Inglourious Basterds begins in brilliant Tarantino style, with a long, drawn out, very quiet scene where the dialogue carries the show, the tension building throughout, until you can’t barely take it anymore, and it explodes in a blast of horrific violence. At this point, I’m giving it four (****) stars.
But then the movie does a weird thing, for a Tarantino movie: It does the same thing, over and over again. For two and a half hours.
Each individual scene, if it had started the movie, would be golden. Always, a scene of implied danger and paranoia, and always, the witty (largely subtitled) banter continues, and the danger piles up with every word, and the tension mounts and mounts, until WHAMMO!
But they’re not all the first scene. They all come in a row. And at some point, even though you’re enjoying the scene, you realize you’ve been watching people build tension through dialogue for nigh-on two hours now, and is anything ever really gonna happen?
It does, finally, in a great climactic scene, and overall, I have to say I was entertained and intrigued throughout, but damn, it just didn’t quitesnap for me, as a whole. I’d call this movie Tarantino’s “Benjamin Button” — As with Fincher, even when he missteps, it’s interesting. But yeah. Can’t… can’t give this one full marks quite yet.
THREE (***) STARS.
Now, it’s time for DIRECTOR FIGHT.
Tarantino himself has said that Paul Thomas Anderson is his biggest filmmaking bud, and they sort of have an implied competition between them to outdo the other. Each now has made five films (I’m combining the Kill Bills, as God intended). Let’s see WHO IS WINNING:
ROUND 1
Tarantino: Reservoir Dogs
Anderson: Hard Eight/Sydney
Hard Eight was great, a quiet first step into the director’s Hall of Fame for PTA. But Dogs was a bombastic, hilarious, super-cool, awesome launch into it, and I watched it a million times, and is an all-time classic.
WINNER: TARANTINO
ROUND 2
Tarantino: Pulp Fiction
Anderson: Boogie Nights
Both came into their own with these sophomore efforts, and although Pulp Fiction got more cred for getting the Oscar nomination, both have become classics to the same extent. To pick one is to be unfair to the other.
WINNER: NONE
ROUND 3
Tarantino: Jackie Brown
Anderson: Magnolia
I liked Jackie Brown. You don’t hear much about Jackie Brown, though. Of course, you don’t hear much about Magnolia either, except for me constantly trying to explain to you that it’s the greatest movie ever made.
WINNER: PTA
ROUND 4
Tarantino: Kill Bill
Anderson: Punch-Drunk Love
Here’s where I have to try really hard to keep my personal bias from coming into the picture. I think PDL is an unbelievably, perfect, awesome movie. I think Kill Bill is less perfect, but also unbelievably awesome, and huge, and entertaining from the first frame to the last. So while I know if I could only get to see one of them for the rest of my life, I’d go PDL, I can tell which way the wind blows.
WINNER: TARANTINO
ROUND 5
Tarantino: Inglourious Basterds
Anderson: There Will Be Blood
I was rooting for another neck-and-neck contest, but at about the 1 hour 45 mark of Basterds, I would have killed for Daniel Plainview to have rumbled onscreen and beat Hitler to death with a fucking bowling pin.
WINNER: PTA
FINAL SCORE: TARANTINO: 2.5, ANDERSON: 2.5
This is a fun battle, I do hope it continues for years and years.
***
It’s been pointed out to me that I forgot about Death Proof, which doesn’t totally count I think, in the same way the Kick the Can part of Twilight Zone The Movie doesn’t really count towards Spielberg’s score.
But okay, let’s be complete here:
ROUND X
Tarantino: Death Proof
Anderson: …
Alright, here we’ve got a decision to make. What else do we have from PTA’s ouevre to put up against Death Proof?
The natural choice would be A Prairie Home Companion, which technically is a Robert Altman film, but Altman was dying while he was making the fucking thing, so he brought in PTA, his protege, to man the director’s chair while he was busy kicking the goddamn bucket. So APHC is almost sorta half of a PTA movie, which would be fitting, since Death Proof was originally half of what you paid to see if you went to Grindhouse.
That seems fitting.
But no. Fuck it.
Tarantino: Death Proof
Anderson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkeLGisUHtc
Jonsey thinks Death Proof is the worst movie of all time. Jonsey would likely say that the Mattress Man commercial is NOT the worst movie of all time, so on the Jonsey scale, this is an easy call. However, things are a little more complicated in Pinback Land. On the one hand, you have Kurt Russell skating through about fifteen different film styles, including one really boring one where those bitches sit around and talk about nothing for a half hour. On the other hand, you have Hoffman bouncing onto the fucking pavement.
I can’t decide.
WINNER: NONE
