Extract (2009)


Directed by: Mike Judge
Starring: Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Kristen Wiig, Ben Affleck

Other Actors of Note: J.K. Simmons, Clifton Collins Jr., David Koechner, Gene Simmons, Beth Grant

Plot: Joel, the owner of an extract manufacturing plant, constantly finds himself in precarious situations that steadily worsen by the minute. First, his soon-to-be floor manager acquires a serious injury in a machine malfunctioning accident that subsequently endangers the wellbeing of his company. Second, his personal life doesn't fair much better when he takes the advice of his bartending friend Dean during a drug-induced brainstorming session on how to test his wife's faithfulness. Finally, compounding these catastrophes is new employee Cindy, who happens to be a scam artist intent on milking the company for all its worth. Now, Joel must attempt to piece his company and his marriage back together all while trying to figure out what he's really after in life. Taken from www.imdb.com.


Mike Judge is a masterfully clever writer who has made an impact on the comedy world with MTV's "Beavis and Butthead" and his animated dramady about life in Texas "King of the Hill", but no Mike Judge project has ever recieved the same amount of love as the 1999 sleeper hit "Office Space." This clever satire of an office environment starring Rob Livingston, Jennifer Anniston, and Gary Cole is a beloved comedy classic 10 years later.

After Judge's good but lackluster "Idiocracy" people were waiting for the next big thing from the man behind "Office Space." Soon trailers for "Extract" came out and posters appearing with the proclamation that Mike Judge was "going back to work." Everything that "Extract" had to offer seemed to be an "Office Space"-style send-up of the factory-warehouse industry. An industry just as, if not moreso, deserving of a satire as office work.

Unfortunately, "Extract" is not that movie. It's about Joel (Jason Bateman) a married man who has brought his vanilla extract business up from the ground. Joel is having problems with his increasingly more passionless wife Suzie(Kristen Wiig).

Joel finds out from his second in command Brian (J.K. Simmons) that General Mills is interested in buying the company. But problems start when employee "Step" (Clifton Collins Jr.) loses one of his testicles in an accident.

Con-woman and oppurtunist Cindy (Mila Kunis) befriends Step and convinces him to sue the company with the help of an ambulance-chasing lawyer Joe Adler. (Gene Simmons in a send-up of Texas attorney and very angry man Jim Adler: The Texas Hammer.)

As Joel deals with the threat of losing his company he has to deal with a mess of his own creation, as in a drunken moment of weakness he hired a gigolo (Dustin Milligan) to seduce his wife so that he could cheat on her guilt-free.


Have you seen "Arrested Development?" Well then you'll be glad to know that Michael Bluth has now moved to Texas and started an artificial flavoring company. Jason Bateman literally plays the same character that put him on the map (no, not "Teen Wolf", dumbass) and while this isn't necessarily a bad thing it's not that great either.

Bateman does have a talent for making the shitty things that Joel does seem excusable and you really do feel like he's a victim of circumstance rather than a jerk. At times this movie is painful to watch just because you know there's no good way for to make it out of this movie.

Mila Kunis is boring as the con-woman Cindy, still managing to nudge herself slightly ahead of Kristin Wiig's bad Jennifer Anniston impersonation. While neither actress is entirely important to the story they both could have done more with their characters.

Clifton Collins Jr. does a truly understated performance as Step, the self-important redneck that you've worked with in any warehouse/factory industry job you've ever done. Collins plays white trash so well that anyone not familiar with him can't even tell he's Latino. (Which considering he's played some of the most atypical Latino characters in film that's pretty impressive.) Beth Grant, J.K. Simmons, Javier Gutierrez, and T.J. Miller all give perfect performances as other industry-specific archetypes (The racist old lady with horrible fashion sense, the manager who can't remember anyone's name, the quiet Mexican who does his job but gets blamed for everything, and the dumb ass forklift driver respectively.)

Ben Affleck shows why he was never meant for leading man material as Dean, easily the best performance he's done in years as the drug-dealing man-pimp/bartender and Joel's best friend. Affleck has several great memorable lines and is out of the way enough to make his screen time enjoyable.

Of course, the real scene stealer in the movie is David Koechner (AKA that guy who's in, like, every movie) as Joel's neighbor Nathan. Nathan is "that guy" who won't shut the hell up, bothers you constantly, and never seems to take the hint that you don't like him. Koechner plays this role so pitch-perfectly that all his scenes are brilliantly hilarious.

