Inglorious Basterds

[Vendetta]

I highly recommend it to anyone who loves seeing Nazis get what's coming to them. ;)

[LOLseph Stalin]

I've heard some good reviews although my friend is still skeptical. I am dying to see it though. I love to see Nazis getting blown up. :laugh:

[Vendetta]

I've heard some good reviews although my friend is still skeptical. I am dying to see it though. I love to see Nazis getting blown up. :laugh:

Blown up is an understatement. ;)

[Bilan]

I enjoyed it.

[ZeroNowhere]

It sounds incredibly boring from your description of it.

[Pawn Power]

The film got terrible reviews, here is a taste; http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2009/aug/21/brad-pitt-quentin-tarantino-inglourious-basterds-reel-review

and a one star review

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/aug/19/inglourious-basterds-review-brad-pitt-quentin-tarantino

after those to doozies I don't know if it is worth seeing.

[Vendetta]

The film got terrible reviews, here is a taste; http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2009/aug/21/brad-pitt-quentin-tarantino-inglourious-basterds-reel-review

and a one star review

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/aug/19/inglourious-basterds-review-brad-pitt-quentin-tarantino

after those to doozies I don't know if it is worth seeing.

:confused: Most of the reviews I've seen have it totally in a different light.

But whatever, still highly recommend it.

[Pawn Power]

:confused: Most of the reviews I've seen have it totally in a different light.

But whatever, still highly recommend it.

If your getting you reviews from US sources (particularity stuff like usa today, entertainment mags, etc) the reviews are almost always good, at least not bad, because they want us to go out and CONSUME more movies. :lol:

They have vested financial interest to convince us that we should see the movie, and bring our friends too.

[Sasha]

a movie theater in seatle put this up before taking it down again after complaints:

http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2009/08/21/1250895213-unknown.jpg

holy fuck :scared:

[Pirate Utopian]

To be fair, The Holocaust was a pretty bad movie.

I'll probably check this movie out but not in the cinema, I'll wait until somebody puts it online.

[Angry Young Man]

I don't usually go for braindead violence, but as it's Nazis on the arse-end I might make an exception. It's like hardcore christians who don't go down for torture porn but saw Passion of the Christ.

[Plagueround]

I really liked it. Definitely not for the squeamish. They also get props for giving credit to some of the greatest guerrilla fighters to ever live. ;)

[Invader Zim]

The film got terrible reviews, here is a taste; http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2009/aug/21/brad-pitt-quentin-tarantino-inglourious-basterds-reel-review

and a one star review

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/aug/19/inglourious-basterds-review-brad-pitt-quentin-tarantino

after those to doozies I don't know if it is worth seeing.

Naturally the Guardian considers itself and its readership above the type of crass entertainment provided by Tarantino. However, the Guardian reviewers are in a clear minority (http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/inglourious_basterds/).

It also has a reasonable score on IMDb. That said I saw that Mark Kermode (one of the best film critics in the buisness) gave it a very mixed review on his show, praising individual scenes/chapter, but attacking the failure of the film to hold together and a single coherant unit.

I look forward to seeing it.

[Uncle Hank]

Though it's Tarantino, who especially recently has been disappointing, almost anything with killin' Nazis will have my view and most likely positive review.

[LOLseph Stalin]

I should stalk scumfront and see if they have said anything about it. It will be interesting to know their perspective on it.

Well everybody, here's scumfront's perspective on it: http://www.***************/forum/showthread.php?t=631052 :laugh:

[Bilan]

Their reviews are inane as half the ones I've seen here.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

From the scumfront link

"I think Inglorious basterds looks insulting. My grandmother actually cried seeing the commercial, her father worked at a concentration camp, and many other family members served in the third reich. It looks like all it's about is mocking Hitler and the third reich."

:laugh:

[brigadista]

are the bad us reviews to do with most of the film being in french and german and therefore subtitled?

[TheCultofAbeLincoln]

Probably not, probably mostly do to the fact that it's not exactly going to win any awards. And it's a tasteless over-the-top Tarantino flick. But who gives a fuck, Reservoir Dogs got horrible reviews. You can still look up Eberts, he gave it one star.

I thought that flick was bad ass. One thing though, thought the most memorable character (by far) wasn't Pitt but Colonel Hans Landa. Fucking pure evil with a goofy smile.

And I have to say, the Nazis had some pretty goddamn good looking uniforms. The uniform of Zoller at the end, white jacket with emblems on the sleeve, looked damn good. I wish our unis were that stylish.

By the way, How about Nations Pride? :lol: 2 hours of a dude sniping, taking a break to carve a swatsika into the wood, then back to sniping. That would be a horrible movie to watch.

[Pirate Utopian]

From the scumfront link

"I think Inglorious basterds looks insulting. My grandmother actually cried seeing the commercial, her father worked at a concentration camp, and many other family members served in the third reich. It looks like all it's about is mocking Hitler and the third reich."

:laugh:
:lol::lol::lol:

That's hilarious.

[berlitz23]

as usual i am in the minority, i absolutely detested this movie, I support the message of "killing nazis", but it is taratino I have to acquiesce to the idea that gratitious violence is the staple of his films.

[Comrade Akai]

I hate Nazis with a passion, so I would probably enjoy this movie.

[Rakhmetov]

I highly recommend it to anyone who loves seeing Nazis get what's coming to them. ;)

I saw this movie and was dissapointed.
This kind of movie just reinforces AmeriKKKsn jingoism. It has no perspective on class struggle. Pure garbage.

[Intifadah]

I enjoyed it, Colonel Landa is a great charachter on screen. The opening scene is superb in my honest opinion.

[Blackscare]

If your getting you reviews from US sources (particularity stuff like usa today, entertainment mags, etc) the reviews are almost always good, at least not bad, because they want us to go out and CONSUME more movies. :lol:

They have vested financial interest to convince us that we should see the movie, and bring our friends too.

Good thing there's no capitalism in Britain.



It has no perspective on class struggle. Pure garbage.

Oh come on, you can't expect most/many mainstream movies to have some sort of leftist class-struggle undertones. If you judge movies based on that, you may as well write off 95% of them.

[Nwoye]

I saw this movie and was dissapointed.
This kind of movie just reinforces AmeriKKKsn jingoism. It has no perspective on class struggle. Pure garbage.
Mengistu: "if there is no class struggle, it's garbage."

:laugh:

[makesi]

Probably over 95% of American movies are pure garbage.

This doesn't mean you can't watch them, but you should at least be able to recognize trash for what it is.

(Oh, and some movies shouldn't be watched or even permitted to be made.)

[spiltteeth]

I really enjoyed it, he used alot of Hitchcock suspense and Sergo Lenoni shots, the whole movie is kind of an homage to...well, better movies.
Still, I thought the direction was superb. Alot of humor, less bloody by far than I expected.
Not cliche, just fun.

[Wanted Man]

I should stalk scumfront and see if they have said anything about it. It will be interesting to know their perspective on it.

Well everybody, here's scumfront's perspective on it: http://www.***************/forum/showthread.php?t=631052 :laugh:

Well, to be fair, you can read some hilarious jokes over there:



Brad Pitt's....walking retard
Brad Pitt is also a turd... a walking returd.

ZOMG LOL LOL.

[LeninKobaMao]

To be honest with you me and my friend walked out of the cinema. :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing: :cursing:

[Sam_b]

I think the point of it is to satirise the US blood-and-guts 'hero' war film, but yes the gratuitous violence shtick is a part of Tarantino's films in large. TBH I don't really watch Tarantino flicks for historical accuracy, I do very much enjoy them after a few drinks and a smoke. I reccommend watching Death Proof on cheap speed however :lol:

[Jimmie Higgins]

I thought "Death Proof" was pretty hilarious even though everyone I saw it with liked the terrible and generic and massively sexist zombie movie "Planet Terror" (and I love zombie movies by the way). The revenge on the sexist sociopath in "Death Proof" was pretty satisfying though and almost made sitting through the first movie worth it (and I hate car stunt and slasher movies - so go figure).

I haven't seen this new one yet but I think the Guardian review probably made a pretty sharp comment when it said that this movie isn't about the history of WWII, it's a movie about the history of movies about WWII. Tarintino's Hollywood schlock fanboydom is his best asset and greatest flaw as a director.

[Pirate Utopian]

Grindhouse was entertaining because I love exploitation movies and therefore knew what they were aiming for.

Death Proof for example reminds me of Russ Meyer movies like Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

[Sasha]

Death Proof for example reminds me of Russ Meyer movies like Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

tarintino already bought the rights to make an remake of faster pusycat! kill! kill! (and asked britney spears to be the leading lady :laugh:)

[Pirate Utopian]

For real?

Is the leading lady the one who gets kidnapped or the hardass leader of the gang who does the kidnapping?

