My first thought when the movie was over was, “If I had some kind of major part in the making of ‘Valkyrie’ and I just saw this, I find another line of work”
So many things to note, I’ll likely forget a bunch. Forgive me if I post more than once.
Either my memory is shot, or they re-shot the scene from the trailer; Pitt’s accent did not bother nearly as much as I thought when I saw the trailer. And for some reason I recall him sticking his lower lip out much further than he did in the movie.
A side note: Not one of today’s trailers made me want to see the movie that they were advertising. That made me a little sad. They all just looked bad.
The movie was well made. I think that this is a given for a Tarantino film, but I’ll say it anyway.
It was well-acted.
I liked it much less than I expected to. I think a younger me would have liked it a lot more. I won’t pursue that discussion too much, because it is likely a huge digression from the focus of this thread. But as someone said in a different thread: it is what every Jew in the war *daydreamed *about doing. (or something close.)
I agree that it is a revenge fantasy. And a younger me would have reveled in it. But as I age, I daydream less about revenge and violence and so I was left out of the film.
I did not need quite so much gore. Yes, yes, I know, it is a QT film. Odd that I minded it less in Kill Bill. Kill Bill seemed more like a comic book for me and so I could live the gore.
Maybe I’m just getting old.
Glad I wasn’t the only one - but just checked on imdb, and no, it wasn’t.
Generally speaking I loved it. Nobody builds tensions like Tarantino and the red herrings and extras were great. (I kept thinking for example that the scars on Aldo’s neck (a cut throat? a failed hanging?) were going to be significant but nope, never mentioned. I even liked Mike Myers in it for the first time in years.
Meanwhile, I’m sorry he’s had health crises and a lot of discomfort in recent years but I still want to kick Roger Ebert’s bee-hind for spoiling the end in his review. I’d have pitted him but that would be giving… well, spoilers. While he didn’t give away details or particulars, but he let’s you know that
Yes fatass, you are spoiling something. That WW2 has an alternative ending for one thing. And that the basterds (presumably the Nazis since I was pretty sure when I read it you weren’t talking about Pitt and the Hebrew Hammers) get what’s coming to them. In that alternative ending to WW2. Which would tend to imply the Nazis get their asses kicked. And since the Nazis got their asses kicked in WW2 that’s really not an alternative ending, hence it must be Nazis who didn’t get their asses kicked who get their asses kicked, and that would mean Hitler/Goebbels/Göring/et al get their asses kicked. Thanks dipwad!
PS- I see Oscar nominations for Pitt and for Christoph Waltz (who did anybody else think was hot [the actor obviously, not the character])?
Pfft, Sampiro. You call *that *a spoiler? I give you Rex Reed of The New York Observer:
That’s how you spoil a fuckin’ movie. 
Send your hate mails to:
rreed@observer.com
Luckily, I read this after I saw the premiere.
Fucker! (Rex Reed, not you [unless, of course, you’re Rex Reed].) I can’t believe the Observer would even print that.
My 12 (13 at the end of the month) year old son really wants to see this movie. I want to see it too so I was hoping you guys could let me know why it got an R rating. I could read the reviews, but I know I can trust you guys to let me know. He’s a pretty smart, mature kid so I’m thinking it might be okay for him, but I’d like your input. Thanks!
There’s no graphic sex, but there are some graphic violence scenes: cut throats, baseball bats to heads (actually that one wasn’t that graphic), machine guns at close range, etc… Nothing he probably hasn’t seen before on TV (especially if you have HBO) but probably more than usual in one sitting. And lots of profanity (in a variety of languages). When I was 12 or 13 I’d have probably loved it and never had a single nightmare; in fact in a weird way it’s almost a feel good movie (albeit with heavy good guy casualties).
The wife and I caught it yesterday (Saturday) and loved it! Questions 2 and 3 above are our questions, too. For #1 , we figured in the rush of getting captured and then having to get Landa to the Allies, Raine did not have time to stop by and pick up the other two guys wherever they were but figured hey, the war’s over now anyway, so they’d come in soon. Plus he could go back for them after dropping off Landa.
I’m not sure it was a suicide mission was it? The bombs were on their legs as a way to smuggle them in, they did have timers.
I also wonder how the other guy was picked up by the Nazis since he was not at the theater.
Possibly they originally were going to hide the explosives and get out but then just got caught up in events?
In the head-bashing scene early on with Sgt. Donnie, after the first couple of swings taken in long shot, the head looked like a bloody pulp, but then it suddenly switched back to a normal-looking head with a bit of blood on it when the camera jumped in closer.
I was was expecting more of a Kill Bill style action bloodfest, but I was actually pleasantly surprised at how relatively minor that aspect was. All those slow, simmering conversations just dripping with tension and subtlety (and in a multiplicity of languages) were virtuoso exercises in directing, acting, and, above all, writing. I think those “chapters” showed real growth in a writer who everyone already knew was fabulously talented at dialogue, but who hadn’t really showcased it for a while. This did not just have great dialogue, but dialogue which has evolved past QT’s usual, snappy, hip banter with the pop culture references into really sophisticated, nuanced, tour de forces. It’s dialogue as plot. Dialogue as action. Dialogue as character. Who would think that a character switching from French to Italian could be so scary?
I think ne of the best compliments I could pay to Tarantino is that during those scenes like the one with the French farmer or the one in the bar with the name cards and the Gestapo officer, I forgot I was watching a Tarantino movie. I think this might be the first time he has completely gotten out of the way of his characters and let them be totally themselves, speaking in their own voice. Usually, you can hear QT working the puppets. Everybody’s cool and witty, but they all still sound like him. This time, he kept himself out of it.
