Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds – WHAT WENT WRONG?

The Inglourious Basterd

Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino – Director, 2009

HOOK: What if the Jews were the Nazis and the Nazis were the Jews, then how would we feel?

LINE:  “I want my scalps!” 

SINKER: We caught the friend who drove us there, Bob Wake, in the men’s room after the show trying to burn down the theater.

JOHN: In this over-the-top revenge fantasy Tarantino continues his ability to build scenes through dialogue that at first catch you off guard and then take on issues below the surface that inevitably end in violent bloodshed. This whole movie is made of scenes like that which lead to what? Collosal violent, bloodshed. There is no sense of character development nor any surprising revelation. In a sense he takes the genre (period war film) for face value and plays it for all it’s worth. Perhaps in doing that this bad boy of cinema gives audiences and himself exactly what they want (killing Nazis). I realized a few minutes into the film that any discussion of rewriting history or the question of portraying Jews as avengers, was beside the point. In some ways this is better than his gangster movies (Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs) because it seems like it will play on our preconceived values and gives us a fresh take on the context of our lives. But that only carries us so far — about two-thirds of the movie. But then we want more, not simply more of the same, but more.

GO, GO, GO (3 GOs out of four)

SPANKY: It’s not just self-indulgence (though that’s a downside of director as writer), Tarantino misses a wonderful opportunity. This film is as much about movies as it is about WWII, maybe more. How they reflect reality /or let us escape from it. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) is an entertaining, insightful villain, but it’s the Melanie Laurent character, Shoshanna, who is the soul of the movie. She is out for vengeance but beneath her cold resolve beats the heart of a terrified child. As she lies dying and her theater is burning, she should be imagining the ending we see (of dying Nazi leaders), instead of the fictionalizing romp T-Man (as ballsy as he is) presents. Think Fellini, Bergman and Truffaut. It could have been a symbolic comment on the creative process that allows us, not only to survive, but to be great. True, the Brad Pitt finale would have had to be curtailed, but by this time we’re sick of his over-acted character anyway. What could have been profound, is simply noisy, and only to do with us at the movies. We leave the theater, the same people we were when we came in. As Nick Caraway says at the end of the Great Gatsby: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”  Maybe Bob Wake had the right idea after all.  

“ONE PAW Up” (1 BARK out of four)

 

LOST HIGHWAY – What Went Wrong?

Lost Highway, David Lynch-Director, 1997 

"Sorry, I can't seem to concentrate. I've got a long drive tomorrow."

HOOK: How did guy-next-door Bill Pullman get into this Alice-down-the-rabbit-hole movie for closet perverts? How do we get out?

LINE: “We met before, haven’t we?”

SINKER: The thing about a David Lynch film is that, like foreign movies of the 50’s and early 60’s, it asks us to reinvent the medium.

SPANKY: This picture was shot on a cell phone underwater. It is dark, blurry,…the music surges for no reason. There is a voyeuristic quality that is weirdly engaging and the red (and platinum) haired Patricia Arquette in a black silk robe with voice like a purring cat is a sex goddess that holds our attention no matter what spooky shit is hitting the fan. Like other Lynch films, about half way through there in no place to go so it just repeats itself. At best it is Munch’s painting “The Scream” come to life. At worst, car-sick vomit.

“TWO PAWS DOWN” (1 BARK out of four)

JOHN: The subtext is of someone watching or being watched, suggesting we in the movie audience are central, and the symbolic plot is just a lose representation of our lives. Lost Highway is the antithesis of a slasher movie. Nothing much happens because it is our own fears that are being provoked. What if someone slipped a video of our lives onto the outside steps each day and it purposely only captured appearances? Though not his best, in this age of block busters for specific demographic audiences and test-screenings to determine endings, give Lynch credit for saying “No.” The fact that he isn’t Bergman, Felini or even Herzog may be disappointing, but his refusal to conform is almost enough. If we can’t step forward and fill in the pieces, we don’t deserve more.

GO GO GO (3 GOs out of four)