Thirith on 16/7/2009 at 13:42
Quote Posted by DDL
It's just text, so you could probably read it in work. But think VC snipers. Think utterly utterly horrible VC snipers.
Repeatedly shooting bits off the face of a medic trying to save someone, then shooting the next potential rescuer in both legs and then the groin, and then when he tries to kill himself, shooting him in the hand so he can't. And so on. And getting away with it. No payback here, just horrible things happening to people.God, that is pretty horrible. Not sure I'd feel up to reading this. Michael Herr's
Dispatches was already bad enough.
It's been 10+ years since I saw
Full Metal Jacket, but I thought the second half wasn't bad as such - it just suffered from being attached to a brilliant first half. Then again, I might feel different if I watched it again.
henke on 16/7/2009 at 14:31
Wow that would have been a much more memorable ending to the film. But if Kubrik didn't go for it I trust there is a good reason. His adaptation of A Clockwork Orange is the best book-to-movie adaptation I've seen.
Dia on 16/7/2009 at 14:34
Quote Posted by Ostriig
I've lost my interest for Tarantino's stuff on the whole. Some of his stuff made for an entertaining one-time watch, and I still like Pulp Fiction in general, but I've really kinda had my fill of his gimmick.
Agreed. I'm tired of watching dislikeable characters doing pointless things for two hours and then seeing everybody die at the end.
Fingernail on 15/8/2009 at 23:21
Saw this tonight; enjoyable, found it interesting all the way through (more than I can say for Deathproof), and had some great characters (Landa especially) and scenes (the lengthy bar scene I and one friend found enthralling, the other of my friends thought lagged).
However, the whole thing was a rather strange exercise in (what? wish fulfillment, or "what if?") and bizarrely morally ambiguous. For me, in many situations it had the effect of humanising Nazi characters more than you might expect, and dehumanising the Basterds, or at least lowering everybody to the same level (so to support the Basterds in all they do it requires everyone to go in with the basic assumption that Werhmacht uniform = jew murderer = worthy of a gruesome death, which is a touchy one). Also audience laughing at strangulation scene :joke:
SubJeff on 16/8/2009 at 00:28
Was it funny though?
Fingernail on 16/8/2009 at 08:29
The strangulation? The best I can do is say that it was funny in the way that watching someone panic and flail around when they realise they're probably dying and running out of oxygen is funny! And it's a character whose side we're on! I'm pretty sure it wasn't played for comedy. Probably a case of people letting off pressure from the preceeding tension, coupled with the fact that after all, it's not an especially serious film.
Other bits of the film were certainly quite funny though.
Muzman on 16/8/2009 at 11:08
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
And then Death Proof, a literal car wreck of a movie, a fucking mess with one fantastic scene.
A little late to the party, but this is the problem with that film. QT set out to make an old exploitation film. It's hard to say if its for parody or whatever. The thing is he succeeded in every possible way; aside from the price (one of the dumber aspects of the Grindhouse project) Death Proof is exactly like a crappy old exploitation film.
Rodriguez chose the romanticised version of fun loving, devil-may-care gonzo filmmaking we think of when we the era comes up. Tarantino made the real thing. (this doesn't mean you're supposed to like it)
Fingernail on 16/8/2009 at 11:30
I think that might be my issue with Basterds; it's hard to know on what level to take it. Spaghetti Western-gone-WWII, yeah that's fine, but I don't think you can just jettison all the baggage WWII and the Nazis bring with them and just use the costumes and settings, and he doesn't do that anyway, we're shown (albeit simplistically) the weird world and psychopathic nature of people like Goebbels.
And to read it as a Jewish revenge fantasy is also rather disturbing, I doubt that most people would think it appropriate or "right" for such an eye-for-an-eye kind of response, surely the holocaust and the Nazis' treatment of the Jews would be wrong carried out on any people for any reason. Especially given that the only real impact the Basterds have is when they actually do something operational - blow up the cinema and end the war - rather than simply terrorising random patrols.
So really, the best recourse is that it's a film about films about the war (and other films) more than anything. I honestly think he can't be trying to say anything about war itself or the Nazis. I mean, comedy Hitler says it all really, and when he meets his end, it's as a grotesque symbol of Hitlers more than anything else. The scene where the cinema audience are burnt alive and machine gunned is pretty horrible, and I actually felt a bit sorry for Zoller when he meets his end, caught once again in the wrong place at the wrong time. Shoshanna was pretty good (good and pretty), and especially the meeting between her and Landa was very tense.
The couple of weak points plot-wise for me were as pointed out in one review, the fact that the two plans to blow up/burn down the cinema don't actually compete at all but rather just coincidentally happen together was perhaps a missed opportunity for more will they/won't they stuff. The other point is perhaps a minor quibble, but in the bar scene you would've thought someone (most of all the officer) would recognise Stiglitz, given that "everyone in the army" knows who he is, and we've seen him plastered on a newspaper earlier on - ok it was a few years earlier, but still. Landa recognises the body, and ok, he's a pretty clever guy and it's his business, but it's odd nonetheless. Also that the Basterds didn't think to remove the evidence of Brigit von Hammersmark from the bar. D'oh!
David on 20/8/2009 at 11:37
I saw it last night. It's pretty good, about as Tarantino-y as I expected, but he really did a good job of ripping me out of the story with the chapter screens - could have done without that.
