Inglourious Basterds sincerely is Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece and his best movie to date. Now having said that, I have to admit I am not a huge fan of his past movies, but I truly love this one.
Inglourious Basterds is a movie that is way overdue because it changes up history and as Michael Fassbender told me at The Weinstein Company press day, “This is may be the film to end World War II films.” Not in a bad way, it changes up the stories that we’ve seeing over and over again on the big screen in recent years and with that this WWII epic shows us it is time to move on.
IB starts out with one of the best directed and acted scenes in any film I have seen in a really long time. To me this one chapter is Oscar worthy. Christoph Waltz, who masterfully plays a Nazi nicknamed The Jew Hunter, questions a French man in his native language about hiding a Jewish family in house during the time when the Nazi’s occupied his country. The interrogation goes off slowly and so calmly and as you sit there in your seat you feel the tension on the screen and squirm for the Frenchman brilliantly played by Denis Menochet. As the suspense builds The Jew Hunter asks, “This being your house, I ask your permission to switch to English for the remainder of the conversation.†Once this line is said you get the feel for how this movie is going to play out. You will be sitting on the edge of your seat engulfed with what you are watching and then Tarantino will throw in something in to relax you. Those tension breakers are what makes you love and appreciate the movie even more. Now when it comes to that line, it does make sense for that scene. And also saying that the movie is partially subtitled because the characters also speak in German and French besides English and you actually forget what is subtitled and what isn’t because the transitions are done so smoothly. Now when this scene comes to an end you will sit there in awe of what you just watched because it was just that amazing. On a side note, that is when I realized I should’ve gone to the bathroom before the movie, so that is my one mandate before you sit down…pee! Because the movie is almost 2 and a half hours long and you don’t want to miss a single second of it.
Next up we meet Hitler who through this conversation will introduce us to the Basterds and what a great group of Basterds they are. As we all know Brad Pitt plays the leader Lt Aldo Raine and he wants his 100 Nazi scalps! I think this is his best and funniest role yet. When I asked one of his men BJ Novak before I saw the movie about being in such a serious flick he told me, “You know what I didn’t think of it as a serious movie or at least I thought of it very much as a comedy as well as an intense, stylish, action movie.” At the time I stared at him in kind of dumbfounded by his words, but three days later when I saw the movie it really is a great way to sum it up. And when it comes to BJ’s role as The Little Man, he will play a big part at the end of it and he does it so well. We also meet a few others like Til Schweiger who plays Hugo Stiglitz, a German Basterd who is the only one to get a back story in this movie. One of the rumors is if QT goes through with the much-wanted prequel by the cast we will get more of them. Like the one for The Bear Jew played by Eli Roth that was already filmed with Cloris Leachman but did not make it the final cut. Eli’s entrance is slow and tense, but when he comes out of that cave all hell breaks loose as he plays baseball with a Nazi’s head. This scene is probably one of the most violent in the movie and it really isn’t that bad. I have a problem of laughing at violent scenes that I shouldn’t be, so I asked my friend to hit me if I did it during the screening. To my surprise I wasn’t the only cackling at the deaths, so if the violence was something that was going to stop you from seeing this movie, don’t let it because it isn’t anything that will give you nightmares. Back to Eli, his role will go down in the movie history books. This is the writer/director’s first major role and you would never know it because he plays it off as a pro. His Donny Dononowitz gets the most laugh and cheers in the movie.
From the Basterds we go to Paris where we catch up with the lone survivor of the Jewish family from the first chapter, Shoshana, played by the relatively unknown Melanie Laurent, who now owns a movie a theater, that will play a huge part for the rest of the movie. While she is changing the sign one night, a famous Nazi (unbeknownst to her) tries to catch her attention. Fredrick Zoller played by the gorgeous Daniel Bruhl (who makes me feel bad for thinking a Nazi could be so cute) had his story turned into a film called Nation’s Pride and he will eventually want it premiere at her theater. Nation’s Pride is the film within this film that was shot in black and white and will be the much needed comic relief you will need for the rest of the movie as we get snipets of the Eli Roth directed propaganda film. The premiere of this Zoller’s life story will attract the Third Reich’s biggest names including Hitler himself and those attendees will put forth a plan in Shoshana’s mind to get back at the people who inadvertently killed her whole family. At this point the movie goes from the seriousness of WWII to an action film where Shoshana on her own and the Basterds along with Diane Kruger will plot take down Hitler and his biggest names. I will stop my review here because I don’t want to spoil you with all the good sh!t that is going to down from this point on because remember how I told you earlier you will be sitting on the edge of your seats because of the suspense well now you are doing it with excitement. You will be waiting to watch it all play out and once it does, you will be high-fiving everyone around you because the movie will leave you feeling that good!
