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List Price: $34.98 | | Label: Universal Studios
Salesrank: 19
Released: December 15, 2009 |
| Our Price: $21.48 |
| Used Price: $21.45 |
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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 (Two-Disc Special 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 (Two-Disc Special Edition) Reviews:
Better than Kill Bill 
2009-12-16 - In my opinion the showdown in the projection room should have been between the French girl and Colonel Landa, not the French girl and the young war hero. After all, Landa had just murdered the movie star to prevent whatever was to happen in the theater. His next move, like Frank Sinatra in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, would have been to go to the projection room to investigate.
Landa killed Shoshona's entire family, so the showdown would have had more meaning with him.
Also, it was not in character for him to negotiate a house in Nantucket. We see throughout the movie what a fierce defender of the Reich he is. He would do anything to prevent the attack on the high-ranking Germans in the theater. The deal-making over the bottle of red wine and the cutting of the swastika in Landa's forehead strike me as anti-climactic and rather stupid.
Sick Humor 
2009-12-16 - I loved the show! You have to be able to enjoy sick humor. I seen it in the theatres and laughed til my stomach hurt. If you don't like sick humor you might not enjoy the movie. I just bought it cause I loved it so much!
The jew hunter was the real star here 
2009-12-15 - Just got my copy of inglorious basterds today after work..
first off ive seen this film when it came out..and its one of tarintino's best since pulp fiction and the kill bill films.
sure, it had great acting, and a great cast which reminds me of films like the guns of navarone and the dirty dozen (great ww2 films also)
But for me and i know im not alone on this one.. the nazi colonel hans "the jew Hunter" landa was the real star of this film. he was played cool and calculating sort of a nazi hannibal lecter and at oscar time the actor that played him actor should have a nomination.
the movie is your basic revenge plot brad pitt(with an over the top southern accent) leads an all jewish "nazi Killing" goon squad into nazi occupied europe with the task to take out the top leaders of the third reich. sounds cool huh? well it is. im a ww2 fan and at first i wasnt sure about this film but i was surprised..its an instant classic.
there s lots of action, and suspense and lets not forget that classic tarintino violence! ww2 style!
Bottom line if you want to see a great ww2 action film this film wont dissapoint.
Seen it...heard it...seen it... 
2009-12-15 - I absolutely cannot understand why people are so in love with Tarantino's cut 'n' paste vision of cinema. He blatantly rips off those he claims to admire, and winds up making the same sadistic revenge flick over and over and over. The latest incarnation is 'Inglourious Basterds,' in which a bunch of murderous people on both sides compete to see who can commit the bigger atrocities. The first scene? Oh, the tension THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN THERE HAD I NOT ALREADY SEEN THIS IN DOZENS OF MOVIES. And can we stop with the idiotic chapters, especially those that begin "Once Upon a Time In...", Quentin? You're not Sergio Leone, and you never will be.
The premise that Nazi Germany, losing the war, decides to abandon any pretense at security and have Hitler attend a film premiere in Paris? I'm sorry, this is not alternate reality - it is complete fantasy, as are the completely shambolic schemes to kill Hitler by both the Basterds and the woman who runs the theater, both of which would have been thwarted by Paul Blart, Mall Cop.
Tarantino also likes to simply throw in bits of Morricone, and even a snippet of Lalo Schifrin's score for "Kelly's Heroes" (an INFINITELY better movie about guys who decide to go for themselves in wartime) to make the so-called cinephiles excited. I don't know - maybe the guy doesn't want to pay an actual composer, or maybe composers don't want to work for him, because he's telling him, "I want something like the 'Tiger Tank' theme from "Kelly's Heroes" here," all the time.
This movie is a complete mess, with nothing memorable about the characters, plot, or music, except that which has been ripped off from other movies. Certainly the so-called Basterds themselves come off as cutout thugs out for a revenge murder spree. And one final point -- I'm not sure why I'm supposed to be terrified of some unseen retard repeatedly swinging a bat against the walls of a cave. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
"We in the killin' Nazi business. And cousin, business is a-boomin'!"
2009-12-15 - Blu-Ray Review
Movie: 4.5/5 Video Quality: 5/5 Audio Quality: 5/5 Extras: 4/5 Overall: 4.6/5 (rounded up in total star ranking)
Anybody remember that Italian war movie from the 70s with Bo Svenson and Fred Williamson? They had ridiculously over-the-top shoot-outs and naked Nazi women firing machine guns! Anyone? No?
Well, Quentin Tarantino has taken the theme and topic of that silly film and turned it into something of his own. "Inglourious Basterds" doesn't quite have as much Nazi-killing as I expected, but it excels brilliantly with its plot, story, characters, dialogue, acting, cameramanship, and music selection. It is a bit strange perhaps, with some absurdity, but it is all earnest, original, and of decent quality. There are a couple of bloody brutal parts, but it's never over-done. There are some funny parts too, but it's also never over-done. Additionally, the movie has some interesting cultural/historical references and homages. Most of it even serves as a film about film and filmmaking, as the plot has a lot to do with a cinema. If you liked Tarantino's other work (especially "Pulp Fiction," which has a plot structure similar to "Inglourious Basterds") of it you want to see a war drama of a different nature, check this one out by all means.
The disc has superb quality. The video looks incredibly sharp, clean, clear, and vivid; I saw no problems worth mentioning. Sound quality is excellent (DTS-HD MA 5.1). It includes numerous extras, and a digital copy. Comes with a slipcover.
