New Inglourious Basterds Trailer!

[pcRock]

Does anyone else know if the three fingers thing is a real cultural difference or another one of Tarantino's tall tales to add effect? I'd be interested to know.

In my country we do that in the "German way". Although I didn't think much of it, my bf said immediately: that's not the (German/European) way of putting up 3 fingers.

[elski]

I hold up my fingers to indicate 3 in exactly the same way as the OH who is English and I missed the bit about the apprently two different ways of doing so, so I am a bit stumped here. Was Fassbender playing the English guy? His German was excellent but indeed with a strange accent - not as strange as Brad Pitt's Italian one though, LOL!

I'm british an if I was putting up 3 fingers I'd do it the 'german' way and didn't realise there were distinct ways but maybe it's a bit of etiquette that's been lost?

I enjoyed the film but I enjoyed the scenes without Brad Pitt in more, he just didn't seem to 'fit' into the film as everyone else did. Also Mike Myers immediately made me think it was an Austin Powers film for that little scene, but maybe that was intended? The time flew by and didn't realise how late it was until I left the cinema. I was surprised that Hitler was killed off I was expecting them to escape so as not to have altered the ultimate outcome of history even if it was all made up.

8.5/10

[a_person]

His German was excellent but indeed with a strange accent - not as strange as Brad Pitt's Italian one though, LOL!

I agree! LOL. His Italian accent was purely American. Couldn't hear the Italian in him! And the way they were pronouncing their names! It was so funny when Landa decided to respond in Italian and he looked shocked!

BTW Beate, you know some of the scenes didn't have subtitles? What were they saying? I forgot to ask that. I had no idea! It wasn't self explanatory to me!

[AYBG]

Also Mike Myers immediately made me think it was an Austin Powers film for that little scene, but maybe that was intended?

Another bizarre piece of casting, but my theory is that the clichéd British accent was set up so you could hear it through Hicox's German. Just like Raine's Italian...

[AYBG]

To see a trailer or rate this film, please click here »



Tarantino's tense latest delighted the majority of forum members, the first of which to review the film (nintendo) said:

saw this 2day, 10/10 film of the year for me [img]../forum/images/smilies/vk_smi10.gif[/img]

great dialogue as is always the case with Tarantino films, and a fantastic blend of comedy, drama and action. Quite gruesome in places but it fits the overall tone of the film

To read more opinions, and to give your own, visit the Basterds on the forum...

[Beate]

Which were the scenes again? At the very beginning Landa is talking to his officers to establish they have the right farm. The next scenes I think are with the hero soldier (Daniel Bruehl), who is basically asked by lots of people whether its' really him, yes it's me, oh my God, such an honour to meet you, could I have an autograph please, such an honour etc. etc., then I recall Diane Krueger in the pub after the shootout saying to Willi that he shouldn't be stupid and I think that was it or was there more?

God, I can still see that Apfelstrudel in front of me. YUM.

[Beate]

http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/films/inglo ... ewsletters

The ViewLondon Review

Review by Matthew Turner
20/08/2009
Five out of Five stars
Running time: 153 mins

Quentin Tarantino's long-awaited Inglourious Basterds is a brilliantly written, well directed and genuinely thrilling war flick, with terrific performances from Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent and Christoph Waltz.

What's it all about?
Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds (which steals the name from but is not a remake of the 1978 Italian movie) opens with an extraordinarily tense 20 minute sequence in which Nazi Jew-hunter Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) interrogates the owner of a French farmhouse before slaughtering the family of Jews hiding beneath his floorboards. However, a young woman named Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) narrowly escapes with her life, whereupon she runs away to Paris, changes her name and becomes the proprietress of a cinema, where she hatches a plan to kill the German high command (including Hitler himself) at a prestigious film premiere.