[RedScare]

as usual i am in the minority, i absolutely detested this movie, I support the message of "killing nazis", but it is taratino I have to acquiesce to the idea that gratitious violence is the staple of his films.
But that's generally the point of the whole thing, for tarantino. His movies are usually so over-the-top in violence that it's meant to parody the style of most action movies in America.

[communard resolution]

tarintino already bought the rights to make an remake of faster pusycat! kill! kill! (and asked britney spears to be the leading lady :laugh:)

Oh no! Is nothing sacred?

@ Pirate: I presume the leading character would be Tura Satana's character, i.e. the hardass gang leader - though I think the annoying all-American girl who gets kidnapped would suit Britney much better.

[Pirate Utopian]

Oh no! Is nothing sacred?
Yeah I had with all these remakes. They're even remaking They Live, The Wolf Man and The Creature From The Black Lagoon.


@ Pirate: I presume the leading character would be Tura Satana's character, i.e. the hardass gang leader - though I think the annoying all-American girl who gets kidnapped would suit Britney much better.
Agreed.

[Sarah Palin]

I absolutely love Tarantino, so I will be seeing this in the near future, regardless of reviews.

[x359594]

I really enjoyed it, he used alot of Hitchcock suspense and Sergo Lenoni shots, the whole movie is kind of an homage to...well, better movies.
Still, I thought the direction was superb. Alot of humor, less bloody by far than I expected.
Not cliche, just fun.

Nihilistic conformism is an incredibly compact and apt summation of Tarantino’s underlying worldview.

I might have been happy to consume the movie as mindless fun if I had found it enjoyable. But something stuck halfway down, and I had to get it analyzed. And I don’t think you can say “a movie where Nazis get the shit beat out of them by Americans, the French, and Jews…” isn’t political. The unique feature here is the celebration of American Jews using Nazi cruelty against Nazis, which certainly has political implications.

I was wondering today about why I found QT’s Hitchcock reference (cigarette in the cream) so objectionable, and my companera pointed out that it’s oddly out of character for the precise, mannerly and effete Col. Landa to do something so pointlessly grubby. Unless it’s part of the film’s “All Nazis are disgusting in every imaginable way” schtick. It seemed of a piece with the opening scene’s meaningless John Ford quotation, where framing Shosanna in the doorway of the house is a reflexive bit of gimcrackery rather than an iconic fusion of story and subtext.

[JohannGE]

If it pisses scumfront so much, it can't be all bad. :)

"mocking Hitler and the third reich" whatever next?

I will await the torrent.

[revolution inaction]

If it pisses scumfront so much, it can't be all bad. :)

"mocking Hitler and the third reich" whatever next?

I will await the torrent.

theres several already, i got it this morning from demonoid, haven't watched it yet.

[communard resolution]

I haven't seen the movie yet, but an acquataintance of mine, who is a very right-wing English Jew, loved it (and before you ask, yes it can be a real pain in the ass being around him). So knowing him, I expect the movie's 'anti-fascism' to be grounded in national chauvinism whereby Germans = Nazis.

In the UK, you get this kind of thing a lot - many people 'oppose Nazism' because "the Germans" attacked Britain, but that doesn't keep them from voting BNP and being British ultra-nationalists and racists. It's all about Churchill, "England's finest hour", and anti-German xenophobia rather than anti-fascism.

Maybe I'll be able to enjoy the movie on a mindless level in the vein of Indiana Jones.

[x359594]

I haven't seen the movie yet, but an acquataintance of mine, who is a very right-wing English Jew, loved it (and before you ask, yes it can be a real pain in the ass being around him). So knowing him, I expect the movie's 'anti-fascism' to be grounded in national chauvinism whereby Germans = Nazis...Maybe I'll be able to enjoy the movie on a mindless level in the vein of Indiana Jones.

It occurred to me that IB will have a long life as a favorite of the JDL the way Triumph of the Will is a favorite of Christian Identity and other neo-Nazi groups.

And here's a clue to QT's ideological presuppositions:

“Vengeance seems to be a subject about which Tarantino the person, as well as Tarantino the filmmaker, has strong feelings; his onscreen treatment of it as something both necessary and satisfying are reflected offscreen as well. 'If I had a gun and a 12-year-old kid broke into this house,' he told the critic J. Hoberman in a 1996 interview, 'I would kill him. You have no right to come into my house…I would empty the gun until you were dead.'"

Finally, the Indiana Jones films are utterly regressive, the worst examples of Spielberg's oeuvre in my view.

[Rakhmetov]

Good thing there's no capitalism in Britain.




Oh come on, you can't expect most/many mainstream movies to have some sort of leftist class-struggle undertones. If you judge movies based on that, you may as well write off 95% of them.


I do write of 95% er ... well 99% of them. Most movies nowadays are made by corporations and the corporations are fascist institutions. Even that Batman movie --- a billionaire who cares. Give me a break.

[Pirate Utopian]

I do write of 95% er ... well 99% of them. Most movies nowadays are made by corporations and the corporations are fascist institutions. Even that Batman movie --- a billionaire who cares. Give me a break.
But then you can cheer for The Joker, I know I do.

Are you saying all movies which arent about class conflict are bad?
Even classics like A Clockwork Orange? Shaft? Pink Flamingos? Mondo Cane? Night of the Living Dead? Dr. Strangelove? Plan 9 From Outer Space?

[Red October]

I saw it and had a good time. It's just a few hours of Nazis having their shit wrecked, and who can argue with that? "Boo hoo they don't talk about class struggle" :crying::crying::crying:, get over it. Also, Christoph Waltz was fucking awesome, even though his character is a nazi.

[Sarah Palin]

"Boo hoo they don't talk about class struggle" :crying::crying::crying:, get over it.

Yeah really.

I just got back from it. There is NO FUCKING DENYING, NONE AT ALL, that it is the best film of 2009, and definitely Tarantino's best. The opening scene in the French farmhouse? THAT IS A FUCKING WRITING/DIRECTING/ACTING MASTERPIECE. I could go on all night, but it'll just leave me drooling to see it again. Can't forget though, the acting was superb. Christopher Waltz was amazing, as was Brad Pitt. And I must say, I got into some of the characters so much I was hurt when they died (None of the Nazis though, good riddance).

[Guerrilla22]

I was kinda disappointed. I wanted to see more action, less conversation. I was bored throughout the film, until the ending, which was great, however it could have been much better.

[gkgrenegade]

I personally loved this movie since i am a huge tarantino fan. Definately one of the greatest and bad ass revenge tales i don't know anyone who wouldn't like it... unless tehy were nazis haha jk:D

[#FF0000]

I thought the movie was fantastic, and the folks here focusing on the outlandish violence really aren't giving it enough credit. The acting is fantastic, especially from Christoph Waltz, who pretty much flooded every scene he was in with tension.

It was good.

[#FF0000]

I do write of 95% er ... well 99% of them. Most movies nowadays are made by corporations and the corporations are fascist institutions.

You know the class-struggle perspective is pretty new, right?

Does that mean there has never been a good work of art in history, because not very much of it talked about class-struggle.

[RedAnarchist]

I'm not a big fan of revenge/vengeance (That quote from Tarantino about murdering some kid just because he went into his house is disgusting, and any respect that I had for him has vanished), but this film sounds great.

I remember watching another film where Israeli agents went to Argentina and caught some Nazi on the run and took him to Israel to face justice, that was a good film.

[Sarah Palin]

I think what Tarantino achieved in this was the movie as an experience. Whereas other directors try to draw you into a real world that you could probably be a part of, Tarantino over exaggerates everything, from the title sequences, to the gore, to the dialogue, and that's what I really enjoyed about it. The over exaggeration.

[absurd_planet]

-financial times

Zizek is obsessed with the way that societies interpret events and the belief systems that underpin politics. One of the most powerful ideological “factories”, he argues, is Hollywood, which is influential in forging our understanding of the world. Zizek admits he enjoys many Hollywood films and says that the best, such as Robert Altman’s Short Cuts (1993), deserve to be called art and are superior to many “fake” European films. But, he suggests, Hollywood also serves an ideological purpose, shaping the way we lead our lives. “I don’t mean big ideological schemes. All that’s dead, I know. What interests me is ideology as part of everyday life,” he says. “My interest is: what’s the message? I like to find a different texture which gives another story.”
Take Titanic (1997). Most viewers see it as a straightforward love story. Not Zizek. Many critics noted the anti-establishment tone of the film: how the rich passengers are cruel while those on the lower decks are far more sympathetic. But, according to Zizek, the film reinforces the social order rather than subverts it. The true narrative concerns a spoiled, rich girl who has lost her identity. She takes a lower-class lover to restore her vitality, to put her ego image together, he says. The lover literally draws her picture. “And then, after his job is done, he can f*** off and disappear. He is – what I would call in theory – a pure vanishing mediator. It is not a love story. It is vampiric, egotistic exploitation.”

