Inglourious Basterds

[Tiplodocus]

LATE TO THE PARTY

Caught this recently and I couldn't quite see the point.  A couple of clever uses of language (opening scene and in the cellar bar) and some great tension but other than that, colour me disappointed. 

The interconnectedness of the tales just didn't work for me in the same way that Pulp Fiction did and it jumped all over the place missing out potentially great things (did we ever see the Basterds successfully at work?) and focusing too long on others (Fassbender's first scene with Churchill).  In the following scenes, however, Fassbender was great.

And I just didn't get the Cinema ending.

[thelawgiver]

I went to see it at the cinema, but only recently bought the dvd. I was let down by the film in the cinema with stand out moments being the begining with christoph waltz' performance, and the david bowie soundtrack over that particular scene where she's getting ready to take out her revenge. I hated the fact teenage kids were laughing out loud at every hit of onscreen violence in the movie.
I did enjoy the film more rewatching it more on DVD - I think Tarantino is becoming too self-indulgent jeopardising the quality of the product. I liked Pitt's portrayal of Aldo Raine, but the performance was inconsistant through the entirety of the movie, as for other dubious casting i.e. Eli Roth, I was dissapointed.
I think Tarantino should stop selfindulging himself in homage and so on, and maybe A) adapt again e.g. elmore leonard and B) work with his older actors again e.g. Harvey keitel, Sam l. jackson etc

[Peter Wolf]

LATE TO THE PARTY



And I just didn't get the Cinema ending.

The cinema ending was a kind of Jewish revenge fantasy or the fantasy of just about anyone who has a dislike of Nazis[spoiler] as the entire leadership of the Nazi party was wiped out in that scene[/spoiler] if i recall it correctly.


[mod edit- massive spoiler of the ending]

[Goaty]

On now at C4, brilliant film!

Worth to watch both longest and finest scenes, opening and bar room.

[Emperor]

I watched it last night. I'm not sure what to think - I enjoyed it but I really loved most of Tarantino's previous films. So, while a success with me, it actually ranks as one of my least favourite Tarantino films, fighting it out with Jackie Brown down at the bottom of the list. I've watched more than my fair share of WWII films and was looking forward to a cunning riff on their ideas and themes but it never happened - even the team was only partly introduced and hardly fleshed out. The whole thing felt self-indulgent self-fulfilment ([spoiler]the Jews kill Hitler[/spoiler]). This might be because of what I was expecting from the film and I was interested to see comments elsewhere from people who didn't enjoy his previous films but loved this one, so it might not be as Taratinoy as other films have been.

Christoph Waltz was excellent but it struck me [spoiler]that his whole plan at the end was pointless (once he let the girl go at the start he'd set the events in motion that would lead to the end), in fact the involvement of the Inglourious Basterds made no difference to the outcome. It might be a metaphor for pointlessness of war but having the team with the name on the film have little impact on the end just felt weird. Interestingly, I see that Tarantino had this on the back burner for a while because he wasn't happy with the ending and I still wasn't.[/spoiler]

Don't get me wrong, it was still one of the better films of 2009, I just don't think it was up to Tarantino's usual standard, at least as far as I'm concerned.

[edit: Oh yes, and the subtitles were annoying - Tarantino must have watched a fair share of subtitled films in his time so must known that smaller yellow text, without any obvious stroke, slapped over the picture is going to make it difficult for people to read especially when people are talking quickly. Granted it might have been easier to read in the cinema but that isn't any excuse for a film that leans strongly on a lot of banter in three different languages.]

[Roger Godpleton]

It was fun seeing Fassbender as a callow young boy, before he became the proud, huge, thrusting man that he is today.

[Emperor]

It was fun seeing Fassbender as a callow young boy, before he became the proud, huge, thrusting man that he is today.

You might as well come clean* and admit your mancrush for Fassbender.

* Too easy, must ignore

[Goaty]

Oh yes, and the subtitles were annoying - Tarantino must have watched a fair share of subtitled films in his time so must known that smaller yellow text, without any obvious stroke, slapped over the picture is going to make it difficult for people to read especially when people are talking quickly. Granted it might have been easier to read in the cinema but that isn't any excuse for a film that leans strongly on a lot of banter in three different languages.

Subtitles looks fine to me, and yellow give it good bold.

[brendan1]

It's a good film, really enjoyable,  with some amazingly great scenes and awesome performances, but moaning about realism/ continuity/ logic seems rather facile and totally fucking irrelevant, given that it's an hysterical and delirious Jewish fantasy in which Hitler and Goebbels are gunned down by super bad-ass Jew soldiers in a fucking cinema.