Dustin Milligan plays a stereotypical stupid man-whore. That's really all that needs to be said about that.

Now as I said above, this is NOT "Office Space" in a factory. While there is some great satire of the industry, the job is a very small and unimportant part of the movie. The movie is more a satire of life in general with several wonderful archetypes played perfectly.

In many ways "Extract" is an extended episode of "King of the Hill" where the entire world is satire and the story is playing as a series of unfortunate events happening to the main character. But more than anything, "Extract" feels like Mike Judge doing The Coen Brothers.

The situation shows Joel as the great things in his life have started to pique and he's heading in a downward acr into a series of increasingly more horrible situations. By midway through the movie you're wondering if Joel is even going to survive the movie at all. But then just as you second-guess things the narrative takes a turn and everything starts to go good again.

If you fell for it, don't fell bad, even though Judge is famous for this bait-and-switch method in almost every episode of "King of the Hill" it took me by surprise as well. Perhaps it was the Coen-lite feel of the movie that threw me off, but I honestly expected the movie to end with him being hit by a bus. This just shows that Judge's take on mankind is decidedly more optimistic than Joel and Ethan Coen's.

The movie has some great bits and is ultimately satisfying but those of you coming to see something of "Office Space" caliber will be disappointed.


"Extract" is a good movie, certainly better than Judge's previous directoral effort "Idiocracy", but still a far cry from the comedic magic he captured with "Office Space." Still, Mike Judge is on the way back up and I look forward to seeing more.

I give "Extract" a 4 out of 5. It's good, not great, give it a rent.

Zombieland (2009)


Directed by: Ruben Fleisher

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin

Other Actors of Note: Amber Heard, Bill Murray

Plot: In the horror comedy Zombieland focuses on two men who have found a way to survive a world overrun by zombies. Columbus is a big wuss -- but when you're afraid of being eaten by zombies, fear can keep you alive. Tallahassee is an AK-toting, zombie-slaying' bad ass whose single determination is to get the last Twinkie on earth. As they join forces with Wichita and Little Rock, who have also found unique ways to survive the zombie mayhem, they will have to determine which is worse: relying on each other or succumbing to the zombies. Taken from www.imdb.com.


Any time a movie that features zombies (or anything vaguely resembling zombies for that matter) it's always met with a review of "like 'Shaun of the Dead'." This invariably leads to disappointment as nothing is ever like "Shaun of the Dead."

Now, even more cringe-worthy for horror fans than the above is when it's called the American equivalent to "Shaun of the Dead" as American humor and British humor are nothing even vaguely similar to each other so such a thing is impossible.

However, "Zombieland" is the American equivalent to "Shaun of the Dead." Grand in scope yet focusing on a very small group of survivors, a romantic comedy that deals with friendship and trust, and a plot involving a safe haven that is tied more to nostalgia than any sort of logical belief that it will be even moderately safe.

Of course, many people will be dissatisfied with this movie on that comparison as they don't realize what that comparison means. "Zombieland" is a toned down zombie apocalypse that implies a lot more than it shows and shows just enough to be passable to the average horror fan but palatable to the average moviegoer as well. As such, there isn't really a lot of "horror" in "Zombieland."

It's a movie that's been sweetened up and toned down so that it will be likeable by a mass audience. Now STOP! Quit your fucking crying, you wanted this and we're going to talk about why what I just said isn't necessarily a bad thing. Hell, "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" was rated PG with nary a drop of blood present and it still managed to be one of the creepiest things I've ever seen.

So anyway our hero is Columbus (all the characters are named after their destinations rather than their actual names according to Harrelson's Tallahasse so that they wont get too attached) a 20-something dork who has managed to survive due to the rules he has set out.

Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) is a loner which was part of how he's survived so well this long, but he's beginning to miss people and is on his way to Columbus, Ohio to try and find his family. It is on his road to home that he meets up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson). A shit-kicking badass with a love of twinkies, killing zombies in elaborate manners, and painting Dale Earnhardt's number on the door of every vehicle he drives.

The two meet up with Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock ("Little Miss Sunshine's" Abigail Breslin) who promptly rob them blind and leave them for dead. Naturally they meet again and become fast friends and Wichita and Columbus fall in love.


