Inglourious Basterds

One of the directors I admire that I did not mention on the list above is Quentin Tarantino. Like most people I love ‘Pulp Fiction’ but I also like his other films as well. One of my weaknesses I have in my script writing is dialogue. I can’t seem to get the hang of writing distinctive dialogue and make each character sound different. This is what I love most about Quentin’s movies. Most of his films consist of people sitting around talking which I know most people can find boring but for me when Quentin is writing the dialogue its heaven. I could watch a whole film he’s written that is just two people talking.
‘Inglourious Basterds’ consists mostly of scenes of people sitting around talking but as I said this is what I love. There is a little bit of action but maybe not as much as you’d expect. The one thing you do expect from this action though is that it is quite grisly. Some of these were a bit tough to watch as well. But we all know that Quentin is not above showing us the gory details. The one thing that did surprise me about the film was that the story focuses more on the French and German characters of the film as opposed to the Americans. Considering the film is called ‘Inglourious Basterds’ you would expect to see them more. This was not a negative for me as I like surprises in movies. I can see how some might not like it as Quentin has made it more authentic and the French and German characters speak in their native language so there are quite a lot of subtitles. It always amazes me how these sorts of thing turns people off seeing a film because I see quite a lot of foreign films and have gotten used to reading real quick. The film is kind of a fantasy as well because Quentin has used real life characters from World War II but in a fictional story. This should not matter as it makes you wish the war actually ended this way.
As mentioned above the Inglourious Basterds do not feature as much as expected in this film. That means that although his name is above the title Brad Pitt is not in the film all that much. However when he is I thought he was excellent. I love his attitude in the film and his accent. Just the way he moves his mouth is a joy. I also liked seeing German actors Til Schweiger and Daniel Bruhl who I’ve seen in films before get some attention in A Hollywood film. One of my comedy heroes is Mike Myers. I was however severely disappointed with his last film so it was wonderful to see him do a cameo appearance in this film. I just hope he can do another great film soon. The biggest pleasure though was seeing the breakout performance by Christoph Waltz. I guarantee he will get an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for this role. Christoph has created a brilliantly evil character that you fall in love with despite the bad things he does. He has a silliness that kind of makes him endearing as he tries to ingratiate himself with the Americans. I also liked the vocal cameos from some of Quentin’s mates.
There have not been too many quality films released lately so it is pleasantly refreshing to see something so great. It’s great to see how well this film is doing and can’t wait to see what Quentin does next.