Tarantino flick takes a whole new look at WWII.
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)
Back in theaters December 4-10
Special screenings December 16-17
www.inglouriousbasterds-movie.com
Basically, Quentin Tarantino is a genre filmmaker in love with the movies. He has tackled such cinematic subjects as the heist (RESERVOIR DOGS), blaxploitation (JACKIE BROWN), Hong Kong kung fu / Japanese samurais / revenge thrillers (KILL BILL), grindhouse (DEATH PROOF), and gangsters / boxing / hit men / war / kidnapping (PULP FICTION). Inspired by a little-seen low-budget 1978 Italian film alternately known as HELL’S HEROES, DEADLY MISSION, QUEL MALEDETTO TRENO BLINDATO (THAT BLOODY ARMORED TRAIN), and THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS — itself inspired by Robert Aldrich’s 1967 classic THE DIRTY DOZEN — Tarantino has unleashed INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, a purposely misspelled two-and-a-half-hour love letter to WWII movies that worships the genre even as it subverts it . Brad Pitt stars as Lt. Aldo Raine (anyone remember Aldo Ray?), the leader of the Basterds — seven men, including the baseball-bat wielding Bear Jew (HOSTEL director Eli Roth), who are making their way through France killing and scalping Nazis. Meanwhile, Standartenführer Hans “the Jew Hunter” Landa (an Oscar-worthy Christoph Waltz) is sniffing out the enemy everywhere — and on a mission to capture the Basterds. Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), who escaped from Landa several years before, is now running a cinema that specializes in German films; there she meets Schütze Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), a Nazi hero who is starring in a film about his exploits (anyone remember Audie Murphy?) and falls hard for Shosanna, who has changed her name to the rather elegant Emmanuelle Mimieux (anyone remember Yvette Mimieux?). After Zoller convinces Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) to hold the premiere of the film, NATION’S PRIDE, at Shosanna’s theater, everyone converges for a finale that will blow your mind. As is his style, Tarantino features a slew of minor characters with their own stories to tell, plenty of scenes that go on way too long, Mexican stand-offs, inside jokes and references that few will get, and lots of close-up violence while turning cliché and convention upside down and inside out. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is as much about making — and watching — war movies as it is a movie in and of itself, and a damn fine one at that. Tarantino doesn’t play by the rules, so you never know what will happen next. Look for well-disguised on-screen cameos by original BASTARDS director Enzo G. Castellari and star Bo Svenson, Mike Myers, and Rod Taylor (anyone remember Rod Taylor?), listen for voice-over cameos by Samuel L. Jackson and Harvey Keitel, and please don’t ever yell “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater.
SPECIAL SCREENINGS DEC. 4-10, 16, 17
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is back in theaters for a special one-week engagement beginning December 4 at the AMC Empire 25 in Times Square and the Village East on Second Ave. In addition, there will be a screening with Tarantino present at the Jewish Theological Seminary on December 16 ($18, advance reservations required at 212-280-6093) that will be followed by a panel discussion entitled “Jewish Persecution and the Fantasy of Revenge,” with producer Lawrence Bender, Chancellor Arnold M. Eisen, Dr. Amy Kalmanofsky, and Rabbi Jack Moline. The film will also be shown the next night, December 17, at MoMA as part of the Contenders, 2009 series, followed by a Q&A with Tarantino and film critic Elvis Mitchell.