Why Inglourious Basterds’ Basement Was Brilliant
In Tarantino's world, this is the last thing a Nazi should ever see.
Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds was one of his very best films. When a friend of mine disagreed and, shockingly, told me he hated it (emphasis his), I thought it might be worthwhile to explain why I loved the movie so much.
To illustrate, I noted that every / single / line / by Brad Pitt, in the role of Lt. Aldo Raine -- the Gentile leader of a special group of American Jews tasked with raising terror and killin' Nazi's -- was dominant.
Specifically, I loved his lines in the Tavern Scene.
Lt. Aldo Raine: You didn't say the goddamn rendezvous was in a fuckin' basement.
Lt. Archie Hicox: I didn't know.
Lt. Aldo Raine: You said it was in a tavern.
Lt. Archie Hicox: It is a tavern.
Lt. Aldo Raine: Yeah, in a basement. You know, fightin' in a basement offers a lot of difficulties. Number one being, you're fightin' in a basement!
Why is that so funny, you might ask. Well, I can explain, (quite nerdily, I'm sure), in three steps.
Ron Burgundy Goes To Iraq
A guy I grew up with is an Army MP stationed in Iraq. Here's what he posted as his Facebook status yesterday:
Walked into an Iraqi Police Headquarters this evening where they were all sitting there watching Anchorman. Strange.
Doesn't get much more surreal than that. It's the little things.
What really bakes my noodle now, though, is the trail of breadcrumbs and the use of modern communication which led up to this whole snapshot.
- A dispute over poorly-aligned, antiquated punch-card paper ballots in Florida created controversy over whether George W. Bush was our properly elected President in 2000.
- A bunch of Saudi fundamentalists, trained in remote, mountainous, largely illiterate areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan and armed with simple box cutters, stole jumbo jets -- small, fuel-filled flying towns -- and crashed them into mountain-sized buildings in Manhattan.
- The Towers collapsed, killing thousands of people whose days had been spent working on computers, communicating instantly with colleagues around the world and using the very latest technology to run America's financial sector.
- The summary justification for U.S. involvement in Iraq is based on questionable satellite images and photos from surveillance planes presented to the world by Colin Powell, in classic tv anchor style, as proof that Iraq's tyrant was building nukes and/or biological and chemical weapons.
- We went to war in Iraq, quickly freeing the Iraqi people from a tyrant's grip. Saddam, overthrown and on the run, is captured and later executed. That execution is illicitly recorded on a cell phone and posted on YouTube for the world to see.
- Using jury-rigged, hand made, improvised explosives, insurgents from around the world gather in Iraq to fight off the Americans and our Western allies.
- My friend, who I haven't seen since high school, joins the Army and finds his way to Iraq.
- There, he works with Iraqi citizens who themselves are working to create order and stability. He stops by their office, a police headquarters, and finds them watching Will Ferrell in Anchorman, a movie lampooning San Diego, America in the 1970s, the absurdity of America's recent misogynistic past, and local U.S. tv news generally and on-air personalities in particular. The Iraqi police certainly have no context for any of the subtle humor, though Ferrell in that 'stache and those classic seventies' outfits goes a long, long way.
- An Army MP goes back to his barrack, fires up his computer and logs on to Facebook, updating his status.
- As Facebook is what reconnected us, I'm able to glimpse his surreal day from the opposite side of the globe, mixed-in with updates about one friend's Christmas cookies and another friend's love of cheese melted on burgers.
The mind. It boggles.
Avatar: Revolutionary Cinema?
Navi, the CGI-stars of Avatar.
It's rare that we're treated to a big-budget, big talent film that provides a new way of sharing information, telling a story, or looking at the world.
Citizen Kane took us through windows, cut back-and-forth through time, used impossible angles, and shared the comic-book panel-gestalt with high-brow film critics and the wider, movie-going general public (or, as Michael Chabon suggests, vice versa). Star Wars removed sci-fi films from B-movie status and lit the imaginations of kids the world over. Pulp Fiction and Memento (among others) played with time as Picasso played with visual angles, and The Matrix brought anime's influence to U.S. live-action, melding time-worn effects with new technological advances and a cutting-edge story to give voice to the Internet generation's worldview, dreams and fears.
