TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

Watched "Inglorious Basterds" at my roommate's insistence.  As stupid and repulsive as I thought it would be.  Some of the acting was OK.  Enjoyed the tip of the hat to Henri-Georges Clouzot.  Otherwise, it confirms everything disgusting I expected from the movie and Tarantino's fundamental worthlessness as a director.

EDIT:  It also may be the nadir of the treatment of the Holocaust in popular culture.  It's success seems to say:  if you want to make a movie about the joys of graphically torturing and killing human beings, just make it vengeance for the Holocaust and nobody can really criticize it.  When it is the same attitudes of celebrating brutality that enabled the Holocaust in the first place.     Genuinely saddening from a talented director and cast with tons of Hollywood money at their disposal.

You missed the point, mon frere.  He's making fun of the people who enjoy the graphic torture; and I think the hypocrisy is supposed to be part of the filmgoing experience.

Which doesn't mean it's not still flawed, and does not mean it's perforce very good.  It is, and it is not.  But I thought it was interesting.

[Josephus]

I liked it. I remember watching it in the theatre and saw people walking out at one point. I knew the gore was so over-the-top so as to be satirical. and it was a good movie. Comic gore, and the ending, aside...there were two really good scenes. The opening one at the farm house and the scene when they were playing that charades game with the cards in the cafe.

[frunk]

I generally liked it, and I think the opening scene is one of the great movies scenes from the past few years.  The rest of the movie had several weak points.  In particular I didn't like the charade scene and the scenes leading up to it.  For what was basically a similarly structured scene, it felt clumsy, ham-handed and nerdy in the Tarantino way compared to the opening.

[Eddie Teach]

Great.  It would be really nice if you provided all of us with a "Complete Guide To Eddie Teach's One Emoticon Insinuation Responses."   

[Sophie Scholl]

Tarantino's fundamental worthlessness as a director. ...
  Genuinely saddening from a talented director

  Technically talented, meaningfully worthless.

Did I stutter?   

You may not have stuttered, but you did leave out technically in front of talented in your initial post.  I do generally agree with you about the movie though.  I wish I could buy into Ide's "Tarantino as ironic and mocking genius" idea, but he is the guy who helped get such movies as Hostel brought to the US and have a wider release.  I just don't see him as being opposed to the torture porn film market.

[Berkut]

Watched "Inglorious Basterds" at my roommate's insistence.  As stupid and repulsive as I thought it would be.  Some of the acting was OK.  Enjoyed the tip of the hat to Henri-Georges Clouzot.  Otherwise, it confirms everything disgusting I expected from the movie and Tarantino's fundamental worthlessness as a director.

EDIT:  It also may be the nadir of the treatment of the Holocaust in popular culture.  It's success seems to say:  if you want to make a movie about the joys of graphically torturing and killing human beings, just make it vengeance for the Holocaust and nobody can really criticize it.  When it is the same attitudes of celebrating brutality that enabled the Holocaust in the first place.     Genuinely saddening from a talented director and cast with tons of Hollywood money at their disposal.

What I don't understand about this perspective (and this is removed from whether or not one thinks the movie is any good or not) is the basic assumption behind the idea that because some movie depicts some action being taken by the nominal protaganists, we are to assume that the movie (or book, or whatever) is somehow advocating for that action.

The Inglorious Basterds do all kind of things that are pretty terrible. What makes you think that the message of the movie is that we ought to not criticize those things, much less that we should not do so because the people doing them are Jews against Nazi's? I liked the movie, but I certainly did not come away from it thinking that carving swastikas into people heads or blowing up theaters full of people was worth of celebration, or that Tarantino was trying to convince me that it was.

I didn't walk away from Pulp Fiction thinking that beating people to death was great, or stabbing them with swords was a cool idea either.

[Malthus]

What I don't understand about this perspective (and this is removed from whether or not one thinks the movie is any good or not) is the basic assumption behind the idea that because some movie depicts some action being taken by the nominal protaganists, we are to assume that the movie (or book, or whatever) is somehow advocating for that action.

The Inglorious Basterds do all kind of things that are pretty terrible. What makes you think that the message of the movie is that we ought to not criticize those things, much less that we should not do so because the people doing them are Jews against Nazi's? I liked the movie, but I certainly did not come away from it thinking that carving swastikas into people heads or blowing up theaters full of people was worth of celebration, or that Tarantino was trying to convince me that it was.

I didn't walk away from Pulp Fiction thinking that beating people to death was great, or stabbing them with swords was a cool idea either.

"Is that The Gimp hanging in your closet, or are you just happy to see me?" 

But yeah, the fact that the climax of the movie involved immolating a theatre full of Nazis getting their kicks out of watching a movie composed of nothing but extreme violence oughtta warn people that there is a certain level of irony involved in being a theatre getting kicks out of watching a movie filled with extreme violence ... 

[Capetan Mihali]

What I don't understand about this perspective (and this is removed from whether or not one thinks the movie is any good or not) is the basic assumption behind the idea that because some movie depicts some action being taken by the nominal protaganists, we are to assume that the movie (or book, or whatever) is somehow advocating for that action.

