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re:The movie in question - The Germans' most high profile character in the film was as cold and sadistic as Hannibal Lector. The Brad Pitt character was a heartless basterd. Both were calculating and evil to the core. Pitt, however, had the benefit of playing for the good guys. One was spit and polish military precision. The other was a renegade loose cannon. The other less visible faction was the French Resistance. They, of course, would be viewed as terrorists or insurgents by the Germans. What is the difference between a soldier and a terrorist? Methods? Uniforms? Funding? Government sanction? Righteous cause?
Do you seriously view a movie such as Inglorious Basterds as propaganda? Do you see the violence in this film as somehow worse than that which you might encounter in a murder mystery or a slasher flick?
I enjoyed it tremendously for the fact that it encourages thoughtful discussion. I'm glad you are here to disagree. We were getting way too many Amen!!s and too few WTFs.
Just try to keep an open mind. Not too orthodox and not too reflexive.
It is fantasy entertainment of the worst kind.
Did you turn it off after the first 30 minutes? I'm guessing you watched the whole movie. Steve
You guessed wrong.
That's why I was careful to say guessed instead of bet! Out of curiosity, at what point/scene did you decide to bail? Steve
Too much protest, Kevin. As someone mentioned earlier, it's just a movie. But as an art form it is showing itself to have been very powerful. It got under your skin. This is what art is supposed to do, transcend the rational defenses and superimpose itself on your psyche. There was something about this film that you found deeply disturbing. However, your comments about the nature and quality of the piece are completely unconvincing since so many other films violate your principles and beliefs in exactly the same way. Did you ever see "Seven"? That was Brad Pitt too, and Morgan Freeman. Have you seen fingers removed and faces mutilated in films? I have. And often these atrocities are much more incongruous and gratuitous than the scalpings or stranglings or mass shootings of the Basterds movie. However, if srb is wrong, you didn't actually see much of that anyway. It's entertainment to some but not to you. Isn't that enough said? Why the inflammatory condemnation? Think back to Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, The Deer Hunter. These films were evil too. In fact, one could posit that Hollywood strives to provide us with the lurid, disgusting, terrifying , gross aspects of life to the exclusion of all else. But, like audio manufacturers, they go where their clientele leads them. Nothing succeeds like success.
I got up and turned it off when the guy took the baseball bat to the Nazi. I shouldn't have let it go that long. I'm not a prude and I've been in a war. I've seen people made into scraps of burnt flesh. I just don't think that it should be respectable as entertainment.
Kevin, Were you not familiar with any of Quentin Tarantino's past films? Did you not see Kill Bill or Pulp Fiction?You had to know somewhat what to expect with GB. I cant believe you were expecting something less.I guess I compare him to Frank Zappa!
I saw Pulp Fiction and some vampire movie I think he made. Are all of his movies this bad? When my son brought it home the only thing I knew about it was that it was a WWII flick. In general, I enjoy any historical movies. I really liked Flags of our Fathers and I'm reading the book now.
With regard to the graphic violence QT is over the top to be sure. Nothing like Uma taking out the Crazy 88s in KB1 with fountains of blood spraying all over the place. Comic bookish. I don't relish seeing violence, but I will say I much prefer how Tarantino does it in comparison to flicks like the latest Star Trek, which mostly shows the violent act but not the result. Network TV is much like that. The sanitization of violence is perhaps the worst thing I find our entertainment industry to be guilty of.
I prefer sanitizing violence. I don't see a need to see the end result. I remember watching a movie made sometime in the 50s or so and then the remake. In the earlier movie, they hid the violence. In the new movie, they showed the violence and its results. I vastly preferred the earlier movie. For instance, I forget the movie, but they showed that a horse and rider had fallen into a pit of stakes. You knew they had fell to their deaths, and that's all you needed to know. Yet, they showed the horse and rider skewered with stakes. Why? I do realize that showing the violence and results thereof has its place, such as at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan. I just think it's way over done today, for no good reason.
oIt actually opened up a "teachable moment" in terms of discussing why this movie was evil. He is at that age where he thinks I'm stupid but that is part of being a teenager. I wanted him to understand that Nazis are not the only ones that are capable of acting that way. Humans have a unique capacity for ugliness and it isn't unique to Germans.
