become interested in the movie, yet somehow didn't clue in that it was about costumed heroes.

At face value, cartoon superheroes is a patently absurd concept. If this ridiculous concept didn't connect with people somehow, it wouldn't have taken off in the first place, and if it didn't continue to do so, it would have died off long ago. So the fact that this absurd genre has survived for at least 70 years (and might be more popular than ever) must mean something... it must say something about the audience that keeps it going. The Watchmen (the comic book series) made an effort to contemplate the genre itself and explore what the genre's continued existence might say about us. The Watchmen (the movie) made an ambitious if flawed attempt to bring the legendary comic book series to the screen. A movie about comic book superheroes is no more ridiculous than a movie about chess, a movie about other movies, a movie about a flying nun, a movie about a 50 foot tall gorilla, or a movie about a magical kingdom over a rainbow.

But that's a whole 'nother thread.

I once had a "friend" who would never see a movie unless it had a shotgun. As he put it, "What's the point of a movie unless someone pulls out a gun and shoots something." I reckon that Tarantino has made a high-class movie for the "shotgun" audience.

Many of his movies have violent scenes in them... however, I suspect if violence were the only draw, people would find movies with less of the talkie bits.

(I had another friend who, whenever I said that I had just seen a movie, invariably asked me: "Is there any sex in it?" He later explained that movies without sex are just boring. I venture to bet that there is at least one nude scene in Inglourious Basterds.) So, Tarantino has gone down market and is making fancy porno.

You liken a movie to a porno because you assume there's a nude scene in it?

I don't believe there's any nudity at all, though there is a 1.3 second sex scene, as a personal assistant (Julie Dreyfus) is momentarily shown providing ...uh, personal assistance... to the obnoxious director of the movie-within-the-movie.

Is it really your position that a 1.3 second sex-scene makes a movie "fancy porno", or are you speaking figuratively?

My quibble is that Quentin Tarantino has no idea what violence is like, and certainly no idea what violence in WWII was like. His movies, or those that I have seen, are cartoons.

If one were to assume Tarantino's motivation were to create a documentary, then Inglourious Basterds would undoubtedly rank as a failure of colossal proportions.

-k

[bloodyminded]

Now then, do Tarantino movies make money? I guess so if people keep giving him money to make them. Does that make Tarantino a worthy artist? No, and even Leftists will agree with me on that.

But no one said anything of the kind. In fact, the only time I have EVER heard such a preposterous argument is in defense of FOX News or Rush Limbaugh, in which it is continually suggested that popularity equals merit.

I once had a "friend" who would never see a movie unless it had a shotgun. As he put it, "What's the point of a movie unless someone pulls out a gun and shoots something." I reckon that Tarantino has made a high-class movie for the "shotgun" audience.

If we assume that violence in art can serve no real purpose. I don't believe that's true.

(I had another friend who, whenever I said that I had just seen a movie, invariably asked me: "Is there any sex in it?" He later explained that movies without sex are just boring. I venture to bet that there is at least one nude scene in Inglourious Basterds.) So, Tarantino has gone down market and is making fancy porno.

That's quite a leap--"So" [as in, "it's settled"] Tarantino is making porno.

Basing this on some remark made by a friend that isn't even about the movie in question?

Anyway, for the record, nope, no porno...unless, as Kimmy points out, a blink-in-time constitutes pornography.

My quibble is that Quentin Tarantino has no idea what violence is like, and certainly no idea what violence in WWII was like. His movies, or those that I have seen, are cartoons.

I have put it elsewhere that Quentin isn't making naturalistic movies.

But in fact, even so-called "realistic" movies are fictions, even cartoons, in terms of objective reality. My thought is that movies like "Basterds" and "Watchmen" work to some degree as subversions of the pretences of film conventions.

Name me one "realistic" movie, and I'll bet you a loonie I can decode it (if crudely), and expose its falsehoods.

(Note: I'm not opposed in any way to "falsehoods" of this kind: I"m speaking on your terms here, not mine.)

I prefer my cinema/fiction to have some connection to reality.

All movies have some connection to reality, by definition. Impossible to avoid it. But there does not exist some "realistic" movie which is objectively true.

[Black Dog]

Tarantino's movies exist within a bubble. They're tautological, in a way, as they've not about reality as such, but rather about movies themselves. (We tend to call this "postmodernism," but in fact, self-reflexive stories have been around about as long as stories.)

I like Tarantino's movies, but I always find something that annoys. It's usually the self-consciously quirky dialogue during the longer conversations.