Jesse Eisenberg plays our hero Columbus who's quiet, shy, and not particularly confident. I know Eisenerg invented the whole "shy cute dorky guy" thing but there are times that he seems to be channeling Michael Cera, although briefly. Eisenberg is a likeable "everyman" type of hero that is an exaggerated play on the theme of losers and nobodies becoming heroes in a post-zombie world. He's a capable protagonist and helps move some of the sweeter side-plots along.

Woody Harrelson is the show stealer as anyone can imagine. Tallahassee is like a kid in a grown man's body with a love of destruction and loud noises. He has a very childish sense of humor and plays nicely off of Eisenberg's reserved seriousness. However, there's a moment toward the midway point where we learn something about Tallahassee that adds a degree of depth to his character which Harrelson pulls off flawlessly.

Wishing no offense to Emma Stone, any actress could have played her part, or at least played it as well. Wichita is the least fleshed out of our four leads and at teams is actually rather unlikeable as a selfish person with trust issues who takes advantage of everyone except her kid sister. I feel that the writers could have crafted a better romantic interest for Columbus, as it stands "romantic interest" is the only actual purpose that Wichita seems to serve.

Abigail Breslin's Little Rock is no more necessary to the plot than Wichita but having a much more talented actress behind the wheel serves to make her endlessly more endearing. Little Rock is essentially the 12-year-old version of Wichita but Breslin manages to make this character traits funny where Emma Stone only makes them seem ugly and mean-spirited. One particular scene involving Little Rock explaining "Hannah Montana" to Tallahassee is particularly hilarious.


As I stated above, I feel one of the biggest flaws with this movie is that the two female leads feel tacked on and unnecessary. I understand they needed a romantic subplot but I felt the movie would have worked better as a road movie with Eisenberg and Harrison, bringing in Stone and Breslin midway through the second act rather than at the beginning of the first.

However once you get used to Little Rock and Wichita's malicious personalities they fit in fairly well and you can enjoy the rest of the movie which really doesn't go much of anywhere. There's a great scene with Bill Murray but it's at the very end of the second act and there's very little that happens before it.

This brings me to my next problem, the zombies at most times feel like little more than mild annoyances and after the opening of the movie there's only one other scene (the action-packed finale) where any of the characters seem to be in any real amount of danger. It builds up a sense of security that is not included in zombie movies because it makes things duller.

Of course this movie, much like "Shaun of the Dead", focuses on the romantic comedy angle first and foremost with the zombies as a backdrop. So don't be disappointed when the gore for the most part is just lots of blood and everything seems more funny than scary. This film is more of a dark comedy than horror.

However, while these things are not optimal, unless you're just too stuck up your own ass to enjoy yourself none of these problems are insurmountable. It's a fun, sweet, thoughtful, and funny movie that may not be as hardcore or as laugh out loud as you would like. But it is good.

Originally "Zombieland" was created to be a TV show and that shows with the sparce finality of the movie which plays more like a pilot than anything. Fortunately this thing grossed a shit-ton of money so it's all but confirmed for a sequel. And with a little fine tuning I feel that the flaws with this movie can be overcome in a second outing.


You may be disappointed in the reality of what "Shaun of the Dead" would look like as an American movie, in which case you should go watch "Fido" (which is also great) and let the rest of us enjoy a movie that you'll sadly never get.

I give "Zombieland" a 4 out of 5. Not a perfect movie or a must-own, but a damn good movie that deserves the love it's gotten.

9 (2009)

Directed by: Shane Acker

Starring: Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, John C. Reilly, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, Crispin Glover, and Fred Tatasciore

Plot: When 9 first comes to life, he finds himself in a post-apocalyptic world where all humans are gone, and it is only by chance that he discovers a small community of others like him taking refuge from fearsome machines that roam the earth intent on their extinction. Despite being the neophyte of the group, 9 convinces the others that hiding will do them no good. They must take the offensive if they are to survive, and they must discover why the machines want to destroy them in the first place. As they'll soon come to learn, the very future of civilization may depend on them. Taken from www.imdb.com.


What do you get when you take a screenplay based on a short film that was nominated for an Oscar, good CG, a good budget, and an all-star cast? A beautiful movie about nothing.

