InlineSIX24
Thu Sep 3rd, 2009, 10:03 AM
Not sure if I will end up seeing this either way, but the review is good for a laugh.
Reservoir G.I.s - Tarantino's Latest is a Mess
September 2, 10:03 PMhttp://image.examiner.com/img/greydot.gifMovie and TV History Examiner (http://www.cosportbikeclub.org/x-5624-Movie-and-TV-History-Examiner)http://image.examiner.com/img/greydot.gifRobert Anderson
If I made a movie about Godzilla in which all of the characters sit around in dive bars, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer while talking about Godzilla - who is almost never seen - would you call me a fool? If I included in my movie scenes of the torture and murder of two blonde female characters, would you accuse me of having issues with my blonde ex-girlfriend? If I were a filmmaker, and you were an audience, would you watch my movie anyway, even if it shocked you into silence?? These silly questions arise from my primal loathing of Quentin Tarantino's latest film. Jeffrey Wells, a bolder man than I, wrote recently that Tarantino has entered a terminal creative phase in which each time he decides to make a film he sticks his finger up his *ss, pulls it out and, if he likes what he smells (and he always does), decides to smear it onto 35mm film and exhibit it. Harsh words, but what else to write about a film in which the characters in the title are scarcely seen and a giant human tragedy is played for laughs?
One scene in the film has, ironically, been misconstrued by its toughest critics as an accident in which the tables are turned and a German sergeant displays more "honor", "courage", "grace" and "poise" than the "basterds" of the title. This is not true. Having now watched the scene, I can report that what is actually up on the screen is an example of breathtaking directorial incompetence. Clearly the sergeant in question was intended by Tarantino to embody all of the arrogance and hubris we have come to associate with Nazis. Whereas the other two German prisoners in the scene are unremarkable in appearance, the sergeant is blonde, blue-eyed and jut-jawed. His dialogue includes "f*ck you and your Jew dogs!" and various sarcasms. This is all a set-up for the apperance of Eli Roth's baseball bat-wielding G.I. Jew, to administer some well-deserved rough justice. The only problem is that Tarantino forgot to tell any of this to the actor playing the sergeant, who does indeed play the character as a superlative man. That QT failed to notice this while filming and editing the scene is almost beyond belief. But then, so is the rest of the movie.
By turns a comedy, an action film, a suspense film, a police procedural, a WWII film, a spy film and a murder plot - including nods to the visual tropes of comic book movies - "Inglourious Basterds" is a giant mess. I don't know about his finger or his *ss, but at this point Tarantino appears to have smoked so much industrial-grade cheeba that he no longer possesses any of the attributes one normally associates with a filmmaker - any filmmaker. Such minor considerations as plot, characterization, realism (photo or otherwise, and would you believe that John "Star Wars" Dykstra was the effects supervisor? Not after watching you won't), logic, physics and plain sense are all missing in action (pardon the cliche, but when in Rome...). About seven years ago, when Tarantino first started talking up this movie, he said it was going to be his answer to "Saving Private Ryan." Somewhere along the way he decided it would be his belch to "Schindler's List", opening up a giant can of worms that he now disingenuously claims is not an issue because the Holocaust is not explicitly mentioned. That just doesn't fly.
http://www.examiner.com/x-5624-Movie-and-TV-History-Examiner~y2009m9d2-Reservoir-GIs--Tarantinos-Latest-is-a-Mess?#comments
Reservoir G.I.s - Tarantino's Latest is a Mess
September 2, 10:03 PMhttp://image.examiner.com/img/greydot.gifMovie and TV History Examiner (http://www.cosportbikeclub.org/x-5624-Movie-and-TV-History-Examiner)http://image.examiner.com/img/greydot.gifRobert Anderson
If I made a movie about Godzilla in which all of the characters sit around in dive bars, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer while talking about Godzilla - who is almost never seen - would you call me a fool? If I included in my movie scenes of the torture and murder of two blonde female characters, would you accuse me of having issues with my blonde ex-girlfriend? If I were a filmmaker, and you were an audience, would you watch my movie anyway, even if it shocked you into silence?? These silly questions arise from my primal loathing of Quentin Tarantino's latest film. Jeffrey Wells, a bolder man than I, wrote recently that Tarantino has entered a terminal creative phase in which each time he decides to make a film he sticks his finger up his *ss, pulls it out and, if he likes what he smells (and he always does), decides to smear it onto 35mm film and exhibit it. Harsh words, but what else to write about a film in which the characters in the title are scarcely seen and a giant human tragedy is played for laughs?
One scene in the film has, ironically, been misconstrued by its toughest critics as an accident in which the tables are turned and a German sergeant displays more "honor", "courage", "grace" and "poise" than the "basterds" of the title. This is not true. Having now watched the scene, I can report that what is actually up on the screen is an example of breathtaking directorial incompetence. Clearly the sergeant in question was intended by Tarantino to embody all of the arrogance and hubris we have come to associate with Nazis. Whereas the other two German prisoners in the scene are unremarkable in appearance, the sergeant is blonde, blue-eyed and jut-jawed. His dialogue includes "f*ck you and your Jew dogs!" and various sarcasms. This is all a set-up for the apperance of Eli Roth's baseball bat-wielding G.I. Jew, to administer some well-deserved rough justice. The only problem is that Tarantino forgot to tell any of this to the actor playing the sergeant, who does indeed play the character as a superlative man. That QT failed to notice this while filming and editing the scene is almost beyond belief. But then, so is the rest of the movie.
By turns a comedy, an action film, a suspense film, a police procedural, a WWII film, a spy film and a murder plot - including nods to the visual tropes of comic book movies - "Inglourious Basterds" is a giant mess. I don't know about his finger or his *ss, but at this point Tarantino appears to have smoked so much industrial-grade cheeba that he no longer possesses any of the attributes one normally associates with a filmmaker - any filmmaker. Such minor considerations as plot, characterization, realism (photo or otherwise, and would you believe that John "Star Wars" Dykstra was the effects supervisor? Not after watching you won't), logic, physics and plain sense are all missing in action (pardon the cliche, but when in Rome...). About seven years ago, when Tarantino first started talking up this movie, he said it was going to be his answer to "Saving Private Ryan." Somewhere along the way he decided it would be his belch to "Schindler's List", opening up a giant can of worms that he now disingenuously claims is not an issue because the Holocaust is not explicitly mentioned. That just doesn't fly.
http://www.examiner.com/x-5624-Movie-and-TV-History-Examiner~y2009m9d2-Reservoir-GIs--Tarantinos-Latest-is-a-Mess?#comments