But in Inglourious Basterds, I found this irritant nearly totally absent...and there are a lot of long conversations.

The movie works because Tarantino is not buying the Great War Myths. All World War 2 movies are mythic adventures in righteousness.

So Tarantino devises a new set of myths. Gone is the patriotic masturbation. Gone is the passive Jew. Gone is the Churchillian colossus smashing Evil with his bare rhetoric. Gone is the Hitler as the Grand Miltonian Satan, the Evil-such-as-the-world-has never-seen. (You ever notice how the most reviled man in history is actually treated with RESPECT because of his Will-to-murder? Because mythologizing him IS a form of respect. He was NOT Evil incarnate. He was only another man. That's it.)

The only patriotism mentioned in this film is when Aldo Raines tells his cohort to "oblige" the Nazi officer who "wants to die for his country." The conventional Passive Jew is replaced by men laughing at the officer's head being beaten in by a baseball bat, and by the same men collecting scalps and knifing swastikas into foreheads. Churchill didn't end the war; a secret Jew and her black lover end the war. And Hitler is about as menacing as Stephan Dion.

Tarantino makes the audience complicit in his new mythology. That's why we are watching a propaganda film in which the characters are watching a propaganda film.

In Tarantino's movies, but especially in this one, there IS no objective reality. There are stories, many of them telling part of the truth, but never the whole truth, and always there are distortions and tricks of the camera, as well as untouchable officials constructing reality for us.

In this particular reality, Adolph Hitler is gunned down by the "Bear Jew," and it's extremely satisfying.

My only complaints are two minor ones: I think that the tavern scene could have been clipped a little--it's so long it's almost unbelievable. Also, Eli Roth (the Bear Jew) cannot act. He sucks. There was no need at all to put him in this movie. Luckily, he has very few lines.

Otherwise, really excellent, outstanding.

The movie you saw sounds pretty great. Too bad it's nothing like the real thing. I rented "Basterds" over the holidays and, in my opinion, this is one of the worst films of the year and perhaps the decade. The movie was interminable, the violence had all the gravitas and shock value of a Roadrunner cartoon (save for the incredibly offencive scene where everyone's favourite SS officer chokes a woman to death in close up and real time: in fact, women always seem to die in close up in Tarantino films), the dialogue was appalling (clearly, Tarantino has become so convinced of his own brilliance as a dialogist that he feels anything he writes is ipso facto brilliant), the "plot" is a mess and the acting is sub-par across the board (and I'd include the smirking, mannered performance by Landa in there). Basically, it's a self-indulgent two and half hour masturbatory revenge fantasy. It may aspire to be all you make it out to be, but it is ultimately brought low by its legion of fundamental failings.

Edited January 5, 2010 by Black Dog

[bloodyminded]

The movie you saw sounds pretty great. Too bad it's nothing like the real thing. I rented "Basterds" over the holidays and, in my opinion, this is one of the worst films of the year and perhaps the decade. The movie was interminable, the violence had all the gravitas and shock value of a Roadrunner cartoon (save for the incredibly offencive scene where everyone's favourite SS officer chokes a woman to death in close up and real time: in fact, women always seem to die in close up in Tarantino films), the dialogue was appalling (clearly, Tarantino has become so convinced of his own brilliance as a dialogist that he feels anything he writes is ipso facto brilliant), the "plot" is a mess and the acting is sub-par across the board (and I'd include the smirking, mannered performance by Landa in there). Basically, it's a self-indulgent two and half hour masturbatory revenge fantasy. It may aspire to be all you make it out to be, but it is ultimately brought low by its legion of fundamental failings.

Clearly our disagreement here is large, which of course is the way it is with movies and the people who love them.

Just a couple of points: I agree that the violence mostly lacks "shock value": for what it's worth, all the violence in all of Tarantino's movies (with the possible exception of the overrated "Reservoir Dogs") is of this type. That doesn't render your criticism inherently invalid, but it does suggest that the criticism has more to do with the filmmaker than this particular film. It's rather like criticizing Hitchcock's "Psycho" because the atmosphere in that particular film is moody. And that's cool: my praise aside, I am in many ways ambivalent about Tarantino's movies. To me, they see-saw continually between the sublime and the extremely-irritating.

I really don't get your pointed assertion that "women always seem to die in close up in Tarantino films." What are all the many others? I honestly can't think of more than two or three, which is nothing notable in a series of movies with, literally, hundreds of violent deaths. For this critique to even reach the level of serious discussion, you'd have to posit that such is not the case with his male victims. You're speaking from a mistaken impression here, I think. At any rate, it is a matter that could easily be objectively found out. Unlike many arguments, this one is not a matter of opinion.

