Inglorious Basterds

I have always had a love-hate relationship with Quentin Tarantino. I loved Reservoir Dogs, hated the Kill Bill series, enjoyed Pulp Fiction, and despised Jackie Brown. Although I have not sat through all of his works (I made a point to skip out on Death Proof), I can understand and appreciate a certain type of storyteller when I see him, and he has managed to create a style that has garnered some devout fans, and created even more ferocious enemies. It is with this give (and mostly take) relationship that I absolutely applaud the achievement that is Inglorious Basterds.

The name of the first chapter of the film (Once upon a time...in Nazi occupied France) captures the spirit of the film more than I can say in this review. The film is a fantasy that takes place in World War II. 300 was not an accurate retelling of the Spartan wars, and Inglorious Basterds never claims to be historically accurate, it is just the most historically interesting. Wouldn't it have been wonderful if nine Jewish American soldiers parachuted into Nazi-occupied France to disrupt and absolutely annihilate the Third Reich? Absolutely. And that is why we go to the movies.

The movie begins in Nazi-occupied France when Nazi Col. Hans Landa (Cristoph Waltz) shows up to a desolate dairy farm uninvited to search for Jews that he believes are hiding in the area. After one of the tensest and most subtle scenes in the film, he discovers that there are, and a teenaged woman named Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) runs away across the gorgeous French mountainside. Her story proves to be one of the most vital in the film, and Waltz as Col. Hans Landa shows that you do not need to have waggly eyebrows and a Heath Ledger tic to play an effective bad guy. He is just so damned charming, and yet he emits a sense of cruelty, chauvinism and evil that just eeks out of his body. I think it might be too early in the game to say that he deserves an Oscar to add to his best actor award from Cannes, but I would not protest if the fates worked in his favor that night.

Chapter 2 (yes, the movie is divided into six chapters) introduces us to "The Basterds", and they are the funnest parts of the entire movie. Every sequence with them is pure, unadulterated Nazi-killing fun, and the audience loves it. They strangle, shoot, suffocate, stab, and shatter the skulls of legions of Nazis because that is why you paid money to see the movie. And yet, they are absent for nearly half of the film. Inglorious Basterds does not follow the Inglorious Basterds, but instead gives a Pulp Fiction-esque introduction of characters and how their lives intermingled during World War II. Don't get me wrong, I thought the film was fantastic, but I would have been pleased to see WAY more of the Basterds. Brad Pitt offers a delightful turn as Lt. Aldo Raine, and although he is ridiculous and over the top, it fits in perfectly with this type of movie.

Now for the elephant in the room. Haters of Tarantino's movies may complain that the movie was long and boring with too many pointless scenes and extended sequences of dialogue. In a way, I can see how they would think that way, but many of the "long and boring" scenes kept me perfectly enthralled and riveted, and perhaps the people who hated the extended sequences of dialogue would have been better served by re watching the non-stop action of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen rather than listen to the diatribe of a master wordsmith. There is no shame in that if that is really what you want. Tarantino's "talky" scenes helped to build tension to make the significant scenes seem ever more significant. Although they do drag a bit every now and then, there are several scenes that would not have packed the wollop that they did if they had not been preceded by one of Tarantino's trademark chunks of dialogue.

Aside from its general writing and acting merits, you will find that Basterds has alot to say beneath its surface. It may take a me a few more viewings to fully understand it, but there are surely more layers to this already outstanding piece of work that need to be fleshed out. Sequences where Nazi-characters explain that their medals are for bravery and not for "killing Jews" sent shivers down my spine, and a scene where Waltz's character equates a Nazi's natural hatred for Jews to a human's natural hatred for a rat absolutely floored me. Several of the scenes brought humanity out of the Nazi soldiers, and a scene where hundreds of Nazi officers and generals watch a film about a Nazi that kills hundreds of Jews and they are whooping and hollering the same way your theater was when the Basterds killed Nazi soldiers on screen, it really forces you to think. They do not sympathize with the Nazi's, they just offer an interesting thought.