That's the best way to describe "9" an expanding on a short film that seemed to take "expand" to mean "make it bigger." It boasts an amtosphere that is equal parts beautiful and creepy, some enemies that are both grotesque and terrifying. The problem is the story behind all this art is rather sparse and vague.

We first meet 9 as he's being made, a little robot that bears more than a passing resemblance to "Little Big Planet's" Sackboy. Upon waking he grabs a mysterious device and goes out into the world and meets 2, another sack-bot like himself who seems to have a keen ability for building things from foraged scraps.

2 and 9 are attacked by a cat skeleton/robot who takes 2 and the mysterious device away. It is shortly thereafter that 9 meets the rest of his brothers and sisters. Against the orders of the authoratative 1 he goes to rescue 2 and unwittingly messes everything up waking a giant machine that wiped out all human life.


This film supports a star studded cast including Elijah Wood, Martin Landau, John C. Reilly, and Jennifer Connelly. Yet the only performance worth mentioning is the crazed number 6, played by Crispin Glover who comes off as both insane and deeply intelligent. Even 6 has a small role and unfortunately doesn't tip the scales past the mediocrity level.


While the art of this film is beautiful I don't feel it's up to par with what's come to be expected in this day and age. In a decade where Pixar is the top dog of the animation world, "9" doesn't even manage to be up to snuff with Dreamworks. I saw computer animation this good in "StarCraft" back in 1998 and it was barely top of the line then. For a short film it was understandable, but with a big budget couldn't they have polished it a bit more?

Speaking of things that needed more polish, I know that a short film can only have so much story, but when you bring it into a feature-length movie it needs to be longer and more involved.

The story is very vague and confusing. Most of the 9 dolls don't do anything though we're lead to believe that each one is meant to serve a specific purpose. It's unclear why the doctor decided to make 9 as the machine was already dead by God knows what means, nor is it unclear how the doctor survived the extinction of his entire species.

The characters are given no depth beyond a single character trait and the ending makes it feel like some sort of disheartening and downtrodden take on "Wall-E." We're given a brief peek at a world that looks as vibrant and interesting as it does desolate and sad, but that brief look is all we get and you'll likely walk out of the theater disappointed, wishing that the director had given you more.


I give "9" a 2 out of 5. It has a lot of potential that it doesn't even come close to realizing. Skip this one and just watch the short film instead.

The Final Destination (2009)


Directed by: David R. Ellis

Starring: Bobby Campo, Shantel VanSanten,

Other Actors of Note: Nick Zano

Plot: After a teen's premonition of a deadly race-car crash helps saves the lives of his peers, Death sets out to collect those who evaded their end. Taken from www.imdb.com.


Ah, "Final Destination", there's a franchise we can look back and go "What in the fucking hell were we fucking thinking?" We'll always remember it for its uninteresting introduction onto the scene, its gory but 2-dimensional sequel, and its utterly fucking retarded triquel (that's not a word, but I've decided that it is, so fuck off.)

Well apparently the producers listened to the claims that the film series was full of 2-dimensional characters and plots and interpreted the criticism literally. So we get a 2-dimensional film with 3-Dimensional special effects. Woo.

Okay, so when the smallest NASCAR race in the universe is plagued with a physics-defying catostrofuck of epic proportions a whole bunch of people die. But they don't die because one of those people had a premoninition of them dying and saved their lives. So now they all begin to systematically in horrible and elaborate ways in the order that they died. So the guy who has the premonitions figures out whats going on and tries to outsmart death. He doesn't and they all die. The end.


The acting's shit.


I don't know who they think they're kidding anymore. We all know the plot, we all know the twists (everyone's going to die, no exceptions. If they don't die in this one then they'll be dead by the time the next one ends.) There is literally no way that anyone who's even read a synopsis doesn't know how this shit is gonna go down. But the writers keep going on as if they think it's a twist to make the same movie a fourth time.

As usual maybe one or two of the deaths actually could happen, and those will happen in a very unrealistic way. Mostly people will die because every building is old, out of date, and crumbling. Every person in charge of making things safe has done a horrible job of doing that. And EVERYTHING will break, fall, explode, or crumble at a moments notice.

