Inglourious Basterds Review (8-22-09)

Barabbas:

After the way they f__ked your country over and left an ineradicable stain on its reputation, I can understand how you guys might dig movies where a lot of Nazis die.

Great review Spoony, I saw that you compared it to a comic book. But you forgot to mention that QT films it in a very spaghetti western fashion, starting from the beginning where it says “once upona time in Nazi-occupied France” to the sound track and the overexagerated stereotypes famous in spaghetti westerns .

Bonus points for the Runaways Hardcover.

Great Review Noah i saw the premierer and i walked out perplexed sort of like you.Although i DO think this movie is like kill bill if you analyse beatrix kiddo and compare her to Shushana ( im not sure that’s her name). It did feel like a “QT” movie and i was impressed. Again, Great Review!

lol…im not say killing blacks isn´t worst than killing jews…as slavery isn´t as bad as holocaust…lol

Hey,Nice review once more.
Will definately going to see it when it arrives at the Dutch cinema’s.

If you’re not bothered by subtitles and would like to see Mélanie Laurent (Shosanna) in a another great performance (if you can get your hands on a copy of course) you should really check out Je vais bien, ne t’en fais pas (english title: Don’t Worry, I’m Fine).
Unless athouse kinda moveis is not your thing. But she’s great in that one.

btw: don’t try to convince people that don’t like subtitles to stay away from this one. It just might convince them to go and see more ’subtitled stuff’ in the future.

[SPOILER!!!]
I thought it was pretty cool that they really killed of [SPOILER!!!] Hitler and Gobbels [SPOILER!!!], but I guess I was suspecting it in a way, I mean it IS Tarantino we’re talking about :)

If you like anything by Tarantino, you should watch this movie!

Still, I have ONE question…why is “Basterds” spelled with an “e”? I mean, in Europe, this film was released as “Inglorious Bastards”, spelled correctly. Was it because QT didn’t know how to spell “Bastards”, or the screenwriter or something? Were they trying to take the whole “because poor literacy is kewl” approach? Is there a reason in-movie that they give for the “e”, which for some reason is taken out in the European release? My mind is going haywire over a misspelling!

“Basterds” is a phonetic spelling of the pronunciation of the word “Bastards” in an American accent. Often American military units would use misspellings and slang in their names as a form of national pride. It also adds to their “street cred”, makes them sound fierce.

Flameke, I was thinking the SAME THING.

Just put him in red or blue.

Well thanks for the review… And to precise that it wont make any convert… I wont try to see in this case. I really dont like Tarentino. The first time i tried to watch Pulp Fiction i fell a sleep after 15min… Secound time i had to fight a lot to be able to watch it all… I just find it VERY BORING…. so Inglorious Bastard is sure not for me

Haha nice Tampax Pearls ad before your video. :3

Q misspelled Basterds because he believes that how it should be spelled because that is how it is pronounced, and he said thats the way he would have spelled it so its his way of spelling bastard. Same thing with Inglorious, he uses a U after the O when there isn’t one, he did it on purpose.

Wow, I know this movie is a work of fiction but tarantino seems like he did some nice work. I just hope he makes a movie where the palestinians avenge themselves against their oppressors.

noah
I always enjoy watching your off the cuff reviews but this one was special because I actually might go watch this.
1) because you so cautiously recommended it, which intrigues me
2) because I so rarely would watch any movie that you have chosen to vlog lately- though I don’t know if that’s a comment on the state of movies recently or just due to the fact that my tastes don’t cross often with yours ( I blame my double X chromosomes)
3) last because you don’t recommend many movies sometimes as much as I love the snark I wish you would watching you analyze that which intrigues you is just as much fun as watching you tear something awful apart

Inglorious Basterds did one thing I never thought possible.

It made me sympathize with Hitler.

All I wanted to do was see an action-packed, super fun, nazi-killing movie, and was instead treated to TALKING TALKING TALKING.

Not as bad as being mowed down by bullets until you resembled swiss cheese, surrounded by flames, but y’know, if they’re going to make movie that is a tense thriller involving a plot to kill Hitler, they could at least market it as such INSTEAD OF THE SCENES THAT ONLY MAKE UP TEN MINUTES OR SO OF THE MOVIE.

Great review Spoony.

I absolutely loved this movie. I thought it was brilliant. Having heard you say it I actually really agree with your likening this movie to a comic book. Particularly in regard to characters like Hitler and Goebbels. Like you said, they were laughing at the sight of these atrocities and were basically maniacally evil. They were effectively comic book super villains.

I also felt like the movie was basically indulging the audience’s bloodlust. Let’s face it. Historically the Nazis were arguably the ultimate in evil regimes. And so it is easy for a film maker (particularly one as talented as Tarantino) to be as hideously cruel and brutal to them as he wants safe in the knowledge that no one will be pitying them, or thinking it was inappropriate. As you said, they had it coming.

It even indulges the audience to the point where it basically says a big “Fuck you!” to history. We know it is a fictional story. But other fictional films based within real historical events still respect and adhere to the important, solid facts. Not this film. Everyone loves the idea of seeing Hitler shot to shit. And so this movie gives it to us.

I will be seeing this film again very soon.

thanks spoony, its nice to get a heads up before walking into a movie that was advertising brad pitt and the basterds for marketing purposes only. i was skeptical about seeing it but you got me excited and interested again. i love most of quentins work so much i should be kicking myself for not going on opening day, but i just watched schindler’s list for the first time a couple weeks ago(really good), and not too long ago i saw that piece of shit valkyrie. so i wasnt that pumped about a new holocaust movie but im definately going this weekend.
love your reviews noah.

