Anyone checked out Inglourious Basterds yet?  Absolutely loved it, and I think it could end up being my favorite Tarantino film to date.  It surprises, because its emphasis doesn't rely on the whole revenge/man on a mission adventure the trailers painted it out to be.  Basterds plays off more cat and mouse, opting instead for mood-building dialogue heavy exchanges, consummated by small but intense bursts of action.  The film certainly feels very Pulp Fiction in that regard, though it undoubtedly borrows elements from several other Tarantino works as well.  The script's got, well, that Tarantino "scripted" quality to it, and you also have your usual bevy of movie homages (though perhaps a bit more restrained this time around), your Mexican standoff, and the trademark spaghetti-western theme running rampant. (Lotsa Ennio Morricone music on display here.)  They even borrowed the chapter structure way of storytelling from Kill Bill. 

At two and a half hours, I can see some folks not digging the talky (and subtitle-heavy) nature of the film, but the patient pacing exudes confidence, while still managing to be edgy.  Of course, a big part of that is the casting.  You'll hear a lot about Christoph Waltz's performance as Hans Landa, and rightfully so: he totally makes the movie.  He's the antagonistic foil for just about every character confronted in the film, and when his presence is made on screen, and he begins speaking, you know the scene is going to spark something fierce.  Mélanie Laurent deserves mention, too.  She can express so much while saying so little, a product, perhaps, of Tarantino's natural affinity for nuance direction.  Much of the rest of the cast follows suit, though Pitt plays it more straight.  His Aldo Raine actually has some of the better comedic moments.

People expecting an accurate portrayal of WWII should look elsewhere.  This is very much a Tarantino-driven fantasy outlook of the era -- or, as one reviewer put it, "This isn’t so much a movie about World War II as it is about World War II movies."  There's plenty of comeuppance to be served, and it makes for one hell of a cinematic experience.

I was extremely put off by the trailer which, to me, set the film up as being a film that revelled in extreme violence against a bad guy, presenting it as okay and even fun because they are clearly the bad guy. Missing completely that one of the main reason the Nazis managed to go so far was because they so successfully sold the idea of the Jews as bad guys to a great many people. That naivity as presented in the trailer had me completely dismiss it.

It seemed like the copybook doodles of a thirteen year old boy.

And yet, now, I'm hearing from quite a lot of people that the trailer actually misrepresents most of the movie. That it's not really that at all. Now you can argue whether you should judge a movie by its trailer or not but, in my movie-going history, I've only ever encountered one film where the trailer actually didn't give a fairly accurate impression of the movie (Coyote Ugly - man, I regretted seeing that movie).

Could Inglourious Basterds be the second?

everything I've heard casually indicates that the exact opposite is true of the movie itself. The  "okay and even fun" and "clearly the bad guy" bits, at least.

You mean to say you actually got a GOOD impression from the trailers!?

I've heard the trailer misrepresents it, too. It's apparently not supposed to be taken on the same merits as serious WWII movies, and that intrigues me.

Absolutely. The trailer showed me raunchy bar girls being sexy. That's what I wanted from the movie. Instead, I got a sappy movie about a young girl wanting to be a singer.

With John Goodman.

They didn't even ackowledge his presence in the trailer. And yet Tyra Banks was made out to be a main character and was only in the movie about another 30 seconds beyond the footage in the trailer. Man, she was in her prime then.

I got totally shafted going to that movie.

Great review, Angela! I totally agree. I wasn't expecting much from this film, given I've found Tarantino a good but a bit overhyped in the past. Yet this one satisfied me almost completely. It was utterly hilarious for the most part, yet tense and emotional too. I have to hand it to Christoph Waltz too. Brilliant actor and wonderfully executed character.

Man, there's some kind of joke in here somewhere...

Anyway, I got a bad impression of the trailers BECAUSE they showed nothing but raunchy bar girls being sexy (I'm not 14 anymore), but if they didn't even manage to get THAT right, it's even worse than I thought.

I couldn't resist seeing the movie again today.  A repeat cinematic viewing, to me, so often requires a film to either be a visual spectacle, a rush to the adrenaline senses, or a fun and likeable story.  This would be the first time in a long time where I came back to what's essentially a character piece.  The performances on display here are so engaging, that to be able to watch them again, to catch every nuance and spoken word, is a thing to be relished.

Saw it today.  Came away quite pleased.  As others have said, the trailers really misrepresent the film, which is a shame since it's not really about mindless nazi killing at all.  Agreed that Christoph Waltz was fantastic, as was the actress that played the theater owner.  I must ask: am I the only one who immeditately thought of the state of Hitler's Xbox Live account when he first shows up on screen screaming "no, no, no?"