One particular scene involves a tarp blowing off a window, the light from the window hits a pair of glasses on a table, the light focuses through the glasses and ignites a nearby pile of sawdust as the tarp blows across the room catching the switch of its industrial fan with on of the tie-on holes. The tarp hits a cart loaded up with full bottles of turpentine which have no lids on them and spill, causing a trail of flammable chemicals that conveniently leads to a stack of barrels filled with explosive liquids which the fan has now blown the burning sawdust toward. Behind the barrels happens to be a movie screen where two of the characters are watching a movie on the other side.

If you think that is a plausible scenario then kindly take a pair of scissors and shove them in your eye-hole, then twist. It's this kind of bullshit that makes the movie almost infuriatingly stupid and I can't for the life of me figure out how the whole car wash thing was supposed to be fatal.

By changing the name from "Final Destination 4: Death Trip 3-D" to "The Final Destination" they seem to be hinting at a finality to the series. But fuck no, we'll have none of that. In fact later in the movie the main character has ANOTHER premonition which ends up saving a few hundred MORE people. So we'll probably spend the next movie dealing with that fucking shit in addition to whatever bullshit the writer comes up with then.

Now let's talk about the movie's fancy new hook. If "My Bloody Valentine" brought 3-D movies back from the dead then "The Final Destination" planted a wooden stake in its heart and buried it on sacred ground so it might never revive itself again. Things here are beyond gimmicky: things shooting out at the camera, big cg explosions, a man cut into chunks when he hits a fence that I can only describe as "chain link razorblades."

This is not to mention the mini-premonitions the main character has which are done with computer animation that rivals the best 1989 had to offer making some elaborate explanation of how the next character will died.

But there is a twist! When the movie ends as the last 3 characters die the movie cheats us by going to wire-frame and making us watch their horrible grisly (and undoubtedly awesome) deaths through skeletons. The twist is that the movie fucks you over more than usual, thanks for the extra $5 enjoy your fucking 3-D glasses!

It never fails to amaze me how so many people hate the "Saw" movies for their twist endings, money-shot gore, and overly elaborate torture machines yet they shit all over themselves and fucking love this bullshit. At least I don't know how the next fucking "Saw" movie is going to end!


I give "The Final Destination" an EAT SHIT AND DIE out of 5. If you knowingly pay money to watch this movie then you are going to special hell reserved for pedophiles and people that canceled "Firefly."

Simon Says (2006)


Directed by: William Dear

Starring: Crispin Glover, Margo Harshman, Greg Cipes, Artie Baxter, Kelly Vitz, Carrie Finklea

Plot: Five college friends choose to spend their vacation debauching at the riverside. They find the perfect place to camp out, but end up crossing paths with twin brothers, Simon and Stanley. The twins then begins to knock off the campers in some extremely creative (and extremely gruesome) ways. Enjoy the splatter. Taken from www.imdb.com.


I've been doing theater bait for too long, I need to take a break an cover some direct-to-DVD bullshit for a while. So lets kick this shit off with a bang.

"Simon Says" was something I caught sight of on the shelf at Best Buy. Now this isn't the kind of movie I would've given a second glance if not for one thing: Crispin Glover.

For those who are not familiar with Crispin Glover as anything more than George McFly or that weird guy from "Charlie's Angels" I implore you to go out and watch "Willard" before I'm forced to kill you with my brain. (Stay the fuck away from "The Wizard of Gore" though, anything that advertises the use of the Suicide Girls as a selling point is destined to be utter shit.)

So anyway I went into this film expecting a bad bad movie but happily received a bad-good movie!

So anyway five tweens (composed of Stoner, Slut, Sexually Repressed Girl (With +5 Asian-ness), Douchey guy, and Selfish Girlfriend) go out to the middle of nowhere to drink, fuck, and do whatever. How they chose this location is beyond me as it seems to literally be nowhere. They encounter a creepy woman on a horse who points at them and disappears and two strange rednecks who may or may not be ghosts. Confused yet? Fuck no you aren't! Not yet...

So anyway the ghost/rednecks point the 5 children to a gas station in a town that seems to literally have no other occupants where they meet Simon, a slow-talking simpleton with a baseball cap and a shirt that says his name. After they kids openly call Simon retarded he storms off and his pleasant-natured brother Stanley comes out to greet the crew.

