Avatar Blue Away the Competition at the Golden Globes

At the 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards on January 17, James Cameron’s Avatar came away with awards for Best Motion Picture-Drama and Best Director. It looks like Cameron’s gonna need a bigger trophy case, especially since Oscar season is right around the corner.

In addition to applauding Avatar’s sweeping critical and commercial success (it just passed the $500 million mark domestically), I’d also like to extend kudos to Christoph Waltz, who took home a Golden Globe for his supporting role in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Bastards. If you haven’t seen it—and you really should—Waltz played the slimy Nazi colonel Hans Landa, one of the best screen villains in quite some time.

Click here for a full list of winners and nominees.

Quentin Tarantino Has Begun Scripting an Inglourious Basterds Prequel

If you’ve read my glowing review of Inglourious Basterds, you know I’m a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino’s long-gestating World War II fantasy flick. I saw it twice during its theatrical run and I’ve watched it twice since it was released on DVD last week. In fact, it’s on in the background right now as I write this. Nothing says “Happy Holidays” like scalping Nazis, right?

Understandably I got pretty excited when I came across a recent New York magazine interview with the director, in which he revealed he’s completed 40 pages of an Inglourious Basterds prequel. But, Tarantino explained, it won’t be his next film. His forthcoming project—which he plans on writing in a five- to six-month period—will be “smaller, less epic” and in a “different genre entirely.” What that genre could be is anybody’s guess.

Head over to New York’s Vulture blog for the full interview.

Tarantino Is Back With a Vengeance

Wow. Not only is Inglourious Basterds one of the best movies of the year, but it’s easily Quentin Tarantino’s most satisfying film since Pulp Fiction. As expected, this is a gritty and often brutally violent revisionist take on World War II. But, fortunately, its poignancy isn’t just measured in buckets of blood.

The most common criticism of Tarantino’s work is that his characters are excessively talkative, often at the expense of narrative momentum. This pacing issue was most apparent in 2007’s Death Proof, the second half of Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse double feature. While the film was meant to pay homage to exploitation films of the Russ Meyer variety, far too much of its running time is spent lingering on the meandering conversations of its female protagonists. Brilliant writing in Tarantino’s previous work had cemented him as one of the top American filmmakers of the 1990s, but those chatty sequences are boring more often than not, and the film suffers as a result.

Flash forward two years and, yes, Inglourious Basterds—with an intentionally misspelled title paying homage to 1978 Italian war film, The Inglorious Bastards—is still loaded with long, protracted conversations. The film opens with a slimy German SS officer, Colonel Hans “Jew Hunter” Landa (Christoph Waltz), interrogating a French dairy farmer suspected of harboring a Jewish family. The scene is drawn out, and painfully so. But it’s through this lengthy interrogation that Tarantino ramps up the tension until the inevitable, violent payoff. There’s a ton of dialogue throughout this film—much of which is subtitled—but it’s seldom pointless.

Speaking of Landa, he’s easily one of the most memorable and despicable villains in screen history. This is a guy who truly enjoys watching people squirm, smiling all the while. Waltz’s unsettling performance is simply incredible throughout, and we’ll hopefully be hearing more about him once Oscar season rolls around.

But what of the film’s titular Basterds? Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) leads a band of Jewish-American soldiers assembled to spread fear among the Nazi ranks by brutally murdering and scalping German soldiers. Put simply, they’re in the business of killing Nazis and, as Aldo explains, “business is a-boomin’.” Watching these characters get sweet revenge is a lot of fun, particularly when the so-called “Bear Jew,” Sergeant Donnie Donowitz (Eli Roth), goes to town on one Nazi soldier with a baseball bat. The film could have been all about Aldo and the Basterds running around the French countryside slaughtering Nazis and most filmgoers would probably be satisfied at a base level.

However, in typical Tarantino fashion, Inglourious Basterds juggles storylines. The film also follows Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), a young Jewish woman who survives her family’s execution at Landa’s hand. Years later, she runs a small theater in Paris. There, she catches the eye of a German war hero, Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), the subject of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels’ (Sylvester Groth) latest film. He convinces Goebbels to hold the film premiere—which will assemble all the top brass in the Third Reich, including Adolf Hitler—at Shosanna’s theater.