[Pirate Utopian]

I saw it. It wasnt Tarantino's best but it was enjoyable.

I dont know why so many people consider this so violent, I've seen way more violent movies than this, every other Tarantino movie for example.

[#FF0000]

I saw it. It wasnt Tarantino's best but it was enjoyable.

I dont know why so many people consider this so violent, I've seen way more violent movies than this, every other Tarantino movie for example.

Yeah that's true. It was far more tame than I expected.

[Dimentio]

Tarantino is one of my idols. He could do whatever he would ever want to do :laugh:

[LOLseph Stalin]

I do write of 95% er ... well 99% of them. Most movies nowadays are made by corporations and the corporations are fascist institutions. Even that Batman movie --- a billionaire who cares. Give me a break.

Wow, just wow. Movies are just movies. In my opinion some people take movies way too seriously. Whatever happened to entertainment?

Anyway, I just watched Inglorious Basterds last night and loved it. However, I was expecting more action and less dialogue, but I do feel that much of the dialogue was necessary to make the plot move along. The ending was absolutely great too. Being a Tarantino movie I was expecting more violence and gore though.

[Abc]

anybody who likes seeing nazis get killed, needs to see it also the ending is fucking epic

[9]

From the scumfront link

"I think Inglorious basterds looks insulting. My grandmother actually cried seeing the commercial, her father worked at a concentration camp, and many other family members served in the third reich. It looks like all it's about is mocking Hitler and the third reich."

:laugh:

Well, its true, who could be insensitive enough to offend those concentration camp workers? :lol:

[bezdomni]

Parts of the movie were directed really well (like the opening scene, and the cinema burning down with the video playing)...but overall I think it represented some really bad politics. Also, most of the characters were really weak (very disappointed with brad pitt) and parts of the story made little sense.

I think it is very hard to make a movie about nazism and world war II without being flippant or disrespectful to the millions of people who died and suffered. This seems especially difficult for Americans, probably because they lost so little and gained so much from the war.

It seemed like the whole idea of the movie was just an American militaristic wet dream, where the macho group of badass guerrillas stamp out german soldiers like they are animals and win the war entirely by themselves.

Politically, the movie made two really horrible abstractions.

First, it reduced Nazism to simply being extreme anti-semitism. It gave the impression that the nazis were invading europe simply to capture and exterminate all of the jews (and only jews). The war and the holocaust were very complex events, I think to not explore any other dimensions of what happened is very wrong.

Second, german soldiers were completely dehumanized and torture/execution of german soldiers was explicitly justified. I am totally fine with seeing a swastika carved into the head of an SS captain, or Hitler's face get blown off with a machine gun (although it was kind of childish). However, I think it is extremely fucked up to not make a very clear distinction between german soldiers who were forced into combat against their will and the murderous fucking pigs in the SS. Soldiers in the german army were not nazis (well, probably some were), and it is extremely disrespectful I think to treat people who had no choice but to fight and die for something they didn't believe in as being the same as those who consciously and willingly went along with nazism and the holocaust. You wouldn't appluad a movie where viet cong soldiers mowed down entire groups of US soldiers that were conscripted into the imperialist army against their will, even though there was an imperative for revolutionaries to support the military defeat of the United States by the viet cong. I am actually really surprised at how many people in this thread fail to realize that it is the oppressed who have to carry out the wars of their oppressors.

I also really hated how america-tastic the movie was. So Brad Pitt (who is part "injun", so you know he's a brutal fuck) is some macho coke-snorting hick from Tennessee who travels with a band of "jews" devoid of anything resembling a personality that slavishly carry out his orders? His hatred for "gnatsies" is never explained, and the whole scalping/native american references were pretty offensive and completely unnecessary. I really hated brad pitt in this movie.

There are lots of fucked up american movies that (consciously or unconsciously, I'm not sure) try to completely rewrite history by showing nazism get defeated without the soviet union doing anything. Inglorious Basterds isn't the first movie to do this, and it won't be the last. I can't express how deeply, horribly fucked up I think it is to make a movie about the defeat of nazism without even mentioning the existence of a soviet union. Over 20 million soviet people died in the war, entire towns were destroyed, major cities were slowly asphyxiated by the nazi military. If it wasn't for the bravery of countless soviet people defending their homes and country from being enslaved by nazis - the war would not have ended the way it did.

Really, the whole movie is riddled with awful national chauvinism.

The movie potrays a sterotypical flamboyant brit, cowardly frenchmen, aggressive and short-tempered germans and macho heroic americans.

Seriously. Fuck this chauvinist piece of shit movie.

[Das war einmal]

There are a few good scenes, mainly the first one, but I did not enjoy it as much as I would have expected. A few faint smiles appeared on my face from time to time but I found it a bit childish. I dont think if Tarantino wasn't renowned for his earlier work the movie would have got so much favorable reviews. I found it slightly distasteful as well.

[berlitz23]

Thank you Soviet Pants!

[LOLseph Stalin]

More scumfront reviews of this movie: http://www.***************/forum/showthread.php?t=632517 :laugh:

[Manifesto]

More scumfront reviews of this movie: http://www.***************/forum/showthread.php?t=632517 :laugh:
Haha Captain Obvious on Stormfront noticed how a movie about killing Nazis is directed towards them.

[communard resolution]

Haha Captain Obvious on Stormfront noticed how a movie about killing Nazis is directed towards them.

Have they decided that Tarantino is a Jew yet?

[x359594]

anybody who likes seeing nazis get killed, needs to see it also the ending is fucking epic

Spoiler Alert!

The movie is also an alternate history sci-fi piece; the war in Europe ends in July 1944 instead of May 1945. The interesting question is, what does that mean for the Asian theater of the war? Maybe QT will produce a sequel and let Miike Takashii direct with Sonny Chiba leading a commando team of Japanese Americans behind the lines in Japan who succeed in killing the Emperor and the military high command at at a Kabuki performance, thus sparing the island from a bombs.

[Sasha]

More scumfront reviews of this movie: http://www.***************/forum/showthread.php?t=632517 :laugh:

jezus christ, and i thought dutch nazi's where stupid but compared to these US knuckle draggers they are academics.

[Dimentio]

Parts of the movie were directed really well (like the opening scene, and the cinema burning down with the video playing)...but overall I think it represented some really bad politics. Also, most of the characters were really weak (very disappointed with brad pitt) and parts of the story made little sense.

I think it is very hard to make a movie about nazism and world war II without being flippant or disrespectful to the millions of people who died and suffered. This seems especially difficult for Americans, probably because they lost so little and gained so much from the war.

It seemed like the whole idea of the movie was just an American militaristic wet dream, where the macho group of badass guerrillas stamp out german soldiers like they are animals and win the war entirely by themselves.

Politically, the movie made two really horrible abstractions.

First, it reduced Nazism to simply being extreme anti-semitism. It gave the impression that the nazis were invading europe simply to capture and exterminate all of the jews (and only jews). The war and the holocaust were very complex events, I think to not explore any other dimensions of what happened is very wrong.

Second, german soldiers were completely dehumanized and torture/execution of german soldiers was explicitly justified. I am totally fine with seeing a swastika carved into the head of an SS captain, or Hitler's face get blown off with a machine gun (although it was kind of childish). However, I think it is extremely fucked up to not make a very clear distinction between german soldiers who were forced into combat against their will and the murderous fucking pigs in the SS. Soldiers in the german army were not nazis (well, probably some were), and it is extremely disrespectful I think to treat people who had no choice but to fight and die for something they didn't believe in as being the same as those who consciously and willingly went along with nazism and the holocaust. You wouldn't appluad a movie where viet cong soldiers mowed down entire groups of US soldiers that were conscripted into the imperialist army against their will, even though there was an imperative for revolutionaries to support the military defeat of the United States by the viet cong. I am actually really surprised at how many people in this thread fail to realize that it is the oppressed who have to carry out the wars of their oppressors.

I also really hated how america-tastic the movie was. So Brad Pitt (who is part "injun", so you know he's a brutal fuck) is some macho coke-snorting hick from Tennessee who travels with a band of "jews" devoid of anything resembling a personality that slavishly carry out his orders? His hatred for "gnatsies" is never explained, and the whole scalping/native american references were pretty offensive and completely unnecessary. I really hated brad pitt in this movie.

There are lots of fucked up american movies that (consciously or unconsciously, I'm not sure) try to completely rewrite history by showing nazism get defeated without the soviet union doing anything. Inglorious Basterds isn't the first movie to do this, and it won't be the last. I can't express how deeply, horribly fucked up I think it is to make a movie about the defeat of nazism without even mentioning the existence of a soviet union. Over 20 million soviet people died in the war, entire towns were destroyed, major cities were slowly asphyxiated by the nazi military. If it wasn't for the bravery of countless soviet people defending their homes and country from being enslaved by nazis - the war would not have ended the way it did.

