Maniacal wrote:The Beyond, will remain one of my favoes for years to come
Eccentric as all hell...but that gothic look, gory set-piece and wonderful atmosphere set-up save it.
You keep as a favourite for years to come mate!
"Inglorious Basterds"
Second viewing (after the cinema viewing) of QT's WW2 epic.
And once the false expectations were taken care of after the first viewing...I have to say I liked this even more than I did the first time.
Let us face it my friends. Let us face it....I can safely say the vast majority of people who went to see "IB" without any other feedback other than the pre-release hype and trailers were not expecting the film they got.
Yes indeed we thought it was going to be an OTT 'Guys on a Mission' war film, full of artistic craziness, hyper violence, spectacle and fluid dialogue we would all like to say at the time but never would because we would only think of it the next day....Basically, indeed, a QT style remake of the original "Inglorious Bastards".
Instead though we got a very unusual, down right eccentric , WW2 thriller with more drama than armour and with 'Guys on a Mission' who basically played second fiddle to a young woman when they weren't making a complete hash of their (duplicated no less) plan to wipe out Hitler and his boys.
Basically the film is a selection of individual scenes that only play as a whole at the end of them when that slender thread of a shared plotline snakes its way in and lasso's the end of each scene to pull it back into the herd.
But it works because QT is a master at time and plot manipulation and stunningly brave plot devices.
And who the hell expected the amount of subtitled dialogue we had! A brave thing to do. But not a pretentious one as this authentic dialogue set-up actually becomes essential as far as at least 2 sequences play out, where English would have made it all pointless.
The aforementioned 'montage' set-up also makes the extended running time flit along at a fair old lick and in no way does the film (especially after the first viewing, where we were all a bit thrown about what we were watching) feel like how long it is.
It also means that something new is being unveiled for us every 20 minutes or so, which keeps the interest up and the expectations high.
Everyone gives their all, no bad performance is to be seen (if Roth had not been Roth none of you moaning fuckers would have said a word...admit it. And if you thought Bad Pitt was bad you failed to grasp the basic make-up of the movie, in fact he gives a mini genius performance and you only have to look at his face and body language during the meet and greet at the movie premier to see that) with Mélanie Laurent (shockingly ignored by poncy critics) and Christoph Waltz truly shining.
The alternate history thing is still really weird even after you know about it...but in a way it cleverly ensures that (despite the dickwads, fucktards and general inbred pond dwellers that hang out in IMDB message boards may think) any insult to the real WW2 is avoided from the go.
It also opens up a rare thing indeed...An historical event covered like no other by previous films that is suddenly unexpected and intriguing.
The violence is rare, brief but amazingly brutal, the use of music is once again genius (how happy was I to hear Lalo's superlative "Kelly's Heroes" music? And Bowie has never been used to better effect) and the lack of that PC, limp wristed attitude to taking out your enemy in any way you can too, often seen in today's society in real life (and at its most self-destructive), is also tramped into the mud as 'all out war' is turned about straight into the faces of the Nazis.
Faults?
Hell, where I had them on first viewing I seem to not have them anymore!
The dual/unknown to each other assassination plots still seems a bit strange and still seems a bit clunky as far as drama goes, and how I wish the ending (Why QT!? WHY did you not do this!?) had involved an extra special
full face Brad Pitt artwork instead of just the forehead thing we got.
Otherwise the mixture of cult fanboy masturbatory indulgence (Hugo muthafuckin Stiglitz??!) is as glorious and lovely, lovely as ever, the serious drama is well done and effective, the violence is suitably nasty and the 'extended montage' set-up and use of other soundtrack music is wonderful and creative.
Damn it! After first viewing I thought Qt had come back to form but not to his full form. After a second viewing I think he has indeed come back to full form and it makes me damn near sexually stimulated to finally realise that!