WillLybrand.com

A Spill to Rival the Gulf Coast | The Atlantic Wire.

Frank Frazetta passed away today. He was an absolutely amazing science fiction/fantasy illustrator. He drew covers for comic books and novels, movie posters, and a movie here and there. Read more about him at Wikipedia.

Southpark recently aired the 200th episode, which featured a highly controversial story in which the founder of Islam, Muhammed, is touted around town in a bear suit during a super-hero hostage crisis. The episode was somewhat well received (I loved it) but it was just the beginning of a two-parter.

Unfortunately, the creators of the show, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, were both targeted the day after by a radical Muslim website (covered here by Entertainment Weekly). The group, revolutionmuslim.com, stated, ”They will probably end up like Theo van Gogh”. Theo van Gogh was the political cartoonist and murder victim after he published a controversial depiction of Muhammed.

The big issue here though is that the 201st episode that Comedy Central aired was heavily, heavily, edited. It was so heavily edited that the effect of the show was pretty much neutralized. Every time the word Muhammed was uttered, it was bleeped. To top it off the end of the show, which often features a monologue that attempts to teach a funnily hashed together morale message, was entirely bleeped out. There was about 30 seconds of a constant beep when Kyle started to explain the message of the show. Then, another 15 seconds from Santa Claus. Then, another 15 seconds from Jesus.

For a show like South Park there is no bigger a news story than it being censored by its very own network. Trey Parker and Matt Stone subsequently made a special announcement:

In the 14 years we’ve been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn’t stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn’t some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle’s customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn’t mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too. We’ll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we’ll see what happens to it.

I hope, really hope, that they succeed in finding a way to air episode 201. Rumor has it that the message that Kyle, Santa Claus, and Jesus convey at the end of the episode essentially covers exactly what Comedy Central did to South Park. Oh the irony. THE IRONY!

I know that this is a controversial topic, and that there are valid points to both sides of the issue, but I think that Comedy Central should have aired the entire episode. South Park is controversial. They push buttons. Occasionally they offend. That doesn’t mean they should be censured. There is no basic human right to always be free from offense. I wish Comedy Central would come forward and explain their reasons as I am sure there is some logic to it, despite my feelings.

Surprisingly enough, all of my Netflix posts have been the most popular on my blog… including leading incoming Google search results. As a result, I felt this follow-up was prudent for the people that keep searching for “netflix friends gone” and “netflix remove friends”.

It was more than a month ago, on March 4th, that Netflix announced their new movie details page. Nearly 2 weeks later, VP of Product Management Todd Yellin finally addressed the nearly 700 comments (200 more had been deleted) that were critical of the new pages lack of the Friends and Lists features. In that update, Todd confirmed that Netflix was doing away with their social networking features to focus on other projects, such as increasing the quantity of streaming devices as well as the quality of the streaming experience. That blog post has over 800 comments and that number is still growing.

Early on I was very critical of Netflix’s decision. I still am. Frankly, a product oriented website such as Netflix has a wealth of potential in front of them if they would choose to fully implement good social network features. Despite that growing trend across almost all product oriented websites, Netflix is still silent after their initial announcement about the removal of friends.

Since that time, Netflix has announced streaming for the Wii, the iPhone, and the iPad, as well as the first version of Subtitles for streams (currently on 100 titles, most of which are Lost). Netflix has not been forthcoming as to when the rest of the friends functionality will be removed, but frankly, it doesn’t matter. The movie details redesign severely crippled the friends functionality to begin with, so I’m surprised they didn’t pull it all then.

As reported in this news post on HackingNetflix, there are a number of users that are removing their reviews from the site in protest of the friends removal. These users have been replacing their reviews with text that reads:

Dear reader, Until March 12th 2010 this was an actual real review. Because the new design that NetfIix has implemented for movie detail pages removed information about what our friends rated movies, as well as top 10 lists and the ability to send movie notes, I’ve decided to move my reviews elsewhere. I see no reason to supply NetfIix with free content when NetfIix does not support its users. To see my reviews click on my profile picture to the left and follow the link there to the NetfIix Community. If NetfIix decides to reverse its stance on this issue, I’ll happily bring my reviews back, but until then, this note will take its place. I apologize for the inconvenience, dear reader, and hope you’ll forgive this non-review.