Stanley is about 15 times creepier than his dimwitted twin but he at least sells them some booze and gives them the location to a campsite in the middle of nowhere. Then of course 1 by one they're picked off by the two brothers using a combination of stealth and a number of pickaxes that cannot possibly exist in one place.


Everybody in this movie who isn't Crispin Glover gargles balls and loves it in the acting department. Fortunately they're really all meat for the grinder anyway, there's really no way you can feel sympathetic for a single victim in this movie as they're all dumb twats who need to be removed from the gene pool somehow. Hell, Simon and Stanley are practically the heroes of the film.

And speaking of the twin brothers, oh my fucking God. It's been a long time since a villain performance has done justice to the overly campy 80s-style slasher movie but Crispin Glover nails it solid every time. Between Simon's slow drawl and Stanley's overblown giggling plantation-owner accent you can practically see Glover's teeth marks on every piece of scenery in the movie. The man appears to be having a damn good time at what he's doing and actually does manage to play both Simon and Stanley with a goodish amount of menace.


This movie would be utter shit if it wasn't so over-the-top gory. You see, Stanley has a love of building incredibly complex murder machines with the inexplicable use of pickaxes. There's the giant saw blade made of pickaxes, the giant spinning drum made of pickaxes, the complex machine that litters the forest with dozens of spinning pickaxes, and of course the pickaxe flinging machine that works like a harpoon gun. If you're scratching your head and wondering why, then you are not alone my friend. There is easily twice the pickaxe carnage of the "My Bloody Valentine" remake with no real purpose or explanation given. Of course that adds to the surreal bizarre quality of this movie that's really where all the charm lies. There are some brutally awesome kills and some fucking morbidly bizarre things done with corpses (I will ruin neither as they are just that messed up.)

As I said, the five tweens really serve no purpose than to die which becomes obvious almost immediately by their bland uninteresting plot-lines. Fortunately some interesting things are done with this cast of misfits. The chick destined to be the "last girl" is the first one to die and the stoner proves to be the most useful member of the group. Though towards the end there's a romantic sub-plot brought up that has never even been vaguely alluded to prior. It's this sort of cavalier "who gives a fuck, more pickaxes!" approach that the director took that really makes me respect this movie for what it is: pure schlock.

They even pull a "Friday the 13th Part VI" and bring in a random group of paintballers just so Simon has more people to kill with his bizarre machines.


If you've never found yourself able to enjoy a movie that's not trying to do anything more than thrill and entertain, this movie isn't for you. In fact if slasher movies aren't your thing this probably won't change your mind. But if you enjoy schlocky off-the-wall horror comedies (or Crispin Glover) I personally recommend this. For what it is it's fucking brilliant.

I give "Simon Says" a 4 out of 5. See it, if nothing else than for Crispin Glover: Lord of the Dance

Inglourious Basterds (2009)


Directed by: Quentin Tarantino

Starring: Brad Pitt, Brad Pitt's Mustache, Christopher Waltz, Melanie Laurent, Eli Roth

Other Actors of Note: Michael Fassbender, B.J. Novak, Mike Myers, Til Schweiger, Julie Dreyfus, Samuel L. Jackson

Plot: In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers. Taken from www.imdb.com.


Before we start on this little jaunt into Quentin Tarantino's new blockbuster, let me clear a little something up first. Despite the fact that this film shares a name with Enzo G. Castellari's "Inglorious Bastards", it is NOT a remake. Oh sure the dark tone and the concept of a group of soldiers on a mission in Nazi occupied territory remains the same, these movies are like day and night.

Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" is a spaghetti western set in 1940s Nazi-occupied France. The film is set in an alternate universe where the Allies have still not invaded Normandy by 1944. Our protagonists are two people: a French-Jewish girl named Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) whose family was killed by Nazis when she was a teenager, and a German Colonel named Hans Landa (Christopher Waltz), nicknamed "The Jew Hunter" due to his keen ability to find hidden Jews that managed to escape the Germans.

Shosanna, having escaped the murder of her family at the hands of Col. Landa, has gained ownership of a movie theater in Paris and does her best to live peacefully till all this war bullshit blows over. As fate would have it, she becomes the affection of a German war hero (Daniel Bruhl) who has had a propaganda film made about his moment of heroism (He's basically a German Audie Murphy).