Meanwhile, American Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) and his band of Nazi-scalping Jewish-American “Basterds” get wind of the premiere's special guests and hatch a plot of their own, aided by British Lieutenant Archie Hickox (Michael Fassbender) and German actress-turned-double-agent Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger). However, the crafty Landa is hot on the Basterds' trail - will he figure out the plot in time?

The Good
It's safe to say that this isn't the Dirty Dozen-alike action romp that the trailers would have you believe - instead, Tarantino breaks the story up into five chapters, most of which are built around a lengthy single scene. This allows for intriguing variations on the same structure: each scene is incredibly suspenseful with terrific dialogue (often in several languages – the transitions from language to language are a joy in themselves) and moments of jet-black humour, all of which eventually explodes in violence.

Pitt is superb as Raine and there's terrific support from Kruger, Fassbender and Daniel Bruhl (as soldier-turned-movie-star Fredrick Zoller) but the film is completely stolen by Melanie Laurent and Christoph Waltz, who deservedly won Best Actor at Cannes and is simply astonishing as Landa.

The Great
The film is jam-packed with quotable dialogue and memorable scenes, to say nothing of the typically brilliant soundtrack. There are also some frankly astonishing shots, most notably a laughing face projected onto smoke that's like something from a nightmare.

Worth seeing?
Inglourious Basterds is a tense, thrilling, brilliantly acted and superbly directed war flick that just might be Tarantino's masterpiece. Unmissable.

[pcRock]

God, I can still see that Apfelstrudel in front of me. YUM.

Apfelstrudel. My mouth was watering.

[AYBG]

The five chapters were
1) The farm
2) The Basterds
3) Shosanna
4) The tavern
5) The cinema

[Beate]

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/rev ... ?FID=10392

Inglourious Basterds (18)

Plot
1944, Nazi-Occupied France. Lt. Aldo Raine (Pitt) and his Basterds, a squadron of ruthless Jewish soldiers, must help the Allies try to wipe out the German High Command at a film premiere. The cinema, however, is owned by a vengeful Jewish survivor (Laurent) with plans of her own.

Review
By now, you’d think that we’d have become accustomed to Quentin Tarantino pulling the rug out from under our feet. After all, this is the man who made his name with a heist flick that didn’t actually have a heist in it.

Yet within the first five minutes of Inglourious Basterds, it’s clear that he’s done it again. Tarantino’s been talking about his World War II action movie for nigh on a decade now, but the reality is very different from the rootin’, tootin’, cigar-chompin’ Where Eagles Dare/Dirty Dozen-style shoot-’em-up that had once, if you believe all you read, been tailored for Arnie and Sly. But as the movie unfolds with a 20-minute conversation between a French farmer who may or may not be sheltering Jews, and Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), a charming yet callous Nazi officer nicknamed ‘The Jew Hunter’, it becomes quickly apparent that Tarantino’s flipped a bloody middle finger at convention.

Yet that’s Inglourious Basterds all over. As enjoyably idiosyncratic as the spelling of its title would suggest, it’s a film that takes devilish delight in feinting left when it looks like it might go right. Characters are introduced, pomped and circumstanced, and then almost glibly despatched; the Basterds themselves barely appear, while Brad Pitt, the ostensible lead, shows up for only three of the movie’s five chapters and doesn’t fire a single shot in anger; while history is adhered to with all the accuracy of an MP’s expenses claim.

As ever with Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds reveals a director in love with the sound of his characters’ voices — sometimes to a fault, as in the third chapter, German Night In Paris, which is packed with dense conversations at the expense of dramatic momentum. But, after the self-indulgent riffing of Death Proof, Inglourious Basterds is focused and sharp.

Take that opening scene, for example, in which Landa toys with his prey like, to use his own analogy, a hawk with a rat. Or, more pertinently, the lengthy fourth chapter scene set in a French bar, La Louisiane, in which British officer Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender), two Basterds and German double-agent Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) have to outwit a suspicious Gestapo officer (August Diehl).

