This thread may contain SPOILERS, so read at your own risk
I just saw INGLORIOUS BASTERDS.
I will say, for the record, that I really did enjoy it. It was engaging, through provoking, and evocative. It's been two days and I'm still thinking about it.
It's very much a typical Tarantino movie. I have mixed feelings on Quentin Tarantino - I love some of his films (pulp fiction and reservoir dogs are two of my favorite movies). Others make me feel like he doesn't have a lot of respect for his audience. He knows exactly what the American Cinema audience wants: sex, violence, and a feeling of righteousness all bathed in cinematic ultra-style. Leave the nuance at the door.
I'm amazed at how Tarantino manages to get completely two dimensional characters to deliver excellent, compelling dialogue. And that's my biggest complaint about Tarantino - there really aren't a lot of characters in his movies. Just caricatures. All the Basterds are just names and about three sentences worth of description. Who is Brad Pitt's character, other than a brutal nazi killer? We don't know. Does the Bear Jew have a life outside of killing nazis? Why does that german officer kill 13 soldiers and then defect to join the Basterds? The only hint is a two second flashback in which he recalls being whipped by nazis.
What I found so odd about the movie was the use of brutality. There is no moral relativism here - nazis are continually presented as evil to the core. (The only exception in the whole movie is the german soldier who doesn't want to fight because his son was just born - he's only "innocent" in the whole film.) And the most brutal violence in the movie - the really sickening gut wrenching close-ups of people's head being carved up or bashed in - it's delivered by the good guys.
Tarantino knows that you went to the movie to have your guts twisted in a knot. So he serves you just what you want, but the trick is that it's not something you feel bad about. The violence is not being done to anyone you sympathize with. You feel that the good guys torturing the bad guys was righteous justice. World War II is wrapped up very neatly by a bit of the old ultraviolence. I thought it was an odd feeling.
When I was watching Deathproof, I thought: Damn, Quentin is so obsessed with writing slick dialogue that he forgot where the movie was going! He does write really beautiful dialogue. So beautiful that his movies get lost in them.
I think Basterds is the most black-friendly movie he's ever done. I get the sense that the interracial love story was thrown in there specifically for Spike Lee, who thinks Tarantino's been locked into niggermode for a decade now.
The ending to the movie took me by surprise. I mean they actually killed hitler? hahahah what a great anachronism!
anyway, I wanted to hear what you guys think of Inglorious Basterds -----& Tarantino.
Landa was a brilliant character, but you're right, the rest were shallow and two-dimensional in the extreme. Donny actually had a back story, but it was cut, for some reason. Stiglitz too was criminally underused in that respect.
I wondered if, in fact, the extreme violence against the Nazis wasn't meant to illustrate some point, something about how people are perfectly alright with brutal acts so long as they are against an Evil Enemy of some sort. Nazis Are Evil So Its OK To Do Evil Things To Them kind of thing. It seems to me that Tarantino may be making a point about revenge fantasies with the film, but I don't know him well enough to say for sure if thats the case.
The dialogue was, as usual, fantastic. Never a fault there.
I fucking loved it. Tarantino didn't want anything more than brutality though. The Nazis are evil Jew killers, and we have to kill them. End of story.
Landa was BRILLIANT. I've never hated/loved a character so much. He was brilliant and fucking twisted to the core the entire time. I was pretty confused by his defection, though.
The dialogue was great too. There were parts where it dragged on a lot, like when they are in the restaurant, but when Landa orders Shoshanna the milk I was like, "Oh, he totally knows who she is!" It was awesome.
Also, did you know that the opening sequence on the French farm is taken almost verbatim from an old spaghetti Western called "Once Upon a Time in the West"? The overall spaghetti Western theme in the film was also a fun treat.
Quote from: Horrendous Foreign Love Stoat on February 15, 2010, 05:37:54 PM
Quotehe really sickening gut wrenching close-ups of people's head being carved up or bashed in - it's delivered by the good guys.
I think I'll pass on this one.
It's not that bad. You don't see brains splatter or anything, but Raine (Pitt) does carve Swastikas into foreheads of Nazis he let's live. That's the worst to watch IMHO.