Shosanna and her lover Marcel (Jacky Ido) have an idea: during the premiere, they’re going to lock the audience in the theater and burn it to the ground. Shosanna’s plan mirrors that of the Basterds, who team with a German actress and undercover agent Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) to infiltrate the premiere, destroy the theater and end the war. These storylines converge in a visceral finale that will likely have you talking long after the credits roll.

While Waltz is the standout performance in Inglourious Basterds, Pitt delivers as well. Tarantino’s dark comedy really suits this leading man, and I’d love to see Aldo revisited in a future film. Watching the native Tennessean wrestle with an Italian accent in front of Landa is a lot funnier than it probably should have been. Bravo.

After carving a swastika into a Nazi officer’s forehead at the end of the film, Aldo admires his work, saying “I think this just might be my masterpiece.” That last line in the script is clearly Tarantino patting himself on the back for a job well done, but he may be right. Inglourious Basterds is a solid, entertaining and often gut-wrenching piece of cinema.

The International Trailer for Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds looks like it's going to kick all kinds of ass when it hits U.S. theaters on August 21. Here's the international trailer, which I came across on Ain't It Cool News. Enjoy!

Inglourious Basterds Trailer Hits the Web

For those eagerly anticipating Quentin Tarantino’s blood-soaked World War II revenge flick, Inglourious Basterds, Yahoo! Movies has premiered its teaser trailer.

The trailer doesn’t give all that much away, aside from hints of gruesome, stylized violence and glimpses of the ragtag band of Jewish-American soldiers who, behind enemy lines, go on a Nazi killing spree. The trailer also features an impassioned speech by their commanding officer, Lt. Aldo Raine, played by a mustachioed Brad Pitt.

“We are going to be doing one thing and one thing only: Killing Nazis,” he tells his troops. "We will be cruel to the German. And through our cruelty they will know who we are. They will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered and disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us." Bring the kids!

Inglourious Basterds is scheduled to hit U.S. theaters on August 21.

Tarantino's War Epic Gets an August Release Date

The Weinstein Company and Universal Pictures have set an August 21, 2009 North American release date for Quentin Tarantino’s long-awaited World War II film, Inglourious Basterds, Reuters reports. The film is inspired by Italian director Enzo Castellari’s 1978 film, The Inglorious Bastards. Tarantino’s misspelling of the title is intentional.

Inglourious Basterds stars Brad Pitt, and follows a group of Jewish-American soldiers—“The Basterds”—who escape execution at the hands of the Nazis and terrorize their former captors. The ensemble cast also includes Mélanie Laurent, Diane Kruger, Mike Myers, Eli Roth, Cloris Leachman and B.J. Novak.

While Tarantino’s last directorial effort, 2007’s Death Proof, was met with mixed reactions, it’s hard not to be at least intrigued by a Tarantino-helmed WWII film, which is sure to feature no small amount of bloodshed and stylized action. But will Tarantino’s brand of over-the-top violence trivialize one of the greatest tragedies in history?

Death Proof on DVD

Remember that great idea Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez had a while back? Where they each made an homage to the schlocky trash cinema of yesteryear and presented it as a double feature, complete with fake movie trailers in between? Remember how cool it was to see Grindhouse in theaters last spring? Well, the heart of that project has been thoroughly yanked out in favor of separate DVD releases for each film. We're sorry you lost money on the theatrical run, Weinsteins. So I guess I'm paying twice for what is essentially one experience?

Tarantino's half of Grindhouse, Death Proof, came out on DVD today in a two-disc special edition. Exclusive to Best Buy is a special 3-disc set that comes in a nifty metal case. I opted for that one.

For those that remember, I wasn't too keen on Death Proof when it was in theaters. I thought it was talky, meandering and overall self-indulgent. But I think this dissatisfaction is owed more to the fact that Planet Terror, Rodriguez's zombie homage, was far superior. I doubt anything could top what was one of the most over-the-top action to hit the multiplex this year. Long story short, it was a tough act to follow.

The version of Death Proof released on DVD today is a bit longer than the theatrical version, and we do get more of Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), the villainous stunt driver who gets off on stalking and ramming into young girls in his "death proof" stunt car. For this, I am grateful. Stuntman Mike is far more interesting than the prattling heroines Tarantino focuses on.

