Inglourious Basterds

[apocrypha]

Every single Tarantino film is just a polished, glitzty re-telling of male childhood fantasies though. He makes his films well but he's incredibly childish. His characters are all 1-dimensional and serve mostly to just define stereotypes. His dialogue is good, his pacing is good, his production is superb, but his plots and subtexts are just shallow and unchallenging.

He's kind of the Blizzard of films. Nothing new, just old stuff done really, really well.

Inglourious Basterds is definitely too long though. I had to watch it in two parts.

[stray]

Sometimes, but I'd have to partly disagree. Jules was a complicated character, I think.

As for the parts that are fantasy -- well, they are kind of cool. I also fantasize being giving the option of choosing between a chainsaw and a samurai sword when met with a rent-a-cop rapist. And I want to still his chopper too. These are good fantasies.

[schild]

Just watched this.

Five things:

1. Pure Tarantino Wank.
2. Even Tarantino can't make Brad Pitt suck.
3. Waste of Samuel L Jackson. If you're gonna have a narrator in the first part of the movie, have one in the second part.
4. Having an actress named Anne Franck as one of the people hiding Jews was just tacky.
5. Til Schweiger has been the man since SLC Punk and this just reaffirms it. If it weren't for him and Brad Pitt, I would not have made it through this thing.

[Velorath]

Just watched this.

Five things:

1. Pure Tarantino Wank.
2. Even Tarantino can't make Brad Pitt suck.
3. Waste of Samuel L Jackson. If you're gonna have a narrator in the first part of the movie, have one in the second part.
4. Having an actress named Anne Franck as one of the people hiding Jews was just tacky.
5. Til Schweiger has been the man since SLC Punk and this just reaffirms it. If it weren't for him and Brad Pitt, I would not have made it through this thing.

Damn, it's a shame you spent a few hours watching a Tarantino movie when you could have been playing on your Wii, watching a Joss Whedon TV series, or doing any number of other things that you should already know by now you'll hate doing.

[stray]

I'm gonna give him a pass, since in a way, Schild himself is the Bear Jew.  Maybe he was just testing whether Quentin got it right this time.

[schild]

I'm gonna give him a pass, since in a way, Schild himself is the Bear Jew.  Maybe he was just testing whether Quentin got it right this time.

Watched it for Pitt actually. I don't care about Tarantino getting it right or not. He won't, he's an uncreative fuck. Pitt, however, always gets it right.

Damn, it's a shame you spent a few hours watching a Tarantino movie when you could have been playing on your Wii, watching a Joss Whedon TV series, or doing any number of other things that you should already know by now you'll hate doing.

To you as well, I spent a few hours watching Brad Pitt and about 20 minutes of Til Schweiger.

[lamaros]

Brad Pitt...WTF?

[schild]

He's fucking awesome. Shut your dirty whore mouth.

[stray]

Yes he's a good actor.. Are people actually arguing against that still?

That said, he still hasn't topped Johnny Suede.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Pitt was one of the weaker cast members in this movie. Good, but nowhere near the strongest link in the chain.

[lamaros]

He's fucking awesome. Shut your dirty whore mouth.

I don't mind Brad Pitt, but I think he has some roles that he does better than others. I found his hamming it up a bit bit disjointed with the rest of the film in this one though. Enjoyed Michael Fassbender more in the humour department.

[Endie]

I like Brad Pitt a lot, and he was one of the bright moments in this movie.  But he was no better in this than in Burn After Reading, which is to say he chose an accent and two idiosyncracies and hammed them for all he was worth.  And Tarantino gave the good lines to Landau.

[Amarr HM]

He does the hammy sociopathic nutball pretty well a la twelve monkeys and yeh Jonny Suede was funny he's quite a good comedy actor. But actually I got the feeling the role was intended for George Clooney & he might have turned it down on moral grounds.

That said I enjoyed all the scenes without Brad Pitt, especially the basement cafe scene was vintage Tarantino.

[Endie]

You just don't like Pitt because he totally nailed "average Irishman" in Snatch.

[Riggswolfe]

He's fucking awesome. Shut your dirty whore mouth.

I don't mind Brad Pitt, but I think he has some roles that he does better than others. I found his hamming it up a bit bit disjointed with the rest of the film in this one though. Enjoyed Michael Fassbender more in the humour department.

My favorite Brad Pitt role is probably Kalifornia. Lately he feels like an actor who is sort of resting on his laurels a bit sort of like Al Pacino and/or Robert Deniro. It seems like some of the great actors just hit a point where they kind of say "fuck it" and I think he's hit that point.

[Sheepherder]

None of those actors you mentioned really have a reputation for fucking up a part because of overacting.

[Riggswolfe]

None of those actors you mentioned really have a reputation for fucking up a part because of overacting.

I'd say that Al Pacino has definitely overacted in his later movies.

[HaemishM]

1. Pure Tarantino Wank.
2. Even Tarantino can't make Brad Pitt suck.
3. Waste of Samuel L Jackson. If you're gonna have a narrator in the first part of the movie, have one in the second part.