Quote from: Cramulus on February 15, 2010, 05:20:06 PM
What I found so odd about the movie was the use of brutality. There is no moral relativism here - nazis are continually presented as evil to the core.
Not seeing a problem there.
Quote from: Cramulus on February 15, 2010, 05:20:06 PM
And the most brutal violence in the movie - the really sickening gut wrenching close-ups of people's head being carved up or bashed in - it's delivered by the good guys.
That's pretty much how the whole world rolled, back in the day. There weren't a lot of what we'd call "good guys". There were bad guys, worse guys, and regular guys who stood by while the bad and worse guys did horrible shit...on both sides. However, the bad guys did worse shit, and more of it, if that's any consolation.
Quote from: Suu on February 15, 2010, 05:39:22 PM
I fucking loved it. Tarantino didn't want anything more than brutality though. The Nazis are evil Jew killers, and we have to kill them. End of story.
Again, not seeing a problem with that.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 15, 2010, 05:49:56 PM
Quote from: Suu on February 15, 2010, 05:39:22 PM
I fucking loved it. Tarantino didn't want anything more than brutality though. The Nazis are evil Jew killers, and we have to kill them. End of story.
Again, not seeing a problem with that.
And the guy who played Hans Landa is up for an Oscar too. Hopefully he'll take it that evil motherfucker.
Quote from: Suu on February 15, 2010, 05:39:22 PM
Landa was BRILLIANT. I've never hated/loved a character so much. He was brilliant and fucking twisted to the core the entire time. I was pretty confused by his defection, though.
yeah, Landa was the best character in the movie. Pitt was barely even
in the thing.
His defection was interesting. Because at the beginning of the movie, in the french dairy farm scene, he talks about how he's proud of being known as the Jew Slayer. He loves finding people and to him, the title means he's good at his job. I think we're seeing the "real" Landa here.
And later in the movie, when he's about to defect, he says he doesn't like the title, but "We do not get to choose our nicknames."
Landa wants to claim responsibility for ending WWII in one swift move, and rewrite history with himself as the jew savior. This is in concordance with the themes present in German Cinema and Philosophy at the time - they thought that history was going in this specific direction, and hindsight would reveal that they had to break a few eggs in order to rid the world of evil. If you're at the right place in the right time, the forces of history can act
through you, making you the hero. That's exactly what the movie within the movie was about - the german hero who, sustained by nationalism, becomes the heroic killing machine.
And non that note - wasn't the movie within a movie hilarious? The only shots of it we see are the sniper shooting americans in the face. We're led to believe that the whole film is this bloodbath. And all the Germans think it's beautiful.
If we zoom out a bit, is the german film any different from tarantino's work?
Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 15, 2010, 05:48:48 PM
That's pretty much how the whole world rolled, back in the day. There weren't a lot of what we'd call "good guys". There were bad guys, worse guys, and regular guys who stood by while the bad and worse guys did horrible shit...on both sides. However, the bad guys did worse shit, and more of it, if that's any consolation.
I'm with ya
I just think it's interesting because the nazis are fucking evil in this movie, but pretty much only in their dialogue. Aside from the peasants getting gunned down in the intro, there are no scenes of nazis torturing anybody. I think that if there
were scenes of nazi brutality, it would make what the basterds did look
equivalent. Within the context of the movie, the nazis would be almost excusable, because shit, the good guys in this film are actually terrorists.
...were our anti-German propaganda films any different?
You're looking at the same story from a different perspective taking place almost 70 years ago. Americans wanted to kill Nazis, Nazis wanted to kill Americans and Jews, and wanted to see the war glorified from their exaggerated points of view.
Inglourious Basterds is our brutal propaganda film 7 decades too late. We wanted Hitler dead, so Tarantino killed him. We wanted suspense, so Tarantino gave us Landa, and we wanted crazy brutal American heroes, so we got Raine and the Basterds.