Inglorious Basterds is perhaps one of Tarantino's greatest achievements to date, although it may not be the "masterpiece" that he claims it to be in the final frame of the movie. It was an incredibly interesting and fun movie, and although it became quite self indulgent at times, it didn't fail to deliver. After all, they ain't in the movie makin' business, they're in the killin' Nazi business. And cousin, business is boomin'.

A

If you enjoyed The Big Lebowski, Pulp Fiction or The Boondock Saints you may enjoy this movie.

Oscarwatch! 3.0

And here it goes! With only 4 more months left in the Oscar season, the time has come to update the list, and perhpas add a few more categories to the list. Prepare yourself for.... OSCARWATCH 3.0!!!!!!!

Best Film:
Nine
Precious
Invictus
Amelia
Up
The Hurt Locker
An Education
Avatar
Biutiful
Bright Star

(give or take Capitalism: A Love Story or The Informant or Up in the Air))

Best Director:
Rob Marshall (Nine)
Lee Daniels (Precious)
James Cameron (Avatar)
Clint Eastwood (Invictus)
Mira Nair (Amelia)

(Give or take Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) or Jane Campion (Bright Star))

Best Actor:
Daniel Day-Lewis (Nine)
Morgan Freeman (Invictus)
Javier Bardem (Biutiful)
Viggo Mortenson (The Road)
Ben Whishaw (Bright Star)

(Give or take Matt Damon (The Informant) )

Best Actress:
Hillary Swank (Amelia)
Gabourey Sidibe (Precious)
Abbey Cornish (Bight Star)
Helen Mirren (The Tempest)
Carey Mulligan (An Education)

(Give or take Penelope Cruz (Broken Embraces))

Best Supporting Actor:
Matt Damon (Invictus)
Alfred Molina (An Education)
Cristoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds)
Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones)
Richard Kind (A Serious Man)

(Give or take Richard Gere (Amelia) )

Best Supporting Actress:
Judi Dench (Nine)
Mo'Nique (Precious)
Saorise Ronan (The Lovely Bones)
Penelope Cruz (Nine)
Marian Cotillard (Nine)

(Give or take Emily Mortimer (Shutter Island))

Best Screenplay (Adapted):
Nine
The Lovely Bones
Precious
An Education
Invictus

(Give or take Shutter Island)

Best Screenplay (Original):
500 Days of Summer
Up
A Serious Man
The Informant
Bright Star

(Give or take Biutiful or Broken Embraces)

Best Art Direction:
Nine
Amelia
Harry Potter and the Half BloodPrince
Bright Star
Biutiful

(Give or take District 9 and Avatar)

Best Cinematography:
Nine
Broken Embraces
Harry Potter and theHalf Blood Prince
Biutiful
Amelia

Best Costume Design:
Amelia
Bright Star
Cheri
The Tempest
Nine

Best Film Editing:
500 Days of Summer
District 9
The Hurt Locker
Precious
Nine

Best Makeup:
Star Trek
Avatar
Nine

(Give or take District 9)

Best Original Score:
Amelia
A Christmas Carol
Up
Avatar
Broken Embraces? (Too soon to tell)

Best Sound Editing:
2012
Star Trek
District 9
Avatar
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Best Sound Mixing:
2012
Avatar
Nine
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
District 9

Best Visual Effects:
Avatar
2012
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

(Give or take District 9)

Best Animated Feature Film:
Up
Ponyo
The Princess and the Frog

(Give or take Coraline or Nine)

And THERE IT IS LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!

Best Foreign Film, Documentary, Animated Short, Short Feature and Best Original Song will have to wait.

Do you have any comments, questions, suggestions or corrections? Let me know in the comments section!

The Time Traveller's Wife

Being an immense fan of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife, I attempted to lower my expectations as I walked into the theater to watch the film version. It was a defense mechanism to protect my image of the book from completely shattering. Luckily, lowering my expectations, and silently repeating to myself that changes had probably been made helped me enjoy the film version, and aided in my ability to separate novel from film. It was a very well done film that captured the heart and spirit of the original novel, although many fans of the book will be disappointed to find nearly half of the novel missing.