Still, I sympathize with you here. There are plenty of much-beloved films, the sort of popular cult-following movies that people insist upon quoting at length with evident delight, and that I personally can barely stand. For example, it seems that everybody adores Brian de Palma's "The Untouchables," as some sort of brilliant, seminal gangster film. Personally, I think it is a piece of unadulterated garbage. I can't stand the damn thing. And no, Sean Connery's performance is not a "tour de force.

[wyly]

better flick then I expected...

Tarrentino movies aren't the type you expect to win Oscars but the performance of Christoph Waltz was fantastic, well deserving of an Oscar to go along with his Golden Globe...

[ToadBrother]

better flick then I expected...

Tarrentino movies aren't the type you expect to win Oscars but the performance of Christoph Waltz was fantastic, well deserving of an Oscar to go along with his Golden Globe...

Waltz's performance was a masterpiece of acting. The character was so extraordinarily loathsome, and yet eerily likable that it really carried the film. I know some folks had some problems with the film as a sort "revenge flick" that cheapened the Jewish tragedy of the War, and yet, if you look at RAiders of the Lost Ark, there's a similar arc that involves basically sticking it to the Nazis.

At any rate, it's a Tarantino flick. I remember years ago some critic said "He's capable of making a bad film, but never a boring film." Even Jackie Brown is weirdly enthralling, despite being his weakest effort. I think Basterds is probably the equal of Pulp Fiction.

[August1991]

Tarrentino movies aren't the type you expect to win Oscars but the performance of Christoph Waltz was fantastic, well deserving of an Oscar to go along with his Golden Globe...

He bought them, just as Cameron did. These guys really know the game.

BTW, the Academy finally clued in and returned to the broad nomination. It's a marketing vehicle.

[BubberMiley]

He bought them, just as Cameron did.

Yes, clearly Christoph Waltz just coasted to victory on his fabulous wealth and name recognition. No one else stood a chance.

[August1991]

Yes, clearly Christoph Waltz just coasted to victory on his fabulous wealth and name recognition. No one else stood a chance.

I have no idea who Christoph Waltz is. And may be I'm completely wrong about everything. But I suspect James Cameron and Quentin Tarantino know the game very well.

Hollywood promoted both of their movies, and both of their movies had the violence, Popular Mechanics appeal to 14 year old Hong Kong males.

----

IMV, neither Tarantino nor Cameron "pushed the envelope" in any artistic or even technical sense. Neither are Mozart or Kubrick.

Cameron is a pale imitation of Kubrick. Tarantino is a pathetic imitation of Fellini or Truffaut. Tarantino wants to be original, but he's not. He's no better than Wes Anderson - another Hollywood pretentious moviemaker.

As Ernest Hemingway or Mark Twain said, "Americans should tell the truth." The essence of American art is telling the truth. When Americans try something else, they fail.

What does Tarantino know about occupied France? What does Cameron know about other planets?

Edited January 25, 2010 by August1991

[wyly]

I have no idea who Christoph Waltz is. And may be I'm completely wrong about everything. But I suspect James Cameron and Quentin Tarantino know the game very well.

Hollywood promoted both of their movies, and both of their movies had the violence, Popular Mechanics appeal to 14 year old Hong Kong males.

----

IMV, neither Tarantino nor Cameron "pushed the envelope" in any artistic or even technical sense. Neither are Mozart or Kubrick.

Cameron is a pale imitation of Kubrick. Tarantino is a pathetic imitation of Fellini or Truffaut. Tarantino wants to be original, but he's not. He's no better than Wes Anderson - another Hollywood pretentious moviemaker.

As Ernest Hemingway or Mark Twain said, "Americans should tell the truth." The essence of American art is telling the truth. When Americans try something else, they fail.

What does Tarantino know about occupied France? What does Cameron know about other planets?

what do you know about making movies?

[bloodyminded]

----

IMV, neither Tarantino nor Cameron "pushed the envelope" in any artistic or even technical sense. Neither are Mozart or Kubrick.

I agree with you that Tarantino (much less Cameron) never rises to the artistic level of Kubrick.

But I find the comparison curious: did you not earlier say you preferred movies more grounded in realism? Kubrick was rarely concerned with naturalism. Look at Strangelove or 2001 or a Clockwork Orange. Even Full Metal Jacket, a comparatively "realistic" film, actually is anything but. It (intentionally) moves constantly into the realm of caricature and anti-realism.

