Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discussion

[Starkers]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

Fair point, but I still don't like the scene, because it felt like Tarantino was trying to make caving someone's head in cool, same with the scalping--violence for violences sake.

Similarly why did Landa strangle Diane Kruger's character? Not only did it seem strangely out of character for the calm, cool, collected detective, but he wanted her plan to succeed?

Of course, like I said earlier and much like Stuntman Mike in Deathproof Landa went from super cool to slightly lame by the end of the film. Seriously what man as intelligent as Landa would think he could remotely trust the likes of Aldo Raine?

By the way, talking of aldo raine, does anyone know if there was a cut sceneor similar explaining the scar aorund his neck? I assumed it was just part of his look, and it isn't really important that we know why its there, just wondered if there was any explanation somewhere?

 

[Deckerd]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

Killing the actress was obvious. He didn't know if his plan was going to work and he certainly didn't want any loose ends to blab if it didn't.

 

[Starkers]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

Killing the actress was obvious. He didn't know if his plan was going to work and he certainly didn't want any loose ends to blab if it didn't.

Obvious? Why didn't he kill little man then? He only really needed Raine. Surely Von Hammersmark was more leverage in his favour? Besides the discovery of a dead body inside the theatre would probably have resuslted in Hitler and co being evacuated.

 

[Deckerd]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

He maybe only needed Raine but offing little man wouldn't have made Raine particularly open to persuasion, would it?

 

[Starkers]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

Raine didn't even need to know they'd caught him...

 

[Deckerd]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

Och stop ruining it with stupid facts.

 

[davejames]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

Fair point, but I still don't like the scene, because it felt like Tarantino was trying to make caving someone's head in cool, same with the scalping--violence for violences sake.

Well it should be obvious by now that Tarantino DOES have a thing for violence. I'm not sure he puts it in because it's "cool" though. More likely it's because he likes to shock the audience and keep them on their toes.

Of course, like I said earlier and much like Stuntman Mike in Deathproof Landa went from super cool to slightly lame by the end of the film. Seriously what man as intelligent as Landa would think he could remotely trust the likes of Aldo Raine?

Yeah I saw the movie twice and that's the one thing that still seems odd to me. I guess he realized, with the Germans on the verge of defeat, Aldo was the only guy he could work with to get a good deal with the Americans (with the bombs about to go off, there wasn't time to round up anybody else, after all).

Plus he probably figured, for all the Basterds brutality during the war, they'd still be good soldiers in the end and follow the orders of their general (which Aldo did, to an extent).

 

[Derishton]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

It's about the rules of war, which Landa thinks everyone is playing by. He doesn't realize that his opinion that, with the war over, everything goes back to normal is exactly the idea that makes Raine so angry - because Raine is all about forgiveness or normality being impossible afterwards. Landa sees the theatre of war as an exceptional space with borders between what occurs there and what occurs outside that space; Raine insists that some things must cross those borders in a permanent way.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

I finally saw it at the discount theater on Veterans Day. It's very interesting. I give it a sold B+. I don't think it quite congeals into a satisfying whole but there are so many great parts here. This is, by far, my favorite Tarantino film.

I loved the farmhouse scene & the basement scene. Both of them did such a good job of building tension. This is some of Tarantino's most masterful work (while the rest of the movie is mostly a gleeful exercise in the absurd).

I wonder if Tarantino has ever considered writing for the stage instead of film. His penchant for long, talky scenes would be put to much better use there.

I think this is definitely Brad Pitt's most engrossing and memorable performance since 1999's Fight Club. He's been in a few clunkers (The Mexican, Troy) and some decent but self-indulgent films (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). Besides the Ocean's films, it seems like he was really having fun with Lt. Aldo Raine in Inglourious Basterds.

I like it whenever Pitt plays such rediculously unglamorous roles like in this film or Burn After Reading. BTW, even though I know they're the same guy, I'm finding it mentally impossible to reconcile Aldo Raine from Inglourious Basterds with Achilles from Troy.

I enjoyed the movie, I just wanted "more" from it. A director less in love with himself and his sense of style (and red-food dye colored corn syrup) could've done more with it, focused on Basterds more, developed the characters more -most notably the escaped Jewish woman- and just had a better story. It also would've been "nice" if the movie didn't completely rape history. Not saying that the events in it really had to happen, them killing a theater full of Nazi brass is all fine and good but when Hitler is in theatre? A bit over the top in bending the suspension of dis-belief.

In the end, the movie has to kill Hitler. It's the ultimate capstone on this series of implausible events. Personally, I love that Tarantino has the cojones to embrace the fiction of the film and not feel confined to reality or history.

No other director could have directed this movie. 99% of directors are incapable of even conceiving a movie like this. The remaining few who could imagine it still wouldn't dare make it. Tarantino certainly marches to his own drummer. There is stylistic genius here. Just as a Picasso painting can be a masterpiece but still not be realistic, so can a movie.

I will say that, for all his stylistic brilliance, Tarantino still hasn't mastered the simple device of the character arc, though that is because his movies tend to be all over the place in terms of narrative & character focus. Probably Samuel L. Jackson's character in Pulp Fiction is the closest he's ever come to a character arc. He also did a nice sort of character relationship arc with Mr. Orange & Mr. White in Reservoir Dogs.