As a stand-alone film, it flourished, and I would gladly recommend it to anyone who had the understanding that I would add to the recommendation "but it's not as good as the book".
The story was very imaginative, original, and refreshing to the romantic comedy scene. The execution on the other hand was sloppy at points, and the acting faltered more than once.

The Time Traveller's Wife begins with a very young Henry DeTamble (Eric Bana) experiencing a horribly traumatizing event, and is met by a future Henry DeTamble who explains to his younger counterpart that they are capable of time travel, and are unable to control it. Future Henry then returns to his own time and meets Claire Abshire (Rachel McAdams), who claims that he will visit her in her childhood in his future. It all sounds very confusing, which it is, but is intriguing all the same. The story follows the couple as they attempt to form a working relationship and family, but find that when Henry constantly dissapears in fits of unwilling time travel, things get incredibly tough.

The acting work by Bana and McAdams is really hit and miss. At some points they both work naturally, and you can hardly catch them acting, but there are some parts that made me put my head in my hands and wonder how that particular take found its way into the final cut. They even out nicely, McAdams has a serious problem with understating what her character feels, and Bana has a tendency to overdo it. At times, both feel disconnected to their situation, but at times they feel incredibly engaged. If anything, it was this patchy pattern of acting skill that killed a bit of the film for me, and it honestly is the biggest flaw of the whole project.

This film in particular had many hurdles to jump scriptwise, and I was happy to see it with such a fresh and workable script from Ghost screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin. The lines never get too sappy, and it never turns too melodramatic for the average audience to sympathize with. This is the common trap of the romantic comedy genre. Although it began to run sketchy when explaining Henry's problems (why can't he go back and save people's lives? Because he can't. The end.) it was all very smooth and very well versed.

It all was very beautifully shot, and although the Director of Photography (Florian Ballhaus) and the Art Director (Peter Grundy) have nothing especially glamorous in their pasts, they both worked wonderfully, and the sheer beauty of several scenes were enough to tug at my heartstrings. They only shine in a few scenes, but when they deliver, they deliver big.

It began to run slow a bit in the middle, but the cleverness of the script, and the pull of the incredibly interesting story hauled us out of that funk and hurled us back into the story, which only grew more personal, and more extraordinary.

B-

If you enjoyed The Notebook, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or Ghost, you might like this movie.

District 9

The first sign that District 9 would be a unique piece of work took place in the first five minutes when the setting of the film is revealed. It does not take place in the overcrowded city of Los Angeles, or the politically relevant area of Virginia. The mothership of the creatures instead landed in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is just dissapointing that a film with so much potential and so much originality could succumb to some of the traps of the convential Hollywood Summer Blockbuster.

This isn't to say that it is all bad, and in fact, more than half of the film was incredible in every way. Visually, technically, emotionally, and metaphorically speaking the better half of the film was a real treat, and helped me root my emotional tendons into the heart of it. When it came time however for the film to limp into its final act, it had lost much of its original steam, and veered off into corners that seemed irrelevant to the overall message of the movie. I wont spoil any of it for you, but you will notice a very specific turn of events that will make you question what the film-makers were intending. It seems as though they couldn't decide on whether to finish strong with a poignant film about racism, and media and government control, or take the Summer Blockbuster route and make buildings (and humans) explode. They went with the inbeetweeny route which briefly visits both, and then ends. Although I personally thought that the philosophical, and politically relevant story would have been the more intriguing, I can't deny that I still enjoyed the second half as it struggled across the finish line.