In both these scenes, Tarantino masterfully transfers control from character to character, using only his dialogue, filled with unspoken implications and threatening subtext. The results are almost unbearably tense and as suspenseful as anything he’s done in his career. Never mind big bangs and blazing machine guns — in a Tarantino film, this is where the action is.

And his cast, from Pitt down, responds in kind, whether they’re handling the one-liners or speeches in English, French, German or even Italian. There are standouts, of course. Pitt, in a role that again defies expectations, is often hilarious, attacking some wonderful dialogue in a thick-as-molasses Kentucky accent that itself might require subtitles from time to time. Fassbender, stepping into the role of Hicox after Simon Pegg dropped out, seizes the opportunity gladly, injecting Hicox with the perfect blend of old-style movie-star charm (the character was based in part on George Sanders) and a tougher, rugged edge that deserves to make him a bigger star. But the film belongs to Waltz, who won the Best Actor award in Cannes, and who should be a shoo-in, even this far out, for a Best Supporting Actor nod at next year’s Oscars.

The role of Landa was so tough to fill that Tarantino claims he’d have abandoned the production entirely had Christoph not Waltzed through his door. Not only is Landa multilingual, but he’s an enormously complex creation, so much more than a typical movie Nazi. Cruel, confident, calculating and often contradictory (watch how his attitude towards his Jew Hunter nickname changes, depending on the company he keeps), Landa has many of the film’s best lines and moments, and is much-missed when he’s not around. Thankfully, Tarantino — perhaps sensing that he was onto a good thing — keeps that state of affairs to a minimum.

And all through it, like Pitt’s Raine, Landa is very funny, a charming and somewhat effete presence who delights in his grasp of other cultures (“That’s a bingo!”) and his destabilising effect on others. And that’s another surprising element here — Inglourious Basterds is often very funny. In fact, as the movie races towards its climax, it gets funnier and funnier even as characters start hitting the ground like flies. And the ending itself is so bold and so outrageous that it’s hard not to laugh at Tarantino’s audacity.

In Cannes, the movie’s climax split critics, with some offended by Tarantino’s contrivances. But the big clue here lies in the opening title card, which simply states, “Once Upon A Time… in Nazi-Occupied France.”

From the off, with that one phrase, Tarantino makes it clear that Inglourious Basterds will not be taking the austere, reverent approach of a Schindler’s List. Instead, this is a fairy tale, a ‘what if…?’ story that takes place in a typically Tarantino ‘movie-movie’ universe. After all, let’s not forget that Tarantino had Uma Thurman draw a box on the screen in Pulp Fiction, and Basterds is replete with those touches, from on-screen graphics to a wonderfully eclectic soundtrack that revels in anachronisms like Bowie’s Cat People (Putting Out Fire).

That song, like every other piece of music in the film, is taken from another movie, with Ennio Morricone and Dimitri Tiomkin cuts featuring prominently. Of course, that’s not entirely unusual — after all, Tarantino is a movie magpie, and his work has always been informed by the tropes and iconography of other movies. Basterds, for example, is full of references to Italian cinema, particularly Spaghetti Westerns, while there’s an element of cheekiness about his decision to cast Mike Myers as an English general with more than a hint of Austin Powers about him.

Ultimately, though, it’s about the appeal and power of cinema to do good, to shape history, to change things for the better as Tarantino pits the forces of good — including a film critic, a cinema owner, and movie star — against the vile Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, and his new protégé, Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl). And as events play themselves out, amidst scenes of fire, chaos, carnage and a haunting image of a laughing face projected onto roiling clouds of smoke, it’s hard not to imagine Tarantino sighing contentedly as he introduces his final, most romantic notion: a director playing God…


Verdict
With a confidence typical of its director, the last line of Inglourious Basterds is, “This might just be my masterpiece.” While that may not be true, this is an often dazzling movie that sees QT back on exhilarating form.

Four Stars
Reviewer: Chris Hewitt