Cannes: ‘Basterd’ Tarantino!
Tarantino is back, and how! Inglourious Basterds created all the anticipated storm here at Cannes. Quite surely, the presence of Quentin Tarantino and Brad Pitt played a major role in that. But that was outside the theatres – the Grand Lumiere Red Carpet screening will be in the evening, but the early morning media screening saw a packed house, followed by a mad scramble for seats at the film’s press conference. Hundreds of jostling journos could not get in – perhaps the first and (could be) the only time in this year’s Cannes.
Tarantino is a painter when it comes to portraying gore. Even when he literally implements the phrase “taking the enemy’s scalp”, the cruelty of the act does not repel you. In a strange kind of way, it binds you.
A cast of international top draws – each of them speaking in their own real mother tongues in the film (English/French/German) – makes it an absolutely fantastic viewing. Should I give the storyline? I don’t feel like, though by now everyone knows it is a revenge film – Tarantino’s tribute to the Spaghetti Westerns and World War II films – with more than one set of people seeking to settle scores with the Third Reich and its believers for their own personal reasons.
Not that the story is too complex. It is, in fact, quite simplistic, aimed at packing the crowds in. Though Tarantino said at the press conference that he makes movies not for America but for the “Planet Earth”, it is Hollywood at its best – be it in action, pace, thrill, violence, acting. And background score, particularly in the no-frills opening credits, is one set in that vintage style of the Westerns, the kind which play when you would see Clint Eastwood riding into the Sunset with the cigar dangling from his lips. And THE performer of the film is not Brad Pitt. It is Christoph Waltz, brilliant as a multi-lingual Gestapo intelligence officer (Tarantino said he would not have made the film if he had found the actor to play Col Hans Landa the way he had imagined). He is the antagonist, but he could well be the hero of the film – one of those legendary bad guys who shine through the ages long after the heroes are forgotten. And the strong anti-war message of the film, with a subtext about the power of cinema to stop things evil, makes this film a real adrenalin pusher.
Tags: 62nd Cannes Film Festival, Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino, World Cinema
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
wow, utpal: i cant envy u enough for being one ofthe lucky few to have watched IB already… any idea when is it releasing in India?
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how GOOD is it? some more dope please…. and howz eli roth in the movie? and whats samuel jackson doing? i cant have enough of it…
how long is it…? The screenplay is…I think around 160 pages…
Thanks for sharing the info man!
D&C
its 148 minutes…..
hey i dont know anything about world war 2. should i read about it and then watch the movie?
plz give me some links so that i can understand the movie situation. thanks
@jMonk- nasty man. :D hahahahaha
@Satyendra Jha- It releases in USA on 20 august.
@jMonk- again that was a nasty kick to nixon’s crotch. hahahahaha
Any scoop on Up? and am waiting for the basterds too!:) Thanks for the insight!
tarantino keeps on making ‘tribute’ films…and they are great no doubt. but i just wonder when he’ll do something original again. i mean, pulp fiction was all the way back in 94. but still, can’t wait for it to release in the US.
@5 links? dust off your history books dude.
@papaji “when will he do something original” ?????
i dunno what to say to you. what is a tribute?
@Utpal Borpujari glorious basterd
Its getting awful reviews!
Tanul, Post some reviews. Anyways.Tarantino’s movie always get extreme reaction from critics!
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/film/film-23373052-details/Inglourious+Barsterds/filmReview.do?reviewId=23695698, I had read two more reviews besides this, which weren’t very forthcoming about IB. Will post it as soon as I get it.
P.S: The review has a spoiler in the last paragraph.
Another one: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/may/20/cannes-film-festival-tarantino-inglourious-basterds
Though personally I’m not reading too much into these reviews. If the movie has to kick ass, it will
@ Nick – kill bill 1+2 are tributes to martial arts and western movie genres. IB is a tribute to spaghetti westerns and a bunch of other war movies. jackie brown was a tribute to blaxploitation films of the 70s. reservoir dog was a tribtue to something else…my point is that he’s a kickass director…but he’s been original only with pulp fiction.
“when will he do something original” so your saying all these are copies not original.
Having seen Hostel and the trailer of IB and noting that Eli Roth ‘acts’ on the film, there already a chill coming down the spine.
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“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.” Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter
Source link- http://www.cinematical.com/2009/05/20/first-reviews-and-clips-for-tarantinos-inglourious-basterds/
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Is the release date of 21 Aug includes India ?
Having seen Hostel and the trailer of IB and noting that Eli Roth ‘acts’ on the film, there already a chill coming down the spine.
*
“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.” Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter
Source link- http://www.cinematical.com/2009/05/20/first-reviews-and-clips-for-tarantinos-inglourious-basterds/
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Do the release date of 21 Aug include India ?
Has any1 one seen tetro by francis ford copoola at cannes ?
sorry for this, but cudn’t resist…
lucky basterd you! ;-)
Can’t wait for this one!!! But will it get a theatrical release in India??
So how good is it.. in terms of putting his movies in a spectrum … better than Kill BIll or better than Pulp?? or as ‘bad’ as better than death proof
Brad Pitt is a terrible casting choice…
this is certainly going to be awesome!