District 9 follows the MNU executive Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) as he attempts to explain to the alien residents of District 9 that they will be moved to the smaller, and less accomidating District 10. Predictably, the aliens do not respond positively, and Wikus finds very manipulative ways to get them to sign away their homes. He soon accidentally sprays a dose of alien substance into his eyes, resulting in a monstrous transformation. Although this is Copley's first (and alledgedly last) film, he does wonderfully as the manipulative, and delightfully nerdy MNU executive, who threatens to bring an alien child into protective custody if the adult does not sign away his home. He then jumps to the painfully tortured and terrifyingly human beast that falls under the scrutiny and probe of everyone in his world. A particular scene where the MNU tests him to see if he can operate the alien weapons left me absolutely breathless.

I have never been a fan of formulaic saves of grace in films, and that is perhaps my biggest complaint in the film. No matter what trouble Wikus gets into, there is a scapel lying on a table, or a mechanical exo-skeleton that practically begs him to get inside and use. I understand that these things are necessary to keep the story going, but it is possible to be more creative than to let us believe that a chemically subdued man could fight off ten doctors with a scalpel, and then dodge gunfire for the next thirty minutes.

Now, for the question you have all been waiting for. How do the aliens look? They look phenomenal. With the exception of a few sloppily rendered bits, the "Prawns" (as they are crudely referred to) look absolutely stunning, and you find yourself removed from the "special effect" and dive headfirst into the characters beneath the pixels. I wont go further with that, as it may spoil some bits for you, so I will simply say that you will find yourself sympathizing with the Prawns more than any alien you have encountered since E.T.

Although the film dragged a little near the end, and some plotpoints certainly were unecessary while the more interesting ones were left unexplained, the film ran smoothly, and although its abrubt change of style may have displeased some, I found myself enjoying it almost the entire time.

B

If you enjoyed City of God, Cloverfield or the original The Day The Earth Stood Still you will enjoy this movie.

Moon

Before I walked in to see this film, I had read praise from every area of the internet saying that this film would "redefine the genre of science fiction" and that it was a "well crafted masterpiece." Naturally, I kept a level head when going to see it for myself, but as the credits rolled, I couldn't really see what all the fuss was about.

The film follows Sam Rockwell playing astronaut Sam Bell as he resides on the moon to send a new power source (called H3) back to Earth to help solve the Earth's energy crisis. He spends his time watching recorded videos that his wife and daughter send him, and he begins to fall into madness as he starts to hallucinate. When he goes out to fix a broken mining machine, he has a hallucination and crashes the rover. When he wakes up in the infirmary, and his robot pal GERTY (Kevin Spacey) tells him that he suffers from memory loss, Sam begins to grow wary of his mission and his spacecraft. When Sam makes an unauthorized trip to the area of his crash, he finds something that forces him to question his sanity.

No, it is not the first science fiction movie to explore the compelling concept of "He is alone and going crazy" nor to use a certain overused plot-point that The Prestige handled much better. It is not the first science fiction movie to use overlong silence in an attempt to create tension, and not the first science fiction movie to feature an A-list actor as a creepy emotionless cyborg.

Given all these facts, I find it hard to call this film "original" exactly.

The idea was a solid one, and one that may have remained interesting if made into a thirty minute short. It was stretched and mutated into a long and boring creature that would occaisionally show some flare of significance, but would immediately fall asleep afterwards. Indeed, there were some moments that were very interesting, but they were never fully explored, and although the ending can be considered by some to be incredible and heart-breaking, it dulls the impact when it became increasingly obvious halfway through what was going to happen.

Sam Rockwell himself did an adequate job in this film, but any Oscar-talk you may hear surrounding his performance in Moon is absolute garbage. He didn't do a terrible job, but the script (which was written during the writers strike) offered absolutely nothing for him, and although he did his best with some of the laughably serious lines, the result ended up sounding terrible and unnatural. He gave several moments of very good acting, but these were all during parts when he was reacting to the circumstances around him instead of when he was saying his God-awful lines.

Another factor that constantly brought me out of the movie was the obvious minature model of the Moon that was used at least every ten minutes for static shots of the landscape and for the scenes where Sam must go out to fix equipment. It was ridiculously unreal, and cast a corny "this is a movie" vibe over the whole project. A sequence where a land rover is moving over the surface of the moon was meant to be breathtaking, but I found myself examining the rover for an "on-off" switch.

