Am I wrong, or am I sensing a massive Tarantino backlash afoot? I've seen some very dismissive things written about his upcoming release Inglourious Basterds, and I have to say: I don't get it (could it be leftover hate from the not-well-received Grindhouse?). Sorry, naysayers, but Tarantino is one of our greatest, most vivacious filmmakers. I mean, every Tarantino movie is an absolute must-see. This one, with Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, B.J. Novak, Samm Levine, Til Schwieger, Diane Kruger, Michael Fassbender, Cloris Leachman, Maggie Cheung and Mike Myers, looks to me like what should be a hit. But, since it looks good, and since Tarantino hasn't had a smash hit since Pulp Fiction in 1994--and since it's a World War II movie--I fear that it'll probably bomb at the box office. I've never seen the original Italian-made 70s film The Inglorious Bastards (directed by Enzo Castellari and starring Bo Svenson, Fred Williamson and Ian Bannen) but I'm sure I'll catch that correctly-spelled title soon. But with this little bit of typically snazzy Tarantino talk, I'm sold on this being one of the most tantalizing 2009 offerings out there: My name is Lt. Aldo Raine and I need me eight soldiers. We're gonna be dropped into France, dressed as civilians. We're gonna be doing one thing and one thing only... killing Nazis. Members of the national socialist party conquered Europe with murder, torture, intimation, and terror. And that's exactly what we're gonna do to them. We will be cruel to the Germans and through our cruelty they will know who we are. They will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, disfigured bodies of their brothers that we leave behind us. The Germans will not be able to help themselves from imagining the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, at our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the Germans will be sickened by us. The Germans will talk about us and the Germans will fear us. Nazis ain't got no humanity! They need to be destroyed! Each and every man under my command owns me one hundred Nazi scalps... and I want my scalps!
I'm very excited to see it, terrible casting choices (Pitt, Meyers) or not. Tarantino's films unlike most american directors working these days have a real personality about themselves. Especially interesting as they spend most of their running time homaging other films... Will he manage to create another fun soundtrack as well?
ReplyDeleteAnyone notice the reference to the Peter Bogdanovich (sp?) film Targets?
ReplyDeleteTARGETS is one of my favorite movies, but I really didn't catch the reference! Educate me!
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