Blog: Jordan

3.5/5

Quentin Tarantino is one of the most reliable filmmakers out there today: You know what type of film he’s going to give you and you know it’ll be good. Like Kill Bill and Grindhouse, Inglourious Basterds promises viewers a couple hours of kinetic fun. And like those films, it delivers.

But the glass is half empty, or at least one quarter. Inglourious Basterds shares something else in common with Tarantino’s recent work—the movie is good, but not great. It maintains a level of visceral enjoyment, but never achieves anything beyond that. The film features some exceptional moments—usually involving Brad Pitt’s character—yet also lags at times. The final product is a success, just not on the scale of Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, or even Jackie Brown.

Set in World War II, Inglourious Basterds spends its first third establishing the main characters. Then the story unfolds: The premiere of a Nazi propaganda film is to be held at a cinema in German-occupied France. The cinema’s owner, a Jewish woman whose family was killed by the SS, plots to set the theater ablaze mid-screening, burning alive the Nazi elite in attendance. Meanwhile, an Allied squad that hunts and kills Nazis, dubbed the Basterds and led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), is sent on a secret mission to blow up the cinema.

Most moments with the Basterds are excellent, a mixture of gut laughs and gruesome violence. But that’s the problem—there aren’t enough of those moments. The title Inglourious Basterds is a bit of a misnomer, as Tarantino focuses as much on other characters as he does the Basterds. The film would have benefited by devoting more screen time to the Nazi killers, particularly Brad Pitt, who nails the role every time his character speaks.

Inglourious Basterds suffers from some dull dialogue scenes in the first half, but it eventually takes off midway through. The last hour features a lot of laughs, tons of excitement, and a final scene that will leave any audience cheering. Overall, the film certainly succeeds at the most basic level—it entertains.

The violence is more graphic than that of any other Tarantino film. Which is to say, Inglourious Basterds is goddamn gory. But it avoids being exploitive: The bloodshed is acceptable in the context of a comedic war-action movie.

Tarantino could probably make films like Inglourious Basterds for the rest of his life. In fact, he probably will. And that’s fine; movies like this are an awful lot of fun. Hopefully, though, he’ll stop and make another Pulp Fiction or two along the way.

Previews are sometimes the best part of a theater-going experience (for example, when you’re dragged to a movie like Transformers). I always make sure to show up to a film early—not just to catch the opening credits, but to see the theatrical trailers. This weekend, I noticed something strange about the previews before Inglourious Basterds: Most were sci-fi action flicks, or at least were action-oriented. I suppose that’s a good reflection of what genres are in vogue right now.

Inception, Christopher Nolan’s new film, interested me the most out of all the trailers. The preview doesn’t tell you anything about the story or characters—it just makes clear that this film will be bad ass. Seems exciting on both a visceral and intellectual level. At the very least, the aesthetics will be great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUtEUnGWI_g

On the other hand, I was supremely disappointed by the preview for Avatar, one of the most anticipated films in some time. Like other James Cameron works, Avatar’s success or failure will depend heavily upon its special effects. From what I saw, the CGI looks great for a Playstation game, but mediocre for a movie. My criterion for good CGI/special effects is pretty simple: Does it look real or not? Does it look like someone pointed a camera at the natural world, or like they pointed it at a computer screen? Avatar appears to fail this test. I don’t care how neat the images look—if they don’t seem real it doesn’t work in a live action film.

To Avatar’s defense, I’ve heard it looks better in 3-D. After all this hype, I sure hope so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6AAt-oV3wE

Here's my own meaningless version of the best 101 films ever made. These things are pointless, but they're awfully fun to make and debate. There are no arbitrary restrictions in this list--films are from any time, any place, any genre, etc.

A majority of the movies are American, but it's not because I haven't seen enough foreign films. I just think the U.S. makes (or perhaps, made) the best.

In addition, a few films that always rate high on lists (i.e. Citizen Kane, The Godfather, etc.) also show up high here. Some people complain and say that makes these lists too predictable. Maybe so, but I'm not going to penalize great movies just for the sake of originality.

The films are chosen based on my own personal preference, not that of critics or academics. The only criterion is quality.

