Steve and I had just settled in to watch Inglorious Basterds on DVD. Hmmm, How to begin, how about at the beginning.....
(the beginning, the beginning.... swirly colors on the screen and Cartman repeating beginning over and over to take us back in time...)
It was 1994, I was watching Starz or HBO or something and on came this movie, Reservior Dogs. I watched, glued to the screen, the sights were rapturous and so fresh. I had never seen anything like this ever before. I was enthralled. Who made this movie????? Quentin Tarantino, who is this man? I had never heard of him. Then low and behold, another movie from this man, Pulp Fiction, was out in the theaters that October. The one bit of trivia about this movie that tickles me is something that doesn't even really concern the film itself. I set out to see this film, playing at the little 3 screen in town. The same 3 screen that I now currently manage! Oooohhh, it is a small world after... well, you know the saying.
SO! I sit down in Theater 1 of my lovely Cinemas 123 (located at 10701 New Georges Creek Road SW in Frostburg, www.rctheatres.com) and my eyes and ears and HELL all my senses are treated to a cinematic miracle. A movie, made by adults, about adults, and most importantly FOR ADULTS!!!! Pulp Fiction was violent, funny, inventive, new, fresh, bold and most of all had elements of the lives that we all knew.
We watched Reservoir Dogs and marveled at the time line jumping and most of all at the Diner conversation that made us all talk around the water cooler. "HEY! We talk like that ALL THE TIME!!!!" Most importantly, the conversation was filmed very well. You can still hear fanboys reciting it.
Then along came Samuel L. Jackson and a big blast from our past, Vinnie Barbarino, Tony Manero, Danny Zuko, oh John Travolta, reimaging his career and starting again much to our delight and I might add, starting again REALLY REALLY WELL! There these two actors were, sitting in a car and talking about McDonalds in Amsterdam. Royale with Cheese.
As the movie progressed, we saw a completely fractured time line in the story, we see one character die (I won't spoil anything here, just in case) and then he is alive in another scene.
We also see LOADS of stars acting together in what came to be one of my favourite movies of all time.
At this point, I became a HUGE Tarantino fan.
LOVED From Dusk Til Dawn! True Romance was amazing. His segment in Four Rooms was awesome, what a cinematic throwback while still being fresh and new!!!
Jackie Brown, eeehhhhh not so much for me. I really didn't like it. I adored Robert Forster but just didn't like the movie.
Then along came the epic KILL BILL. By this point in time I was Managing the Cinemas 123 and we were booked Kill Bill Vol 1. It was amazing. Very Japaneese Cinema but with a crazy American-Old West slant. (although I have to say that I prefer Stephen Chow's films now, liking his version of Chinese-Old West style!)
I was able to watch Kill Bill over and over again, sneaking peeks throughout the evening as the shows were being played.
Kill Bill Vol 2 I didn't like so much, but the scene with Elle's other eye was awesome!
Quentin's directorial bit in Sin City was pretty good but the interviews that I was seeing and hearing with him were swelling that already swollen head of his.
Then came Grindhouse.
I will pause here, as we just have to take a pause before we undertake THIS movie.
Sigh.
I will say this, it was a really good idea. I loved the "trailers" and Planet Terror was AMAZING!!!! (Robert Rodriguez is a good director that has a grip in the real world!)
Death Proof... let's take a look at the actual story. It's ok, but fairly boring and quite sensational actually. AND by sensational I mean this definition courtesy of Webster's Dictionary:
2 : arousing or tending to arouse (as by lurid details) a quick, intense, and usually superficial interest, curiosity, or emotional reaction
THEN Quentin goes on to, shall we say, fall back on the ol' standby:
A CONVERSATION ABOUT MOVIES AND POP CULTURE BY A GROUP OF PEOPLE SITTING AROUND!
Oh Boy! How exciting! NOT!!! This has been done, and done well, by this very director, so let's skip it please!!!!
DOn't even get me started on the cast.
OH GOD!!! Vanessa Ferlito, where did THIS CHICK come from? She was not only awful, but she was so distracting with that nose of hers! I am not trying to be mean, if this is a birth defect or whatnot, she is not too blame, however, on her IMDB page it says NOTHING about it. So I have to admit that I CANNOT watch her without being COMPLETELY distracted by that nostril!!!!
AND listening to these cackling hens rabbit on about music and movies makes me want to become Amish!
It was painful to sit there. No wonder Death Proof came first in the film. No one would have sat through it otherwise!
Now, another thing I have failed to mention that runs through ALL of Tarantinos films is his fetish for womens feet.
And I am not talking about cute, little, smooth, lovely feet like Amy Adams or Keira Knightly or whomever, I am talking about honking big feet like Uma Thurmans or Diane Krugers.
Please, Q, look at feet in the privacy of your own home, and stop forcing us to see what you like.
(pardon me while I retch a little.)
This of course brings us to Inglorious Basterds.
I knew it was going to be OUT THERE! But I just didn't expect it to be SOOOOOO FARRRR OUT THERE!!!
I felt like I was on a Deep Space excursion, it was THAT FAR OUT THERE!
Let's list things, since Q loves that kind of shit!
1. The pop up titles of names next to all the Nazi bad guys that he doesn't want to take a moment to introduce us to. THis is also a fault of Guy Ritchie and I do hope these two STOP DOING IT!!!!
2. The Music. I pause again since this item could fill a whole blog on it's own. We loved the music used in Pulp Fiction - CHRIST I BOUGHT THE CD!!!! BUT, using a spanish influenced sound in a Nazi movie that takes place in France..... omg....
3. The verbage. Q! DUDE!!! It's 1944 in your flick, man! Stop with the pop cultural references!!! "Two hits. I hit you, you hit the ground." PA-LEEZE!!!!
4. Big ugly feet. Let's keep shoes on all your actresses from now on, Dude!!
Diane Kruger has her shoes off during a "doctor" scene and then she has to have her shoe placed upon her foot in some sort of Cinderella/acusational scene. I think that scene gave me stomach pains! GAH! THEN, it did not escape my attention Q that Mélanie Laurent was not wearing shoes in the projection booth.
5. STOP HAVING YOUR CHARACTERS TALK ABOUT FILMS!!!!! For F's sake there was a cinematic conversation involving a Nazi and a Jew in front of a Cinema!!!!! I am shaking my head, by the way!
6. Blood! We loved, even if we squirmed, the blood in Reservoir Dogs and in Pulp Fiction we even laughed when you blew the head off Mad TV's UPS guy. In Kill Bill we said OMG!!!! when the blood spurted out like a Kurosawa film but with Inglorious Basterds were are not treated to something amusing nor interesting. We are subjected to a violent onslaught that we did not ask to witness.
7. This is most important, Quentin. If you are going to use ACTUAL HISTORICAL FIGURES, whether they be good or bad, or COMPLETELY EVIL in the case of Hitler, please please please, do not rewrite history. It makes your film idiotic.
I have to say, that Inglorious Basterds was SO BAD that I am taking Pulp Fiction off my all time favourites list in protest.
SKIP THIS FILM!!!!!
ZERO stars out of 5!!!!
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