Quote from: Cain on February 15, 2010, 05:33:41 PM
I wondered if, in fact, the extreme violence against the Nazis wasn't meant to illustrate some point, something about how people are perfectly alright with brutal acts so long as they are against an Evil Enemy of some sort. Nazis Are Evil So Its OK To Do Evil Things To Them kind of thing. It seems to me that Tarantino may be making a point about revenge fantasies with the film, but I don't know him well enough to say for sure if thats the case.
Yes, I wondered the same thing. Especially the contrast with the opening scene (which indeed I did recognize as spaghetti western), it's Horrible and Terrible and scary when the Nazi is looking for the jews under the floor and is playing mindgames, while a bit further up in the movie, much more horrible things are done to random nazi soldiers and then it's Funny.
Quote from: Cramulus on February 15, 2010, 05:55:58 PM
Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 15, 2010, 05:48:48 PM
That's pretty much how the whole world rolled, back in the day. There weren't a lot of what we'd call "good guys". There were bad guys, worse guys, and regular guys who stood by while the bad and worse guys did horrible shit...on both sides. However, the bad guys did worse shit, and more of it, if that's any consolation.
I'm with ya
I just think it's interesting because the nazis are fucking evil in this movie, but pretty much only in their dialogue. Aside from the peasants getting gunned down in the intro, there are no scenes of nazis torturing anybody. I think that if there were scenes of nazi brutality, it would make what the basterds did look equivalent. Within the context of the movie, the nazis would be almost excusable, because shit, the good guys in this film are actually terrorists.
The Nazis weren't all that big on torture, on an institutional level (though certainly individual sadists abounded). Mostly they just efficiently killed huge amounts of the people they didn't like. Torture would have gotten in the way of that.
It occurs to me that there is more than one sort of evil.
The thing to remember when you're watching Tarantino is that he's a film buff. Pretty much every scene he shoots is an homage to something or other. Take deathproof - the grindhouse movies came about because Tarantino and Rodriguez were drinking beer one night and said "Yo lets do a tribute to low budget, drive-in schlock horror." The film is actually pretty boring, almost on purpose, right up until the fkin spectacular stunt sequence at the end, with the chick (cast because she's actually an awesome stuntwoman IRL) on the bonnet of the car. And that was the point of the film - it wasn't meant to make you think about social satire or the emotional journey of it's lead characters it was simply a fkin mind blowing car stunt and some nostalgic mock trailers and digital film processes.
Inglorious is no different, you have everything from spaghetti western to post war jingosim and even a bit of wartime german propaganda flung in. Take another look - the film within a film is so well done it could actually pass for genuine nazi propaganda. That's Tarantino's forte - that's why I love the guy!
Also Lamda was a total sociopath who saw the opportunity to come out of the war smelling of roses, not quite realising that the guys he was dealing with were bigger sociopaths. :lulz:
Quote from: Horrendous Foreign Love Stoat on February 15, 2010, 06:23:24 PM
DINGLE DINGLE DINGLE DINGLE! what's that kids? It's the evil van! yaaaaaaaay!
(http://abigfatwasteoftime.blogs.com/photos/around_town_texas_edition/ice_cream_truck.jpeg)
evil comes in more flavors than ice cream. you want some insidious sneaking evil? oh yeah, they have that, you want brutal systematic by the numbers evil, they have that but its a little bitter. you want some hot burning evil sauce on that? they have that too. they have so many damn flavors, that if you took a little lick of each of them, y'know, the free samples they leave out to tempt you in, you'd be puking for a week. genocide ripple is always a good seller, rapey road sure is popular these days. corporate greed sunday was in for a while, but then they stopped making that one, as well, the bankers ate it all up. peado & nut is quite popular as well.
Don't ask me why.
if you want the low fat option, you could go for a nice spousal abuse & raisin. a nice methamphitime choc chip? crack with a side of aggravated battery? whats that? you want dark unforgivable evil, oh they have plenty of that. its like a cone made of sour ashes of the fallen, and well, fuck me, you do not even want to know what's in the sprinkles.
and the cherry sauce.
my god. the sauce.
there's so many, many flavours its enough to give a man brain freeze, just even thinking about it.
:potd:
He may be a basterd, but does he make you touch his hand for stupid reasons?