Until people like Clooney and Tarantino do something as radical as Salman Rushdie, I won't believe their claim to being innovators. IMV, Clooney and Tarantino are boringly bourgeois.

I have read almsot all of Rushdie's work--I used to love it--but I don't consider him even slightly "radical." His self-indulgence, in fact, eclipses even Tarantino's. Plus, he's as bourgeois as they come, in my view.

Edited January 27, 2010 by bloodyminded

[ToadBrother]

What does Tarantino know about occupied France? What does Cameron know about other planets?

This is the most absurd criticism I've ever heard. I mean, what did Kubrik know about alien civilizations?

Pandora is, compared to most SciFi planets on paper or on film, is fairly well thought out. It has its flaws (as one fellow I know points out, what sort of selective pressure would lead to a planet-wide intelligent network), but when you look at the monoplanets that make up George Lucas's vision (we have ice world, forest world, metal world and lava world), it's a considerably more realized biosphere. Few people have the energy to put in to world creation that, say, Frank Herbet or JRR Tolkien did, but Cameron did a pretty good job.

As to Inglourious Basterds, well, Tarantino obviously was not writing an accurate account of WWII, any more than Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction are meant to be accurate accounts of mobsters. Tarantino movies are ultimately completely a-realistic and stylistic. The obey their own internal logic, which usually only vaguely resembles the real world. The invoke the iconography of certain kinds of films. Basterds owes more than a little to the Spaghetti Western, a genre that produced a lot of stinkers, but also produced one of the greatest Westerns ever made; the Dollars Trilogy by Sergio Leone, and Leone defied realism at his whim (notice how anything outside the frame in a Leone movie, even if physics dictates that it be visible to the onscreen characters, is effectively invisible to them).

If what you want is realism, then stick to documentaries, because many of the greatest filmmakers, like Jean Renoir and Akira Kurosawa were little interested in strict realism, preferring compelling stories and visual feasts.

[August1991]

This article and quote seem appropriate here:

Most directors insist they are out to shock us; Tarantino makes no such pretence: he acknowledges that we enjoy it. He fell out with Oliver Stone, the director of his screenplay for Natural Born Killers, because, he says, Stone wants to make "films" whereas he wants to make "movies". Tarantino is the quintessential director for the age of attitude - for what is attitude but style divorced from any true emotional impulse?

Steyn

[fellowtraveller]

Waltz's performance was a masterpiece of acting. The character was so extraordinarily loathsome, and yet eerily likable that it really carried the film.

Seems to be all the rage: the character that M'Onique plays in Precious is extremely vile, has been nominated and will likely win. There is nothing likeable about her though.

[wyly]

Pandora is, compared to most SciFi planets on paper or on film, is fairly well thought out. It has its flaws (as one fellow I know points out, what sort of selective pressure would lead to a planet-wide intelligent network),

who could have a imagined a bacteria that lives deep underground and eats rock? or life forms that live in the super heated toxic waters of volcanic vents in the deep oceans...but both are real, no matter how bizarre and beyond our comprehension life does the impossible...there are enormous life forms on our planet that we had no idea existed, groves of trees that are actually one interconnected specimen...symbiotic relationships of unrelated species are quite common put that all together and Pandora becomes plausible...what lifeforms are capable of is seemingly endless...

As to Inglourious Basterds, well, Tarantino obviously was not writing an accurate account of WWII, any more than Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction are meant to be accurate accounts of mobsters. Tarantino movies are ultimately completely a-realistic and stylistic. The obey their own internal logic, which usually only vaguely resembles the real world. The invoke the iconography of certain kinds of films. Basterds owes more than a little to the Spaghetti Western, a genre that produced a lot of stinkers, but also produced one of the greatest Westerns ever made; the Dollars Trilogy by Sergio Leone, and Leone defied realism at his whim (notice how anything outside the frame in a Leone movie, even if physics dictates that it be visible to the onscreen characters, is effectively invisible to them).

Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are quite accurate follow the daily news and you'll find that art imitates life...

Inglorious basterds wasn't a accurate account of WW2 but any single incident in the movie would not have been an unrealistic portrayal of true events of WW2

Edited March 2, 2010 by wyly

[ToadBrother]

This article and quote seem appropriate here:Steyn

I don't think that's fair at all. Yes, Tarantino is fundamentally a stylistic director, more in the vein of, say, Hitchcock or Scorsese than, say, Spielberg or Huston.