 

[Tim]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

I voted Excellent. I really liked the dialogue and suspense. In my opinion, it's some of Tarantino's best work to date.

I loved the farmhouse scene & the basement scene. Both of them did such a good job of building tension. This is some of Tarantino's most masterful work (while the rest of the movie is mostly a gleeful exercise in the absurd).

Agreed. The entire farmhouse segment was superbly crafted, from the dialogue right down to the nuanced performances.

 

[JacksonArcher]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

Yes, in my opinion the farmhouse sequence is actually my favorite part of the film. It builds suspense so gradually and masterfully. The acting, dialogue, pacing, and pretty much everything else was just so superb. It felt very Hitchcockian. That's how you build suspense and tension, as much as I love the intense fast cutting of the Bourne films, Tarantino knows how to genuinely build suspense and that's one of the film's biggest strengths.

 

[Wynterhawk]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

Just saw it after having avoided it because I disliked Pitt. I was pleasantly surprised and very much entertained. But Mike Myers? Why? I kept expecting him to bite his finger and go "Oh behave!" This space is way to small to put down all of my opinions about the film. Simply enough, thumbs up!

 

[Eleanor_zhDarjel]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

I voted bad. I really hated it. Depite being a Tarantino-fan.

The good guys-bad guys thing was dreadfull overstaded, the story lived from the violence exclusevily an Pitt was so bad it made me cringe every time he appeared on screen.

And I must agree with firehawk

Well, the problem with that is that the only reason why the "real" Germans lost WW2 was because of Hitler's insane command structure.

I mean, all the incompetent leadership was killed... leaving all the "true" commanders left on the field to act without political interference. At that point, they probably would have won the war - or at least caused a protracted stalemate leading to a conditional surrender.

But I'm not even going into the historical point. The movie itself was bad inough.

Forgive my drivel guys, but that let's-call-it-a-movie does get me worked up some

 

[CaptainCanada]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

And I must agree with firehawk

Well, the problem with that is that the only reason why the "real" Germans lost WW2 was because of Hitler's insane command structure.

I mean, all the incompetent leadership was killed... leaving all the "true" commanders left on the field to act without political interference. At that point, they probably would have won the war - or at least caused a protracted stalemate leading to a conditional surrender.

Not really. In the summer of 1944 Germany's goose was cooked; winning the war was impossible, and the Allies would never have accepted a conditional surrender (least of all Russia, which was steamrolling everything as it headed west).

Edit: Heh, looking back I said the exact same thing in August. Ah, memories.

 

[broberfett]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

Inglourious Basterds was the best movie I have ever read.

 

[T'Bonz]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

I just saw this over the weekend. I really enjoyed it. Quirky, fun movie.

 

[Checkmate]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

Personally I loved the irony of the movie, which hardly anyone else seems to have picked up on.

At the end when Hitler and Goebbels are laughing hysterically as the Allies are being massacred by a Nazi sniper, nearly everyone in the audience was acting outraged and angered. Then, when all the Nazis started dying like fish in a barrel, the entire audience roared with cheers.

Absolutely brilliant on Tarantino's part. And for those saying that Brad Pitt sucked in this movie, you're all daft. He was great. His character was meant to be every bit as larger-than-life and over-the-top as the villains were. He nailed it. And hell, I still get a laugh at the whole Italian thing. "Right, like I said: You speak the third best Eye-talian."

 

[Deckerd]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

Just saw it after having avoided it because I disliked Pitt. I was pleasantly surprised and very much entertained. But Mike Myers? Why? I kept expecting him to bite his finger and go "Oh behave!" This space is way to small to put down all of my opinions about the film. Simply enough, thumbs up!

Mike Myers was brilliant. When we watched it we thought "why on Earth not hire an English actor to play that part?" After about two sentences it became evident that it was genius casting. Very amusing indeed.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

I voted bad. I really hated it. Depite being a Tarantino-fan.

The good guys-bad guys thing was dreadfull overstaded, the story lived from the violence exclusevily an Pitt was so bad it made me cringe every time he appeared on screen.

And I must agree with firehawk

Well, the problem with that is that the only reason why the "real" Germans lost WW2 was because of Hitler's insane command structure.

I mean, all the incompetent leadership was killed... leaving all the "true" commanders left on the field to act without political interference. At that point, they probably would have won the war - or at least caused a protracted stalemate leading to a conditional surrender.

But I'm not even going into the historical point. The movie itself was bad inough.

Forgive my drivel guys, but that let's-call-it-a-movie does get me worked up some

I seriously couldn't disagree more.

The idea that the Wehrmacht fought an honourable war and only lost because of the insanity of Germany's political leadership has been around since the end of the war and is imo 100% bullshit. Hitler made some terrible military decisions, but he always had senior military people around him and the troops had much freedom in their decision making.

What you are saying is a revisionist lie imo.

And you're just as wrong about Inglorious Basterds too.

 

[Deckerd]

Re: Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, Brad Pitt) Grading/Discus

I hope Christoph Waltz gets his Oscar. He surely deserves it.