This was a movie review until NetfIix decided to remove friend features. Since NetfIix seems to place no value on its most active members, I’m no longer going to be an active member. The new design that they have implemented for movie detail pages removed friends’ ratings, top 10 lists and the ability to send movie notes. If NetfIix decides to reverse its stance on this issue, I’ll start writing reviews again. Until then, I am no longer going to give them free content and I’ve decided to move my reviews elsewhere. If you are reading this, please call NetfIix and ask them to give us our community features back. I apologize for this non-review.

Under normal circumstances I might have reviewed this DVD, but when NF implemented the new DVD page detail design they removed friends’ ratings, top 10 lists and the ability to send movie notes. That made it harder for me and others to find movies we’ll like. If you are reading this, please call NetfIix and ask them to give us the community features back. I apologize for this non-review.

According to the poll on that same page, 72% of 6,200 responses say that ‘Friends is a big part of my Netflix experience’.

I have reduced my Netflix subscription down to one-at-a-time. I have also used a GreaseMonkey script to retrieve all of my Netflix ratings so that I have a personal history of them. I still expect to be Netflix free in the next couple of months. At this point, I still have a very bad taste in my mouth over how the feature was removed, how long it took them to address it, the tone in which it was addressed, and just the fact that the feature is gone itself. The feature being missing pretty much removes the usefulness I had found out of Netflix.

I hope that Netflix has seen a drop in their queue counts, subscribers, reviews, and active users. I really do hope that. And as a result, I hope they change their mind and bring friends back.

*Netflix image courtesy of Marit & Toomas Hinnosaar

Last night I attended the LA Galaxy’s victory over Real Salt Lake, last year’s winner of the MLS cup. The Galaxy won 2-1 with more goals from Edson Buddle, the guy that has scored at least once every single game, and often times twice. He’s off to a ridiculous start.

Being a season ticket holder is pretty exciting stuff. This was our fourth visit to the stadium. I know the best spot to park in the season ticket parking lot. I know all the ins and outs of the Home Depot Center. And those two second row seats along the sideline close to the goal are all mine.

I then woke up this morning expecting to watch Arsenal steamroll all over Wigan in the premier league. Unfortunately for this die hard gunner, they failed miserably. Despite leading 2-0 in the 80th minute, the Gunners quickly gave away all three points after Wigan amazingly scored 3 goals in 11 minutes. It would seem as though Arsenal must chalk up another trophy-less season to troublesome long-term injuries.

I’m glad to be getting into a second soccer team, seriously, so that I have multiple chances for excitement. Arsenal has been troubling over the last two games while the Galaxy has been dominating. Although the quality in play between the two isn’t equal, the passion and the drive is still there. And besides, Donovan can now easily be considered an EPL quality player.

I am working on winding down my Netflix subscription due to their woefully inadequate product management department. This is a very heavy and important decision that I’ve come to, but I feel a certain obligation at this point to follow through on how I feel.

Wordpress 3.0 needs to hurry up and come out so I can start managing all these blogs in one place!

Gizmodo recently posted a story by Major Brian Shul, a former pilot of the SR-71 Blackbird. If you don’t know what an SR-71 is, shame on you.

Simply put, the SR-71 is the fastest plane in history. Long, pitch black, and sleek, it set the standard for blisteringly fast stealth planes ever since its inception in 1966. The SR-71 was crucial in ‘winning’ the Cold War due to it’s capabilities to photograph details down to the license plate and then fly out of an area before missiles could even catch up with it.

There are some pretty interesting and humorous excerpts from the article.

