09-02-2009, 02:43 PM
The opening credits were an homage to WWII classic films. They even used the period Universal logo. That was cute.
IB didn't blow me away, but I was entertained throughout. The shock impact of OT films has lessened over the years for me. Perhaps I'm just too jaded from seeing a lot of the original cinema (Asian film and in this case, vintage WWII flicks and westerns) that QT poaches for his ideas. Also QT can be so self absorbed in his long-winded edits - that's part of his style, I know, but it did tend to slow things down a bit.
I love QT's ear for sound. The Ennio Morricone/Lalo Schiffrin nods were really amusing. Honestly, his homage work is what gets me the most. However, the pilfering of another film's signature theme song (no spoiler - I won't say which but you'll know it the instant it starts) did not work for me at all. Sure, there a hot actress putting on makeup and loading a pistol, but it didn't hold a candle to the original. Remember the original? Not even in the ballpark with that scene. It should have been totally cut.
It's all about Christoph Waltz and Brad Pitt. They just chewed up every scene they were in and spat it back with such defiant delight. With their scenes, the long-winded edits worked well. I chuckled at almost every line of Pitts. And Waltz was a spectacular villain, delicious in the details, which was key in this flick. I would have like to have seen the other Basterds developed more. We got a brief intro to the gang, extended on a few, and that didn't go anywhere. Unlike those wonderful old 'band of soldiers' flicks (I'm thinking like Guns of Navarone or Dirty Dozen), the gang wasn't as fleshed out as I would have liked. The story arcs of the minor Basterds was lost. I would have rather seen that then the makeup theme song lift scene. I totally missed Bo Svenson's scene - IMDB says he was cast as the "American Colonel" but that just didn't pop out at me. I was worried because it made me think that what we published on our ezine was fake. At least, it was marginally relevant. That article just fell in our lap in a timely manner.
I was processing QT's commentary on exploitative violence in film after the movie. There was almost one of those artsy fartsy comments on propaganda and the spectacle of violence, but in the end, it didn't flesh out for me. Perhaps that was lost in the edit... or maybe I was projecting (as writers tend to do). Any thoughts on that, tg?
IB didn't blow me away, but I was entertained throughout. The shock impact of OT films has lessened over the years for me. Perhaps I'm just too jaded from seeing a lot of the original cinema (Asian film and in this case, vintage WWII flicks and westerns) that QT poaches for his ideas. Also QT can be so self absorbed in his long-winded edits - that's part of his style, I know, but it did tend to slow things down a bit.
I love QT's ear for sound. The Ennio Morricone/Lalo Schiffrin nods were really amusing. Honestly, his homage work is what gets me the most. However, the pilfering of another film's signature theme song (no spoiler - I won't say which but you'll know it the instant it starts) did not work for me at all. Sure, there a hot actress putting on makeup and loading a pistol, but it didn't hold a candle to the original. Remember the original? Not even in the ballpark with that scene. It should have been totally cut.
It's all about Christoph Waltz and Brad Pitt. They just chewed up every scene they were in and spat it back with such defiant delight. With their scenes, the long-winded edits worked well. I chuckled at almost every line of Pitts. And Waltz was a spectacular villain, delicious in the details, which was key in this flick. I would have like to have seen the other Basterds developed more. We got a brief intro to the gang, extended on a few, and that didn't go anywhere. Unlike those wonderful old 'band of soldiers' flicks (I'm thinking like Guns of Navarone or Dirty Dozen), the gang wasn't as fleshed out as I would have liked. The story arcs of the minor Basterds was lost. I would have rather seen that then the makeup theme song lift scene. I totally missed Bo Svenson's scene - IMDB says he was cast as the "American Colonel" but that just didn't pop out at me. I was worried because it made me think that what we published on our ezine was fake. At least, it was marginally relevant. That article just fell in our lap in a timely manner.
I was processing QT's commentary on exploitative violence in film after the movie. There was almost one of those artsy fartsy comments on propaganda and the spectacle of violence, but in the end, it didn't flesh out for me. Perhaps that was lost in the edit... or maybe I was projecting (as writers tend to do). Any thoughts on that, tg?
Shadow boxing the apocalypse