HFLS, that was fucking amazing. :lulz:
I like the angle about moral absolutes in this. The sense of "nazis are horrible, so doing horrible things to them is OK." seems to come up a lot recently. With demons and zombies too. Sure there are games and films featuring the anti - heroes, the moraly ambiguous, or the outright EVIL as a fund departure, but without a doubt, without guilt, it's OK to be amused by footage of, or be amused by simulating the murder of Nazis, zombies and demons. (Play any of the recent "Wolfenstein" games, and you get to do all three, at once, with cunning WWII setting, occult magic and Tesla super - science.)
Says something, that those are the three iconically de - humanized groups. As a country, the way the USA has conducted its affairs since the get - go, I can only say we are a minority of demons, populated by a majority of zombies, and have pulled the same tricks as the Nazis, but with a SMILE.
(As a tangent, Bioshock's Fisher Price "My First Moral Quandry" tm, about whether or not you want to evicerate children to acquire resources.)
Quote from: Horrendous Foreign Love Stoat on February 15, 2010, 06:23:24 PM
DINGLE DINGLE DINGLE DINGLE! what's that kids? It's the evil van! yaaaaaaaay!
(http://abigfatwasteoftime.blogs.com/photos/around_town_texas_edition/ice_cream_truck.jpeg)
evil comes in more flavors than ice cream. you want some insidious sneaking evil? oh yeah, they have that, you want brutal systematic by the numbers evil, they have that but its a little bitter. you want some hot burning evil sauce on that? they have that too. they have so many damn flavors, that if you took a little lick of each of them, y'know, the free samples they leave out to tempt you in, you'd be puking for a week. genocide ripple is always a good seller, rapey road sure is popular these days. corporate greed sunday was in for a while, but then they stopped making that one, as well, the bankers ate it all up. peado & nut is quite popular as well.
Don't ask me why.
if you want the low fat option, you could go for a nice spousal abuse & raisin. a nice methamphitime choc chip? crack with a side of aggravated battery? whats that? you want dark unforgivable evil, oh they have plenty of that. its like a cone made of sour ashes of the fallen, and well, fuck me, you do not even want to know what's in the sprinkles.
and the cherry sauce.
my god. the sauce.
there's so many, many flavours its enough to give a man brain freeze, just even thinking about it.
I am bathed in AWE!
:mittens:
Quote from: Richter on February 15, 2010, 06:29:13 PM
I like the angle about moral absolutes in this. The sense of "nazis are horrible, so doing horrible things to them is OK." seems to come up a lot recently.
That's a different kind of evil..."I want to hate and be on the side of the angels while I do it."
Quote from: Richter on February 15, 2010, 06:29:13 PM
(As a tangent, Bioshock's Fisher Price "My First Moral Quandry" tm, about whether or not you want to evicerate children to acquire resources.)
Those weren't children - they were fucked up, creepy, horrific little abominations that had to be destroyed at any cost!
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on February 15, 2010, 06:31:18 PM
Quote from: Richter on February 15, 2010, 06:29:13 PM
(As a tangent, Bioshock's Fisher Price "My First Moral Quandry" tm, about whether or not you want to evicerate children to acquire resources.)
Those weren't children - they were fucked up, creepy, horrific little abominations that had to be destroyed at any cost!
Also, they didn't have the right values, so it's okay to kill them for their stored gene splice material.
Must admit I never thought it through as deep as that. I took one look at the first one I saw and the safety was off. Or it would have been if she hadn't been standing over me with creepy glowing eyes, waving a huge fucking syringe. And all the while I'm screaming "Fuck off cutscene I need to kill this little bastard right fucking nao!"
Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 15, 2010, 06:30:24 PM
Quote from: Richter on February 15, 2010, 06:29:13 PM
I like the angle about moral absolutes in this. The sense of "nazis are horrible, so doing horrible things to them is OK." seems to come up a lot recently.
That's a different kind of evil..."I want to hate and be on the side of the angels while I do it."