One day, high above Arizona , we were monitoring the radio traffic of all the mortal airplanes below us. First, a Cessna pilot asked the air traffic controllers to check his ground speed. ‘Ninety knots,’ ATC replied. A twin Bonanza soon made the same request. ‘One-twenty on the ground,’ was the reply. To our surprise, a navy F-18 came over the radio with a ground speed check. I knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, he had a ground speed indicator in his cockpit, but he wanted to let all the bug-smashers in the valley know what real speed was ‘Dusty 52, we show you at 620 on the ground,’ ATC responded. The situation was too ripe. I heard the click of Walter’s mike button in the rear seat. In his most innocent voice, Walter startled the controller by asking for a ground speed check from 81,000 feet, clearly above controlled airspace. In a cool, professional voice, the controller replied, ‘ Aspen 20, I show you at 1,982 knots on the ground.’ We did not hear another transmission on that frequency all the way to the coast.

If only someone could track down the other pilots that heard that transmission to hear their reactions…

Another great story involves the two-man crew turning off their lights as they soar above the night sky. Apparently the glow of the milky way galaxy, from that high up, was more than capable to lighten up the cockpit and instrument panels.

It was also interesting to read that there are a recorded 4,000 attempts to shoot down a Blackbird. Every single time the plane just out-flew the missile. Holy hell that’s fast.

According to various news sites the new “The Empire Strikes Back 2010 Mega-3D” will be an ‘edgier, more hip and relevant movie, featuring state of the art Avatar-like 3D technology.’

Apparently the cast of bounty hunters as been ‘updated in accordance with our audience’s new tastes.’

“Damnation Alley” is a science fiction classic that has yet to make a DVD release. I use the term ‘classic’ loosely, as it is really more of a science fiction ‘cult’ classic. Produced in 1977, a year forever marked as the debut of “Star Wars”, it’s special effects are both terrible and cheesy. Fortunately, his style of special effects has come to be a cherished hallmark of cult science fiction.

The studio responsible for this movie, 20th Century Fox, was producing two science fiction movies in ‘77. They had high expectation for the big budget “Damnation Alley” and expected their other title to flop. The other movie of course was Star Wars, which went on to become one of the most successful movies of all time. There are plenty of interesting trivia bits about Damnation Alley on IMDB.

“Damnation Alley” was directed by Jack Smight and stars George Peppard and Jan-Michael Vincent. It was bizarre to see Peppard in such a silly movie, but Vincent seemed right at home. The legendary Paul Winfield and a very young Jackie Earle Haley also star.

The movie is based on a book of the same name by Roger Zelazny. Zelazny was reportedly very unhappy with the end product of the movie. Not only was it a significant departure from the book, but it also fell flat as a movie translation.

"Check out my ride!" -Idiotic Landmaster Driver

And now, on to the breakdown of “Damnation Alley”.

The movie opens on a remote desert base in the United States, in which military personnel are hard at work like busy little bees. While the introductory credits roll, we see military officers interacting with each other over antique computer monitors while big screens in the background give monochrome views of the Earth from orbit. The movie takes shape as two officers enter a sergeant’s office, who is also a talented artist, to arm their guns and set off on some undetermined task. The men, Tanner and Denton, relieve two other offices as they take over their stations in a room full of mainframe computers with blinking lights and monitors. Then, it happens.

Other officers, presumably in the same complex, see warnings and red dots superimposed over the United States on their screens. “It appears to be a satellite entry. Probably a burnout”.

War Games

Our two protagonists, Tanner and Denton, begin to “arm all missiles” in response to what at this point we must assume is a massive nuclear attack on the United States. As the two missile controllers enter their retaliatory commands, we learn that the missiles appear to be inbound toward all major US cities. 8 minutes into the movie we see several large scale missiles departing their underground bunkers in United States locales as they travel outward to stop the incoming missile swam.

