Twilight Sequel 'New Moon' #1 Advance Online … 
MPTF: Open Letter To Jeffrey Katzenberg 
'2012' Dominates For $225M 5-Day Launch … 
Showtime Rattled By Rival EPIX Arrival 
4TH UPDATE: MGM Studio Claiming Business As … 
'Paranormal Activity' Crosses $100M Cume: … 
EXCLUSIVE: DISNEY'S BIG JOB SWITCH; CFO Tom … 
Rich Ross Restructures Disney Studios' … 
20 Animated Films Vying For 2009 Oscars 
THE END OF 'OPRAH' AS WE KNOW HER: Daytime … 
Comcast & GE Pact To Keep NBCU Talks … 
Elle's Women In Hollywood Power List 
There was an audience screening at noon Cannes Time. Great reaction from the general audience with a huge ovation. But the reviews range from good, to mixed, to really rotten. The real question is how Inglourious Basterds will do at the box office when it opens in August and how it will affect Quentin Tarantino's future and The Weinstein Co's fortunes.
Peter Bradshow, The Guardian
Quentin Tarantino's wartime spaghetti western about a bunch of Nazi-hunting Americans is just Gott-awful... Quentin Tarantino's cod-WW2 shlocker about a Jewish-American revenge squad intent on killing Nazis in German-occupied France is awful. It is achtung-achtung-ach-mein-Gott atrocious. It isn't funny; it isn't exciting; it isn't a realistic war movie, yet neither is it an entertaining genre spoof or a clever counterfactual wartime yarn. It isn't emotionally involving or deliciously ironic or a brilliant tissue of trash-pop references. Nothing like that. Brad Pitt gives the worst performance of his life, with a permanent smirk as if he's had the left side of his jaw injected with cement, and which he must uncomfortably maintain for long scenes on camera without dialogue. And those all-important movie allusions are entirely without zing, being to stately stuff such as the wartime German UFA studio, GW Pabst etc, for which Tarantino has no feeling, displaying just a solemn Euro-cinephilia that his heart isn't in. The expression on my face in the auditorium as the lights finally went up was like that of the first-night's audience at Springtime for Hitler. Except that there is no one from Dusseldorf called Rolf to cheer us up.
BBC Website, Emma Jones.
Quentin Tarantino has made an eye-catching return to the Cannes Film Festival with Inglourious Basterds, an epic World War II movie set in Nazi-occupied France. Tarantino swaps fact for pulp fiction in Inglourious Basterds, a comic revenge fantasy about Jewish freedom fighters bringing down the Nazis in 1944... Once again, the US director has blurred film genres. Essentially it's western meets war movie, with David Bowie on the soundtrack. And it becomes positively camp-operatic in parts - particularly in its portrayal of a shrill, semi-hysterical Adolf Hitler and British generals who could have been lifted from 'Allo, 'Allo... This is not an American movie. Rather, it's Tarantino's homage to the European cinema he adores. Indeed, there are so many scenes shot in French and German that an English-speaking audience will spend a lot of the film reading subtitles. Some will wish there were a few more, just so they can understand [Brad] Pitt's Tennessee-born, almost incomprehensible character. Inglourious Basterds clocks in at nearly three hours, and its director could certainly have trimmed more of its flab. This, and Pitt's character not getting the screen time he deserves, are the main disappointments. It can't touch Pulp Fiction, which won the Palme d'Or in 1994 before going on to win an Oscar for its screenplay. Still, the consensus here at Cannes is Tarantino has made a glorious, silly, blood-spattered return to form.
The Times, Ben Hoyle
Quentin Tarantino stages a comeback with Inglourious Basterds…Quentin Tarantino stormed back to the scene of his greatest triumph today with a World War Two revenge film that critics greeted with relieved cheers. Inglourious Basterds is a violent, funny love letter to cinema filmed in four languages and starring Brad Pitt in the lead role. The snap verdict this morning was that it is not the former wunderkind director’s greatest achievement but should prove enough to resurrect his career.”
