If Quentin Tarentino's ingenious Nazi-killing fantasy comes from behind in the polls and wins the best picture Oscar, the win will be a shocker to the TV audience, but not the Academy.
The more I talk to Academy voters, the more I hear them leaning toward Basterds. Maybe half of the votes have already been cast. Most of the rest will pour into the Academy this week. The timing for the buzz shift toward Basterds could not be better.
If I had a vote to cast, Basterds would get mine. What I love most about Inglourious Basterds is its utter indescribability. Go ahead, try to describe it to people who haven't seen it. It will sound like a silly, incoherent, horribly inaccurate depiction of World War 2. They will not believe any adult would put up money to make or see a movie like that. They will not be able to fathom why Brad Pitt would jump at the chance to star in it. Tarantino took a crazy idea that rattled around in his head for years, turned it into what must have seemed like a pretty crazy screenplay, then turned that into a masterful movie crammed with unbearable tension, twisted humor, true eloquence, and remarkable performances.
For audiences who crave movies that take on important subjects in serious ways, 2009 was a great year, as the list of Best Picture nominees proves. There is no movie on that list that teaches a more powerful lesson about the dark side of the human condition than what Inglourious Basterds delivers in its first scene -- the most compelling explanation and condemnation of anti-Semitism ever written in movie dialogue, all in words any child can understand, using our common collective reactions to squirrels and rats as the teaching tool, and all put in the mouth of the most frightening Nazi officer in film history whose job is to hunt and eliminate Jews.
There is no better scene in this year's movies. Don't be surprised if the Academy decides there is no better movie.
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But Tarantino gets a pass from me after of Kill Bill. While it may have been cartoonish and not exactly Oscar-wort
Pulp Fiction was magnificen
I don't care what movie wins. The endless parade of awards, competitio
it's all mindless crap of the most degraded and degrading sort. The olympic gold winner is not the best skater/swi
I think maybe some folks for whom the Shoah has some personal bearing enjoy the film for obvious reasons...
It also delivers the message that "anything goes in war" and that there should be no rules as long you're enemy is evil enough, and the film uses exactly the most inappropri
It trivialize
But most of all, it's boring. Thumbs down.
If someone asked me what this movie was about I would tell them it's about an hour-and-a
And the Oscar goes to... a self-indul
I'd differ with one point- the best scene in the movie, and the best scene in any movie I've seen this year, is the scene in the bar, where the rendez-vou
As an addendum, I'd add that my good friend who is German knew immediatel
The name "Tarantino
Just because you don't see a message doesn't mean there's not one there.
No doubt, given the way inside politics works, he might win, in the same way that yet another bad Cohen Brothers film did, but then again, these things seem inevitable
It's a good movie, well worth watching, but at the end of the day, what's it all about , Alfie? A study in evil and revenge, some great dialogue and editing and a lot of gratuitous
That said, look at the competitio
The Hurt Locker is gritty and realistic but ultimately it's not much more than a portrayal of adrenaline addiction.
So maybe it's the best of a weak class.
Meh.