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Inglourious Basterds
Two parallel plots to kill Hitler in Nazi Occupied France culminates in a satisfying ending.
For a longtime i used to think that how is it possible that an auteur like Tarantino has so much box office draw. Auteurs generally tend to have strong fans inside film industry and a small fan base outside industry. Usually the fan base inside industry helps get the movie awards nominations and that sort of pushes the box office for a movie. Think no country for old man or true grit. But I think certainty is highly valuable in Hollywood. Hits like the Martian or Gravity are unpredictable and they have more to do with luck than the filmmakers. I think if a filmmaker is known to make great movies or movies that are entertaining in a dark way and the movie is guaranteed to make anywhere between 150 to 200 million then I would say that the filmmaker is highly in demand. In an industry like Hollywood, where film making is highly volatile and no one knows how a movie will turn out, consistency and certainty is gold.Its like 150 million in the bank even before the movie is green lit. That's probably the reason why his next project currently is getting so much attention. You can't say that about very many directors.
The interesting thing about a Quentin Tarantino movie is that its basically a genre picture that's covered in Tarantino flavor. The same way a quiet place makes 300 million $ , a Tarantino movie makes 300 million $. But can the director of quiet place make a movie like quiet place 3 times in a row with equal success ? can audience connect with the director of quiet place the same way they do for Tarantino in terms of reliability to entertain them ? that's what sets him apart from other directors. His movies have his own flavor and academy respects him for that. Entertaining value of a movie trumps the unoriginal nature for the most part. If your movie is set in a modern suburban setting and its entertaining, then it mostly is a movie made for that purpose. But if it is set in 19th or early 20th century then immediately the question why pops up. If you just wanna entertain audience then why do you have to make the movie in that time period. All these peeks the curiosity of audience and if the curiosity is met with a great entertaining movie then they are okay. But if the movie is using the setting to smuggle some message and if its not tactile then the cards starts falling off. If you are not entertaining me then at-least move me emotionally. So that's the crux of his bank-ability. He is a commercial director but his commercial aspect is his own signature , so it makes money and gets awards attention at the same time. Most of the times if a movie is Oscar material, it has to deal with truth and honesty and that cuts off its box office by a large number. That's the sad part. You are either appealing to 60+ audience or to a niche. Both are not repeat customers and highly unpredictable. But the customers of a drug most certainly are.
This movie has some great scenes. The basement rendezvous scene is one of the best in his movies. The opening scene is great. The SS general is well played in the movie. Re-visioning world war 2 is something Hollywood will not allow if not for Quentin Tarantino. The interesting thing about Hollywood is that lets say a director like peter berg wants to tell a revisionist story about world war 2 the problem is no one will give him money to make that movie. Studio executives will not want him to make the movie.Stars will not sign on to make the movie. So the project will not even movie an inch if he is at helm. The problem is that if Peter Berg is making a movie , Spielberg is not excited to see the movie or Scorsese or Paul Thomas Anderson. So the movie has to be big with critics and even then these auteurs will look at his career and see that he has done lot of commercial movies and then they will avoid even doing Q & A with him. But when a movie of QT comes up, all those guys are interested in seeing his movies and they clearly love his career because not one of his movies is a studio product. The problem here is perception of people effects the way your movie is treated if studio executives allow you to make a prestige picture that's a revisionist. PTA interviewed Adam McKay for the big short because all of Adam McKay movies are his signature style movies. He in a weird way is an auteur. So PTA considers him worthy of interviewing. You never see PTA interviewing some new comer. Because that's too much. He doesn't want him. If PTA likes your movie then there is every chance that it will be liked by elite Hollywood voters for awards consideration.
Its his most entertaining movie yet.Quentin Tarantino did successfully prevent any other filmmaker from trying out interesting dialogue or strong deep misogyny in their movies because people will immediately call them out that. That's a very sad state of affairs. Bad times at El Royale looks like an awesome movie from the trailer but people feel like its a Tarantino movie and that's a disgrace and an insult to the filmmakers behind the movie. However the silver lining here is that lately Tarantino is liking his dialogues more than audience. So that's a good thing. Look , all these actors are puppets. They will play a 2 minute part just to be in Tarantino movie.So I wouldn't put much stock in a movie just because all the actors are lining up to be in his movie. Give this movie a go.