I agree Spoony, I saw the movie and the Bastards don’t seem to be a major factor in this movie, hell the whole bar scene was more the British guy and Diana Kruger then anyone else, and that felt like a quarter of the movie. I think all of the violent scenes, save for the end, were already in the trailer. I’m only disappointed in this movie in that the trailer lead me to believe something else, like you said in the review. So my original expectations were smashed but I did enjoy parts of the movie. Also, you didn’t say it in your review, but this movie was really long, 2h 33min. I knew this going into the movie and still felt like forever. I understand that the scenes needed to be long to build up the tension slowly, but I felt he could have left some for the DVD. I also didn’t like how the violence was abruptly cut away to some other scene; left me a little confused. I would suggest to check this movie out once as it is one of the better movies of the summer, but its not like other Tarantino movies nor is it like the trailer.

P.S. I loved the character of Col. Hans Landa, but who else thinks that role was written for John Malkovich? He could do the French, but maybe the German and Italian would have been a stretch.

First, this movie did feel like a bait and switch. Much like Death Proof but to a much lesser degree. And like Death Proof not really a bad movie. Just annoys me that they promised dark action comedy and I got, well, OK there was dark comedy but very little action. There was also a compelling story of revenge thrown in. And perhaps one of the most EVIL antagonists I’ve seen this summer. The Demon Goat from Drag Me To Hell doesn’t count you expect that level of pure evil.

Anyway great movie but don’t expect an action film. Think Kill Bill Volume 2. An awesome movie for a completely different reason from the original.

I liked INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, but like you said, I think anybody expecting a DIRTY DOZEN style WW2 adventure film along the lines of, say, THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS will walk away disappointed. Interesting you should mention Verhoeven, you should see his film BLACK BOOK (ZWARTBOEK), a Dutch WW2 thriller about a Jewish singer infiltrating Gestapo headquarters. It’s nothing like the big-budget sci-fi satires he did in the US but it’s still really good.

He says he like the film, his second chin says otherwise.

I’m almost ready to do a vlog myself on this film, because now that I’ve seen it I’ve been mulling it over in my head for a bit. You touched on one point that I’ve been thinking about in particular, and I thought I’d share.

The movie is a propaganda film about propaganda. It’s a film that acknowledges that we really want our lives to be like the movies, and it performs that function for us while showing the effects of it. Brad Pitt’s character mentions that watching “The Bear Jew” pummel Nazis to death is “the closest me and the boys get to seeing the movies,” and when the propaganda of the Basterds gets to the point where Hitler himself sees that they are undermining his soldiers’ morale, his solution? More propaganda: “Nation’s Pride.”

I could go on, and I think others will eventually recognize this and talk about it, too. But one thing that I will say is that the film could not have ended with Hitler getting away–that would have defeated the intent of what the story was trying to show.

I have to disagree on a few points. You say that to a man that each of these Germans are evil and deserve everything that they got. But until the end, the Basterds are just killing regular german soldiers in occupied France. They are not shown as doing anything especially evil. There’s even this exchange:

“Did you get that medal for killing jews?”
“Bravery.”

And you feel really bad for the guy. In the scene in the bar, the germans are clearly shown to be people with families. You feel really bad that Wilhelm died. Poor guy.

Even Fredrick was shown as a dogged nice guy for most of the film. Other than his “I’m not the kind of guy you can say no to” thing, did he actually do anything evil?

The point of the film seems to be “War creates evil maniacs on both sides”. You’re not supposed to like the Basterds. They’re heroic sociopaths at best.

During the first massacre of germans, many people in the audience laughed. I didn’t. In the later theater scene, we see Hitler laughing at allies getting shot. This has to be a comment on the audience. “You laughed at this? You’re an inhuman monster. No better than Hitler”.

Hi there,
great review – as always, well, i totally share your opinion on this movie as being one of the more thought-provoking things to hit theatres this year.
Well, i watched Inglorious Basterds yesterday in an English-Cinema (i’m from Vienna and refused hardcore to go see the german dub) and well, i was really entertained as well. Imho i really loved to see Till Schweiger again on screen for more than just a minute or something – the introduction to his Character (the thing where they showed, what he did in the past, with his name flashing out and then flashing back) was kind of a real smack across the face, but i found it really cool.
On Christoph Waltz (i think he’s the one playing Landa – having an viennese accent in his german, i’m just forced to suppose he is.) i’ve just got to say, that his performance blew me away. And you are quite right – i can’t of course speak for the fellow europeans here, but i grew up with german and english and i am currently learning russian – and that is kind of normal, to at least speak a few chunks of english around here.
In conlusion i just can say – keep up your good work, and well, great film if you are not expecting too much of gunplay and things like this – as you pointed out in your review of it.
And, well, if you do speak German, you’re able to get more from this film, than just “armed” with one language, because it’s really, really well done, i very often heard German in American films in the Past, and it sounded more than just terrible, and hoped, that those scenes were made better here – so it was a fine thing to watch.
I didn’t find the stereotyping too bad, in fact, i’ve seen worse in this category. But my one complaint is, that Landa was a little bit less intimidating as i wanted him to be. I mean, that was one scary fucker, but a little more authority would not have damaged him.
But, it was still one of the best characterizations i have seen a long time.
So, that’s good night from me, and until next time.