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List Price: $29.98 | | Label: Universal Studios
Salesrank: 13
Released: December 15, 2009 |
| Our Price: $15.85 |
| Used Price: $14.50 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Brad Pitt takes no prisoners in Quentin Tarantino’s high-octane WWII revenge fantasy Inglourious Basterds. As war rages in Europe, a Nazi-scalping squad of American soldiers, known to their enemy as “The Basterds,” is on a daring mission to take down the leaders of the Third Reich. Bursting with “action, hair-trigger suspense and a machine-gun spray of killer dialogue” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone), Inglourious Basterds is “another Tarantino masterpiece” (Jake Hamilton, CBS-TV)!
Description of Inglourious Basterds (Single-Disc Edition):
Although Quentin Tarantino has cherished Enzo G. Castellari's 1978 "macaroni" war flick The Inglorious Bastards for most of his film-geek life, his own Inglourious Basterds is no remake. Instead, as hinted by the Tarantino-esque misspelling, this is a lunatic fantasia of WWII, a brazen re-imagining of both history and the behind-enemy-lines war film subgenre. There's a Dirty Not-Quite-Dozen of mostly Jewish commandos, led by a Tennessee good ol' boy named Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) who reckons each warrior owes him one hundred Nazi scalps--and he means that literally. Even as Raine's band strikes terror into the Nazi occupiers of France, a diabolically smart and self-assured German officer named Landa (Christoph Waltz) is busy validating his own legend as "The Jew Hunter." Along the way, he wipes out the rural family of a grave young girl (Melanie Laurent) who will reappear years later in Paris, dreaming of vengeance on an epic scale.
Now, this isn't one more big-screen comic book. As the masterly opening sequence reaffirms, Tarantino is a true filmmaker, with a deep respect for the integrity of screen space and the tension that can accumulate in contemplating two men seated at a table having a polite conversation. IB reunites QT with cinematographer Robert Richardson (who shot Kill Bill), and the colors and textures they serve up can be riveting, from the eerie red-hot glow of a tabletop in Adolf Hitler's den, to the creamy swirl of a Parisian pastry in which Landa parks his cigarette. The action has been divided, Pulp Fiction-like, into five chapters, each featuring at least one spellbinding set-piece. It's testimony to the integrity we mentioned that Tarantino can lock in the ferocious suspense of a scene for minutes on end, then explode the situation almost faster than the eye and ear can register, and then take the rest of the sequence to a new, wholly unanticipated level within seconds.
Again, be warned: This is not your "Greatest Generation," Saving Private Ryan WWII. The sadism of Raine and his boys can be as unsavory as the Nazi variety; Tarantino's latest cinematic protégé, Eli (director of Hostel) Roth, is aptly cast as a self-styled "golem" fond of pulping Nazis with a baseball bat. But get past that, and the sometimes disconcerting shifts to another location and another set of characters, and the movie should gather you up like a growing floodtide. Tarantino told the Cannes Film Festival audience that he wanted to show "Adolf Hitler defeated by cinema." Cinema wins. --Richard T. Jameson
Inglourious Basterds (Single-Disc Edition) Reviews:
One of my 50 Best, a truly great film 
2009-12-22 - Inglourious Basterds is probably one of the 50 best films I've ever seen. It's also one of the few Tarantino films I've actually loved or even enjoyed. I walked out of Pulp Fiction, but I saw Inglourious Basterds ten times in the theater before it eventually closed. I probably would have seen it a few more times, and plan on buying the Blu-Ray as well. It's just flat-out great entertainment, intelligently done, immensely satisfying.
It's so rare for a film to be engrossing, sophisticated, willing to defy political correctness (or even rise above it), appealing to both the intellectual's and the common man's tastes, violent and action-packed yet refined, funny and also devastating, profound, upsetting and yet pleasurable and deeply aesthetic, but IB is all of these things, and more.
The performances and the casting that made them possible really rise to the highest level. In recent years I've come to realize how critically important the art of casting is to filmmaking. There should be some prominent award for it, imo, maybe an Oscar category on the main Oscar night.
If Cristoph Waltz doesn't win the Best Actor Oscar I think AMPAS should be firebombed. But seriously, please don't mention the Supporting Oscar, Waltz is the BEST ACTOR, PERIOD. There WAS NO better performance by an actor in all of 2009, and not any in the last ten years that I can think of.
I think the Best Supporting could go instead to Michael Fassbender, whose performance as Lieutenant Archie Hicox was exquisitely entertaining. I also loved Diane Kruger as Bridget von Hammersmark, especially in the tavern scene. Listen, every single performance in this movie was superb, but I really think Waltz must get the Best Actor Oscar if there is any justice in this world.
This was a true "Great" film, right up there with the best films ever. Yes, Quentin, as you yourself wrote and directed in the final shot, this IS a "masterpiece". I couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you. Keep making films like this, and I'll keep going to the theater to see them ten times each, and then buy the DVD's. This is exactly the kind of movie that I am willing to spend serious money on.
Boringgggggggggggggggggggggg 
2009-12-22 - What a boring frickin movie. I wish I never bought it. Blu-Ray quality is excellent but the movie itself sucks.
Fantastically typical Tarrantino panache 
2009-12-21 - I can see this movie aging well. All the cool Tarrantino trademarks are in this movie..the beautiful cinematography and superb attention to detail, the graphic violence, the striking contrast of later period, hipster pop and rock music choices over the dramatic scenes, the great campiness that pops up from time to time to remind you you're watching an entertaining movie and my favorite , his ultra hip and cool dialogue. Film students probably pour over every word of a Tarrantino flick to see how it's done by the master. Very few people can so consistently create such great tension and interest as in watching something as otherwise sedate as people sitting in a bar , chatting it up. I was a bit surprised though that so much of the movie was about people and scenes OTHER than the basterd bunch, though it all ties in nicely in the end. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Almost but not quite 
2009-12-21 - The opening scene is by and far the best in the picture and builds expectations to a film that, let me be very honest, is never fulfilled. In fact, this is a ridiculous film, though beautifully shot. It is beyond silly. Hitler goes to a premier with the rest of High Command and he has TWO guards protecting him and no one else? Tarantino displays great knowledge of film, as that is talked about more than anything in the film interminably, but his underststanding of anything military is laughably bad. In reality, there would have been guards all over that movie house, inside and out, patrolling the ground and all entrances. I swear, Hogan's Heroes was more realistic. Instead, all that is done is all exits are secured and the place is burned and blown up. How convenient. If you are going to take the time to make a film about WWII, do it right.
Now as for the 'basterds', not a single interesting one in the lot. One uses a baseball bat. Wow, how original. One is a former German who loves to kill Nazi's himself. Didn't see that coming. And Brad Pitt, who should be nominated for the worst Tennessee accent in movie history. Oh, and he was uninteresting, too.
In fact, it could be argued the Germans came off as much more sympathetic than anyone else. Was that intentional? I don't know but if you are going to make a film called The Inglourious Basterds, you better at least make them interesting, not just one dimensional insipidly boring morons.
A remarkably bad film I do not give one star only because of the performance of Christoph Waltz. When he was on the screen, it was much better.
I am sick of seeing Tarantino given a free ride just because he is 'TARANTINO'. If he makes a bad film, hold him accountable instead of slobbering all over his films. This is not a good film.
A movie to pass on....
2009-12-21 - If your into mindless violence with no real point this is your movie like any of Quentin Tarantino's movies. If you want a good movie you might want to save your money for a movie like "the Hangover". Or heck some porn has a better more engaging plotline. Movie of the year no way..
