Rate the Last Film you Watched 2: Electric Boogaloo

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Inglorious Basterds (2009) dir Quentin Tarantino

 

 

When putting together my list of favourite films from each year of my life I picked this for 2009, but until now I had never seen the whole film, all the way through in one sitting, just watched parts when it has been on TV. It's a WWII film, mainly, about a group of Jewish-American soldiers (name as in the film's title) operating behind enemy lines in occupied France, terrorising the Germans, and ultimately taking part in a mission to try and assassinate the entire n*zi leadership. But there is much more to the story than that with other plot lines. It is presented in chapters, each of which is almost like a short film in it's own right, that connects to the others, but they don't all feature the same characters, and some characters never meet each other.

It has a great ensemble cast, too many to mention all in detail. I guess you can just about say Brad Pitt plays the main character, Lt Aldo Raine, leader of the Basterds. Christopher Walz won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Col Hans Landa. Often the bad guy roles stand out, and this is no exception to that. Landa is a truly evil, virulently anti-Semitic n*zi, assigned by Hitler to find all remaining Jews France. Melanie Laurent is also worth a mention as Shosanna Dreyfus, the lone survivor of a Jewish family that Landa had found and killed, now running the cinema in Paris where different plot elements come together. The others in the supporting roles include Eli Roth, Daniel Bruhl, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger and August Diehl. There's also a couple of cameo roles from Mike Myers (almost unrecognisable as a British General, who refers to distances in kilometres not miles! - I think that must have been deliberate) and Harvey Keitel (voice on other end of a radio conversation). The soundtrack is great, from a variety of composers and performers, featuring quite a few Ennio Morricone pieces, from other films he worked on, such as The Battle of Algiers and various westerns.

It's a very well written script, as you would expect from Tarantino. It's not a comedy but not that serious at times, like most of his films. Similarly can be quite violent, not hard given the genre, but there are rather more graphic scenes than your average war film includes. There are a couple of scenes of intense drama. One that stands out is when Shosanna is forced to  meets Landa, she knows who he is but he does not remember her. The meeting is just about a film the Germans want her to screen for them. She just about manages to keep her composure before breaking down after he leaves.

 

9/10

 

[LimeGreenLegend 4,300]

My document with my reviews on it got corrupted and I can't be bothered to re-write them, so this one will be a bite-sized special.  Normal service will resume next week.

What I Watched This Week 157 (Dec 30-Jan 5 2025)

Sweet Smell of Success 

dir. Alexander Mackendrick/1957/1h37m 

 

Burt Lancaster plays a ruthless, influential New York columnist who manipulates sleazy publicist Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) into breaking up his sister's relationship with a jazz guitarist by any means necessary.  They both give amazing performances as totally contemptable *ssholes, with a moody jazz score matching the tone perfectly.  9/10

Two Adam Elliot shorts:

Harvie Krumpet

2003/23m 

 

 

Ernie Biscuit

2015/21m 

 

Less autobiographical than his other work, these two claymation shorts are character studies of two foreigners who inadvertently end up in Australia, a Polish man with Tourette's and a deaf French taxidermist.  Celebrating the beauty of life even when it's at its most bleak these are two very life-affirming films may lack the personal touch of his other films but are still very good.  A combined score of 8/10

Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars

dir. Jean-Luc Godard/2023/20m 

 

A posthumous work by the legendary French director who passed away in 2022, this is an avant-garde collage essay film where he is in discussion with the very act of filmmaking.  Handmade and tactile, this is sometimes incomprehensible to a moron like me, but I love how this goes beyond experimental and shows how innovative JLG was right into his nineties.  7/10

I Saw the TV Glow

dir. Jane Schoenbrun/2024/1h40m 

 

Teenager Owen (Justice Smith) and his friend Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) are obsessed with an old TV show, The Pink Opaque.  Soon his reality starts to fracture and he believes that he is one of the characters trapped in another dimension.  A real soft burn of a sci-fi film, much like the recent The Vast of Night, this acts as an allegory for the trans experience that is never preachy.  A fantastic synth score adds to the nostalgic feel of the film.  8.5/10

Werckmeister Harmonies

dir. Bela Tarr/2000/2h19m 

 

Lars Rudolph  plays a postman in a small Hungarian village that is one day visited by a circus where the main attraction is a stuffed whale.  Soon after, the village sees an escalation in violence as society starts to break down.  Grimly beautiful and hypnotic, this is made up of very long shots with the camera roving and exploring the space, as is Tarr's trademark, some going for over ten minutes before cutting.  Ever since I watched Satantango and it became my favourite film of all time I've been scared to watch any more of his work because it couldn't possibly compare.  I was wrong.  10/10 Lime's Film of the Week!

Knock at the Cabin

dir. M. Night Shyamalan/2023/1h40m 

 

Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge play a couple with a young daughter who are visited at their cabin in the woods by Dave Bautista's Leonard and his crew, who have an improbable and impossible task for them.  Very Twilight Zone and pulpy, this is elevated by the lead performance from Bautista.  Being a Shyamalan film I was waiting for a huge shock twist at the end, and was left somewhat disappointed by the lack thereof, with the payoff not living up to the set up much like the recent Heretic.  Still a fun watch though.  7/10

A Countess from Hong Kong

dir. Charlie Chaplin/1967/1h47m 

 

Chaplin's final film (though he only has a cameo appearance here) stars Marlon Brando as a US diplomat in Hong Kong who is traveling back to America, but a Russian countess played by Sophia Loren, has stowed away in his cabin.  This feels cheap, with most of the action taking place in a couple of sets, and Marlon Brando, as talented an actor as he is, is just not funny.  Loren was fun, and Chaplin's son Sydney is very good as Brando's assistant, but this is a long way from his best work.  6.5/10

Finding Nemo

dir. Andrew Stanton/2003/1h40m 

 

Clownfish Marlin (Albert Brooks) has to go on an epic journey across the ocean after his son Nemo (Alexander Gould) is captured by a diver.  Pixar's streak of bangers continues here as this is one of their very best films.  It still looks amazing, with the underwater world looking bright and full of life, and their human characters no longer induce nightmares.  The script is funny and touching with not a second of wasted time.  10/10

Two Radu Jude shorts:

The Tube with a Hat

2006/25m 

 

Shadow of a Cloud

2013/30m 

 

Two films from the Romanian filmmaker here, including his very first, which is about a father and his son taking their broken TV to the local village to get repaired.  Shadow of a Cloud follows a priest who is asked to pray over a dying woman, but not all of her relatives are happy about it.  These films don't really feel like Jude films, as we know them now.  There's no sense of surreal absurdity but the style comes close at points, particularly Shadow of a Cloud.  Following the priest around feels like a prelude to the recent Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World.  A combined 7/10

Ostinato

dir. Sonia Furier/2024/7m

(no trailer for this)

This animated short is about a composer trying to write a piece on the piano, but her tinnitus keeps getting in her way, until she finds a way to make the discordant noise a part of her composition.  This is a very vibrant film, though the animation does feel a little cheap at times.  Decent enough but it feels insubstantial.  5.5/10

Edited 13 hours ago by LimeGreenLegend