Inglorious Bastards, Quentin Tarantino, Viewed Aug 21, 2009, 12:01 am

My friend Jacob and I made plans a few weeks ago to make sure we attended a midnight showing of Inglorious Bastards, something of a nerdy male bonding thing, I suppose.

I should take a moment to say this review will contain spoilers, and quite possibly strong language.
You have been warned. (though to be honest, the language is not particularly strong)

Cinematographically, Inglorious Bastards is an interesting creature. Movie techniques of film's early years (such as chapter title cards) met modern storytelling, stylization and sensibilities, and it was all wrapped up in Tarantino's frequently used "retro type facing" and uniqueness. His uniqueness is displayed in such features as an all seeing, all knowing narrator that would speak up for character exposition, but otherwise was silent, and a character's name super imposed upon the shot such as to fill the screen as a kind of signifier saying "this is a serious bad ass, listen up."

The characterization in Inglorious Bastards was also an interesting creature, possibly due to the characters meant to be in focus were not in fact the eponymous bastards, but rather two Nazi soldiers, Frederick Zoller and Hans Landa. Zoller is a war hero turned propaganda movie star, known for forcing the retreat of the remaining fifty men of a 300 men force using nothing more than a bolt action rifle and a thousand rounds of ammo and "bird's nest," which is apparently a sniper term for a high up roost providing 360 degrees of visibility. Zoller is also the subject and star of the diegetic film Nation's Pride by Goebbels and though he acted in it, he seems to have no stomach for watching it, having the good sense to realize the deaths of almost 300 hundred innocent men (enemy combatants though they may be) is not something to be glorified*. Landa is a shrewd, opportunistic, and monstrous SS officer who has earned the nickname the "Jew Hunter." He freely brags that his specialty is in thinking like a Jew, where as, supposedly, "Other Nazis can only think like the hawks they are, and thus frequently miss Jews in hiding." Landa spends the entire film amassing audience hatred and loathing, and finally gets his comeuppance in the final scene, much to the delight of the audience.

As I mentioned, the film is already receiving criticism for being "anti-German." I do not think, however, that true Germans are this over-sensitive, merely some vocal trolls on the Internet. It is true that the movie has many Nazis in it, along with making no bones, apologies, or asking forgiveness about brutally killing and disfiguring said Nazis. However, there are several protagonist Germans, at least one of which can be said to portrayed purely in a positive light. There is the "honorary bastard" Hugo Stiglitz, who is known amongst the Germans for being an enlisted man in the Nazi army who killed 13 officers. He was to be transported to Berlin and made an example of, but never got there, as the Bastards are fans of his work and spring him. The second German is Bridgit von Hammersmark, an actress who is working as a double agent for the allies, and an integral part of the debatably successful plot to kill many influential members and supporters of the Nazi party. There are also a few token "not all Nazis were monsters" characters, namely a private who had been given a night off because his wife had just given birth (wound up at the wrong place at the absolutely worst time), Zoller (to a degree), and Pvt. Butz, a terrified soldier who, after seeing his commanding officer and fellow (presumably) private get killed by the Bastards, quite willingly tells them the placement, disposition, and armament of a near by Nazi squad.

All in all, I personally thought Inglorious Bastards was very well done, an interesting mix of period character driven drama and period bravado-spewing action flick. It certainly had more than enough plot, pacing and characterization for the "shoot 'em up, kill the Nazis" movie it is being portrayed as being.

*The irony of a character having no stomach for romanticized war time tales being featured in a movie that gleefully kills at least twenty or so Nazi soldiers, and maims several others, is not lost on this writer.

Welcome to Midnight Lights and Canvas

First of all, thank you for giving your attention to my little blog. You are too kind, my audience.

Now, to purpose. Recently, I have begun attending midnight showings of new movies with some regularity, last week my friend and I saw District 9, and tonight we saw Inglorious Bastards, two movies we had been anticipating for quite some time.

I was, just a few minutes ago, posting a reply to the IMDB Inglorious Bastards message board, and found myself waxing poetic in reply to the subject of "yet another german-bashing movie." I, of course, did not feel Inglorious Bastards was a German bashing movie, but rather a Nazi bashing one, and I think a reasonable person could hardly take offense to 3 hours of condemning, killing, and the serving of just desserts to Nazis.

Right, the purpose of my blog. Obviously, it is to provide reviews of movies as soon as possible after they have been made available to the public.

This is merely a welcome and grand opening post, the first post, proper, a review of Inglorious Bastards, will be posted as soon as possible after a moment of personal business.