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I Have Found My Summer Movie!

May 20, 2009
By .
Movies

Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds":

Screen International's critic had reservations, however, summarising the film as "a series of long-running vignettes strung together by a slender story thread".

"With some of the scenes running up to half an hour each, the thread of the drama is left disjointed and the focus ever-changing," writes reviewer Mike Goodridge.

Which sounds like a description of Pulp Fiction ("various lowlifes are drawn together as a result of a fixed boxing match and a bad blind date") and Kill Bill ("woman assassinates martial artists around the world, connected only by their acquaintance with Caine from Kung Fu and a lovers' quarrel gone wrong").

And that's the harshest criticism. I now expect to love this movie as much as The Big Lebowski ("warmed over Raymond Chandler rehash as told by mid-90s Los Angeles losers, with musical dance numbers a la Busby Berkeley").

Popcorn!

Last 5 posts by Patrick

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12 Comments

  1. E.D. Kain  •  May 20, 2009 @2:56 pm

    Patrick – I too eagerly await this one. But as much as the Big Lebowski? You think? That's a tall order. Last time I saw that movie we were all half-watching it toward the beginning of my wife going into labor and it was still funny.

  2. Patrick  •  May 20, 2009 @3:08 pm

    I enjoyed Kill Bill as much as The Big Lebowski, ED, but I watched a lot of Kung Fu movies in the 70s, and while I'm a pretty decent bowler, I don't get the opportunity to do so as much I'd like.

    Chopsocky or bowling? Tarantino or the Cohens before they got all important like? Difficult to say. In any case, I'm going to enjoy this flick.

  3. Patrick  •  May 20, 2009 @3:09 pm

    And lest anyone disagree, I'll say, right now, that the bowling scenes in The Big Lebowski are the most important. All of the critics who call it a mediocre effort, and there are many of them, hate bowling.

  4. Ezra  •  May 20, 2009 @3:10 pm

    Eli Roth, who plays one of the Basterds called it kosher porn. I am less interested in the Yid revenge angle of the whole thing, but I am a sucker for the random savage chaos of Tarantino. I'm in!

  5. Grandy  •  May 20, 2009 @4:04 pm

    Yeah, the Bowling scenes are sort of the movie's hub; they're expertly woven in transitions and seques between sections of the movie. And some of the most important scenes are there. Quintana is the movie's true antagonist. The rug and the case of the missing trophy wife (in the parlance of our times) and her ransom money are side stories.

    I hope Inglorious Bastards is entertaining. I loved Kill Bill as well. Tarantino is hardly perfect (and neither is Kill Bill, but I don't mind that he does so much borrowing when he does such a good job borrowing. He hits alot of the right notes during Kill Bill, provides some kick ass fight scenes, some awesome visuals, and plenty of quirky fun touches. My only qualm about IB is Roth's involvement (I thought he was involved in the script or as a producer or something). I'm not a fan of torture porn, and hope something like torture porn doesn't dominate the movie (I know it's going to be brutal).

    I got my fair share of Karate movies growing up as well (Karate movies were the ideal choice if no monster movie was on, but were sometimes selected over monster movies. Never Godzilla, of course. No matter how many times I'd seen that particular Godzilla), and have always had a fondness for them along side Westerns.

  6. Patrick  •  May 20, 2009 @4:36 pm

    "Eli Roth"

    Yeah that's my one worry. I wish he'd substituted Tim Roth.

    And like Grandy, I never missed a Godzilla movie as a kid. I wish there was a Godzilla Channel on cable.

  7. Grandy  •  May 20, 2009 @5:19 pm

    When we moved to Georgia in 1983 (from Petersberg Va), there were 3 things beyond friends/family that I loved, in no order:

    1. Legos
    2. Video Games in any form
    3. The channel out of Richmond Va (I'm pretty sure it was out of Richmond) that seemed to specialize in showing monster movies.

    I mean, the channel did other stuff I'm sure. But I recall entire summers where they did back to back movies in the afternoon, and saturday movie marathons, and so on and so forth. I was exposed to a lot of the classics on that channel and more Godzilla than I could shake a stick at, and I've always wondered what channel it was. For better or for worse, it made a huge impression on my fragile little mind.

    I used to have dreams about Toho monsters. And I used to dream about a hidden movie channel in Macon Georgia that showed monster movies, just like the one back in Virginia. And how I'd desperately scan the paper and TV guide for some hint of what channel it was and how to access it, or go around my neighborhood asking peoiple about it. A fork of the dream premise would have me finding some monster movie marathon on an obscure channel at an obscure time; like 9am through dinner on Tuesday. I'd get upset because I'd miss it for school, only to remember it was summer (in the dreams – wether I was hunting for monster movies or being chased by monsters from monster movies or being chased by monsters from monster movies who were probably trying to make a broader point about my hunt for monster movies – it was always summer).

    I've always liked Tarantino (uh, the director ;) ). So he certainly gets the benefit of a doubt.

  8. Chris  •  May 21, 2009 @7:10 am

    I've mostly only seen Godzilla movies projected on big screens while waiting for concerts at First Ave to start. I assume they make more sense with dialogue and sound effects.

  9. Chris Berez  •  May 21, 2009 @7:44 am

    Weird. I just tried to post a comment and nothing happened. So if it suddenly shows up out of the ether, sorry for the double post.

    Anyway, I've been looking forward to this for a while. This movie is going to be absolutely awesome. Check out this early review here:
    http://www.aintitcool.com/node/41138

    And even more proof, check out the listing for the soundtrack:
    http://idolator.com/5231692/quentin-tarantino-renders-ennio-morricone-inglourious

    I cannot wait to see this. I'm a huge Tarantino fan anyway, but this looks fantastic.

  10. Ken  •  May 21, 2009 @8:17 am

    Chris, I had to rescue your comment from the spam filter. The blog software saw two links in your post and presumed that you were suggesting a quick trip to some porn sites, or perhaps offering support in regards to the size of my dick.

    I explained to the software that you don't usually do that sort of thing.

  11. Chris Berez  •  May 21, 2009 @9:26 am

    Ah, that explains it. Next time I should probably take the non-lazy rout and use html hyperlink tags.

    Thanks, much appreciated.

  12. Grandy  •  May 21, 2009 @4:21 pm

    The Memorial Day movie marathon on Sci Fi could produce a godzilla flick but I'm not overly hopeful, since I can't remember the last time I saw a Godzilla flick as part of a Sci Fi marathon. Carpenter's The Thing is on right now, though, and you know how I feel about this one.