1 Raging Bull

2 Annie Hall

3 Citizen Kane

4 The Godfather

5 Seven Samurai

6 2001: A Space Odyssey

7 The 400 Blows

8 Apocalypse Now

9 Hoop Dreams

10 Psycho

11 Schindler's List

12 Taxi Driver

13 Yojimbo

14 A Clockwork Orange

15 In Cold Blood

16 Modern Times

17 The Graduate

18 Cool Hand Luke

19 The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

20 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

21 The Passion of Joan of Arc

22 Dr. Strangelove or: how I Learned to stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

23 Withnail and I

24 8 1/2

25 Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

26 Network

27 Platoon

28 Lawrence of Arabia

29 The Godfather Part II

30 Jaws

31 12 Angry Men

32 Battleship Potemkin

33 Chinatown

34 Blue Velvet

35 Dog Day Afternooon

36 A Short Film About Killing

37 The Samurai Trilogy

38 The Battle of Algiers

39 Sunset Blvd.

40 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

41 All Quiet on the Western Front

42 Rififi

43 The Best Years of Our Lives

44 Metropolis

45 The Shining

46 Rashomon

47 Wings of Desire

48 The Last Picture Show

49 Singin' in the Rain

50 Night of the Hunter

51 The Seventh Seal

52 Stalker

53 Nashville

54 Night of the Living Dead

55 Come and See

56 Star Wars

57 North by Northwest

58 My Life to Live

59 Night and Fog

60 E.T.: The Extraterrestrial

61 The Thing

62 To Kill a Mockingbird

63 Midnight Cowboy

64 Paths of Glory

65 Videodrome

66 The French Connection

67 City of God

68 MASH

69 Manhattan

70 American Beauty

71 La Dolce Vita

72 Marathon Man

73 Goodfellas

74 Tender Mercies

75 It's a Wonderful Life

76 The Deer Hunter

77 Shawshank Redemption

78 Shortcuts

79 M

80 A Nous la Liberte

81 American Movie: The Making of Northwestern

82 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

83 Casablanca

84 Throne of Blood

85 Contempt

86 Harlan County, USA

87 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

88 Full Metal Jacket

89 Aguirre: The Wrath of God

90 Spellbound

91 Alien

92 Once Upon a Time in the West

93 The Apartment

94 This is Spinal Tap

95 Cape Fear (1960)

96 On the Waterfront

97 Sleeper

98 The Grand Illusion

99 Man Bites Dog

100 The Blair Witch Project

101 The Vanishing

I stumbled upon an interesting film project the other day: “The Social Network.” Slated for release in 2010, the movie tells the story of the founders of the mega-popular social networking site Facebook. Those are really the only plot details available.

At first I figured it was just a lame attempt to cash in on a cultural phenomenon. I mean, that sounds like a lukewarm setup for a theatrical release. But then I saw who was attached: David Fincher (Fight Club, Seven, etc.) as director and Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing) as writer. Now, I’m intrigued to see what guys like that will do with material that seems so humdrum. There has to be a lot more to this project than there appears.

And I really hope “The Social Network” is just a working title.

There's a drive-in movie theater a few miles from me, crammed in between some baseball diamonds off a dusty rural highway. Cruising past today, it occurred to me that I've never been to a drive-in before. The things just weren’t around where I grew up—they didn’t sit well with the strip mall/linoleum siding school of suburban planning. I remember many United Artists, even a few arts cinemas, but never a drive-in. Now, with normal multiplexes becoming more and more obsolete, it’s no wonder that these dinosaurs have long died out.

My most intimate experience with drive-ins comes from seeing them in movies like The Last Picture Show and Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. They always seemed like a lot of fun in that summer nostalgia sort of way. How’s the sound? The picture? What’s it feel like? Maybe it’s not so different; maybe it’s a whole new world.

I’d go to that drive-in nearby, but it only shows the worst Hollywood releases: G-Force, Transformers 2, Ice Age 39, etc. Don’t get me wrong, blockbusters are perfect fare for drive-ins. But everyone has their limits, and movies like that go beyond mine.

Still, I’d like to try a drive-in. I’d like the experience, even if that experience features the latest cast of CGI rodents. Maybe a couple beers would help—one perk of going to a drive-in.

Who knows, in thirty years someone could be writing the same thing about the United Artists of today: "Remember when movies were two-dimensional? When you only had advertisements before the film?"