Empire Magazine
Empire has just seen Quentin Tarantino's eagerly-awaited WWII flick, Inglourious Basterds, and it's rather brilliant. Every bit as idiosyncratic as the spelling of its title, it's a wonderfully-acted movie that subverts expectation at every turn. And it may represent the most confident, audacious writing and directing of QT's career. Forget what you think you know is such a cliché, but here it more than applies... It’s an action movie that has barely any action. The Basterds themselves, including Brad Pitt’s Lt. Aldo Raine, are off-screen for long periods of time. And it takes wild liberties with history... This is a fairytale world, in which American soldiers can ghost behind enemy lines, scalp hundreds of Nazis and never get caught. And in which… no, we won’t go there. Not yet. But the ending is so thrillingly audacious that this reporter laughed out loud when it happened. Even when, having read the script, I knew it was coming... There are flaws, of course – what film doesn’t have flaws? But they may be exaggerated depending on your feelings about Tarantino.
Loading ...
Why not include The Guardian’s review too?
“Quentin Tarantino’s cod-WW2 shlocker about a Jewish-American revenge squad intent on killing Nazis in German-occupied France is awful. It is achtung-achtung-ach-mein-Gott atrocious. It isn’t funny; it isn’t exciting; it isn’t a realistic war movie, yet neither is it an entertaining genre spoof or a clever counterfactual wartime yarn. It isn’t emotionally involving or deliciously ironic or a brilliant tissue of trash-pop references. Nothing like that. Brad Pitt gives the worst performance of his life, with a permanent smirk as if he’s had the left side of his jaw injected with cement, and which he must uncomfortably maintain for long scenes on camera without dialogue.”
Peter Bradshaw goes on….
You forgot to post The Guardian’s review:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/may/20/cannes-film-festival-tarantino-inglourious-basterds
Spoiler alert! It isn’t as praising as the others…
“its director could certainly have trimmed more of its flab”
This tells me all I need to know. Everything post-Jackie Brown that Tarantino has put out has been excessively self-indulgent. Kill Bill Pt. 2 was essentially nothing but flab with the exception of the Darryl Hannah sequence. Yes, Tarantino is a good filmmaker, but until he leaves the cushy confines of the Weinsteins and finds a producer who will actually stand up to him and separate the wheat from the chaff, he won’t be a great one.
Bomb.
Terrific — three reviews from three toffee-nosed Limey twits. I’ve read others that said it was way too long, and not nearly enough action.
Christ, can’t he do anything but endlessly recycle his own memories of better movies he watched on VHS as a kid?
Reviews I’ve read have been all over the place collectively.
Same old polarizing Tarantino. You either him or you don’t.
I’ll still see it though.
A three hour WWII flick about a military squad on the hunt for Nazis. THREE HOURS! Think about that? 180 MINUTE INVESTMENT OF YOUR LIFE! 90 minutes — 100 — 120…I would be there in a heartbeat. 180 minutes of wank off referential dialogue…fuck you.
Too long?? It was a rough cut. I can not wait to see this movie. Fantastic script, amazing director.
QT essentially did for movie and film what the Sex Pistols did for Rock n’ Roll. He shook it up. Were the Sex Pistols a great band? Definitely, not. Is QT a great filmmaker? Sometimes, and that’s just in one movie. But he did shake it up. The thing is, now his style has become somewhat dated.
Well, Empire absolutely LOVED “Death Proof” (and I believe The Times and BBC were fans as well) so these reviews were to be expected.
If you try to look past the love of all things Tarantino, you get a film that sounds like it is too talk and too long.
I love Tarantino. I hope they don’t trim one second from this film. His dialog is fantastic. I hang on every word his characters say…so amazing. People who dismiss him, don’t get it.
Self-indulgent + overrated = Quentin Tarantino
It must be exhausting for you people to hate everything all the time.
Hollywood Reporter was mixed. “The film is by no means terrible — its running time of two hours and 32 minutes races by — but those things we think of as being Tarantino-esque, the long stretches of wickedly funny dialogue, the humor in the violence and outsized characters strutting across the screen, are largely missing….”
This script was the #1 most entertaining script I read last year. The complainers would complain no matter what. Would they like it better if QT went with the original idea of a “men on a mission” flick with Stallone, Madsen, Willis, etc? I think there would be far more negatives to pic from a concept like that as opposed to the strange, violent and funny film that he has made. Give this one a shot…especially if you love nods to the old ways of filmmaking, new wave, spaghetti westerns, etc.
This is without doubt going to be the bomb that finally sinks QT. Deathproof was a rancid self indulgent mess that utterly missed the point of the the genre it (r)aped. Seriously, if the trailer for IB is representative of the whole movie then the bubble’s gonna burst not just for Tarantino but Pitt as well. Jackie Brown was TWELVE years ago people!