While Eric Cartman would argue that Cameron stole his story, according to the early reviews James Cameron's Avatar should be, at the very least, a visual spectacle. Through a mix of CGI and live action, most of the movie's setting is computer-generated, as are the main characters for large chunks of the film. Some segments take advantage of new 3-D technology and are so well done that Ridley Scott is rumored to have scrapped some work he'd already completed on Forever War to switch to 3-D as well.
Most telling of all is Roger Ebert's review, edited here so as to remove spoilers:
Watching "Avatar," I felt sort of the same as when I saw "Star Wars" in 1977. That was another movie I walked into with uncertain expectations. James Cameron's film has been the subject of relentlessly dubious advance buzz, just as his "Titanic" was. Once again, he has silenced the doubters by simply delivering an extraordinary film. There is still at least one man in Hollywood who knows how to spend $250 million, or was it $300 million, wisely."Avatar" is not simply a sensational entertainment, although it is that. It's a technical breakthrough. . . It is predestined to launch a cult. It contains such visual detailing that it would reward repeating viewings. It invents a new language, Na'vi, as "Lord of the Rings" did, although mercifully I doubt this one can be spoken by humans, even teenage humans. It creates new movie stars. It is an Event, one of those films you feel you must see to keep up with the conversation. . . .
I've complained that many recent films abandon story telling in their third acts and go for wall-to-wall action. Cameron essentially does that here, but has invested well in establishing his characters so that it matters what they do in battle and how they do it. There are issues at stake greater than simply which side wins.
Cameron promised he'd unveil the next generation of 3-D in "Avatar." I'm a notorious skeptic about this process, a needless distraction from the perfect realism of movies in 2-D. Cameron's iteration is the best I've seen -- and more importantly, one of the most carefully-employed. The film never uses 3-D simply because it has it, and doesn't promiscuously violate the fourth wall. He also seems quite aware of 3-D's weakness for dimming the picture, and even with a film set largely in interiors and a rain forest, there's sufficient light. I saw the film in 3-D on a good screen at the AMC River East and was impressed. I might be awesome in True IMAX. Good luck in getting a ticket before February.
It takes a hell of a lot of nerve for a man to stand up at the Oscarcast and proclaim himself King of the World. James Cameron just got re-elected.
At the very least, it'll be better than Titanic. Happy holidays, indeed.
Helen Mirren With A Sniper Rifle
Warren Ellis' graphic novel Red is being made into a film, and Warren has been kind enough, as is his wont, to answer questions about what's being changed in the adaptation from 66 page comic to hour and a half blockbuster movie.
The tone: no, the film isn’t as grim as the book. The book is pretty grim. But it’s also pretty small. When I sell the rights to a book, they buy the right to adapt it in whatever way they see fit. I can accept that they wanted a lighter film, and, as I’ve said before, the script is very enjoyable and tight as a drum. They haven’t adapted it badly, by any means. People who’ve enjoyed the graphic novel will have to accept that it’s an adaptation and that by definition means that it’s going to be a different beast from the book. The film has the same DNA. It retains bits that are very clearly from the book, as well as, of course, the overall plotline. But it is, yes, lighter, and funnier. And if anyone has a real problem with that, I say to you once again:Helen Mirren with a sniper rifle.
I mean, if you don’t want to see a film with Helen Mirren with a sniper rifle, I’m not sure I want to know you.
via Warren Ellis.
Life of Pi Follow-up In The Works
I loved Life of Pi, so it's great news that the author, Yann Martel, will be publishing a new book in the near future.
Like Life of Pi, it will be an allegory involving animals – this time tackling the Holocaust via the medium of a donkey and a howling monkey. Jamie Byng, who will publish the book at Canongate in 2010, said it was "one of the most ingenious, heart-breaking and strangely beautiful books" he had read in years. "The absorbing pair of relationships that lie at the book's heart, one between a donkey and a howling monkey and the other between a writer and an elderly taxidermist, also make this one of the most original books I have ever read," Byng added.