When the credits roll you will understand why everyone is saying that this is Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece. What the Oscar winner did with Inglourious Basterds leaves me in awe. Not only did he write a script that will hopefully end all the other WWII scripts for a while. He directed a movie that will have you go through an array of emotions, but leaving with just one…thinking how f*cking brilliant those two and half hours were. And finally he put together a cast who no one one ups anyone, but all of them give the performances of a lifetime.
I can’t say enough good things about Inglourious Basterds and I am going to leave you with one more…stop reading this go out and see the movie now!!!
Eli Roth is one of the Inglourious Basterds in the bloody brilliant movie that comes out tomorrow, August 21st! Eli plays Sgt Donny Donowitz aka The Bear Jew and his role will go down in the movie history books, but how that will happen you will have to find out later. Not only is Eli playing the guy who swats off Nazis’ heads with a baseball bat, but the Cabin Fever and Hostel director also directs the film within the film Nation’s Pride and he did a fantastic job with that extra responsibility. That propaganda movie will make you laugh and cringe at that same time in a way only Eli can make it work.
Although Eli has acted before in his own movies and Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof, this is his first major acting role and you would never know it watching him on the big screen. He is just so believable and funny as The Bear Jew and he told us at The Weinstein Company’s roundtable for the WWII epic that this was the only role for him.
No, the only role for me was “The Bear Jew.†I was like this is it, to be a Jewish guy from Boston that beats Nazis to death with a baseball bat. I have been training for my whole life for that part. There as no other role. That’s what I said to him, “This is it.†I think there are some actors, who feel, no actors in this cast, but other actors he worked with that felt that they were now that I’ve been in a Tarantino movie I can do anything. But for us, this was endgame. This was it. Like the ultimate dream for all of us to be in a Tarantino movie. And we know there is no such thing as a small part in a Tarantino film. You can be Floyd in True Romance or Christopher Walken in Pulp Fiction. Every part is a chance to create a classic cinema moment and everybody is going for it. I felt so lucky. The first table read you look around the room with Christoph Waltz and August Diehl, and all these incredible European actors, Melanie Laurent, you felt G-d this movie is going to be amazing. It’s going to be something so special and so different. It was a thrill to be a part of it.
One thing that wasn’t always a thrill for him was a piece of costume he wore for the role in this period piece . Something BJ Novak said he didn’t have to endure and didn’t know what type of a relationship Eli had had with the costume lady to suffer through that. Well I don’t want to hold you back from scratching your itch any longer here is what it is…
Plus being in wool underwear will make you want to kill anything. I mean we were totally period thing. Even if it wasn’t seen, like the socks, the underwear, wool wife beaters, my G-d you can’t imagine what I smelled like, I smelled like a bear. It was disgusting, but the costume, and Quentin’s like, “yeah, you’re getting a cool leather jacket.
Something that wasn’t disgusting for him is that thing that will land him in movie history and it is a huge spoiler why such an honor will bestow him, so if you want to see what he told us about the change that QT rewrote for him in the middle of filming the movie then click here!
Christoph Waltz is one of the Inglourious Basterds and he is so glorious in the film that comes out this Friday, August 21st. Waltz recently won the Best Actor Award at Cannes for his role of Colonel Hans Landa aka The Jew Hunter in the movie and once you see him in the WWII epic you will see why he deserved it hands down. They say the winner of this Cannes honor will go on to at least get an Oscar nom and I hope it stays true for him. In the last few decades I can only think of a handful of winners who really deserved their win like Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry, Adrien Brody in The Pianist and Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, and hopefully when Christoph brings home the statuette in March, I can say the same about him. His portrayal in this masterpiece blew me away. He takes every scene he is no matter who he works with. He plays it so perfectly that when he comes on the screen you cringe because you hate him so much. If you are going to get cast in a movie about Nazis in the year 2009 and play a character nicknamed The Jew Hunter, you better be someone that the audience just wants to despise every time they are on the big screen and he really does just that. But I must add, in person you just have to love him because he is so humble and charming and sincerely enjoys his craft. He has been doing this for 30 years and yet most of us have never heard of him and he told us at The Weinstein Company roundtable day that he was OK with that.
It turned everything on its head. Not so much personally, because personally I’ve been doing this for quite some time. I would recommend for every actor to wait 30 years until something like that happens. Because, I think as a 25-year-old, I could not handle it. You have to fly off the handle somehow sooner or later.
You can tell by listening to him he was ready for this happen and it happened in the right role for him. I cannot express to you just how powerful he is in the movie. IB is a movie that mixes the seriousness of Nazi-occupied France with humor and he captures both. The Austrian born actor speaks every language that is used in the movie in real life, English, French and German. And it was his linguistics in the first awesome chapter of the movie that amazed me. The scene starts out with him talking to a French farmer, who is hiding out Shoshana’s (Melanie Laurent) family under his floorboards, in French. As the conversation goes on he says to the farmer, “This being your house, I ask your permission to switch to English for the remainder of the conversation.” It makes sense why he says this, but it was in that moment that I knew Inglourious Basterds was going to be a kick a$$ movie and that Christoph Waltz deserved his accolade at Cannes.