I’m just curious how QT will incorporate his notorious fetish for sexualizing feet in this flick.
Wait, no I’m not.
But I am curious to see how much is plagiarized, er, an homage to B-level WWII flicks from the 50s to the 70s.
The German reviews were posted (if anybody would like to read them and is versatile in German, shout, I can link to them)
DER SPIEGEL’S review was essentially a complete demolition of the movie, stating “It’s like watching blood dry… it starts off slow and boring and then, when you thought it couldn’t get more boring, it does.”
The same guy commented on how pissed Harvey Weinstein looked, and wondered if Weinstein and Tarantino have to go back into the editing suite and do an entirely new cut, and in his words, “not with a scalpel”
I’m hot and cold on Tarantino, but generally speaking, it sure would be nice to see some movies made by people who’ve done something other than watch movies all their lives.
“Everybody be cool!” It is common for the films screened at Cannes to have a longer running time than when they are released in the United States. I believe Nikki said this herself. QT worked overtime to edit the film in time for Cannes so I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up trimming the running time before the official release.
The Emperor has no clothes, and his first name in Quentin. Let’s face it, this guy’s a hack whose cinematic pyrotechnics distract, but never fail to overcome, an under-educated and always ludicrous point of view. The word “homage” inevitably comes up when describing anything Tarantino shoots because his whole career is based on thieving ideas from much better directors and artists. Who in their right does a homage to a third-rate Italian exploitation piece anyways?
This picture will be screened, hyped and quickly forgotten, like chewing so much bubblegum on a hot day, not even a footnote in a body of work that is itself a cinematic footnote.
QT is an old time B-movie director with big budgets and no pretense and a great sense of humor. Nobody does these types of films better. His work is entertaining and fun if not mostly forgettable. I can’t wait to see it.
Brad Pitt was miscast. He needs to stick to Oceans movies and romcoms. Movies where he does not need to use an accent. he is the most overrated Actor alive and it seems like i’m the only person fed up with Brad Pitt movies.
I heard it was pretty awful – the Cannes audience (as opposed to the more considered response of the Jury) is rarely a good judge. The endless boozing seems to dim critical faculties.
And Emma@ 10:36 am: I’d take three ‘toffee nosed limey twits’ over fawning, semi-literate American critics any day.
Everything I read says it’s OK at best, but mostly that it’s talky and boring. And talky in a bad way, not a cool way.
I looke forwarde to catalog’ing the many mini instances of pla-, ahem, homage in this filme.
“Christ, can’t he do anything but endlessly recycle his own memories of better movies he watched on VHS as a kid?”
You may want to avoid any studio movies set to be released in the next 5-10 years.
Two and a half hours – much of it subtitled – and a totally misleading trailer that portrays it as an action film. This is going to be an unmitigated disaster. “A”, I totally agree; the Weinsteins coddle him, but I think he’ll wear-out his welcome with this film.
Still, “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction” are so good, QT could film a Bulgarian narration of grass growing in black-and-white and still get a pass.
Great movie but saddled with a stupid title that will be offputting to many filmgoers; it won’t bomb in August but it won’t do well either, mediocre results on the way.
Whatever. I’ll still go see it.
So as per the reviews, QT has officially disappeared up his own ass?
Shocked but not surprised. I kinda had that one figured out the second he said: “Eli, you got the part!”
I’m still trying to figure out why he bought the rights to the 1978 Italian film when all he ended up taking from it (at least according to him) is its (mis-spelt) title.
Anyway, the reviews make it sound exactly like Death Proof: Minimal action, all (boring) talk, and an “homage” style totally in love with itself and 70s schlock movies you’ve never heard of and aren’t missing out on.
Is anybody really surprised? The guy spent the entire Jimmy Carter Administration smoking pot and watching grindhouse movies.
Short-cut to 30 years later, and he’s….surprise! Smoking pot and still watching grindhouse movies.
Not a lot of mature life experience in between Points A and B, so hopefully none of you are expecting Tarantino to go Bergman or Fassbinder at any point in his existance.
Anyway, I know the 90s are over and he’s way past his peak but I wish he’d go back to doing what he did best back then: Entertaining the fuck out of us.
