f13.net

Cinema: Tarantino's Nazi 'reservoir dogs of war' leaked online

Quentin Tarantino, the master of bloodbath cinema, is to give his trademark comic-book treatment to the Nazis and the second world war in a film that has stirred controversy even before production has begun.

Shooting on the film, which has the working title Inglorious Bastards and which Tarantino has described as an "in-your-face movie", is due to start in the Potsdam Babelsberg studios west of Berlin on October 13.

But the film project by the US director of Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, which is a remake of a 70s war film by Enzo Castellaris, has already created a furious response from German critics. One said the effects of the "collision" between pulp fiction and Nazi barbarity were "completely unpredictable".

The film depicts scalpings, disembowelment and swastikas being engraved in foreheads as a group of American Jewish soldiers are airdropped into Nazi-occupied Europe to wreak revenge on the Germans.

Film buffs were yesterday poring over what appeared to be the Tarantino script of the film, which has apparently been leaked and posted on several internet sites. Although film experts said the 167 page "final draft" had Tarantino's handprint all over it - including his wobbly handwriting, spelling mistakes (Inglourious Basterds) and grammatical errors - it had not been confirmed as genuine last night. There was speculation that it might have been released as a publicity stunt.

What has been confirmed is that Brad Pitt is to play the starring role - Lieutenant Aldo Raine - "known to the Germans as Apache Aldo ... a hillbilly from the mountains of Tennessee", who leads the group of Nazi-hunters.

Early in the film, he tells potential recruits: "I'm putting me together a special team ... and I need me ... eight - Jewish - American - soldiers ... as a bushwackin', guerrilla army, we're gonna be doing one thing and one thing only, killin' Nazis."

He adds: "We will be cruel to the Germans and through our cruelty, they will know who we are," ordering his troops to "git me 100 Nazi scalps".

One of the group, known as "Bear Jew", has a reputation for "bashing Germans' brains in with a baseball bat". He features in at least one scene.

Other stars believed to have been signed up or up for consideration who have flown to Berlin over the past fortnight to meet Tarantino, include Natassja Kinski, Leonardo di Caprio and the German film stars Daniel Brühl and Til Schweiger.

If the script is anything to go by, even by Tarantino's blood-curdling standards the film looks likely to be a stomach-churner. Apart from baseball-bat bashing and skin engravings, we see one German officer being shot in the testicles, as well as scalps being peeled "like a banana skin" from others.

The pulp fiction treatment is even given to the killing of a Jewish family being harboured by a French dairy farmer, who are machine-gunned to death through the floorboards of their hiding place.

"This is pop culture meets Nazi Germany and the Holocaust with an unprecedented force," wrote the film critic of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Tobias Kniebe, in an attempt to sum up the explosive effect the film is likely to have in Germany.

The trouble is that little distinction is made between Nazi and German, ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers or SS officers, to the extent that if the script is anything to go by, there is no such thing as a good German and all of them have to die. The final scene shows Hitler trapped in an exploding cinema in Paris.

There was speculation last night that Tarantino was attempting to upstage Tom Cruise's controversial film Valkyrie, which tells the true story of the German count who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The film has been pilloried long before its expected release in February.

Ah god, that is just not right.

What isn't?

The facts? The content of the alleged Tarantino script? The idea of the film?

TEXTTEXTTEXTEXTETXTRTEXTETXTEXTEXTTEXTTXETXEXT... This isn't news.  It's not even worthy of discussion ... TEXTETXTTEXTTEXTTEXTXEXTXETXEXTEXEXTXETTEXTEXTETEXTTEXTEXTTXETTXET

As long as the fact that it isn't worthy of dicussion is worthy of discussion then it seems a bit silly to say that it itself isn't worthy of discussion.

One thing I have learned from the Politics forum is that any article sensational enough to be published has to be true.

But the film project by the US director of Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, which is a remake of a 70s war film by Enzo Castellaris, has already created a furious response from German critics.

Holy fuck, does he not have an original bone in his body?

The idea of using Nazis as total cartoon villains sort of bothers me a little. Yeah yeah, I know, they're Nazis. But still, it just seems so lazy.

An American shooting a Nazi in the balls sounds like a cross between a jingoistic John Wayne movie and America's Funniest Home Videos.

Clippety clip clip

Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS

I'm not really sure what peoples grief is with this is it not like Nazis have never been parodied or been movie villains before.

If the whole thing is just about a load of US soldiers ninjaing up Nazis then I downgrade it from "An affront against God" to "Probably going to be like Kill Bill with men and different Uniforms."

I wonder if one of the US guys is going to be massively into Japanese culture and parachute down with a katana?

To me it's more shit like having Nazi's wiping out Jewish families, the way Tarantino does stuff just makes me think this whole thing is going to smack of, "Man the Holocaust was, like, totally bitching death shit dude. Nazis used to, like, fucking tear Jewish people's eyes out and make them fight each other with knives to the death while some asshat masturbated directly onto the camera filming it."

Holy fuck, does he not have an original bone in his body?

I tend not to watch what my local butcher does on a daily basis.

There's also the fact that I might catch him fucking my mom or something.

Also, two really great movies with Nazis are Stalingrad and Das Boot. Most of you have probably already seen them though.

He did bring Salma Hayek in to the main stream though.

At least he's (Pegg) doing another movie with Nick Frost and the director of Superbad next.

I'll add here that I'm not really a Tarantino hater. I really like Reservoir and Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown I can tolerate along with Kill Bill 1 (2 was just so much more of the same, it should have been 1 film) but really. He's made too much shit recently that I expect to really enjoy what he's putting out now.

Stuff