Our war hero pulls some strings and gets the movie to premier at none other than Shosanna's theater in hopes of charming her. Shosanna sees this as the perfect opportunity to take revenge for her family by burning down the theater with Goebbel, Hitler, and Landa inside of it.

Meanwhile, a squad of 8 Jewish-Americans led by half-native American Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), dubbed "The Basterds" by the Germans, cut a bloody swatch across France killing and scalping Nazis left and right. The Basterds soon find out about the film premier and formulate their own plan to infiltrate and assassinate most of the Nazi party.


Brad Pitt is not the star of this movie, but he steals every scene he has. Aldo Raine is a tall southern man who is so stereotypically American that he bleeds red white and blue and shits bald eagles. He also has a mustache that could totally beat up Hitler's mustache. Pitt chews the scenery like a madman but still keeps his performance reigned in enough to make it absolutely brilliant. The way he has a perturbed look on his face in most scenes as if he's agitated by the prospect that he's doing anything other than killing Nazis at that moment gives him a kind of hilarious charm. One scene where he tries to infiltrate the premier as an Italian man never fails to draw laughter. Pitt doesn't have the best performance but he has one of the most entertaining ones by far.

Melanie Laurent is our heroine for the picture and the way Tarantino writes her is very genius in a subtle way. When Shosanna's family is killed, she doesn't seek revenge and go all "Sympathy for Lady Vengeance" hunting down the men responsible. She goes on about her life and just tries to get on with things. Only when the opportunity is placed in her hands does Shosanna's mind turn to thoughts of vengeance. Laurent plays her character as one of the most badass women in film history but she plays it in a feminine way which is what puts her (in my mind) above most other film heroines. One of the most badass scenes Shosanna has involves her applying make-up before the premier, lets see Sarah Conner pull that off.

If you see this movie for no other reason, see it for Christopher Waltz. As Col. Hans Landa, Waltz brings something magical to the screen. Every scene Waltz appears in is dripping with tension. He doesn't play a character that is obviously menacing; Landa is very polite and courteous like some kind of Nazi Columbo, but he's crafty and smart and every moment the man's on screen you just feel a lump in your throat and an empty feeling in the pit of your stomach. If Waltz doesn't win an Oscar for this, then the system is broken.

Til Schweiger, Daniel Bruhl, Michael Fassbender, and Diane Kruger all give great performances as well. They're just overshadowed by the three leads.


One complaint that I hear fairly commonly is the fact that in a movie called "Inglourious Basterds", the characters in the title don't do much. And indeed the Basterds only really appear in about a third of the movie. But this didn't bother me, because I went in expecting a spaghetti western, not a war film.

You see, Tarantino's film isn't like "Inglorious Bastards", "The Dirty Dozen", "Kelly's Heroes", "Where Eagles Dare", and "The Great Escape" in either tone nor narration. It's more in the vein of "Once Upon a Time in the West."

Think back to all those Sergio Leone movies and ask yourself how much of them were actually about Clint Eastwood's character. They were often about the supporting cast and especially the villain, with Eastwood's "Man-with-no-name" serving only as the tool that fixes the problem.

Here, it's the same with the Basterds, they show up to save the day but in the end all they are is a means to an end. They're more weapons than they are men and their real purpose is to swoop in and save the day at the last minute.

The second problem I want to address is the historical inaccuracy. Hopefully by the time you realize that you're watching a World War 2 film that takes place in 1944 you'll know that things aren't going to go down like history said they did. But some of you fuckers still did. Tarantino's Hitler wears a cape for chrissakes! This movie is practically a cinematic reproduction of "Wolfenstein."

The movie oozes with that Tarantino style that seems to flow so easily through all of his films and those concerned that the 1940s setting would hurt that style will be glad to learn that it's business as usual.

My one problem, however, is that Tarantino shoehorns his love of movies in her in a way that doesn't seem to fit. The climax takes place at a film premier, the German rebellion leader is a famous German actress, the English operative they bring in to infiltrate the film premier is a British film critic. The whole thing smacks of desperation of trying to make the influence films when it's really about war.


Having been a fan of all Tarantino's films (even the much maligned "Death Proof") I can safely say that this may be my favorite Quentin Tarantino movie of all time. (It's still a toss up with "Reservoir Dogs" and "Jackie Brown")

It's tense, exciting, entertaining, and cinematically perfect. I give "Inglourious Basterds" a 5 out of 5.