Yeah... closet sadists with a church fetish. I've yet to hear of anyone claiming that playstation told them to stomp neo-nazi's or Klan.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 15, 2010, 06:32:15 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on February 15, 2010, 06:31:18 PM
Quote from: Richter on February 15, 2010, 06:29:13 PM
(As a tangent, Bioshock's Fisher Price "My First Moral Quandry" tm, about whether or not you want to evicerate children to acquire resources.)
Those weren't children - they were fucked up, creepy, horrific little abominations that had to be destroyed at any cost!
Also, they didn't have the right values, so it's okay to kill them for their stored gene splice material.
Replace "right values" with "special tax status", or "Shares a nationality we're at war with", and compare to modern politics. :lulz:
Quote from: Richter on February 15, 2010, 07:04:17 PM
Replace "right values" with "special tax status", or "Shares a nationality we're at war with", and compare to modern politics. :lulz:
I don't have to replace it to mirror modern political thought.
Go to a conservative board, and see what they say should happen to "progressives" and "liberals". Seriously, do it. You'll laugh until your spleen shoots out of your ass.
SEND ZEM EEEEEEEEEEEAST!
I liked the original, but didn't like Tarantino's version. I just chop it up to im not a Tarantino fan. Not that I hate his work, or i think its crap. He's just a director like Jodorowsky or Burton. You either like his stuff or on the fence.
Its been a while since I seen the original too, but on a side note the US release under Deadly Mission is not as good as the Italian release. Also the German versions is supposedly cut to crap (never seen) and the UK reversion is cut as well. Dont know the release titles for those ones
TENSION! Tarantino's bread and butter! This movie was full of it. The opening scene was very compelling, and I still almost break out in a cold sweat thinking about it. The scene when the girl that escaped is faced with the man who murdered her family and he offers her milk. Whoot! Talk about edge of your seat, with out action at that! And, to top it off, it was a very bold move to make it as challenging of a movie as it was. Most film-makers wouldn't even think about dealing a with foreign language in a main-stream hollywood film, let alone, what, four languages? I liked it. I think the extreme brutality was just part of the films over-all extreme stylization. As far as the basterds themselves, I feel like it was less about them and more about the girl.
ATTN: DOK HOWL
http://www.wntube.net/play.php?vid=1968
WHERE
Exactly do we run these trains to?
Quote from: Doktor Howl on February 15, 2010, 06:30:24 PM
Quote from: Richter on February 15, 2010, 06:29:13 PM
I like the angle about moral absolutes in this. The sense of "nazis are horrible, so doing horrible things to them is OK." seems to come up a lot recently.
That's a different kind of evil..."I want to hate and be on the side of the angels while I do it."
:mittens:
The comments on that video are priceless. :lulz:
Also, why are Russian wannabe nazis so much hotter than American wannabe nazis?
Quote from: E.O.T. on February 16, 2010, 06:47:49 AM
ATTN: DOK HOWL
http://www.wntube.net/play.php?vid=1968
WHERE
Exactly do we run these trains to?
EITHER
EEEEEEEEAST
OR
DISNEYWORLD
Dok,
It's a small world after all, it's a small world after all, it's a smm....<scratch>
WHAT'S UP?RAUS!RAUS!RAUS!
Quote from: Calamity Nigel on February 16, 2010, 06:08:47 PM
The comments on that video are priceless. :lulz:
Also, why are Russian wannabe nazis so much hotter than American wannabe nazis?
I didn't see them as hot.
I saw them as wannabe murdering swine. I wouldn't fuck any of them with Bea Arthur's decomposing dick, to tell you the truth.
I realize that "everything is funny, nothing is sacred" gets old, but I find neonazis hilarious. At least, I find them hilarious when they're not actively setting churches on fire, murdering people, or beating anyone up.
Hilarious, and kind of pitiable. Most of them aren't too bright.
Quote from: Calamity Nigel on February 16, 2010, 10:54:29 PM
I realize that "everything is funny, nothing is sacred" gets old, but I find neonazis hilarious. At least, I find them hilarious when they're not actively setting churches on fire, murdering people, or beating anyone up.
Hilarious, and kind of pitiable. Most of them aren't too bright.