Only 40% of the missiles are destroyed in the counter attack. “Missile strikes are confirmed in Boston, Philedelphia, Washington DC, Pittsburgh, Detroit…”. The United States has suffered a nuclear attack. The main voice engineer continues, “Seattle, Portland, Charlotte, Denver, St. Louis…”, the destroyed cities continue to pile up.

At the 13 minute mark the movie fades to black, only to zoom in on from outer space onto a desolate and brown earth. The sky is orange and hazy. We later find out it is 2 years in the future.

The tone of the movie instantly changes as scenes of barren and arrid landscapes are shown from great distances.

Text is shown as the background cycles through the now devoid-of-life landscapes. “The Third World War left the planet shrouded in a pall of radioactive dust, under skies lurid and angry, in a climate gone insane.”

The narrative continues, “Tilted on its axis as a result of the nuclear holocaust, the Earth lived through a reign of terror, with storms and floods of unprecedented terror.”

“When this epoch began to wind down, the remnants of life once more venture forth to commence the struggle for survivial and dominance. This is the story of some of them.” Right. Just some of them.

Post-Apocalyptic Sand Dune Wheelie

As a dirt biker drives towards a remort manned desert base, a gigantic scorpion begins to track them. Now I’m excited. Gigantic scorpions AND dirt bikes! The biker, carrying an unknown passenger, begins to ride towards the desert outpost while weaving through the giant scorpions.

He ultimately ditches his female companion in an effort to get to the base without being stung. Despite being radioed from the base via walkie-talkie to save the abandoned passenger, the unnamed man continues riding through the sand dunes kicking the giant scorpions away from his dirt bike.

Scorpion Fight

A man in a cowboy hat, the artist from before, watches from a high vantage point on the desert base as the the dirt biker arrives without the girl. He takes aim and fires several warning shots around the bike, “You sonova!”.

The dirt biker replies, “What are you worried about Keegan, there ain’t nothing you can do for her!” Keegan looks in a nearby telescope to see a terribly manufactured doll being stung repeatedly by the giant scorpions. It was all for naught!

Vroom Vroom

As the two men get reacquainted while drinking liquor Deadwood style, straight out of a bottle, we learn that dirt biker was returning from a distant trip and picked up the female dummy for companionship. Boy, despite dirt bikes and giant scorpions, the future sure is bleak.

Somewhere else in the base a man, Haskins, rushes in to a room with some files. After a strange fight with a coworker dressed in uniform, we learn that time is valued, “That’s my 20 minutes!”. A few minutes later a terrible accident happens with a cigarette lights extremely flammable gas and the main building explodes. Up to this point we still don’t know what the base is, who is running it, or what the outside world is truly like.

2 days later, with the smell of smoke still fresh, the dirt bike rider, Keegan, and the man in the cowboy hat, Tanner, watch as 2 massive vehicles exit from part of the side buildings of the base. The men are invited by the two drivers to join their convoy of Landmasters as they set out to leave the base for some unknown destination.

Who wants Kool Aid?

Frankly, Landmasters are awesome. They highlight of the movie. As the landmasters drive on we learn that the group is headed for Albany. In order to get to Albany though they have to cross through Damnation Alley… a formation named by one of the characters himself. Landmasters can handle a 60′ incline, operate underwater, have a speed of 60 miles an hour… and guzzle gas.

As the landmasters continue through Damnation Alley they come upon a massive storm with several tornadoes spinning off of it. The lead landmaster buckles down to brace for the storm but it is ultimately tossed around like a tin can. When the second landmaster makes it through the storm without problem, they are unable to make communication with the lead landmaster. They soon find the wrecked Landmaster and find that the driver, Perry, is dead. Keegan however is still okay. A confrontation takes place between the three men as Tanner and the leader of the expedition argue over Keegan’s correct decision to drive through the storm instead of stopping, despite being ordered otherwise.