The Inglorious Basterds do all kind of things that are pretty terrible. What makes you think that the message of the movie is that we ought to not criticize those things, much less that we should not do so because the people doing them are Jews against Nazi's? I liked the movie, but I certainly did not come away from it thinking that carving swastikas into people heads or blowing up theaters full of people was worth of celebration, or that Tarantino was trying to convince me that it was.

I didn't walk away from Pulp Fiction thinking that beating people to death was great, or stabbing them with swords was a cool idea either.

"Is that The Gimp hanging in your closet, or are you just happy to see me?" 

But yeah, the fact that the climax of the movie involved immolating a theatre full of Nazis getting their kicks out of watching a movie composed of nothing but extreme violence oughtta warn people that there is a certain level of irony involved in being a theatre getting kicks out of watching a movie filled with extreme violence ...

I think that just like the quote that it is fundamentally impossible to make an anti-war war movie, this one shows that it is fundamentally impossible to make an ironic war movie/gorefest. 

Even (or especially) in the absence of an overt political message, the pleasure one derives from watching a movie is always political to some degree.  The way a director narratively structures and portrays extreme violence displays an attitude towards that violence, whether or not he praises it or condemns it, and whether or not (as in Tarantino's case) he tries to play it for irony, kitsch, or the sheer enjoyment of it.

[Malthus]

I think that just like the quote that it is fundamentally impossible to make an anti-war war movie, this one shows that it is fundamentally impossible to make an ironic war movie/gorefest. 

Even (or especially) in the absence of an overt political message, the pleasure one derives from watching a movie is always political to some degree.  The way a director narratively structures and portrays extreme violence displays an attitude towards that violence, whether or not he praises it or condemns it, and whether or not (as in Tarantino's case) he tries to play it for irony, kitsch, or the sheer enjoyment of it.

I don't think it is impossible to do, it is just impossible to do in such a manner that everyone will like it.

Certainly, this movie, while controversial, is not widely considered a failure - it was nominated for a slew of movie awards (winning, for example, the best supporting actor Academy award for Waltz) and metacritic sites list it positively.

[Berkut]

the pleasure one derives from watching a movie is always political to some degree. 

See, I guess I am just too stupid to even understand what a statement like that actually means.

I think I like it better that way though - seems like it would suck to always be worrying about the political implications behind what I enjoy in entertainment.

[frunk]

As a filmmaker I don't think the violence is even close to the point for Tarantino.  He is primarily about the style and mood of the situation.  Basterds, in particular, is about the anticipation and threat of violence.  If you took all of the physical violence from the movie the impact and the running time wouldn't be lessened by much.

[Josephus]

In the end to me, what matters most when I leave the theatre is whether or not I enjoyed it, regardless of whatever message it was trying to send. I'm in my mid-40s now and far removed from my film criticism classes at university. I don't want to think when I'm being entertained.
Sometimes, it happens that a movie both entertains me, moves me and makes me think. Something like, for instance, Schindler's List.
I'm not even a huge Tarantino fan. I mean I liked his earlier stuff when I was in my 20s and it was cool to like Pulp Fiction and Resevoir Dogs, but I found that Kill Bill went on and on and was one movie too long (in spite of Uma).
But I quite enjoyed Inglorius Basterds

[Razgovory]

the pleasure one derives from watching a movie is always political to some degree.

See, I guess I am just too stupid to even understand what a statement like that actually means.

I think I like it better that way though - seems like it would suck to always be worrying about the political implications behind what I enjoy in entertainment.

Apparently.

[Berkut]

In the end to me, what matters most when I leave the theatre is whether or not I enjoyed it, regardless of whatever message it was trying to send. I'm in my mid-40s now and far removed from my film criticism classes at university. I don't want to think when I'm being entertained.
Sometimes, it happens that a movie both entertains me, moves me and makes me think. Something like, for instance, Schindler's List.
I'm not even a huge Tarantino fan. I mean I liked his earlier stuff when I was in my 20s and it was cool to like Pulp Fiction and Resevoir Dogs, but I found that Kill Bill went on and on and was one movie too long (in spite of Uma).
But I quite enjoyed Inglorius Basterds

Pretty much exactly my feelings about the Tarantino films.

I will still pause and watch Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs if they are on when I am browsing, did not care for anything after Pulp Fiction until Inglorious, which I thought was fun but not close to Resevoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction.

[Berkut]

I was driving home from a game in Pennsylvania the other day, and I had some Green Day on my droid playlist.

My fellow official from Rochester I was driving hom with were talking about music, and I mentioned that I thought that American Idiot was a great album. He said he couldn't really enjoy it because he objected to the message.

I thought about that, and found it rather odd. I imagine I don't really agree with the message of that particular song either, I guess. It is kind of a trivial message really, and pretty shallow and stereotypical. But I don't really look for savvy political insight from my musicians, so what do I care what message they might be fumbling around? Why would anyone think that anything Billie Armstrong (or whoever wrote the song) has to say about politics would be insightful enough to actually think serious about anyway?

I think it is a great song, and don't really care about what it is trying to say. It is interesting in the context of the song, but it seems bizarre to me that someone would actually let that interfere with their enjoyment of the song itself.