Really, the whole movie is riddled with awful national chauvinism.

The movie potrays a sterotypical flamboyant brit, cowardly frenchmen, aggressive and short-tempered germans and macho heroic americans.

Seriously. Fuck this chauvinist piece of shit movie.

Its Tarantino. He's on the level of a ten-year old. A really brilliant ten-year old, but nevertheless a ten-year old

[Dean]

Does anybody remember in 1984 when Orwell talks about fictional movies wherein they depict helicopters firing on refugees - to which the audience laughs hysterically?

That's exactly what this movie is. It's revolting.

[Led Zeppelin]

Wow, this movie is so ridiculously overrated. I went in expecting a great movie and came out having seen a mediocre one. Mediocre at best.

First of all, the plot was incredibly boring. It seems as though Tarantino wrote the script for this movie in between masturbating and reading some shitty World War 2 history book. I haven't seen a movie with such bad lines in a long time, and I watch a lot of movies. The characters were pretty shitty as well, or at least developed shittily by Tarantino. The "Jew Bear", Stiglitz, and "Jew Hunter" were the only ones who stood out a little bit, a very little bit.

I know what Tarantino was trying to do. I could see his thought-process behind the scenes. It's just that he totally failed at what he wanted to achieve time after time. Take the first scalping scene. When I saw that, I couldn't give less of a shit about it. No one in the audience was shocked at all. No one cared. Of course Tarantino wanted people to be shocked and he tried to sneak it into the story by making it happen in the background while the characters were interacting with one another. Sorry, it didn't work, it just looked totally pointless and irrelevant.

The last burning scene was also cheesy as hell. Where have I seen that before? Right, that movie with the prom based on the Stephen King novel, Carrie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074285/). All the bad guys are assembled in one place. The doors are shut and they are trapped. A fire is started, and they all die. Very original Tarantino, very original.

I wish I had downloaded this movie instead of paying to see it. It wasn't worth it, at all.

[Pogue]

wonderfully wonderful film

[respectful87]

If it doesn't have a gay rape scene I think I'll be okay with it.


(Not anything against the gay individuals on this forum but the scene outta Pulp Fiction was uncalled for)

EDIT: After reading the reviews seems it sucks. Guess I won't bother with it.

[x359594]

...The last burning scene was also cheesy as hell. Where have I seen that before? Right, that movie with the graduation based on the Stephen King novel, Carrie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074285/). All the bad guys are assembled in one place. The doors are shut and they are trapped. A fire is started, and they all die. Very original Tarantino, very original...

Just about every scene in the movie is a quotation from another movie. QT is a cinephile and knows his stuff to that extent. For Kill Bill I and II I counted 24 quotations from other movies.

Anyone familiar with Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West will know where the first scene came from. Anyone familiar with Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen will know where the premise of the story came from. Anyone familiar with Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage, To Catch a Thief and Rebecca will know where half a dozen other scenes came from. Not to mention Tarantino's sampling of Ennio Morricone scores for virtually all the music cues in the movie (the exception being the Moroder/Bowie cue from Cat People.)

This is post-modernist filmmaking, intertextuality, etc. What the casual film goer makes of it is up to her.

[GregoryAButler]

I really enjoyed Inglorious Basterds it was a masterpiece - one of Tarantino's best!

Don't forget the scalpings and the baseball battings!


Blown up is an understatement. ;)

The Guardian is a pretentious upper class paper - plus, they're a British publication, and this is an American film, so there was a bit of nationalism in the mix too.


The film got terrible reviews, here is a taste;

and a one star review



after those to doozies I don't know if it is worth seeing.

Well, the inglorious bastards at Stormfront hated it - one women said it made her nazi concentration camp guard grandmother cry, because it insulted Hitler!

All the more reason to see Inglorious Basterds and if you've already seen it - see it again.

Any movie that makes Nazis cry is a great movie in my book!


I should stalk scumfront and see if they have said anything about it. It will be interesting to know their perspective on it.

Well everybody, here's scumfront's perspective on it: :laugh:

Thank you for the elitism!

And who gets to decide which movies shouldn't be watched or made?

As for me, I like fun when I go to the movies - and if that's "garbage" to you, and only boring arthouse political talkfests and tedious costume dramas are "good movies" then I'll stick with the "garbage" that you think "shouldn't be watched or made"!!!!!!


Probably over 95% of American movies are pure garbage.

This doesn't mean you can't watch them, but you should at least be able to recognize trash for what it is.

(Oh, and some movies shouldn't be watched or even permitted to be made.)

I liked Grindhouse too - although my favorite part was Planet Terror

Why exactly was it "massively sexist" - because the female lead was a stripper?

And, by American cinema standards, it really wasn't that sexist at all - I've seen at least 100 movies that were more sexist than Planet Terror

As for Deth Proof - one of the reasons I liked it was because of all the hot women wearing shorts in the movie (especially Rosario Dawson and Sydney Tamia Poitier!) - that was the best part... although the car chases were off the chain too!


I thought "Death Proof" was pretty hilarious even though everyone I saw it with liked the terrible and generic and massively sexist zombie movie "Planet Terror" (and I love zombie movies by the way). The revenge on the sexist sociopath in "Death Proof" was pretty satisfying though and almost made sitting through the first movie worth it (and I hate car stunt and slasher movies - so go figure).

I haven't seen this new one yet but I think the Guardian review probably made a pretty sharp comment when it said that this movie isn't about the history of WWII, it's a movie about the history of movies about WWII. Tarintino's Hollywood schlock fanboydom is his best asset and greatest flaw as a director.

What is wrong with that quote?

Wouldn't anybody react that way if somebody broke into their house seeking to do them harm?


I 'If I had a gun and a 12-year-old kid broke into this house,' he told the critic J. Hoberman in a 1996 interview, 'I would kill him. You have no right to come into my house…I would empty the gun until you were dead.'".

Couldn't have said it better myself!


Yeah really.

I just got back from it. There is NO FUCKING DENYING, NONE AT ALL, that it is the best film of 2009, and definitely Tarantino's best. The opening scene in the French farmhouse? THAT IS A FUCKING WRITING/DIRECTING/ACTING MASTERPIECE. I could go on all night, but it'll just leave me drooling to see it again. Can't forget though, the acting was superb. Christopher Waltz was amazing, as was Brad Pitt. And I must say, I got into some of the characters so much I was hurt when they died (None of the Nazis though, good riddance).

I'm a big fan of class revenge/vengeance - and I also have a soft spot for personal revenge as well.

And I'm not a big fan of burglary at all so I don't have a problem with Tarantino's willingness to defend his home by any means necessary from a burglar, irregardless of the burglar's age.

My respect for Tarantino has increased because of his statement that he would personally defend himself against a burglar - he's my kind of guy!


I'm not a big fan of revenge/vengeance (That quote from Tarantino about murdering some kid just because he went into his house is disgusting, and any respect that I had for him has vanished), but this film sounds great.

I remember watching another film where Israeli agents went to Argentina and caught some Nazi on the run and took him to Israel to face justice, that was a good film.

[ZeroNowhere]

There is an edit button, by the way.

[Matty_UK]

This was a horrible movie. Bear in mind it's not just killing Nazis - in case you haven't noticed, from feminazis to islamofascists and Chavez recast as the new Hitler, there's an ongoing ideological campaign to equate any opposition to American imperialism/capitalism with the Nazis. The overall message of the film is that outright brutality carried out by death squads is acceptable - the final scene, where a crowd of screaming defenseless people are murdered can only be justified by saying "well, they're nazis, true evil!" Before going along with this line of thought, think about all the Americans who believe that Hitler was a socialist (the brief reference to the Nazis as the "national socialist party" in the film is designed to confuse, and someone without decent historical knowledge would be led to believe this) and who see a new nazism in every resistance to US hegemony. The scene, in fact, is psychopathology staring you right in the face and I left the cinema feeling very disturbed indeed. It reminds me of the scene in 1984 where people are watching a film and laughing at the murder of defenceless unarmed enemies, but in fact, you don't even have to have read 1984 to see how messed up it is - the Nazi "Nation's Pride" movie featured in the film seems to be a mirror of Inglourious Basterds itself. 2 hours of relentless killing with no character development or point to it. I felt a chill watching the Nazis in the movie watching this film and laughing at the pointless killing, and recognising the people around me in the depraved mentality portrayed on screen.

There is no point to the film. It justifies itself by saying it's a satire of Hollywood movies, but it's not a particularly good satire - it is, actually, just a really extreme version of what we're meant to believe it's satirising so we don't feel so bad about watching it. There is no irony in the film, at all. I liken it to Mastercard's "The best things in life are free" and Persil's "dirt is good" adverts - it disavows itself to acheive some respectability, but in the end, it is still an advert - or in this case, disgusting cultural trash.