Las Vegas Succumbs to the Desert

When the Landmaster comes upon Las Vegas only the tops of buildings are visible out of the sand dunes. The men choose to depart from their Landmaster to explore a casino. Everything is in ruin with dust and sand coating every surface. Cards are left behind in a hurry, so the attack must have vaporized everyone pretty quickly. The men begin playing all the slot machines in the casino that they can.

As they rush around to find coins, quickly depositing them in the machines, the sound of a crowd begins to rumble. As the sound builds to a peak, the men are surprised to see a woman in a dress standing on the balcony looking down at them, equally shocked. After hugs and celebrations at finding a survivor, the woman tells her oh-so-boring tale of being lucky enough to survive.

What would they even use the money for?

After travelling to Vegas to pursue a career in singing, the bombs came. We don’t really learn how exactly she survived, but only that others around her slowly died out. She sets off with the three men as they continue their journey.

They encounter rainstorms and minor troubles and then stop in a quaint little town. Cockroaches have survived and they are out in full force. Keegan sees the bones of 2 year dead humans and questions how they are so polished and smooth. As he tries to crush a cockroach he comes to discover that it is… armor plated!

Armor Plated Cockroaches!

Tanner and the girl ride around town on Tanner’s dirt bike. As they enter a building full of mannequins the cockroaches begin to attack. They are swarming everywhere around both groups, even drawing blood by biting Keegan’s flesh! Keegan rushes to a car to lock himself inside but the cockroaches break through. Denton, the team leader, rushes to the Landmaster to try to save Keegan. Unfortunately it is too late and so Denton sets off to find Tanner and the girl, Gloria. It is then when one of the greatest lines of the movie is uttered over a walkie talkie.

“Tanner, this is Denton. This whole town is infected with killer cockroaches. Repeat. Killer cockroaches!”

Best. Line. Ever.

After narrowly escaping the cockroach infested town the team comes upon a shack with a lone boy living in it. The boy pelts the crew with rocks, only to end up running away. The men chase the boy down and attempt to make friends. We find out that his parents died and he has been on his own for 4 moons. Of course we would start using moons to track time. Days are so pre-World War 3.

Chasing Down Rorsach

The boy (Jackie Earle Haley) brings a new dynamic to the group in his youthful exuberance. He wants to learn how to ride a bike and to driven and the mean seem eager to teach him. No signs of extreme right wing violence quite yet though.

At the next town that they stop off at, the team comes across a group of haggardly robbers and cowboys, all of which are long-haired, emaciated, and wounded. Clearly these men have seen the worst of the fallout. They demand that Denton and Tanner take them out to “that perty machine out there” to show them how to operate it. It appears as though the men are going to steal their one and only Landmaster. After a little bit of trickery on the heroes part, they manage to kill some of the robbers with guns and missiles and set off about their way to Albany.

Beardy McBearderson

In Detroit the crew stops off to try to salvage some car parts for repairs to their vehicle. While the operation is underway a sand storm threatens their mission. But they’ve come so far! Not to fear, they manage to escape the storm and then begin riding through a huge lake. This Landmaster is also a Lakemaster! They cross the lake into an area with grass and trees, the first we have seen of the movie, and they set up camp.  Their radio, which has only played static up to this point, begins to play music… and then a woman’s voice announces a 2 minute pause for incoming transmissions. After celebrating the discovery of life in Albany they crew radios in that they are alive and coming to town.

Tanner and the boy hop on the bike to head in to town for a pizza and a beer. Yup, pizza and a beer. Nothing says pizza and a beer like driving across the post-apocalyptic country in a landmaster after World War 3. The duo drive into town and a huge crowd begins to assemble to welcome the newcomers as the credits roll. Safe harbor at last!

Landmaster - Into the Sunset

So how exactly did Albany survive this nuclear holocaust without a scratch? This group of people just drove across the country and all we saw were barren landscapes and rundown towns! Albany however has become some sort of heaven on earth, a veritable garden of Eden in an apocalyptic wasteland.