NIGEL
They already ran those trains east, which is why we have Russian Nazi girls now. I draw the line at burning churches too. Unless it's a historic medieval stave church and the arsonist takes photos of it, then puts those on the cover of their new album and cops come across the records and bust the guy, previously having had no leads. Cause that's a special kind of funny.
AND YEAH,
I was thinking more along the lines of trains running to every major city, then dispersing Russian Nazi girls via shuttle buses to barmitzvah's. But then, I've been hanging out with your racist having pussy all the time and now I'm probably morally desensitized as a result. Maybe that Waffen SS flag hanging above your bed betwixt the Nixon paintings made me think it was kinda hot.
I like you guys.
Quote from: E.O.T. on February 17, 2010, 12:16:42 AM
I was thinking more along the lines of trains running to every major city, then dispersing Russian Nazi girls via shuttle buses to barmitzvah's. But then, I've been hanging out with your racist having pussy all the time and now I'm probably morally desensitized as a result. Maybe that Waffen SS flag hanging above your bed betwixt the Nixon paintings made me think it was kinda hot.
I can't imagine what young Jewish boy wouldn't be
delighted to be given a hot russian nazi for his 13th birthday...
And hey, just because my pussy's racist doesn't make it a Nazi. Jews are white too!
Maria: :)
Quote from: Cramulus on February 15, 2010, 05:20:06 PM
This thread may contain SPOILERS, so read at your own risk
I just saw INGLORIOUS BASTERDS.
I will say, for the record, that I really did enjoy it. It was engaging, through provoking, and evocative. It's been two days and I'm still thinking about it.
It's very much a typical Tarantino movie. I have mixed feelings on Quentin Tarantino - I love some of his films (pulp fiction and reservoir dogs are two of my favorite movies). Others make me feel like he doesn't have a lot of respect for his audience. He knows exactly what the American Cinema audience wants: sex, violence, and a feeling of righteousness all bathed in cinematic ultra-style. Leave the nuance at the door.
I'm amazed at how Tarantino manages to get completely two dimensional characters to deliver excellent, compelling dialogue. And that's my biggest complaint about Tarantino - there really aren't a lot of characters in his movies. Just caricatures. All the Basterds are just names and about three sentences worth of description. Who is Brad Pitt's character, other than a brutal nazi killer? We don't know. Does the Bear Jew have a life outside of killing nazis? Why does that german officer kill 13 soldiers and then defect to join the Basterds? The only hint is a two second flashback in which he recalls being whipped by nazis.
What I found so odd about the movie was the use of brutality. There is no moral relativism here - nazis are continually presented as evil to the core. (The only exception in the whole movie is the german soldier who doesn't want to fight because his son was just born - he's only "innocent" in the whole film.) And the most brutal violence in the movie - the really sickening gut wrenching close-ups of people's head being carved up or bashed in - it's delivered by the good guys.
Tarantino knows that you went to the movie to have your guts twisted in a knot. So he serves you just what you want, but the trick is that it's not something you feel bad about. The violence is not being done to anyone you sympathize with. You feel that the good guys torturing the bad guys was righteous justice. World War II is wrapped up very neatly by a bit of the old ultraviolence. I thought it was an odd feeling.
When I was watching Deathproof, I thought: Damn, Quentin is so obsessed with writing slick dialogue that he forgot where the movie was going! He does write really beautiful dialogue. So beautiful that his movies get lost in them.
I think Basterds is the most black-friendly movie he's ever done. I get the sense that the interracial love story was thrown in there specifically for Spike Lee, who thinks Tarantino's been locked into niggermode for a decade now.
The ending to the movie took me by surprise. I mean they actually killed hitler? hahahah what a great anachronism!
anyway, I wanted to hear what you guys think of Inglorious Basterds -----& Tarantino.
You ought to start a movie review site Cram.
Quote from: Calamity Nigel on February 16, 2010, 10:54:29 PM
I realize that "everything is funny, nothing is sacred" gets old, but I find neonazis hilarious. At least, I find them hilarious when they're not actively setting churches on fire, murdering people, or beating anyone up.
Hilarious, and kind of pitiable. Most of them aren't too bright.
Several centuries of inbreeding will do that to you.