The strength of having Nazis filling in the cultural niche of evil incarnate is that leftists, the strongest opponents of fascism, will swallow it as well and cheer on to this sort of crap. It isn't Nazis being killed in the film - it's every socialist, feminist, third world nationalist, inter-imperialist competitor, anarchist, environmentalist - any opponent of US hegemony.

[9]

I can't believe how enormous the range of opinions here on this film seem to be. Its not the sort of movie I have any desire to see, but if I keep seeing new diametrically-opposed opinions, curiosity could potentially kill my cat, in which case I'll have to go see the movie.


Last edited by MarxSchmarx; Yesterday at 23:13. Reason: merged to enhance aesthetic value

I laughed at this.

[x359594]

...The strength of having Nazis filling in the cultural niche of evil incarnate is that leftists, the strongest opponents of fascism, will swallow it as well and cheer on to this sort of crap. It isn't Nazis being killed in the film - it's every socialist, feminist, third world nationalist, inter-imperialist competitor, anarchist, environmentalist - any opponent of US hegemony.

Exactly right comrade. Nazis are a soft target, and it's an easy move to link Nazis with any opponent of bourgeois hegemony; in the last Indiana Jones film the Soviets replaced the Nazis as the bad guys.

Tarantino is undoubtedly a skilled and talented filmmaker and a knowledgeable cinephile, but his ideas are shallow, his ideological suppositions are confused at best and his knowledge of the wider world puerile.

[Abc]

from stormfront

ignore this, they put it out there for a reason. Ignore it and don't react to it because this is what they are wanting. They are giggling behind the scenes - don't let yourself be their victim . This is their way of hurting us - don't be gullible is my feeling. One thing we can do is support the CIA because Obama wants this group completely destroyed . He'll replace it with some black goon group like the Black Panthers . Remember he has only been in office for seven months, and he intends on making America a Black dominated country and a Muslim one at that . The Nightmare has just begun .
:laugh: reading the SF reactions are almost better then the movie

[kharacter]

I do write of 95% er ... well 99% of them. Most movies nowadays are made by corporations and the corporations are fascist institutions. Even that Batman movie --- a billionaire who cares. Give me a break.
I must say I do so also. I'm basically down to watching solely Miyazaki films (former-Marxist). And unfortunately his newest film's English dub has a Jonas Brother and Hanna Montana's little siter doing voices. It's dirt disgusting.

[9]

I remember watching another film where Israeli agents went to Argentina and caught some Nazi on the run and took him to Israel to face justice, that was a good film.

Sarcasm, right?
Revisionist Zionism - the ideology held by the presently dominant Likud Party - actively sought collaboration with the Nazis and publicly admired their ideals.

[Leo]

I think people are sort of taking the message of this film too seriously, too directly as well as the film itself actually.

If anything, the film portrayed almost all different parties as mostly racist, barbaric and inhumane. Tarantino himself said something like "It'll be epic and have my take of the sociological battlefield at that time with the racism and barbarism on all sides – the Nazi side, the American side, the black and Jewish soldiers and the French, because it all takes place in France.

Almost all characters were extremely deformed, exaggerated and comical. The film itself was a satire and caricature of other stuff about WW2. One of the final scenes, there is the woman screaming "revenge of the Jew" and laughing in the most comical evil-witch sort of way. Is this not but a satire of movies like Munich and all?

I think it was a funny enough film in general, and superb in regards to directing techniques and great acting for the most part. There were some disturbingly violent scenes, I personally don't enjoy seeing that much blood and all in the cinema but it was after all a Tarantino film. LZ said there was no character development or deepening, which is of course true but I don't think that was something Tarantino tried to do anyway. There is no character development or deepening in any of his films.

[Yazman]

My favourite part was the bit where nazis got killed :D

Oh yeah, courtesy of a friend, figured I'd post this here. Thought you guys would find it amusing. He went to Stormfront and had a look at what nazis think of Inglourious Basterds:


So i couldnt help myself I JUST HAD to go to *************** and see what they thought, needless to say their anger made me LOL, here are some quotes

"I think Inglorious basterds looks insulting. My grandmother actually cried seeing the commercial, her father worked at a concentration camp, and many other family members served in the third reich. It looks like all it's about is mocking Hitler and the third reich."

" This propaganda movie will cause a surge of violence against white nationalists. Be prepared!"

"it's a piece of filth. It looks to be no more than a cartoonish glorification of moronic war criminals murdering legitimate Nazi soldiers in cold blood."

[Pirate Utopian]

" This propaganda movie will cause a surge of violence against white nationalists. Be prepared!"
Let's hope so.

[RHIZOMES]

Naturally the Guardian considers itself and its readership above the type of crass entertainment provided by Tarantino. However, the Guardian reviewers are in a clear minority (http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/inglourious_basterds/).

It also has a reasonable score on IMDb. That said I saw that Mark Kermode (one of the best film critics in the buisness) gave it a very mixed review on his show, praising individual scenes/chapter, but attacking the failure of the film to hold together and a single coherant unit.

I look forward to seeing it.

I would not trust IMDb ratings at all. Watchmen got a really high rating for example and I thought it was a piece of shit. The Dark Knight was the #1 film on the top 250 when it came out and while that movie is okay it is incredibly overrated.

But I woudn't trust the Guardian either.

[Pogue]

This was a horrible movie. Bear in mind it's not just killing Nazis - in case you haven't noticed, from feminazis to islamofascists and Chavez recast as the new Hitler, there's an ongoing ideological campaign to equate any opposition to American imperialism/capitalism with the Nazis. The overall message of the film is that outright brutality carried out by death squads is acceptable - the final scene, where a crowd of screaming defenseless people are murdered can only be justified by saying "well, they're nazis, true evil!" Before going along with this line of thought, think about all the Americans who believe that Hitler was a socialist (the brief reference to the Nazis as the "national socialist party" in the film is designed to confuse, and someone without decent historical knowledge would be led to believe this) and who see a new nazism in every resistance to US hegemony. The scene, in fact, is psychopathology staring you right in the face and I left the cinema feeling very disturbed indeed. It reminds me of the scene in 1984 where people are watching a film and laughing at the murder of defenceless unarmed enemies, but in fact, you don't even have to have read 1984 to see how messed up it is - the Nazi "Nation's Pride" movie featured in the film seems to be a mirror of Inglourious Basterds itself. 2 hours of relentless killing with no character development or point to it. I felt a chill watching the Nazis in the movie watching this film and laughing at the pointless killing, and recognising the people around me in the depraved mentality portrayed on screen.

There is no point to the film. It justifies itself by saying it's a satire of Hollywood movies, but it's not a particularly good satire - it is, actually, just a really extreme version of what we're meant to believe it's satirising so we don't feel so bad about watching it. There is no irony in the film, at all. I liken it to Mastercard's "The best things in life are free" and Persil's "dirt is good" adverts - it disavows itself to acheive some respectability, but in the end, it is still an advert - or in this case, disgusting cultural trash.

The strength of having Nazis filling in the cultural niche of evil incarnate is that leftists, the strongest opponents of fascism, will swallow it as well and cheer on to this sort of crap. It isn't Nazis being killed in the film - it's every socialist, feminist, third world nationalist, inter-imperialist competitor, anarchist, environmentalist - any opponent of US hegemony.

This is the biggest loads of bullshit I have ever read and is excactly the reason why leftist academics should never, ever analyse films. That last sentence made Jesus cry, its just so ridiculously stupid and false.

[Matty_UK]

This is the biggest loads of bullshit I have ever read and is excactly the reason why leftist academics should never, ever analyse films. That last sentence made Jesus cry, its just so ridiculously stupid and false.

Films reflect the mentality of, and help form, the collective mentality of whatever nation.

It's true that the alien invasion films of the 1950s (e.g. invasion of the body snatchers) were all based around fear of the soviets. Culture does not exist in a vacuum, nor is it ever politically neutral, and I do not believe that the recent trend of American cultural output making torture and brutality look acceptable (e.g. in 24 and in this film), pretty much unprecedented in all of human cultural history afaik, can be understood separately to real torture being made to be seen as necessary to fight terrorism. Nor can the revenge fantasy theme of the movie be seen outside the context of post-9/11 America.

But aside from that, the film is style without substance. I might even argue that Tarantino represents the apotheosis of capitalist consumer culture in film, which I think is a reasonable hypothesis, but I can't be bothered.

[Dimentio]

Films reflect the mentality of, and help form, the collective mentality of whatever nation.