Two parallel plots to kill Hitler in Nazi Occupied France culminates in a satisfying ending.
For a longtime i used to think that how is it possible that an auteur like Tarantino has so much box office draw. Auteurs generally tend to have strong fans inside film industry and a small fan base outside industry. Usually the fan base inside industry helps get the movie awards nominations and that sort of pushes the box office for a movie. Think no country for old man or true grit. But I think certainty is highly valuable in Hollywood. Hits like the Martian or Gravity are unpredictable and they have more to do with luck than the filmmakers. I think if a filmmaker is known to make great movies or movies that are entertaining in a dark way and the movie is guaranteed to make anywhere between 150 to 200 million then I would say that the filmmaker is highly in demand. In an industry like Hollywood, where film making is highly volatile and no one knows how a movie will turn out, consistency and certainty is gold.Its like 150 million in the bank even before the movie is green lit. That's probably the reason why his next project currently is getting so much attention. You can't say that about very many directors.
The interesting thing about a Quentin Tarantino movie is that its basically a genre picture that's covered in Tarantino flavor. The same way a quiet place makes 300 million $ , a Tarantino movie makes 300 million $. But can the director of quiet place make a movie like quiet place 3 times in a row with equal success ? can audience connect with the director of quiet place the same way they do for Tarantino in terms of reliability to entertain them ? that's what sets him apart from other directors. His movies have his own flavor and academy respects him for that. Entertaining value of a movie trumps the unoriginal nature for the most part. If your movie is set in a modern suburban setting and its entertaining, then it mostly is a movie made for that purpose. But if it is set in 19th or early 20th century then immediately the question why pops up. If you just wanna entertain audience then why do you have to make the movie in that time period. All these peeks the curiosity of audience and if the curiosity is met with a great entertaining movie then they are okay. But if the movie is using the setting to smuggle some message and if its not tactile then the cards starts falling off. If you are not entertaining me then at-least move me emotionally. So that's the crux of his bank-ability. He is a commercial director but his commercial aspect is his own signature , so it makes money and gets awards attention at the same time. Most of the times if a movie is Oscar material, it has to deal with truth and honesty and that cuts off its box office by a large number. That's the sad part. You are either appealing to 60+ audience or to a niche. Both are not repeat customers and highly unpredictable. But the customers of a drug most certainly are.
This movie has some great scenes. The basement rendezvous scene is one of the best in his movies. The opening scene is great. The SS general is well played in the movie. Re-visioning world war 2 is something Hollywood will not allow if not for Quentin Tarantino. The interesting thing about Hollywood is that lets say a director like peter berg wants to tell a revisionist story about world war 2 the problem is no one will give him money to make that movie. Studio executives will not want him to make the movie.Stars will not sign on to make the movie. So the project will not even movie an inch if he is at helm. The problem is that if Peter Berg is making a movie , Spielberg is not excited to see the movie or Scorsese or Paul Thomas Anderson. So the movie has to be big with critics and even then these auteurs will look at his career and see that he has done lot of commercial movies and then they will avoid even doing Q & A with him. But when a movie of QT comes up, all those guys are interested in seeing his movies and they clearly love his career because not one of his movies is a studio product. The problem here is perception of people effects the way your movie is treated if studio executives allow you to make a prestige picture that's a revisionist. PTA interviewed Adam McKay for the big short because all of Adam McKay movies are his signature style movies. He in a weird way is an auteur. So PTA considers him worthy of interviewing. You never see PTA interviewing some new comer. Because that's too much. He doesn't want him. If PTA likes your movie then there is every chance that it will be liked by elite Hollywood voters for awards consideration.
Its his most entertaining movie yet.Quentin Tarantino did successfully prevent any other filmmaker from trying out interesting dialogue or strong deep misogyny in their movies because people will immediately call them out that. That's a very sad state of affairs. Bad times at El Royale looks like an awesome movie from the trailer but people feel like its a Tarantino movie and that's a disgrace and an insult to the filmmakers behind the movie. However the silver lining here is that lately Tarantino is liking his dialogues more than audience. So that's a good thing. Look , all these actors are puppets. They will play a 2 minute part just to be in Tarantino movie.So I wouldn't put much stock in a movie just because all the actors are lining up to be in his movie. Give this movie a go.