Finally got a chance to see this. I completely agree with these 3 schild points. It was complete wankery of the type only Tarantino can do. The Basterds were immaterial to the story, interchangeable both on an individual level and as a group. It's like Tarantino had 3 stories he couldn't bother to flesh out into individual stories, so he mashed them all 3 into one jumbled up mess of a story that was part weirdo escapist Jewish revenge fantasy, part torture porn, and part Dirty Dozen homage. The SS guy being the only really interesting character was an utter disappointment, because it wasted a good performance on a supporting character in a movie that made little sense.

[Musashi]

Yea, but Waltz was magnificent.  That's one of the best characters I've seen in any movie for a long time.  And although it pains me, you pretty much have to give it up to Tarantino for writing that part.  Obviously, without Waltz giving a excellent performance, I don't think that the writing gets as much notice.  But that part is well written, and I don't think that can be denied. 

The rest of the movie is pretty boring.  If he would have spent more time on Pitt's character to act as the foil to Waltz's character, he might have had a movie.  As it is, the whole Dirty Dozenesque part of the movie survives on Pitt's raw charisma alone.  The other character's arc isn't even worth mentioning, and is probably the most terrible thing I've ever seen.

[HaemishM]

See, the Shoshanah character arc could have been interesting, had it been given any room to breathe. How did she come to own the cinema? Was she French Resistance the whole time or just keeping her head down to stay alive? That could have been a whole movie on its own, instead it was just a shitty plot device. The Sam Jackson narration was just lazy writing. 2 1/2 hours and you can't have character dialogue tell us about the nitrate in film? And the German sniper kid? He could have been a whole movie as well, with his obvious regret for all the deaths he caused, but again, one-dimensional character. Of course, Hans Landa could have been a compelling character all on his own with Waltz's acting but instead we barely get glimpses of the character and that only because of the great acting. It made his switch at the end lack any real punch - yet another plot device.

[Der Helm]

What I don't get is why you people do not hire actors who are native speakers of German to play German roles.

They can't be more expensive. 

[Engels]

Helm, I think in this particular instance its about the nature of the movie. Tarantino was making a 'jewsploitation' flick, for lack of a better term. Depicting Germans in a cartoon villain type way. You're probably also going to find this in any movie that's entirely about the Evil of The Nazis (tm). Schindler's List, for instance, could and probably should have had Schindler played by, you know, an actual German, if for anything else to heal some wounds between Germany and the Jewish diaspora.

I have a pet theory!! Folks feel free to correct me if they think otherwise and I will not be offended, nor do I mean any offense in saying this: Its too soon for many Jews to have actual Germans playing the roles of Nazis. This is not a criticism. Some crimes are so wounding that not till the children of the victims of the Holocaust are themselves gone from this earth will we be able to stomach an international/american movie with actual Germans as Nazis.

[Der Helm]

I this case... maybe...

But I see this everytime "Germans" appear in English movies or tv series... And not all of them are Nazis

You DO know that not all Germans are Nazis, right ? 

[Engels]

Yes, silly man. I'm German myself :P I'm talking only of Nazis depicted in American films.

As to why other American films not about Nazis but about Germans use English speaking actors, you can probably simply attribute that to the target audience. Americans really don't need 'authentic' Germans for the sake of the authenticity, any more than Braveheart needed an Authentic Scott.

Edit: Sorry, I missed your original point. My earlier reference to 'a boot' was a joke on the move Das Boot, one of the first great films that showed the average German grunt in WW2 as a hero of the narrative.

[Mosesandstick]

Out of interest, what is the boot? Downfall is one of those movies I need to see sometime.

[Der Helm]

Yes, silly man. I'm German myself :P I'm talking only of Nazis depicted in American films.

The last part was not aimed at you.

As to why other American films not about Nazis but about Germans use English speaking actors, you can probably simply attribute that to the target audience. Americans really don't need 'authentic' Germans for the sake of the authenticity, any more than Braveheart needed an Authentic Scott.

But there must be hunders of native German speakers avaible. Why not use them.   

[Engels]

I'm probably just having an old man moment, but I'm having difficulty remembering a film that had a German as a main or secondary actor that was -not- about WW2.

[HaemishM]

Americans cannot accept any accents other than English and occasionally French in their movies. Anyone that isn't American speaks with a British accent.

[Rendakor]

Isn't Waltz a native German speaker anyway? I thought he was Austrian.

[Tebonas]

Right on both accounts.

[Trippy]

I'm probably just having an old man moment, but I'm having difficulty remembering a film that had a German as a main or secondary actor that was -not- about WW2.

Franka Potente?

[Chimpy]

I'm probably just having an old man moment, but I'm having difficulty remembering a film that had a German as a main or secondary actor that was -not- about WW2.

The Bourne Identity

[sickrubik]

I'm probably just having an old man moment, but I'm having difficulty remembering a film that had a German as a main or secondary actor that was -not- about WW2.

Most german cinema?

[Engels]

I misspoke! I meant to ask if there's been any ROLES that were German, other than Nazis, in American movies. The original question by Der Helm was why we don't use German native speakers for German roles, and I was having trouble thinking of non-Nazi roles that were of German nationality.

[Trippy]

I misspoke! I meant to ask if there's been any ROLES that were German, other than Nazis, in American movies. The original question by Der Helm was why we don't use German native speakers for German roles, and I was having trouble thinking of non-Nazi roles that were of German nationality.

Franka Potente?

(Marie in Bourne Identity is German)