Red Box Special: Inglourious Basterds and 17 Again

Inglourious Basterds Wait Times
Netflix: 4 months and counting
Red Box: 2 Days

This review was a long time coming. While in San Diego, we decided to take in a movie and went to the local Red Box. The first night Inglourious Basterds was not available. I wasn't surprised. Betsy wanted to see the only other thing we hadn't seen that was available and not a cartoon for 4 year olds; 17 Again. I said no and we went to the movies instead to see Kick Ass. We went back again the next night, after Betsy pleaded that since it was her birthday, she had a right to pick the movie. Before checking on 17 Again, I flipped over the screen and lo and behold....Inglourious Basterds!!! We rented both.

Inglourious Basterds - Tarantino films are about 2 things: paying homage and wish fulfillment. This film was the capstone of that career of filmmaking. All of his films are infused with so much homage that it's hard to see anything original at all, but somehow they completely are. That was the case here, he's paying homage to old Westerns and war films, that it kind of takes away at times. I guess from what I read, he was making a spaghetti Western but in World War II days, which is cool and stuff, but in the middle of the film when the film slows down and the music turns to old western style music (which sounded eerily similar to tracks from Kill Bill) I was taken out of the film. It didn't fit. In fact, my only real criticism of the film was the music. It was mostly fine, but there were these "Tarantino moments," like the one I mentioned, where I thought, "Why can't he just make a great film, why does it have to be smothered in Tarantino sauce?" It's like a great taco, and then you put great salsa on the taco, but you accidentally put too much. All the ingredients are good, but there's just a little too much sauce. Later in the film, there's a David Bowie song, at least I think it's Bowie. (When the French lady is getting ready before the show.) I guess it worked, but again it just takes you out of the film.
Actually, I'll correct myself, I have another criticism of the film. Tarantino is great with suspense, he can build suspense out of an Eskimo selling ice. And that's the whole film! It's just section after section of super tense scenes where someone is either about to be killed or is danger of being revealed to a Nazi. It was both great and bad at the same time. Great because it kept your interest, but bad because there's just a string of these barely held together segments where people are in these tense situations again and again hardly accomplishing anything. I would compare it to North by Northwest, a great thriller, but it's nothing more than a bunch of chase scenes strung together. Inglourious Basterds was almost nothing more than a bunch of tense scenes strung together. That being said, I do think it's Tarantino's best film. It's funny, though, because by the end of the film the tenseness comes from the thought, "How is Hitler going to get out of this? They have to fail."
And like all his films, it's a fantasy wish fulfillment. His films play on a wish fulfillment sort of like a kid playing with his brother coming up with the most badass story possible, whether it's super heroes, ninjas or cops and robbers. Kids put things all out there; shooting a million bad guys or being the most powerful super hero. With Tarantino, he's playing with genre. Since he's a cinephile, he knows and loves movies so well, he wants to take the old films he's in love with and put them to the max in the most badass way possible. (I'm just speaking from perspective, I really don't know his intentions.) With Reservoir Dogs, it was an undercover cop with some gangsters, a plot that's been done a ton of times, but he does a take on it where the stakes are super high; cops are getting ears cut off and it has the Mexican Stand-Off to end all Mexican Stand-Offs. Then with Pulp Fiction, it's a wish fulfillment on gangsters. We get to be right in with them while they're driving and doing dirty stuff. And these guys are badasses. With Kill Bill, we have Tarantino's most obvious wish fulfillment film, a Kung Fu revenge story. Again, a plot that's been done. Here we have the most extreme and badass trails of vengeance, where she kills literally 88 guys in one fight. And the whole film is just a string of fights. Then in the second one we have the training taken to the extreme, with the most awesome instructor. Then, of course, is his Grindhouse semi-epic Death Proof, it is nothing but homage and death and destruction wish fulfillment. Of course, most films are wish fulfillment in some ways, but Tarantino's style puts that first before anything else, just like the exploitation films he models his own films after. Exploitation and Kung Fu films thrived on fantasy wish fulfillment. Their stories are built around the fantasy of watching kung fu or rampant violence and sex. Tarantino takes that style and applies his own idiosyncrasies to it; long conversations, sadistic villains, quick bursts of violence.
With Inglourious Basterds, he's paying homage to the old World War II mission films like Guns of Navarone, mixed with a Western style. The wish fulfillment comes from the fact that the group is literally slaughtering Nazi's. The squad does nothing but find Nazi's to kill. And who doesn't have some fantasy wish to kill Hitler and his douche bag sidekick Goebbels? It's wish fulfillment to the max.

17 Again - Yes, I was reluctant to spend a Saturday night watching this film. And yes, I have to admit...I actually kind of liked it. However, the first 10 minutes almost ruined it for me. One of my biggest vexations is poor staging. Comedies are the worst at it, especially those set in high school. The film opens before a basketball game that Zac Efron is playing in. His girlfriend walks out and he stops what he's doing to go over to her. Actually before that, some cheerleaders perform a pre-game dance routine on the court, which Efron jumps in on; I guess to show that's he a douche when he was a teenager...or a showboat? It makes no sense why he does it, it's makes the film seem like a horrible Disney Channel movie. (High School Musical reference not intended.)
So anyway, he goes over to his girlfriend, we can't hear what she's saying, but it isn't good, then she walks away and the game starts. He stops playing in the middle of the game and leaves to go say he loves her and wants to be with her and their unborn kid. Apparently she was either trying to break up with him because he knocked her up or she just said she was preggers then that was it? I dunno. Either way, it all just didn't make sense. Why did she awkwardly go up to the court, then break up or whatever, literally seconds before the game was to start? She couldn't wait? Then he just leaves, without finishing the game. Oh, the game that college scouts are at the see him. A game that he could have impressed them with to get a full ride to college. College where you get Bachelor's Degrees that potentially earn you more money. With a huge bundle of responsibility on the way, he decides that's not important, working now at a drug company was? The whole film is built around his eventual regret, so I guess it's about the mistakes he made; these mistakes, but it all just seems so clumsy and poorly thought out.
After that opening, it gets a whole lot better. It's really funny at parts, especially the friend, played by Thomas Lennon, from Reno 911 short shorts fame. I laughed at least twice during every one of his scenes. He's just a pure comic genius, because even in this film he's great. The other great thing is that Matthew Perry is hardly in the film, despite the film being about his character. Once again, Matthew Perry is the worst part of every film he's in. Zac Efron, on the other hand, is just the type of guy that it's so hard to say anything bad about. He's charming and witty and such a great basketball player, you just want to eat him up. I see great things ahead for this little guy. Great things.