What a bizarre movie. The effects were bad, the sky was constantly changing colors, and the plot was downright silly. It’s really interesting to me that Fox thought this was going to outperform Star Wars.

As I mentioned earlier, there is no DVD release of this film. However, you can still watch it through Amazon Demand and Veoh. Read more about “Damnation Alley” on Wikipedia and IMDB.

My favorite movie of 2009 is… Moon! Have you heard of it? Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t. I aim to change that! But first, I should let you know that about half way through this post I start to spoil the movie. If you want to see this movie you should not read anything more until afterwards. I mean it. Then, once you’ve seen it, come back.

Moon was directed and written by Duncan Jones (Zowie Bowie), the son of rock legend David Bowie. Jones, who co-wrote it with Nathan Parker, had actor Sam Rockwell specifically in mind for the lead role. “Lead Role” is a bit misleading though, as Rockwell is really the only actor on screen for practically the entirety of the movie. Also, Moon was made for the low-low price of only $5 million in only 33 days!

It's a Marvellous Night

Sam Bell (Rockwell) is an employee working for a company called Lunar Industries, who operates a lone base on the moon to extract helium-3 out of the soil. It is hinted that this clean energy source is desperately needed back on Earth, where Bell has left behind his wife Tess (Dominique McElligott).

When Sam Bell left for the moon, Tess was pregnant with their daughter, Eve. In addition to Rockwell, Kevin Spacey provides the voice of an affable computer/robot hybrid that helps run the operation in the same vein as HAL-9000. If you like Rockwell or Spacey, you are in for a treat because they run the show.

Magnificent Desolation

As the movie progresses we learn that Bell is almost done with his 3 year tour on the lunar base. After suffering hallucinations, Bell becomes reckless and accidentally wrecks one of his lunar rovers by crashing it into a harvester. Sam wakes up back at the base with no memory of what happened, and things begin to take a bizarre turn.

Here's the Church, here's the...

After hearing a live communication between the robot GERTY (Kevin Spacey) and earth, something we had previously learned was impossible, Bell begins to suspect that something is terribly wrong. He sabotages the station in order to get outside to travel to the crash site that he somehow escaped from. Once there, he finds a copy of himself, but barely alive. He rescues this original version of himself and takes him back to the base.

From here on out, Bell must confront an unfathomable situation as he finds that Lunar Industries is not the company he thinks it is, and that he himself is not even who he thinks he is. As the two Sam Bell’s begin to learn about the situation around them, a third Sam is discovered, and a plan for escape from the base is devised. Although the ending wraps up a lot of the challenges that have been posed throughout the film, the viewer is ultimately presented with a new situation that raises even more questions.

Confrontation

There are a lot of reasons that I love Moon. I like that it takes such huge risks on such strange ideas. It features only one actor who plays multiple versions of the same character, and masterfully so at that. The sense of isolation and desperation the he creates is palpable.

I also appreciate the use of models and actual studio-based landscapes instead of computer animation. I typically have no problems with computer animation, but the models used here were great. In addition the sterile, white-lit, polished lunar base, situated in ‘magnificent desolation’, is a great setting for some truly beautiful shots. The cinematographer, a newcomer named Gary Shaw, did a great job in capturing this setting. The original music score by Clint Mansell is haunting in it’s slow build-ups and repetition and has stuck with me since.

Broken Down on Freeway 9

This movie makes the viewer think. It poses philosophical questions in a gradual and provocative way and then lets the onlooker watch as one man makes decisions to try to answer them.

This is no summer blockbuster… someone that doesn’t want to ponder the options as the movie plays on will likely find it is too slow (a complaint I have read in other reviews). Moon is a how’s-this-possible mystery set within the framework of a hard-science fiction movie.

Rockwell Trying on a Beard for Size

Roger Ebert gave Moon 3.5 out of 4 stars (boooo!… although from Ebert I’ll take it) and described Moon by saying:

“‘Moon’ is a superior example of that threatened genre, hard science-fiction, which is often about the interface between humans and alien intelligence of one kind of or other, including digital. John W. Campbell Jr., the godfather of this genre, would have approved. The movie is really all about ideas. It only seems to be about emotions. How real are our emotions, anyway? How real are we? Someday I will die. This laptop I’m using is patient and can wait.”

