Atlanta's Plaza Theatre Presents Nine Days of Tarantino

by Tony Dayoub

Tied to the release of Quentin Tarantino's ninth film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Atlanta's historic Plaza Theatre and the Atlanta Film Society are hosting a special retrospective of his previous eight films. It started this past Thursday with screenings of Reservoir Dogs, a 25th anniversary screening of Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Kill Bill Vols. 1 & 2. Next weekend sees screenings of Death Proof, Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, and The Hateful Eight.

The Shackling of Django Unchained (2012)

by Tony Dayoub

The last time I discussed Quentin Tarantino's films at length here was a little over 3 years ago when I got into it with critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, defending Inglourious Basterds (20009) as more than just a "film that seems morally akin to Holocaust denial." Frankly, I didn't find the revisionism in Basterds—particularly the blatant recasting of Hitler's death as part of a gory massacre in a locked theater auditorium—to be offensive or even problematic. Basterds' climax was characteristic of the propaganda-like take on the American war films of the 40s that Tarantino was riffing on, movies in which Americans were clearly the "white hats" and the Axis were not only their opposite number; they were racially stereotypical, incompetent goons. Besides which, the violent death of Hitler, and not by his own hand, seemed like the kind of wish-fulfillment narrative few would admit finding unsatisfying on at least a primal level. Django Unchained is more of a mixed bag, another revisionist take on history by Tarantino, one that finds the director losing the thread of the conversation he himself instigates. And in this case, it's difficult to ignore his inclination to overindulge.

Making of Nation's Pride (1944)

Posted earlier by Dennis Cozzalio at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule.

UPDATED: Rosenbaum Sticks His Head in the Sand Responds

Over at the esteemed Jonathan Rosenbaum's site, he posts "Some Afterthoughts about Tarantino," a sequel to his previous post on Inglourious Basterds where he accuses the director of creating a "film that seems morally akin to Holocaust denial." In today's post he states:

I’m waiting for any of the enthusiasts for Inglourious Basterds to come up with some guidance about what grown-up things this movie has to say to us about World War 2 or the Holocaust — or maybe just what it has to say about other movies with the same subject matter. Or, if they think that what Tarantino is saying is adolescent but still deserving of our respect and attention, what that teenage intelligence consists of. Or implies. Or inspires. Or contributes to our culture.

Well, maybe he wouldn't have to wait so long if he opened the comments section on his site, and allowed some feedback. Or maybe he'd get some insight if he read some quite eloquent defenses of the film in the reviews and accompanying commentary at Dennis Cozzalio's SLIFR, Jim Emerson's Scanners, Greg Ferrara's Cinema Styles, Glenn Kenny's Some Came Running, or Bill R.'s TKoFYH , sites where intelligent debate by the film community is not only welcome, but thrives. Maybe Mr. Rosenbaum could find the guidance he seeks by looking up these discussions, instead of looking down at the rest of us. UPDATE: Mr. Rosenbaum was gracious enough to clarify some of his controversial comments at his site in a postscript to his original post, and in the comments section here (below), at Bill R.'s site, and at Bright Lights After Dark (maybe elsewhere, but these were the only sites I was aware of).

Movie Review: Inglourious Basterds

by Tony Dayoub



"We will be cruel to the Germans, and through our cruelty they will know who we are. They will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, disfigured bodies of their brothers we leave behind us, and the Germans will not be able to help themselves from imagining the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, at our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the Germans will be sickened by us, the Germans will talk about us, and the Germans will fear us. Nazis ain't got no humanity! They need to be destroyed." - Lt. Aldo Raine

Happy Monday everyone. Hope you all had a great weekend. Let's get down to some way overdue business, and discuss the big movie this weekend, and perhaps this year, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. I saw it at noon on Friday, but held back on discussing it here for two reasons. One was my desire to contemplate the film a little longer than I usually do with other movies because it is complicated enough to merit such pondering. Notice I say complicated, not profound... more on that later. The second reason is because I plan on discussing it in toto, spoilers included. So anyone who hasn't seen it, please skip the rest of this post, go see it (requirement: you must see it in a theater), and come back once you have. Trust me, whether you end up liking the film or not, this is one flick that every movie lover should add to their lexicon.


Basterds is a World War II triptych with three protagonists: Nazi S.S. Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) a suave snake who has earned the nickname of "Jew-Hunter" for his ability to ferret out Jews hiding throughout occupied France; Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) is a young French Jew who manages to escape Landa's clutches before he massacres her family; and Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) is the commander of a band of Jewish soldiers, nicknamed "the Basterds" by the Germans for the brutal retribution they carry out against them, always leaving scalped Nazi corpses behind. Eventually each protagonist's storyline crosses paths in curious ways, even if they themselves don't always meet, until synchronicity strikes at the end of the film, with Shosanna exacting her revenge on the Nazi elite at a movie premiere in a theater she owns, which also happens to be where the Basterds have decided to wipe out Hitler and his goons.