That Landa character, in particular, was terrific. Always the smartest guy in the room, always instantly onto every game, and frustratingly so. Sociopathic and charming we’ve seen before, but he’s not James Bond sociopathic and charming. He’s still grounded in reality and still a specific personality.
This movie is also exceptionally well cast, in particular among the non stars. Walz is probably going to get an Oscar nomination, but I thought some of the others were very good as well. The guy who played the Gestapo officer, for instance, and the actress who played Shoshana. Even Brad Pitt was better than the trailers would lead one too believe. He’s comes off as fairly broad at first, but over time, I think the performance really starts to work, and I bought Aldo Raines as a character and not just a Brad Pitt cameo.
Pitt trying to speak Italian with a hillbilly accent was pretty funny – not really so much because it was awful, but because Aldo didn’t give a fuck that it was awful.
Thanks Sampiro, pretty much what I thought. The boy has to start somewhere, right?? He loves the commercials, I think he would love the movie.
[PFC Ulmer] But I don’t speak Italian.
[Lt Raine] That makes you third best.
“Bone juhr-no…”
One of my favorite moments- one that you also forget is QT- is the Nazi officer killed by the “Bear Jew”. You actually respected the officer for his bravery, ethics (even if in the cause of the Third Reich), and acceptance of his fate over betraying his comrades. It took the pleasure out of the scene for Aldo Raines as well; no fun to kill a nasty Nazi who isn’t being nasty or Nazi.
Did anybody else think the Bear Jew who was making the noise with the bat during the buildup to his emergence was going to be Shoshana?
As for the two "missing’ basterds, I assumed they were killed sometime in the interim.
I loved the suspense with Brigitte; I wasn’t sure until her own death which team had her ultimate royalty.
Most people on SDMB probably know it but for any who might not, Emil Jannings- the actor who is introduced by Goebbels as “the best living actor in the world”- was a real actor (and a devout Nazi) who is most famous today for being the first actor ever to win an Academy Award for Best Actor. The ring that Goebbels mentioned is also real; he commissioned one for Jannings that was intended to be more prestigious than the Iffland Ring, Germany’s greatest honor for an actor.*
I wondered if Landa honored his promise to LaPadite (the farmer at the beginning who was harboring Shoshana’s family) or if he killed him as soon as he was finished with the Jews. Perhaps it’s in the deleted scenes, but I think it works better as a “what’s in Marsellus’s briefcase?” mystery.
I also like the element of mystery in Landa deliberately letting Shoshana get away. He could have sat down to a leisurely lunch and another helping of Farmer LaPadite’s [del]Big Kahuna Burger[/del] [del]tasty beverage[/del] delicious fresh milk and still have probably killed her, but chose not to; is this because of vestigial humanity, or because he likes the hunt, or…?
And I loved the tension of that scene. I thought for certain LaPadite’s daughters were going to be at best shot through the head outside the window. The way they switched to English both as plot device and for the convenience of English speaking viewers reminded me of the great translation scene in Judgment at Nuremberg.
Somehow the way you’re made to “feel LaPadite’s pain” drives home the real horror of the war in a manner that blood and gore wouldn’t. LaPadite hates giving up the Dreyfus family, but he’s confronted with a chance of his own family living if he lets them be killed, or he can play the hero and the best case scenario is he and his daughters will have a fast death; more likely he’ll be tortured and his daughters raped before dying.
About the only think I didn’t like was the casting of the Nazi high-ups; they didn’t really look the parts except in the generic sense (Göring’s fat, Goebbels is weasel, etc.). And I was disappointed Landa didn’t make Cinderella references with Brigitte’s shoe. But these are minor enough issues; I still give it an A.
*It’s given to the greatest living German actor for life, and in his will he names his successor. Currently it’s worn by Bruno Ganz, best known to western audiences for playing Hitler in Downfall.
Speaking of Bruno Ganz, it would have been awesome to see him playing Hitler again in IG, but maybe too much of a stunt.
Someone should do a Downfall cut of Hitler bitching about Inglourious Basterds not having enough of the “Basterds” in it, and having too many subtitles (frequent complaints I’ve seen and heard from people who didn’t like the movie, but who I think were misled by the trailers into thinking they would ger more of a straight ahead action/adventure movie).
I find myself still thinking about this movie and wanting to see it again. That tavern scene was brilliant. So was the opening scene on the dairy farm. So was the image of Shoshanna playing on the movie screen amid all the smoke and fire – an almost supernatural image of justice and revenge. I suspect there will be even more to appreciate on a second viewing, even though that tension of not knowing what’s going to happen next (a tension that QT has not created this successfully since Pulp Fiction) will not be there.
In the tavern scene I thought it was fascinating that you never learn who the tavern keeper would have shot when he reached for his gun. That was another great tension building scene.
I actually caught that he held up the wrong finger[s] for “three” yet thought “that’s not important”. I was too busy thinking “Moron! Tell him your father was an attache to Haiti or that you grew up at your German family’s plantation in Cuba or even that you’re an Amerikadeutscher!”
I believe that was a pseudonym for the director of the original Inglorious Basterds in a cameo.
Hans took the explosives from Brad Pitt and put them in Hitler’s booth. They didn’t know they were standing right next to a timed explosive.
Yeah. I’m looking forward though to the whole big Shoshanna backstory that got cut out but will be on the DVD extras.