Lets see 3 hours, sub titles, revisionist history, maybe they should move out of august and go for the Xmas fare. I can see Ortenberg say to Bob and Harvey “this is genius” and then walk to the mens room and talk to himself and say “oy vey”
Wow — a lot of vitriol for Tarantino — from the usual gang of armchair critics and frustrated directors. Typical. Those who can’t do, bitch.
Quentin Tarantino is the Axl Rose / Fred Durst of directors in that he’s alienated and steamrollered so many people, he’s really gonna have a hard time getting a fair shake with his movies because so many would love to see him fail.
Universal needs to sit on him and not allow him to do that many interviews, like Fox did with M. Night Smoke and Mirrors, or else he’ll bury himself, and this movie, with his mouth and his insufferable narcissism. He was lucky his boneheaded comments about 9-11 in Rolling Stone didn’t bury him previously.
Brad Pitt is *always* miscast because he should be doing underwear billboards for Calvin Klein and not Acting. No doubt he’ll eventually get his Oscar because he’s the perfect Prom King. Painful painful painful. And never title your film something that people are embarrassed to say at the ticket office.
Pulp Fiction was – and still is – one of the best movies I have ever seen in my life. Unfortunately, that was over ten years ago. QT is not like fine wine; he does not get better with age.
Rumours that QT might be sent back to the editing room could be very true. While standing in line for the press conference here at Cannes here yesterday I got interviewed by an anonymous bigshot of either The Weinstein Company or Universal (I know he was cause he went into the conference room with Weinstein & Bender ao afterwards) who wanted to know exactly and in detail what I didn’t like about the movie and why I didn’t like it (which was basically that the Basterds, who are potentially great characters, are only in the movie for half an hour, and that the fact that it’s marketed as a Brad Pitt-movie is misleading the audience because he is a supporting actor in an ensemble-piece where Melanie Laurent and Christoph Gantz, who gives an amazing performance by the way, are the actual leads). Also, the movie gives the impression QT made a rather random selection out of
+3 hours worth of material, who knows if he might have left a potential masterpiece on the editing room floor after cutting it! The Inglourious Basterds would be great characters for a movie of their own, but they happen to be side-characters in the movie that bears their name.
I agree with A,
Everything after Jackie Brown, which I loved, has been more hype than substance even if each of those films had nifty, post-modern art style explanations for the items I perceived to be those films’ flaws. “That was way too predicatble” is explained as “a fate the characters were destined to have” and “It was just too long for one movie but too short as two” I was told actually meant “The separation of the stories occurred at the most natural place where the dramatic action ebbed after a scene of collossal importance.”
Everything after Jackie Brown from Tarantino has been a “Check the film out when it gets to DVD” type thing.
Oh, yeah — I forgot about his post-9/11 comments. Thanks for reminding me.
Fuck him and all his future movies.
movie of the summer.
Let’s face it: the culture is now dominated by psychopaths and exhibitionists. If you seek to raise the threshold of stimulation (or define deviance down for what is considered uplifting) you will not be paying attention when the next Fellini or Bergman arrives. Assuming the next such filmmaker would even get a chance to make their movie. I’ll probably see IG, in an empty theater, but I don’t think we are advancing the cause in the right direction anymore.
” He was lucky his boneheaded comments about 9-11 in Rolling Stone didn’t bury him previously.”
“Oh, yeah — I forgot about his post-9/11 comments. Thanks for reminding me.”
—Um, does someone want to enlighten me??
QT wanted Nastassja Kinski in this and I was excited about that because she deserves the comeback. Then she apparently read the script, was apalled by the over-the-top anti-German sentiment and turned it down (despite the Weinsteins paying Variety to more or less say she’d already signed on) as she knew she’d never be able to set foot in her native Germany again. Of course Diane Kruger has no such qualms as everyone knows she hates her own country with the same vigor as many Americans do their own country today.
Comeback? WHAT comeback?? Tarantino’s “fading” career?? Nonsense! He’s never gone anywhere away from film culture. The man is brilliant. No, I don’t adore every scene he elects to include in his films, and no, I don’t believe he makes no mistakes. I DO believe that he is intelligent, witty, honest, and slightly off kilter, which is why I enjoy his movies and his perspectives so much. I can’t wait to see Inglorious Basterds. I’ve never given a rat’s ass about what other people think, including film reviewers, and I doubt Tarantino does either. He is a true cinemaphile, and as long as he continues to make movies, I will continue to pay to watch and own them.