Inglourious Basterds review

Quentin Tarantino's war-by-spaghetti-western-style-fantasy won't make Sergio Leone roll around in his coffin, but it's definitely a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly (pun completely intended). It is a propaganda film mocking the ideas of propaganda by means of using Jewish vengeance to fuel a brutal (read:very brutal) comedy.

The film is indulgent and almost masturbatory in it's execution, but you won't be seeing a single shot, hearing a single line, or pondering a single musical cue that isn't on purpose. Such is the Tarantino Way.

In yet another chapter driven (ala KILL BILL) flick, Tarantino throws kitchen sink and all at you. In the film you get a shining scenery-chewing (and stealing) Pitt and Waltz (especially), a Peter Sellers esk turn by Mike Myers and even a "death by cinema" theme to wrap everything together. All of this proves to be very interesting and, for the most part, fun but by the end of this little fairy tale, the sum of the parts may feel a bit hollow.

This may just be my own problem with Tarantino's films. For the uninformed, people hail this as the work of a visionary filmmaker, but the work in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is more of a schizophrenic amalgam of Peckinpah, Fuller and Leone.

It's up to you to decide whether this is a good thing...

G.I.JOE: The Rise of Cobra review

First off, I must say that if I were 10 years old, this would probably be the most awesome thing on the planet. Big (and shiny) toys, ninjas, explosions, Sienna Miller...

I really believe that there may have been a solid 45 minute film hidden within those two hours...

however...

G.I.JOE isn't so much a movie, but moreso a series of incessant action sequences strung together. The idea is to basically take the hodgepodge of everything that works in the frame of an action film (or summer blockbuster) and throw it at the screen for the complete running time. The movie just didn't want to stop dancing for you. If you put any thought into what is bombarding you on the screen, you will find that past the kitchen sink, there ain't much else...

Forgetting a film like this is just about as easy as recalling the differences (or even the events) between studio outings such as the Star Wars prequels, the Transformers series, and any other set of films that the major studios have been desperately churning out and trying to turn into franchises.

The characters (if you can call them that) in the film barely have enough room to resemble the barest of archetypes. You can replace Duke (Tatum) with a more able Luke Skywalker, Ripcord (Wayans) with a Jar Jar Binks, Destro (McCullen) with Darth Vader and so on and so forth.

Does this mean that I hated G.I.JOE the movie?

I can't say that I did, but I can't quite say that I liked it. I might be able to tell you (and stop me if you've heard this one before) is that the movie was about a rich bad guy who wanted to have more control over the world and a ragtag group of heroes (from various places because that makes them more accessible) who had to stop them...there were also ninjas...and Sienna Miller...

Sooooo, turn off your brain, chew on your popcorn, and just enjoy the shiny pretty things and you may stand a chance...possibly...

Long live Snake-Eyes!