I rewatched Kill Bill a few weeks ago, and what surprised me, that I hadn't noticed the first time I watched it, was just how much the Bride's tears in the scene following her killing of Bill affected me. I think Tarantino had a real empathy for her, allowing us not only to see a simple revenge film (like Death Proof and Basterds fundamentally are), but one about internal conflict, of how someone could love a man and yet still carry out the necessary righteous vengeance. We see something similar in Jackie Brown, where Tarantino's empathy for Jackie and Max Cherry and his allowing them some very gentle, bittersweet scenes suggests that he is capable of more than just being a pure stylist with scenes populated by hip cats with cool dialog.

[ToadBrother]

Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are quite accurate follow the daily news and you'll find that art imitates life...

I really doubt that most mobsters are the witty raconteurs that Tarantino's characters tend to be.

Inglorious basterds wasn't a accurate account of WW2 but any single incident in the movie would not have been an unrealistic portrayal of true events of WW2

The Nazis could only have wished for as good a Jew Hunter as Landa, and come on, the theater scene is pure stylistic absurdism. Not that it isn't incredible and visually stunning, but the thought of all the leading Nazis ending up in a theater and be shot and/or burned alive doesn't strike me as being a realistic incident. Nor is it necessary that it be.

By the way, it will be an utter crime of Waltz doesn't get Best Supporting Actor. His Landa is one of the creepiest, most brilliant and ridiculous villains in the history of cinema. He might even qualify as the creepiest, most brilliant and ridiculous villain in the history of cinema. Watching Waltz on screen during this film was a real joy, to the point where everyone else seemed to pale in comparison. I can see what Tarantino saying that Waltz "gave me my movie back". I cannot imagine that Basterds would have flown with him.

[wyly]

I really doubt that most mobsters are the witty raconteurs that Tarantino's characters tend to be.

wit only exists among non criminals does it?..I've known a few and they can be as charming and witty as anyone...

The Nazis could only have wished for as good a Jew Hunter as Landa, and come on, the theater scene is pure stylistic absurdism. Not that it isn't incredible and visually stunning, but the thought of all the leading Nazis ending up in a theater and be shot and/or burned alive doesn't strike me as being a realistic incident. Nor is it necessary that it be.

among the 40 odd attempts to kill Hitler some did try to include his henchmen as well...what good is killing the number 1 guy if you leave number 2 and 3 to take over and kill you?...life really is stranger than fiction...

By the way, it will be an utter crime of Waltz doesn't get Best Supporting Actor. His Landa is one of the creepiest, most brilliant and ridiculous villains in the history of cinema. He might even qualify as the creepiest, most brilliant and ridiculous villain in the history of cinema. Watching Waltz on screen during this film was a real joy, to the point where everyone else seemed to pale in comparison. I can see what Tarantino saying that Waltz "gave me my movie back". I cannot imagine that Basterds would have flown with him.

Landa was just like Ted Bundy, psychopathic charmer...

[ToadBrother]

wit only exists among non criminals does it?..I've known a few and they can be as charming and witty as anyone...

That's not what I said. I'm sure there are witty guys. But if you believed Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, and to a lesser extent Jackie Brown, all hoods are ultra-expressive vocabularians. I'm not convinced.

among the 40 odd attempts to kill Hitler some did try to include his henchmen as well...what good is killing the number 1 guy if you leave number 2 and 3 to take over and kill you?...life really is stranger than fiction...

We're talking about most of the German leadership ending up in a theater in Occupied France at the same time. Improbable doesn't even seem sufficient to describe it.

Landa was just like Ted Bundy, psychopathic charmer...

His gifts seemed much more than charm. He is portrayed as being extraordinarily brilliant at his job.

Edited March 2, 2010 by ToadBrother

[bloodyminded]

Though I disagree with much of Steyn's article, this is actually the type of writing in which he most confortably lives, and in which he actually has something to say. When it comes to politics, he's an ignoramus with an occasional fine twist of phrase. He's Ann Coulter, actually, albeit with a better vocabulary.

But some of his points here, too, expose his penchant for talking off-the-cuff, without thinking his assertions through. (I suppose this is precisely the quality that appeals to the hard right, who are notoriously unreflective.) For example, the idea that Jackie Brown (Tarantino's most underrated movie) is about the filmmaker "trying to be black," simply doesn't hold water. It's Elmore Leonard through-and-through. It's a crime movie featuring middle-aged people. It's about a desperate, working-class woman getting over on both gangsters and the law.

And Samuel Jackson's gangster, unlike his Pulp fiction character, is not "ghetto cool"--he's a caricature, a dangerous little clown.

Edited March 3, 2010 by bloodyminded