Sam's robot companion GERTY proved to be one of the most interesting parts of the film. When a monotone robot that wants to help the main character survive becomes the most entertaining part of the film is when you know that your film may be in trouble.

I often found myself glancing at my watch, and wondering if it would be rude to use my phone to look up the running time of the film. Again, the idea was very interesting, but if you present the same idea for a little over an hour and a half without delving into the subject further, while cutting away to a cheesy model of the surface of the moon every five to ten minutes, you will lose some people. There were entire sequences when they would use, frame for frame, the exact same footage that they used earlier in the movie to make a point, and to try to make you understand it. It soon became repetitive, boring, and unimpressive. I understood what the idea was, and their repeated attempts to "help me understand" only annoyed me.

So, for the record, Moon was a brave attempt to create a tension-filled, emotional, helpless journey into the psyche of a man stationed on the lonely moon. It had some fantastic moments, but more than half of it is repetitive, uninteresting, and just plain boring. If you have the opportunity to watch it for free, do so, as it may wind up being a cult film in the near future.

C-

If you enjoyed Solaris, There Will Be Blood, or Cast Away you might like this movie.

500 Days of Summer

The best part of 500 Days of Summer is that it doesn't attempt to be a fantastic movie, it doesn't suck up to the viewers, and it doesn't flaunt itself in front of viewers saying "look how insightful I am". It could have easily done any of these things, and newcoming director Marc Webb expertly weaved his way through the story and its obstacles to create an amazing, visually stunning, and incredibly original piece of art.

People toss around the word "original" alot, but I am not screwing around when I say that this film is the very first of its kind. It is very playful, and uses every inch of the film medium to bring you inside the mind of Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and experience his thoughts emotions and feelings in a very visceral way that you can touch and feel. The film follows the relationship of Tom Hansen with his infatuation named Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) and not in any way that would be expected. It is far from a conventional romantic comedy, and tracks the romance through random days. We jump from "Day 444" in the relationship to "Day 1" and then to "Day 243". This medium of storytelling was fascinating and kept me completely involved in the movie, and although some may call it a "ploy" or a "gimmick" it was incredibly innovative and original. An especially brilliant scene is a two way screen split that showcases "Expectations VS Reality". I know you don't know what that means, but once you watch the film you will understand and appreciate its subtle brilliance.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt offers a fantastic performance as a man who is attempting to find love in a fledgling and eventually failing relationship. He is very relate able, and I grew to love him. He never strains to offer emotion, which is a huge trap in the romantic comedy industry, and offers an uncommonly honest portrayal of a normal guy who got screwed over.

If I have any complaint about the movie, it is the portrayal of Summer by Zooey Deschanel. It was clear to me at the very beginning that I would not like her, and although the film makes it clear that Summer is a "free spirit", she never became likable to me, and I never wanted Tom to stay with her. It is a minor flaw of the movie, and perhaps not even a flaw, because the movie is more about Tom's journey rather than Summer's philosophy on love and marriage.

The movie never overstayed its welcome, and sprinted by at a breakneck pace all the way through its incredibly brisk 95 minute runningtime. There is never a single boring moment, and it is perhaps this that kept it so close to my heart. It was masterfully crafted to keep everyone interested the entire time, and that really is a refreshing idea in this age of extended static shots and uninteresting unrelated plot twists. This movie sticks to the point, and although there are several fun and fluffy moments, (including a hilariously non sequitur dance sequence with animated birds in the middle of the movie) it skips over the bland "middle part" of the movie that most romantic comedies fall victim to. Perhaps its advantage was again its unconventional mode of storytelling.

It was a fast, fun, entertaining and thought provoking bit of work with wonderful bits of philosophy plugged throughout. Like the tagline will tell you, it isn't just a love story. It is a story about love.

A+

If you liked Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Love Actually and Away We Go you will liek this movie.