Glad to see you enjoyed it too, XLord.

You're an ardent Tarantino fan, aren't you?  Where would you place Basterds on your list of faves?

I don't know if I'd go as far as "ardent," but I enjoy me some Tarantino films. :-)   I hadn't really thought about a ranking, especially since I still haven't seen Jackie Brown, but for the ones I have seen, I guess it'd go a little something like this:

01. Reservoir Dogs
02. Pulp Fiction
03. Kill Bill Vol. 1
04. Death Proof
05. Inglorious Basterds
06. Kill Bill Vol. 2

Of course, my disclaimer would be that I haven't seen some of these in a really long time, so I'm doing this based on some possibly vague memories.

How about you?

I would have to follow the same disclaimer, as it's been ages since I've seen a lot of them myself.  I haven't seen Jackie Brown either -- Death Proof too, for that matter.  So if I had to rank, I would say:

01. Inglourious Basterds
02. Pulp Fiction
03. Reservoir Dogs
04. Kill Bill Vol. 2
05. Kill Bill Vol. 1

Yes, I'm one of those people who actually prefers Vol. 2 over 1. 

I am mostly a Tarantino hater, but the Basterds were awesome. Best movie all year.

AVS Forum was able to grab some screencaps of the upcoming Blu-ray release:

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http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/5810 … 003220.png
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/9382/0 … 000812.png

Cordial conversation has never looked so good.

Just saw this movie the day before yesterday in theaters (Japan has to wait so damn long for everything), but it was totally fantastic.

Definitely movie of the year as far as I'm concerned.

Totally agree with this, Pitt may have a few good lines/parts (like the )aftermath at the bar) and is more or less a humorous prop but Waltz was hands down the reason I was so into the movie, and why the DVD is a must.

I agreed with Angela, I'm scared. The apocalypse is surely upon us. It couldn't hold off till' 2012 could it? I feel the very faberic of space-time ripping at the seams.

If I had a nickel every time I heard that....

Really?

You seem to be one of the most sensible people on the forum to me actually

Thanks.  I'm buying you a glass of milk and a strudel.  With cream, of course.

Blu-ray.com has their review up, by the way.  It's a superb read.

Wound up seeing this last night, unexpectedly. It still has some of the quirks that drive me nuts about Tarantino in the films I've seen, but it's very good besides.
More than anything, there's more to these characters than in his other flicks. For all the praise of his ear for dialogue, a lot of the conversation going on in the other QT films I've seen might well have been spoken by anybody. There's been a lot of folks looking-cool-and-going-on-philosophical-tangents, but very few characters defined by what they do because of who they are. Basterds has honest-to-goodness personality instead of just style, and feels like it was made with a point instead of Movies-Are-Awesome Mojo.
The fuuny bits came at unexpected moments and in unusual ways (the idea of Hitler and Goebbels having a Burns-and-Smithers relationship, That's A Bingo, and the funniest word in the whole damn movie for me - BAWNJORNO), but the more somber and weighty bits made the deeper impression. In particular I was impressed with the projection-room exchange (showdown?) between Shoshanna and Zoller where they both come off as ruthless, then sympathetic, and back again in sudden but believable ways until it ends badly for them both. That just struck me as plain-good moviemaking.
I'm still not thrilled with the director's habits of sudden cutaways to unimportant or redundant details, narration and screen-scribblings - they seem to suggest that he doesn't trust his audience to connect unspoken dots. But even if a leopard can't change his spots, he seems to be getting older and wiser.

Hitler laughing in enjoyment as he's..... watching Nation's Pride gets me every time.  That wheezy laugh of his is absolutely hilarious.

Apparently, that was a bit of improv from Pitt himself.  But really, the very idea of..... a Southerner trying to hash out some botched Italian is priceless.  On each of the viewings I went to, the audience was in stitches during this sequence.

You know, I lent my DVD to a co-worker who wanted to see this and he said he didn't laugh once. Have to admit that really took me by surprise, but as least he agreed that Waltz stole the show. He picked up a SAG award for his performance here, didn't he?

I saw this movie last night and thought it was fawkin' incredible, top-to-bottom. I'm not a big movie person, or even a Tarantino fan, but this flick will stay with me for a long time. OUTTA THE FAWKIN PAAAHK, RIGHT ON TAH LANSDOWNE STREET!

Had a feeling you'd dig that, you Bostonite you.