It's true that the alien invasion films of the 1950s (e.g. invasion of the body snatchers) were all based around fear of the soviets. Culture does not exist in a vacuum, nor is it ever politically neutral, and I do not believe that the recent trend of American cultural output making torture and brutality look acceptable (e.g. in 24 and in this film), pretty much unprecedented in all of human cultural history afaik, can be understood separately to real torture being made to be seen as necessary to fight terrorism. Nor can the revenge fantasy theme of the movie be seen outside the context of post-9/11 America.

But aside from that, the film is style without substance. I might even argue that Tarantino represents the apotheosis of capitalist consumer culture in film, which I think is a reasonable hypothesis, but I can't be bothered.

Should we not take into consideration that mr Tarantino is... ehum... not quite like normal people are?

[Edelweiss]

Second, german soldiers were completely dehumanized and torture/execution of german soldiers was explicitly justified. I am totally fine with seeing a swastika carved into the head of an SS captain, or Hitler's face get blown off with a machine gun (although it was kind of childish). However, I think it is extremely fucked up to not make a very clear distinction between german soldiers who were forced into combat against their will and the murderous fucking pigs in the SS. Soldiers in the german army were not nazis (well, probably some were), and it is extremely disrespectful I think to treat people who had no choice but to fight and die for something they didn't believe in as being the same as those who consciously and willingly went along with nazism and the holocaust. You wouldn't appluad a movie where viet cong soldiers mowed down entire groups of US soldiers that were conscripted into the imperialist army against their will, even though there was an imperative for revolutionaries to support the military defeat of the United States by the viet cong. I am actually really surprised at how many people in this thread fail to realize that it is the oppressed who have to carry out the wars of their oppressors.


Boo, hoo. Bullshit. Being a German anti-fascist I enjoyed every single Nazi soldiers that got killed in it's various forms in this great movie and gave my applaud to it. That there is a "clean Wehrmacht" consisting of poor German working-class soldies who where forced into it and an evil SS that actually did all the war crimes is a fairytale spread by German national-conservatives. The Wehrmacht (=regular army) did commit war crimes just as terrible as the SS, this is a historical fact, and it really shouldn't be challenged by any leftist of the world in the name of "anti-chauvinism". Please, do me a favour, leave the whining about poor German soldiers being killed to the Nazis at stormfront.

[Pogue]

Films reflect the mentality of, and help form, the collective mentality of whatever nation.

It's true that the alien invasion films of the 1950s (e.g. invasion of the body snatchers) were all based around fear of the soviets. Culture does not exist in a vacuum, nor is it ever politically neutral, and I do not believe that the recent trend of American cultural output making torture and brutality look acceptable (e.g. in 24 and in this film), pretty much unprecedented in all of human cultural history afaik, can be understood separately to real torture being made to be seen as necessary to fight terrorism. Nor can the revenge fantasy theme of the movie be seen outside the context of post-9/11 America.

But aside from that, the film is style without substance. I might even argue that Tarantino represents the apotheosis of capitalist consumer culture in film, which I think is a reasonable hypothesis, but I can't be bothered.

I'm sorry but as I said this is just rubbish, based on your own all encompassing perspective where nothing can exist indepently of US Foreign policy. Its a film. He tends to make gory and humerous films. This is a gory and humerious film about Nazis being killed in typical Tarantino style. It has nothing to do with anything other than killing Nazis and its astounding and pathetic that you'd read as much into it as you do. Its quite simply perplexing that you chose to derive such conclusions about its message.

[Dimentio]

Boo, hoo. Bullshit. Being a German anti-fascist I enjoyed every single Nazi soldiers that got killed in it's various forms in this great movie and gave my applaud to it. That there is a "clean Wehrmacht" consisting of poor German working-class soldies who where forced into it and an evil SS that actually did all the war crimes is a fairytale spread by German national-conservatives. The Wehrmacht (=regular army) did commit war crimes just as terrible as the SS, this is a historical fact, and it really shouldn't be protected by any leftist of the world in the name of "anti-chauvinism". Please, do me a Cavour, leave the whining about poor German soldiers being killed to the Nazis at stormfront.

I understand your sentiment. But I think its a sign of depravity to goad in others misfortune, even if those others happen to be fascist war criminals. While I could understand killing in a war, I cannot understand the glorification of scalping and the desecration of dead bodies. I think a simple shot in the head would suffice. ^^

[Pogue]

I understand your sentiment. But I think its a sign of depravity to goad in others misfortune, even if those others happen to be fascist war criminals. While I could understand killing in a war, I cannot understand the glorification of scalping and the desecration of dead bodies. I think a simple shot in the head would suffice. ^^

Perhaps it has something to do with the whole torture and murder of Jews that would motivate someone to desecrate/scalp dead bodies? You know the 'Basterds' are meant to be predominantly Jewish?

[JohannGE]

Prompted by the conflicting opinions on here from people who's views I often respect, I watched this last night. (avoid the torrent with "ENG-ENG SUBS_resynched". It is blurred and for some reason very overexposed and any white seems to pulse)

When I read the posts on here I found myself agreeing in advance with many of the comments re gratuitous, shallow, glorying in death, violence, and assumed US superiority. I still do to a certain extent.

But I did enjoy the film once I stopped taking it too seriously. It's virtualy automatic (and understandably so) to consider the horrors it covers in a serious way, but I think Tarantino's skill (I wouldn't go as far as to say genius) is in transcending such knee jerk feelings and seeking out the paradoxes lying below. Another welcome aspect of the film increasingly absent from Hollywood productions was the allowance of space and time for proper old fashioned dialogue.

While this film is totally different from the usual Rambo, Top Gun style jingoism, I expect that many fans of such films might not see the difference but I don't know if that matters. It is very funny and not as violent as expectations and trailers led me to believe. The funniest film about Nazis since The Producers.

One question though, is the abysmal acting from Brad Pitt meant to be ironic in some way that I missed, or is he just crap?

[KurtFF8]

I haven't actually seen the film yet but there's a good NPR segment on it that I suggest all fans of the film take a listen to:

Link (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112440754)

Doesn't make me have high expectations for the film. Although seeing that this director was attached to this kind of project already did that for me.

[Comrade B]

the Nazi "Nation's Pride" movie featured in the film seems to be a mirror of Inglourious Basterds itself. 2 hours of relentless killing with no character development or point to it. I felt a chill watching the Nazis in the movie watching this film and laughing at the pointless killing, and recognising the people around me in the depraved mentality portrayed on screen.
I am not sure how I feel about the movie, personally, I didn't find it too interesting, however if by this scene he actually intended some of the audience members to see this, as I did too, and criticize the audience themselves.

[RedAnarchist]

Sarcasm, right?

Yeah.

[9]

Yeah.


Forgive me, I'm slow :blushing:

[Pavlov's House Party]

I thought the movie was a parody of itself, as well as the modern day war-film. It used that movie "Nation's Pride" or whatever it was called to make fun of itself and other war movies like Saving Private Ryan, where the good guys just kill bad guys for 2 hours and occasionally take a break to carve swastikas in things (be they skulls or floors). The movie shows all the patriotic Germans laughing at what we think of as mindless violence because it's not "our guy" who's doing the killing; that German sniper is to the Germans as Aldo Raine or Tom Hanks' character is to us.

I think most people here looked at the movie as superficially as most mainstream critics, just looking at the plot and not whats under the surface. That's why I like Tarantino:)

[RotStern]

This sounds like another Hollywood movie bashing Germans who cant sit straight nor punch. I am considering watching this. But I am under the impression that its a bit like my assumption. :glare:

[Random Precision]

Inglourious Savages
Inglorious Basterds is Quentin Tarantino's contribution to Hollywood's long list of movies on the Second World War--but he hasn't added much.

Joe Allen
Socialist Worker
September 10, 2009

THE "LOVE of movies" can sometimes get in the way of making a great film. A case in point is Quentin Tarantino's latest film Inglourious Basterds.

This film is a fantasy adventure centered on the exploits of an American Special Forces unit during the Second World War, who are dropped behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied France on the eve of the Normandy invasion. Their job is to spread panic and fear among German soldiers through their brutal methods of killing--particularly, the scalping of captured and disarmed German prisoners. (This is, by the way, a war crime--but that doesn't seem to concern the director.)

The Germans dub them the "basterds"--the misspelling of the word in the movie title is Tarantino's "artistic flourish," as he called it during a recent interview. It is largely based on a 1978 B-movie of the same name.

Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) leads the "basterds." He is straight out of central casting, the walking stereotype of a cracker lieutenant. In his opening speech to his new unit, Raine calls for cruelty toward the enemy and 100 scalps from each of his men. "I will have my scalps," he tells them.

The unit is initially made up of Jewish Americans. They all earn nicknames from the Germans, who grow terrified of the prospect of any potential encounter with them. This is especially true of the strangely named "Bear Jew" (Eli Roth), whose signature is to kill captured and unarmed Germans with a baseball bat. (By the way, this is another war crime.)