Much has been made of Tarantino's highly fictitious postmodern Holocaust revisionism for, as some say, irresponsibly playing fast and loose with facts and casting the former victims as vengeance seeking "perpetrators" no better than their Nazi executioners. However, unlike the recent District 9, which tries to trick the viewer into passivity by deceiving him with the faux-documentary look at Apartheid, Tarantino clearly instructs us from the beginning to look at Basterds as an alternate history, a fantasy, by beginning the movie with the words, "Once Upon a Time... in Nazi-occupied France..." He continues to encourage a dissociation from any reality by rooting his story in the history of film versus the history of the world. For instance, most if not all of the soundtrack is made up of musical cues from other films (and anachronistic ones at that). David Bowie's theme from Cat People (1982) is heard as Shosanna "gets into character" before the climactic movie premiere. Italian Western themes are also ubiquitous. And I just about had a heart attack after I heard the "Bath Attack" theme from Sydney J. Furie's B-movie, The Entity (1981), when Shosanna is reunited with Landa midway through the film. Truth be told, I might feel differently about the "exploitation" of the subject if I had any Holocaust survivors in my family. But I don't. And from my perspective, it doesn't look or feel like Tarantino is being disrespectful of the historical facts.




Instead, by inverting the players in his drama, Tarantino is simply presenting this violent parable as a reframing of history to highlight the ease with which genocide occurred, calling into question whether the complicity and collaboration by many Germans can truly be justified by the loyalist fervor that was promoted by the Nazi propaganda machine. In this case, it is the audience that is complicit in the cathartic joy of vengeance, cheering the "Bear Jew" (Eli Roth) when he whacks one Nazi soldier with a baseball bat, delighting at Bridget Von Hammersmark's (Diane Kruger) rage-filled dispatch of a young soldier after a personal insult, and reveling in Shosanna's laughing visage onscreen and aflame as the theater burns with the Nazi High Command locked inside. Tarantino is creating an alternate propaganda here. This last image of the burning theater more than anything recalls the evil of the gas chambers (its setting accusing moviegoers, us, of participating in the same celebration of killing the Nazis did), and any pleasure we take in the film's climactic destruction of the Germans complicates our usually automatic dismissal of any justifications heard in the past by Nazi apologists who say they were swept up by the populist frenzy at the time since we, the viewers, are also guilty of the same.

It just may be that some critics are right in accusing Inglourious Basterds of luridly exploiting a horrid chapter in humanity's history. But at least it does so without hypocrisy.

DVD Roundup - Two Hits and a Misfire Worth Taking Note Of

In the seventies, it was Woody Allen (Annie Hall). In the eighties, it was the Abraham and Zucker Brothers (Airplane!) crew. In the nineties, it was the Farrelly Brothers (There's Something About Mary). So far, 21st century American comedic cinema has been the domain of Judd Apatow and his repertory. While Apatow's other 2008 releases (Drillbit Taylor, Pineapple Express, and Step Brothers) suggest that he and his company may be starting to spread themselves a little thin, Forgetting Sarah Marshall helps bolster his claim to the comedy throne. Like two of his earlier successes, The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005), and Knocked Up (2007), this film mixes the romantically relatable (Jason Segel's ill-advised decision to stay in Hawaii even after discovering ex-girlfriend Kristen Bell is also there) with the hilariously profane (just about anything concerning scene-stealer Russell Brand). The results are that it comes off feeling a lot kinder to its characters than either film, and even a little funnier than Knocked Up, if not the home run that Virgin ended up with when it was at bat. Segel not only stars in it, but wrote the sweet-hearted screenplay that makes this one an instant classic definitely worth adding to the DVD collection. Another famous director lending his name to film productions, Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction), might want to think again before lending it to movies such as Hell Ride. Written and directed by Larry Bishop, whose biggest claim to fame is the fact that he is the son of the late Rat Pack-er Joey Bishop, the film tries to hit the clever Tarantino tone with its pseudo-hard-boiled dialogue. Only Bishop ain't no Tarantino as the following lines poor Leonor Varela (Blade II) is saddled with demonstrate:

Wanna f--k? Trust me, after I give you the bad news, you ain't gonna wanna f--k. Ever. Again. F--k me good one more time before you never wanna f--k again. I'm the messenger of misery, baby. Let's f--k first, then I'll deliver my miserable message.

And how did Bishop get Varela to appear in this film? How did he get David Carradine, Dennis Hopper, Vinnie Jones, and Michael Madsen to appear in this overwrought and underwritten tale of "bikers, brotherhood, and bulls--t"? Maybe it's the Tarantino connection, or the Rat Pack one. Either way, Hell Ride is definitely trading on someone's name and it isn't Larry Bishop's. For true biker fans, forget this DVD, and catch the cult hit Sons of Anarchy on FX. You'll thank me for it. A recent classic film finally made its debut on DVD this year. Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) is about the development of a touching relationship between two cellmates in a fictional South American country. Political prisoner Valentin Arregui is played by the late Raul Julia, a signature role that he is probably best remembered for. Flamboyantly gay Luis Molina is played by William Hurt, a role which he won the Oscar for. As Arregui is tortured through the course of the film, he grows accustomed to listening Molina tell the story of a romantic movie he once saw. The fact that it takes place in a fascistic idea of the perfect society becomes secondary to the safe harbor it proves to be to Julia's revolutionary idealist through his painful stay in prison. Hurt is mesmerizing as Molina, presenting a well-rounded gay man at a time when homosexual characters were rare in mainstream cinema, and certainly absent among Oscar-winning roles for actors. Molina is kind, funny, intelligent, charismatic, deceptive, and most importantly, all too human. The film is worth a second look considering its relevancy to current events.