The book will also, Byng said, deal with the very issue Martel himself is facing: the challenge of how to write another book when you've had a success "as unexpected and huge" as Life of Pi. Martel told the New York Times that he decided to tackle the Holocaust in this new novel because he felt that there was a paucity of metaphorical, or imaginative, works produced about it. "I've noticed over the years of reading books on the Holocaust and seeing movies that it's always represented in the same way, which is historical or social realism. I was thinking that it was interesting that you don't have many imaginative takes on it like George Orwell's Animal Farm and its take on Stalinism," he said. "My novel is an attempt to get a distillation on it, and see if there is a way of talking about the Holocaust without talking about it literally."
via Martel signs multi-million deal for Life of Pi follow-up | Books | guardian.co.uk.
As we all wait for Martell's next work, the closest parallel I can recommend is Pixar's beautiful film Up. While the themes are quite different, both tell fantastic tales and, well, if you haven't read/seen one, I don't want to ruin it for you. Let's just say that after you've read Pi, go back and re-watch Up...
Frost, Nixon, Cheney and McNamara
Caught Frost/Nixon yesterday. It's the most entertaining film about the making of an interview that you're likely to see.* Yes, the interview is important, but director Ron Howard made the issues around funding, preparation and distribution as close to a suspense-filled story as is reasonably possible.
The key moment of the 1977 interview, and the key to this film, is Nixon's response to questions about Watergate. The only time he answered direct questions about Watergate, Nixon stated that he made mistakes, likely broke laws, tarnished the office of the President specifically and our system of democracy generally, but still believed that anything a President does to serve his country is legal.
I'm interested in seeing how the movie's portrayal stacks up to the real interviews, released on DVD earlier this month. I also want to check out Charlie Rose's interviews about the movie with Ron Howard and Frank Langella, the actor portraying Nixon in the dramatization.
Having just returned from watching the movie, I opened my Wind and pointed Chrome to the NY Times. One of their top stories discussed the exit interviews being given by President Bush and Vice President Cheney. While Bush at least admits that he was unprepared for war, Cheney is completely unapologetic.
Mr. Cheney, by contrast, is unbowed, defiant to the end. He called the Supreme Court “wrong” for overturning Bush policies on detainees at Guantánamo Bay; criticized his successor, Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.; and defended the harsh interrogation technique called waterboarding, considered by many legal authorities to be torture.
“I feel very good about what we did,” the vice president told The Washington Times, adding, “If I was faced with those circumstances again, I’d do exactly the same thing.”
It's been said many times before, but Cheney believes that the President is above the law when serving his country. I think Cheney would say that the executive must be unfettered by the law when protecting America... but the result is the same either way. In fact, it's clear that Cheney believes Nixon didn't go far enough, that he never should have felt guilty or admitted to anything.
Today, Cheney, the most powerful Vice President in U.S. history, says he has no advice for VP-elect Biden, and clearly states that he authorized torture (or, as is the official term, "enhanced interrogation") of "terror suspects." He characterizes his decision as making the hard choice, and asks us to take it on faith that his action has made America safer.
Assuming that Cheney's statement is correct, even Nixon would ask: what point is there in acting to protect America if that act undercuts the very tenents upon which the country has been built and claims to hold high for the world as its banner ideals?
* If you saw and enjoyed Frost/Nixon, you'll also enjoy Fog of War, the brilliant film by Errol Morris centering around his interviews with Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense under President Kennedy.
[Image via If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats.]
Christopher Nolan revisits and analyzes his favorite scene in 'Dark Knight'
Heath Ledger deserves an Oscar.
The "Dark Knight" director gives a deep dissection of his single favorite scene in the movie -- the gripping interrogation sequence, which (with no special effects and only bare-bones lighting) would become "the fulcrum on which the whole movie turns."
Ledger's performance as the Joker was brilliant. The movie is hard to watch -- the Joker is killing Heath Ledger, right before our eyes.
[Image found here]