A German soldier, Hugo Stiglitz, who went on an unexplained killing spree of German officers, also joins the ranks of the basterds. Savagery is their business, and business is good. The question you're probably asking yourself is, who are the heroes in this movie?

The basterds take a detour from their sadistic killing spree when they are given orders to hook up with a British film critic-turned-secret agent Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender) and German actress (and Allied agent) Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger). They plot to kill Hitler and the entire Nazi high command at the premiere of new German propaganda film at a theater in Paris.

By a funny coincidence, the theater owner, Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), has plans of her own to kill them. She is a Jew who escaped capture and was hidden by the late theater owners who posed as her aunt and uncle.

The man who torments them all and attempts to thwart their plans is Nazi officer Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Walz). The multilingual, obsequiously well-mannered Landa is the epitome of evil. He is popularly known as the "Jew Hunter" in France. As you can probably guess, the climax of the film is a massive bloodbath that is the trademark of virtually all of Tarantino's films.

***

WHAT ARE we to make of this film? It has proven popular at the box office and among most film critics. Roger Ebert, the dean of American film critics, called Inglourious Basterds a "big, bold, audacious war movie." But does this make it a good movie? I don't think so.

This isn't to say that there aren't parts of the film that are brilliant. I think the opening scene is one of the best in many years. A tension-laden scene in the village bar is another. The acting of Christoph Walz is incredible. But, ultimately, these things don't hold the film together. Ebert says, "The film embeds Tarantino's love of the movies." True. But this mishmash of styles makes this film disjointed, even juvenile.

The scenes in Inglourious Basterds that are the most Tarantino-like--the gratuitous violence and overblown music with mostly American actors--are the weakest parts of the film. In sharp contrast, the most un-Tarantino-like scenes with European actors speaking in German and French are the strongest.

Ebert praises Tarantino for providing us with a much-needed "alternative ending" to the Second World War. I'm all for fantasy adventure films, but why would the entire Nazi leadership go to a film premiere in Paris while the Allied forces are racing to capture the city? (In real life, Hitler ordered the city to be burned, but those orders were never carried out.)

The film may be bold and audacious, but that doesn't mean that it's at all challenging. In fact, Tarantino's World War Two is a lot like the standard Hollywood history of the war. The handsome Americans with their trusty British allies save the world. The Russians don't even get a word of mention. Hogan's Heroes was better than this.

I couldn't help but feel that Inglourious Basterds was just an opportunity for Tarantino to act out his juvenile fantasies about the Second World War--much like it was for Tom Cruise in Valkyrie or for Steven Spielberg in Saving Private Ryan.

With the exception of the American Civil War, Hollywood has made more films about the Second World War than any other historical period. The reason for this is pretty straightforward. The Second World War made the U.S. the dominant world power, and as the myth goes, the benevolent defender of freedom-loving people around the world.

Few films have challenged this bedtime story. But over the last decade, Hollywood has been willing to have a more critical take on the war. Clint Eastwood's 2006 film Flags of Our Fathers is a painful and beautiful film about the men who did and didn't raise the American flag on Mount Suribachi during the battle of Iwo Jima, and the terrible consequences it had on their lives. Spike Lee's 2008 Miracle at St. Anna put Black soldiers in the center of the war. We need more films like these.

If Inglourious Basterds were Tarantino's first big movie, I would say that someday he will make a masterpiece. Unfortunately, I think that time has passed. I hope I'm wrong.

http://socialistworker.org/2009/09/10/inglourious-savages

[Orange Juche]

I am not sure how I feel about the movie, personally, I didn't find it too interesting, however if by this scene he actually intended some of the audience members to see this, as I did too, and criticize the audience themselves.

The more and more I think about this analysis of those scenes, the more and more it seems to make sense.

If Tarantino did that intentionally, it's fucking brilliant.

[Robocommie]

“Vengeance seems to be a subject about which Tarantino the person, as well as Tarantino the filmmaker, has strong feelings; his onscreen treatment of it as something both necessary and satisfying are reflected offscreen as well. 'If I had a gun and a 12-year-old kid broke into this house,' he told the critic J. Hoberman in a 1996 interview, 'I would kill him. You have no right to come into my house…I would empty the gun until you were dead.'"

No shit? Man, I knew he was an arrogant fucker, and is sure as shit not big on social consciousness, but this takes the fucking cake. Fuck Tarantino, that goofy faced geek.

I'm not sure if I'm seeing the film itself, and not just because of what I just said. A friend of mine who normally has excellent taste in films said it was a great movie, though unsettling in it's violence. Eli Roth is in it, and I have no respect for him after having directed the Hostel flicks, and there seems to be an implied tone of revenge porn and gore for gore's sake that I have no wish to indulge in.

I feel weird saying this, because I'm normally not squeamish at all about violence in movies, provided it has a context and the film itself has some kind of moral center to it. But there's something about the way that Tarantino and his buddies use violence in their films that implies a total lack of maturity in the subject, nearly a perverse fixation on extremity for extremity's sake. I've kinda felt this way about Tarantino's movies since Reservoir Dogs and the infamous ear-cutting scene.

[berlitz23]

No shit? Man, I knew he was an arrogant fucker, and is sure as shit not big on social consciousness, but this takes the fucking cake. Fuck Tarantino, that goofy faced geek.

I'm not sure if I'm seeing the film itself, and not just because of what I just said. A friend of mine who normally has excellent taste in films said it was a great movie, though unsettling in it's violence. Eli Roth is in it, and I have no respect for him after having directed the Hostel flicks, and there seems to be an implied tone of revenge porn and gore for gore's sake that I have no wish to indulge in.

I feel weird saying this, because I'm normally not squeamish at all about violence in movies, provided it has a context and the film itself has some kind of moral center to it. But there's something about the way that Tarantino and his buddies use violence in their films that implies a total lack of maturity in the subject, nearly a perverse fixation on extremity for extremity's sake. I've kinda felt this way about Tarantino's movies since Reservoir Dogs and the infamous ear-cutting scene.

I agree it is violence ad naseuam, Tarantino seems to have an affinity for graphic inane violence which I don't find rewarding when watching his films, I mean I understand that is what I should expect when I see his movies but he has tendency sometimes to push it to the maximum hoping it will elicit the baffled affect. It just doesn't register with me, personally I loved Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, and had an antipathy for Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill, Grindhouse and this new flick I just detest movies who's purpose is to push violence to new frontiers(I know Tarantino didn't exactly accomplish that in this new film). Don't get me wrong, I understand this was a pure entertainment flick and perhaps I need to jettison my critical and analytical side for a couple of hours, but I am incapable of seeing the artistic merit behind Tarantino's work anymore, what solidifies him as a great director? Just because his films deviate subtly from the conventional orthodox films that hollywood is manufacturing perenially? I don't know maybe I cannot subject myself to these types of films anymore, this is going to come off as elitist but lately I have a propensity for films that stimulate me intellectually and engender some form of dialogue about a certain scenario past or present. That is culprit of most films these days except Continental and Asian cinema, it purposefully excludes and evades any meaningful dialogue.

[Durruti's Ghost]

You know, just because the director of a film intends for that film to be interpreted a certain way doesn't mean the audience has to interpret it that way.

Just sayin'.

[Abc]

you know maybe he just wanted to make a movie about killing nazis and didnt intend to put any hidden propagandic messages in the film.........

[Pirate Utopian]

What extreme violence? Seriously if people think Inglourious Basterds is extremely violent they are not used to movie violence.
I've seen waaaaaaay worse.

[kalu]

Hats off to Tarantino for finally including a Black frenchman in a WWII film.:huh:

No, but seriously, I liked the film. I haven't read all the opinions in this thread, but it's clear the film offers itself up to many interpretations, and depending on the mood or frame of mind you're in, you could either come out of it disgusted or laughing. On a purely aesthetic level, Christoph Waltz was brilliant (damn that man can speak a lot of languages). Some of the comedy was just spot on (Pitt and Waltz together were a riot).

In terms of the politics, well it really depends how you look at it. It could be a simple revenge fantasy. It could be some sort of casual "we'll kill you" statement about all who oppose US hegemony. It could be a mockery of the very idea of a revenge fantasy, and most (US!) WWII movies as propaganda (as someone here excellently pointed out).

Personally, I'd say it's a combination of one and three. The effect I got from the movie is that, here's this horrific event (The Holocaust) and we want to get some satisfaction seeing Nazis get their asses kicked, but we also recognize that in a way that very catharsis can become a wooden-plot piece of propaganda. So why not snip it up a bit and add so many references we aren't exactly sure, but we still have a guilty pleasure?