You can always count on Ebert for a great quote.

Taking a Breather

It is entirely fitting that this movie was made by the son of David Bowie. It centers on a lonely man in space, an astronaut, who is isolated from the rest of his world. This is of course is a theme that David Bowie has explored continually in both his movies and music. Like father, like son.

Duncan Jones is apparently working on a follow up to Moon. This is news that I am both happy and worried about. Apparently the movie, Mute, will serve as a sort of epilogue and will once again feature Rockwell in some capacity as Sam Bell.

Check out Moon at IMDB and Wikipedia.

A Big Blue Dot

It ought to be common knowledge that Quentin Tarantino is full of himself. After all, he is really only full of himself when it comes to film making. Given that he lives and breathes movies from almost every perspective, genre, and time period, perhaps he has the credentials necessary to be so sure of himself. Having a clearly defined style and sensibility imbued in his work, Tarantino’s impressive filmography is fairly wide in range, with “Pulp Fiction” often cited as his best work. It is my contention however that Tarantino’s latest movie “Inglourious Basterds” is just as good as “Pulp Fiction”, if not better.

Smoking Le Cigarette

Starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Mélanie Laurent, and BJ Novak, “Inglourious Basterds” is a fictional war film that takes place during World War II at the height of the Nazi’s power. Despite having a historical basis, the movie is a far departure from attempting to be based any real life events.

To summarize, the movie is about two different assassination plots against the Nazi leadership, specifically Hitler. The movie chronicles both of these attempts to fruition. One attempt is planned by a young French Jewish theater manager (Mélanie Laurent) using subterfuge and her very own theater. The other more aggressive and direct plot is carried out by a specialist team of American soldiers led by a highly caricatured Lieutenant, Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt).

Lighting and Shadows

The opening of the movie is full of about as much tension as any movie could be. While a Jewish family is hiding under the floorboards of a farm house, the loathsome SS Colonel Hans Landa (Academy Award winner Christoph Waltz) questions the French farm owner about rumors of him harboring a Jewish family. After murdering the family, one of the young girls escapes and grows up to become the theater owner previously mentioned.

Shaking Hands with a Snake

The other note-worthy scene in the movie is the showdown in a bar between undercover American soldiers and Nazi officers. Over drinks and a game of cards, the Nazi officers slowly begins to suspect that the Americans aren’t who they claim. This slow build-up of suspense, almost Hitchcockian in nature, reaches such an immense pressure point that it is practically oozing off of the screen. Of course in the end all that build-up is released through an intense and fast-paced fight on screen.

All of Tarantino’s trademarks can be found in this movie: long bouts of quick and witty dialogue, low camera angles, tight and quick actions sequences, a complex non-linear plot somehow coming together, and just a touch of gore (or maybe more than a touch in this case). For me, it all makes for both a fun action movie and an instant masterpiece. Another interesting aspect of this movie is that Tarantino’s love of film is front-and-center; the heroine is a theater owner and indeed the climax takes place inside her theater.

Just Another Night at the Neighborhood Bar

Christoph Waltz deservingly won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. There was absolutely no way that he was going to lose that contest. If for no other reason at all, you should see this movie for his sake. He puts on a performance that is slimey, sordid, and vile, but all the while he revels in it. He is evil and he enjoys it. You can’t help but hope that terrible, terrible things happen to his character.

The only downside to this movie is Brad Pitt’s over-acted accent. I’m sure it was exactly what Tarantino was asking for, so he is probably just as much to blame, but the accent is far too over the top. Despite this, “Inglourious Basterds” is still my #2 pick for 2009.

You should read more about this great movie on IMDB and Wikipedia.

Different Heroine, Different Cigarette