This was the weekend I have been waiting for all summer. It's fair to say that this is the weekend that I have been waiting on for the past 10 years. After seeing Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and reading everything I could about this revolutionary director I found out that he was scribing a Dirty Dozen-esque WWII movie. I was intrigued to say the least. Then after seeing how he could warp the blaxploitation genre with Jackie Brown, combine the Kung Fu and Spaghetti Western films with Kill Bill and make an homage to B movie slasher films with Death Proof I was salivating at the thought of his take on the war film.
So right off the bat I had huge expectations for his newest film Inglourious Basterds (IB). If you followed my blog this weekend you might have seen that in order to "beat the crowd" I slept in the cab of my truck in the theaters parking lot. I wanted to be the first one in the theater, and I wanted to get "my seat" (I love to sit in the center of a theater using the X,Y,and Z axis). I know that inflated expectations are a dangerous thing for a critic. After the Coen Brothers released the best film of the 00's, No Country For Old Men, I held the bar sky high for their next film Burn After Reading. I got burnt on that one.
While I was camping in my truck I took some time to read the reviews of IB. The two I want to focus on are Michael Sragow's from the Baltimore Sun, and Richard Corliss's of Time Magazine. Sragow has the film as a 38 on Metacritic. Corliss is a 100.
This is usually the point in the review where I point out the consistencies of the different reviewers and make my snide comments with anything I disagree with. Problem is these 2 critics have virtually nothing to compare. Sragow despised IB and really didn't have much if any positive things to say.
The only hope for "Inglourious Basterds" is that audiences will embrace it the way the Broadway crowd did "Springtime for Hitler": because it's so bad they think it's good. ~ Michael Sragow
I really can't comment too much on Mr. Sragow's review. I disagree with almost everything he has to say about the film. He refers to the movie as being "soporific", "killingly repetitive", "hollow and protracted".
Corliss however was quite gushing with his comments.
Tarantino shows how to achieve drama through whispers and forced smiles...the pot simmers, then the lid blows off it's the artful mix of subtlety and surprise. ~ Michael Corliss
My problem with this review is that I absolutely loved the movie, but I agree with Sragow on SOME of his criticisms, and I disagree with Corliss on some of the elements he enjoyed.
Sragow points out the the weakest element of IB is The Basterds themselves. This is true. Brad Pitt just doesn't have the chops to pull of a Tarantino anti-hero. He never gets beyond a cartoon characterization of Aldo Raine. The biggesst distraction in the movie has to be Eli Roth as a baseball wielding Jewish solider called "The Bear Jew". Roth directed "Pride of the Nation" A Nazi propaganda film that plays within IB, but his acting skills are nonexistent.
Corliss makes it a point that Tarantino fans will be let down by the absence of his cinematic footwork. He then mentions a few cut away scenes like a couple seconds of a German officer and his interpreter having sex, The cut away to explain one of the Basterds back story, and shots where high ranking Nazi's have there name scribbled over their heads with arrows pointing to them. These were some of the most pointless and frustrating elements of the movie to me. They didn't add anything to the story nor did they ever tie into anything. This was movie making masturbation.
Where Corliss got it right was in mentioning the female characters. Nobody writes better for women than Tarantino. The female leads were beautiful, cunning, and deadly. It is worth mentioning that this is a war movie without any battle scenes. There isn't a tank, bomber, or bunker to be seen. Mr Sragow believes this is because, in his opinion, Tarantino "couldn't stage a sweeping war scene". I believe it is because he is subverting the genre. He is using words as weapons. The tension in this movie doesn't come from the brutal acts being performed (don't worry,there are plenty of those to go around), it comes from the delicate delivery of lines sharper than any of the bastards scalping knives. The violence is mearly the payoff.
A few quick notes to finish out. 75% of this movie is n sub-titles, so if you are opposed to reading at the theater I might think twice before you buy your ticket. Also some other acting standouts beyond the female leads (Melanie Laurent and Diane Kruger) are the Best Actor winner at Cannes, Christopher Waltz as "The Jew Hunter". My issue with him is that they tried to act some comedic elements to his persona that for me just fell flat. The male character that stood out the most for me was Dennis Menochet as a French dairy farmer that may be hiding Jew in his home. I hope he gets tons of work after his performance.
IB is far from over taking PF as my all-time favorite film, but it is a continuation in the career of America's bravest and boldest filmmaker working today. My only problem now is the IMDB doesn't have any new projects listed for Quentin Tarantino. Oh well, there is always another Coen Brother movie later this year. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
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