Back to the "politics," sure there were parts that made me squirm (Aldo discussing scalping and his "Native American heritage," and here I was just thinking "Wow, a movie about the Holocaust and they're [indirectly] referencing the genocide in the Americas...what do I make of this?"). But overall, I thought the movie did a great job of layering the characters, atmosphere, plot, etc., even in a film that on the face of it is just supposed to be pure blood and guts. Really, I was not expecting Shosanna's character at all, and I think Melanie Laurent did a fantastic job. On another site, someone wrote that Tarantino did a great job portraying the "innocent" hearts twisted by the war (Frederick Zoller and Shosanna), and I'd have to agree. It was a well-layered film, and perhaps that's why we have so many conflicting views and interpretations.

Like I said though, I just can't stop thinking Tarantino did something bold here. I'll sum it up by saying the "theatre" metaphor--bloody revenge against Nazis in a theatre screening Nazi propaganda, and we're yet another audience--was very, very intriguing. And yeah, you can also include "OMG a Black guy!!" to the list.

[brigadista]

i have seen this movie- it was like 2 different films in one- french german parts were the best and actually a kind of homage to other filmmakers and had the potential to be a really good film - as a whole he lost it- unfocussed- jackie brown is his best film to date imho...this was - odd to say the least- the final cut was a betrayal of some really good performances in this film- the basterd segments were my least favorite parts and the aldo raine character was stupid as were the one dimensional basterd characters.. the subject matter deserves a bit more respect to be honest

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Am I the only one who noticed that the group of Nazis whose death could supposedly end the war did not include the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler?

I mean, not that the movie has a shred of historical accuracy in it, but Himmler's non-existence was entirely unnecessary.

[Dimentio]

Am I the only one who noticed that the group of Nazis whose death could supposedly end the war did not include the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler?

I mean, not that the movie has a shred of historical accuracy in it, but Himmler's non-existence was entirely unnecessary.

As Himmler's existence, I guess.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Spoiler Alert!
Maybe QT will produce a sequel and let Miike Takashii direct with Sonny Chiba leading a commando team of Japanese Americans behind the lines in Japan who succeed in killing the Emperor and the military high command at at a Kabuki performance, thus sparing the island from a bombs.

Takashi Miike, you say? That would be too awesome for words. :lol:

[TheoreticalShovenist]

Twas a good film if I do say so myself. Someone should pull the ending scene on the folks in the congress building :D

[Os Cangaceiros]

Like Leo said, I think that people are taking this movie too seriously. There really are no "good guys" in the film...probably the closest thing to that the movie had was Shosanah and Marcel. The Basterds themselves are just caricatures in the movie, really...their obnoxious, cartoonish figures for the most part, especially Brad Pitt's character. Hell, the whole movie is distorted...Daniel Bruhl's character supposedly killed about three hundred soldiers over a few days time from a sniper's nest and was as charming as could be, for chrissake. Look at how Hitler was portrayed! In the first scene he's wearing a damn cape while his portrait is being painted on an enormous scale behind him, in typical egomaniacal Hitler fashion.

This isn't supposed to be some kind of history lesson on WW2 and how the U.S. won it singlehandedly without the Soviet Union...it's just a stupid Tarantino film.

(One thing I did appreciate about the film was that they didn't just have all of the French and Germans speaking English. *coughValkyriecough*

[Eat the Rich]

I saw the movie yesterday. It was fucking brilliant. Yes, the heroes are portrayed as handsome white male Americans, with British allies. Yes the Russians don't get any mention. Yes, it is historicaly inacurate. But the film was fucking good admit it.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

I saw the movie yesterday. It was fucking brilliant. Yes, the heroes are portrayed as handsome white male Americans, with British allies. Yes the Russians don't get any mention. Yes, it is historicaly inacurate. But the film was fucking good admit it.

Agreed! Very enjoyable film. Tarantino is great at what he does. I think some parts were a little drawn out though, but for a WWII movie it was actually pretty original.

[Abc]

Am I the only one who noticed that the group of Nazis whose death could supposedly end the war did not include the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler?

I mean, not that the movie has a shred of historical accuracy in it, but Himmler's non-existence was entirely unnecessary.
its been about 2 weeks since i saw it but i'm pretty sure himmler was there somewere i might be wrong though

[Angry Young Man]

I vote we turn it into a videogame, bring out the basterd in all of us. Like World at War with claw hammers and a button to force-feed crowbars!

[JohannGE]

I think some parts were a little drawn out though,

If by drawn out you mean the opening sceen and the bar sceen I thought they were the best bits. I think drama and suspense are far more entertaining and thought provoking than voyeristic violence.

You can't please all the folks...etc.
:)
-

[Искра]

Movie is shit.
Tarantino had only one good movie and that's Pulp Fiction. The rest is just crap, with no ideas, just "violence"... :rolleyes:

[Pogue]

Movie is shit.
Tarantino had only one good movie and that's Pulp Fiction. The rest is just crap, with no ideas, just "violence"... :rolleyes:

don't be such a player hater :rolleyes:

[Искра]

don't be such a player hater :rolleyes:
I'm not :) I just dislike this movie... and it's too long :)
If Oldboy was on topic I would say only good things :D

[Pogue]

I'm now :) I just dislike this movie... and it's too long :)
If Oldboy was on topic I would say only good things :D

I think people are too hard on tarantino, except that grindhouse shit his post pulp fiction stuff has been quality, its just film critics being pretentious.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Movie is shit.
Tarantino had only one good movie and that's Pulp Fiction. The rest is just crap, with no ideas, just "violence"... :rolleyes:

Well, actually Pulp Fiction (while a good movie) still hijacked a lot of themes and references from other films. Even the celebrated non-linear storyline had been done before, as anyone who followed Stanley Kubrick's work could tell you.

I don't know how you could say that the rest of his films are "just violence"...Resevoir Dogs, Jackie Brown and Death Proof are all not that way. There is violence in those films, sure, but it's pretty minimal compared to films that are actually "just violence". If I had to make any criticism of Tarantino it would be that he's too self-indulgent...that came through in his later films like the Kill Bills and Death Proof especially. In Kill Bill he stole elements from a million obscure exploitation films like Thriller: A Cruel Picture and Japanese films like Lady Snowblood, and repackaged them. (But then again, if I repackaged all the elements from my favorite films, the movie would probably be bad. So I do think he's a good director.)

[JohannGE]

Well, actually Pulp Fiction (while a good movie) still hijacked a lot of themes and references from other films. Even the celebrated non-linear storyline had been done before, as anyone who followed Stanley Kubrick's work could tell you.

But wouldn't Tarantino readily claim that himself? I thought it was quite a common thing for filmakers to "pay homage" to others and Tarantino more than most.

[Pogue]

Its his style. Its what Pulp Fiction was about to a large extent. All of his films contain some sort of paordy of other films/genres. Kill Bill was samurai films, Inglorious Basterds was those WW2 films, etc.

I think people are assessing him too much in an artistic way. From an enjoyment point of view the film was brilliant, again I think film critics are just being pretentious.

[x359594]

Its his style...All of his films contain some sort of paordy of other films/genres....I think people are assessing him too much in an artistic way. From an enjoyment point of view the film was brilliant, again I think film critics are just being pretentious.

I'm not a film critic. Like Tarantino I'm a cinephile, and since Tarantino claims to be producing art and not trash his pictures should be judged accordingly.

I don't doubt that he's a talented filmmaker, but his ideas are thin and the conciet of Inglorious Basterds of having a Jewish murder squad running amuck behind the lines of Nazi occupied France doesn't hold for me. Nor do all of his quotations from other films, from John Ford's The Searchers to Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West, from Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage to Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen, add up (virtually every movie he quoted from here is better than the movie he made.) It's all too po-mo for my taste. I much prefer Kill Bill and Jacky Brown to this one.

[Dr Mindbender]

I vote we turn it into a videogame, bring out the basterd in all of us. Like World at War with claw hammers and a button to force-feed crowbars!

The Reservoir dogs game was a bit meh which isnt a good omen.

That said a kill bill game would be fucking awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_13Dhk3XnTI

[Pogue]

I'm not a film critic. Like Tarantino I'm a cinephile, and since Tarantino claims to be producing art and not trash his pictures should be judged accordingly.

I don't doubt that he's a talented filmmaker, but his ideas are thin and the conciet of Inglorious Basterds of having a Jewish murder squad running amuck behind the lines of Nazi occupied France doesn't hold for me. Nor do all of his quotations from other films, from John Ford's The Searchers to Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West, from Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage to Robert Aldrich's The Dirty Dozen, add up (virtually every movie he quoted from here is better than the movie he made.) It's all too po-mo for my taste. I much prefer Kill Bill and Jacky Brown to this one.

But did you enjoy Inglorious Basterds? I'm not saying its better than his other stuff, I'd say its roughyl equal to Kill Bill for me, but it was clearly a good fun film.