Tarantino

From Dusk Till Dawn (Dimension Collector's Series)
$14.99
The movie starts off great. Instantly you hate George Clooney's character but are intrigued at the same time because he does a bad guy so well. I have always liked Harvey Keitel and Juliet Lewis as well. The acting was pretty good across the board, the music was great, the special effects were good (some really cool looking vampires in this one), and the gore was over the top, so why the low rating? Simple, this movie takes a nose dive when it turns into a vampire movie. Not because vampires aren't cool, and not because they're done poorly (they're not), but at the unbelievable reactions of the patrons. All of a sudden it's as though all of them (the ones not initially eaten) have been expert vampire killers their whole life. There is no surprise, no sense of fear, no sense of amazement, just a sort of attitude of "okay, time to kill a bunch of vampires, yawn" As another reviewer put it, if I saw a vampire, no, make that if anyone saw a vampire they would be gripped with fear. I wanted to see some of that. The completely unrealistic reactions of the patrons turned what could have been a scary, amazing vampire thriller into a cartoon. It was even more cartoon like how they went about killing the vampires. Dropping them on a table leg with a completely flat bottom. Excuse me, but how exactly is that supposed to go through a body, unless the body is made of play dough? The vampires are so easy to kill in this movie it's only their numbers that make them a nuisance.

It is apparent the decision was made to turn the vampire half of the movie into a kind of tongue in cheek, comedy, but it didn't work. Robert Rodriquez is a fantastic director. Planet Terror is one of my all time favorite horror movie's ever. That film managed to expertly combine humor and horror, from Dusk Till Dawn does not. This movie deserved a much better treatment of the vampire half. Serious, not "okay, the vampires are here let's start killing em." For the male viewers the movie is worth watching right till the end of the drop gorgeous Selma Hayek's sexy dance, then it can be safely turned off.

Reservoir Dogs (15th Anniversary)
$14.98
If you have never seen, one of my favorites. A lot of twists and turns in plot. Masterful suspense.

Inglourious Basterds: A Screenplay
$13.99
I haven't seen the movie yet. It stars Brad Pitt.

The setting is the country side of France.

This book opens with Nazi brutality. The reader watches as a Jewish family is murdered. Only the teenage daughter, Shosanna, escapes.

Lt. Aldo Raine is a Jewish American Soldier for Tennessee. He plans to send a message to Hitler. He forms a group of eight men willing and eager to kill Nazis. Each man is expect t scalp at least 100 Nazis. Shosanna joins the Basterds and form a plan. The group disguises themselves as civilians in German occupied France. They accomplish their mission well. They always allow one soldier to live so that he can tell others. The Germans nickname the group Basterds.

This is a fictional account. The violence is brutal. The action never stops. This is a what if book. What if a group of men wracked havoc on the Nazi.... As soon as I read this book I placed this movie in my movie queue.

Inglourious Basterds (2-Disc Special Edition) [Blu-ray]
$39.98
First off, let's get this out of the way: Quentin Tarentino will never, EVER top "Pulp Fiction". Period. Not gonna happen. So everyone really needs to stop comparing his movies to "Pulp Fiction". Second, this isn't supposed to be an accurate, dramatic depiction of World War II. We've seen a million of those types of films, and no portrayal of the Holocaust is going to surpass "Schindler's List", nor should it: it's one of the best movies of all time. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, "Inglourious Basterds" isn't perfect but it's still a good movie. Christoph Waltz is to this movie what Javier Bardeim was to "No Country for Old Men": a menacing, sadistic lunatic who you wanted to die but at the same time didn't because he's such an interesting character. Hopefully Mr. Waltz will get more roles in major American films, because his portrayal of "the Jew Hunter" is amazing. Brad Pitt is extremely entertaining as the leader of the Basterds, Aldo Raine, and his "artwork" and the "debt" he extracts from his men are so horrible that you have to love it. He also does a wonderful East Tennessee accent that other actors could stand to learn from (I'm looking at you, George Clooney). However, Melanie Laurent steals the movie as Shosanna, the secretly-Jewish Parisian cinema owner determined to not only take out "the Jew Hunter" for murdering her family but also the entire Nazi regime during the premiere of a Nazi propaganda film. She's cold yet vulnerable and sweet yet ruthless, and she's clearly the center of attention in the scenes she's in.
Unfortunately, Tarantino's obsession with dialogue prevents this movie from taking the step from good to great. Despite the title, there are precious few appearances by the Basterds; they're pretty much confined to the end of the first chapter and portions of the last chapter (and then many only make cameo appearances). Eli Roth as Donnie Donowitz ("The Bear Jew" as he is know to the superstitious and scared Nazis) is a particular lost opportunity, because aside from Pitt's character he's the most interesting of the Basterds as well as the most sadistic (in a good way: we're talking about killing Nazis, after all). Diane Kruger's portrayal of double-agent Bridget von Hammerstock isn't terrible, but her character is so underexposed and boring that there's no real reason for her existence in the film. In fact, the entire episode in the bar is so unnecessary, drawn-out, and straight boring that you have to wonder what Tarantino was thinking shooting this scene at all; he could've used that time to undergo more exposition for the Basterds (or at least cut down on the length of the movie). This exact same criticism applies to the British agent and the scene with Churchill. I personally would've liked to have seen Shoshanna's biracial romance brought out a little more, and the entire high command of Germany meeting in a movie theater does seem a little far-fetched even for this movie (although the end result is wonderful).
Overall, I would say take this movie for what it is: a fun, incredibly violent (seriously, don't see this if you're sqeemish) ride. The ending is bittersweet, but anyone who hates the Nazis will still wish this is what had happened in real life (preferably in 1933). Now, some people (at least among critics) are upset because they think the all-Jewish Basterds are so horrifically violent that they are no better than the Gestapo. My response to this is who cares?! The Nazis - specifically the high command and the SS - commit so many atrocities that it really doesn't matter how violent the Basterds respond in kind: they can never be worse than the Nazis they terrorize. Definitely see this movie.