But I've gotta say, this film is still very uneven. Both sets of girls in the film still spend far too long talking about obscure movies and music, serving no purpose but to stretch the film's running time. Yes, Mr. Tarantino. We're aware that you enjoy obscure movies and music from the 1970s, but you're spending film time on it and the audience is getting bored. Also, it's not character development if we're dealing with archetypes here. This is a "grindhouse" film, after all. Pointless dialogue sprinkled with "fuck" is still pointless.

But is it a fun movie? Yep. Is it pretty damned entertaining? Yep. Should you check it out? Yep, if only as a rental. Criticizing Tarantino for being talky is like criticizing Kevin Smith for dick jokes. You know what you're getting into from the get-go. Plus, there's all kinds of bonus features on there that we probably wouldn't get if the two halves of Grindhouse were released as a single set.

Look out for Planet Terror on October 16th.

Talking Tarantino

One would be hard-pressed to flip through a magazine, open a newspaper or turn on a television without seeing director Quentin Tarantino's mug, typically accompanied these days by talk of the just-released Grindhouse, his collaboration with Robert Rodriguez (Sin City). A schlocky tribute to the exploitation flicks of the 60s and 70s, Grindhouse may have started a trend: cinematic throwbacks to a lesser-yet-greater time in film history. When guns were louder, breasts were larger and plot was nonexistent. This time, however, what was once considered trash will be held up, for better or worse, as high art. All it takes is a knowing wink of self-conscious tone.

Soon-to-be-nauseating fads aside, Grindhouse has opened up a lot of talk about Tarantino, a director that has been largely under the radar since his two-part samurai homage Kill Bill left theaters in 2004.

Wait a minute. He's been doing homages all this time? As Jules might say, "Correctamundo."

Tarantino burst onto the scene as a brash young up-start with Reservoir Dogs in 1992. It had a simple plot involving a heist and a color-coded team of robbers. The heist goes wrong, they fall back to an old warehouse and we take it from there. As far as a narrative, that's pretty much it. What got people talking was, well, the talking. The movie, told out of sequence, is dialogue-heavy, but it succeeds in making you want to hear everything these characters have to say. It even opens with all of the main characters discussing "Like a Virgin" by Madonna before debating as to whether tipping waitstaff makes any sense at all. It should be boring, but Tarantino makes it work.

As a film, it's the one that's most evocative of Tarantino's style. Why you might ask? Because every one of his later projects is an homage. Adapting the filmmaking style he established in Dogs to familiar genres, Tarantino has become the most original unoriginal guy in Hollywood, if that makes any sense. And no, that's not an insult.

Pulp Fiction hit two years later, earning a well-deserved Oscar nod and a considerable fanbase. Everything about it was a throwback to, well, pulp fiction. In other words, the film was a reference to inexpensive magazines published from the 20s to about the 50s. They typically contained lurid subject matter, making it the ideal stomping ground for Tarantino. An all-star cast, great dialogue and interweaving story segments make the film a modern classic and Tarantino's best work to date.

Then came Jackie Brown in 1997, Tarantino's first homage to a specific film genre. This time, he chose the blacksploitation films of the 70s, choosing, appropriately enough, genre star Pam Grier. An all-star cast, including Robert DeNiro, Samuel L. Jackson and the aformentioned Grier make the film watchable, but it just doesn't have the same bite as Dogs or Fiction.

Tarantino then took a long break to perfect his martial arts epic Kill Bill starring Uma Thurman as The Bride, a character Tarantino and Thurman had concocted during the filming of Fiction years earlier. It was split into two parts, with Part 1 opening in 2003 and Part 2 opening the following Spring. The film is clearly paying reference to the samurai films of the 70s, starring martial artists such as Sonny Chiba and Bruce Lee. Yet, this prototypical samurai revenge film is given a post-modern twist, particularly in the second half. It could use some editing, as some of the dialogue tends to drag, but the film(s) turned out to be a return to form for Tarantino and had everyone frothing at the mouth for his next feature: a World War II film entitled Inglorious Bastards.

We're still waiting for that film, unfortunately, as Grindhouse has been occupying a great deal of Tarantino's time. Looking back at his body of work and finding mostly films referencing earlier genres has many thinking: what would a modern Tarantino come up with? He's a great director, and he seems to enjoy turning genres he fell in love with on their heads and injecting them with a pop culture sensibility, but isn't Tarantino the type of director who could easily forge ahead and come up with something truly original in idea-starved Hollywood?