On the Cannes’ note I have used this quote before from him and I am going to use it again because I love it so much. When I asked him how he feels about the new found International interest in him he told me in our roundtable room.
I said this after Cannes. Ten flashbulbs bother you; 10,000 are fantastic! Thanks a lot. All the best!
Christoph enjoy all those flashing bulbs because you so richly deserved to be blinded by them because your future is just that bright!!! Sincerely I can’t think of any actor that could’ve played the role as well as him and I highly suggest seeing Inglourious Basterds on Friday to watch his sheer brilliance as Colonel Hans Landa aka The Jew Hunter.
Michael Fassbender and BJ Novak are Inglourious Basterds, one is recruited by Mike Myers while the other is by Brad Pitt in the WWII epic that comes out this Friday, August 21st.
Fassbender plays movie critic and British Lieutenant Archie Hicox, who receives orders from Gen. Ed Fenech played by Mike Myers to be dropped in to France to meet up with Diane Kruger’s Bridget von Hammersmark and Brad Pitt’s Basterds at bar and take down the Third Reich. In real life Fassbender is of German and Irish descent, but in the movie he plays a British guy and he told us at The Weinstein Company’s roundtable for IB that this wasn’t the role he was hoping for.
I was trying to get Christoph Waltz’s part, Landa. I was really running after that part. My agent, I think he terrorized Quentin to see me, kept talking about Landa. I really put my eggs in one basket. Every night I came home and put in five hours on Landa. I got French lessons, and I did about 27 hours on Landa’s character. Then I flew out to Berlin, then he [Quentin] goes, “Okay, let’s take a look at Hicox!†I was like, “Can we take a look at Landa also?†[laughs] He said, “No, I cast my Landa on Tuesday.†So I read the Hicox part pretty much cold. I thought I made a real bulls of everything. I remember I was terribly depressed that night. Then a week later, they called me up and offered me the job.
A big reason why he was probably so down is because he is a huge fan of QT’s, so working with him was something he has wanted to do since he was at least in his late teens.
When I was like 18, I got my fiends together and we put on a stage version of Reservoir Dogs in my local nightclub, so to actually get to work with him was a dream come true. Once I got beyond that, it is fascinating to watch the man work because he does really works in his own, unique way. He is so knowledgeable in film. He does his craft by absorbing all the information. He is an encyclopedia.
While QT might be an encyclopedia, as we know his movies does not follow what that big book has listed om how WWII ended and Fassbender told us he likes the changes.
Q: Being of German descent, what is it like being in a movie about World War II and Nazis?
MF: I thought it was pretty cool. I like Quentin because he won’t be restrained by the confines of history. We have seen this topic done so many times. I was like, “World War II her we go again.†This is maybe the film to end World War II films.
With all the recent WWII films that have been out there in the last few years, I kind of hope he is right. And IB is the definitely the movie to do it, not only because it changes history because it is just that monumental.
Fassbender is one of the few actors in the movie, who has worked on other WWII movies and here is what he told us was different than other movies based on the era.
I love the fact that French people are speaking French, German people are speaking German. I always thought that was weird when there are German people speaking English with German accents [speaking with thick German accent]. It is always like, “Well, why are they doing that?†It kind of burst the bubble of illusion immediately. I think it is great.
Personally I hate movies with subtitles, but with this one you forget when you are reading the screen and when you are listening to them to talk it is just that smooth of a transition.
Now back to Michael Fassbender when he is on the screen you just can’t take your eyes off of him and yes in person too. He just has that quality and the way he plays Lieutenant Archie Hicox is just so brilliant you just believe his character. He holds his own when he has his scene with Mike Myers and also in the infamous bar scene. A scene he told us took two weeks to film, and one you have to watch play out because it changes everything in the movie.
Next up for the hot actor is Jonah Hex, and I am going to see just because of him after his genius portrayal in Inglourious Basterds.
BJ Novak plays one of Brad Pitt’s Basterds, Smithson Utivich aka The Little Man. Although his nickname may have little in it, he has a huge part at the ending of the movie. Something The Office star told us, he liked about Quentin Tarantino’s direction.
Well, first of all, not to give anything away, but one cool thing about the character that Quentin had always told me he had conceptualized for it was that he was frustrated with war movies where it’s very clear who’s going to live and who’s going to die. He wanted to play with audience expectations and focus on some people and kill them off and hide some people and have them emerge. He always thought it would be very funny to have the guy who’s supposed to get killed first make it to the end. I think that was where the surprise and the fun of Utivitch surviving for so long comes from.
I am not going to tell you if he lives or dies, but I will tell you he scalps a lot of heads for Brad Pitt. And he told us that they had to prep for that duty especially when one is not a fan of violent movies.
I thought I would hate it. I’m really not a fan of violence in movies. What I’ve always loved about Tarantino is the humor and the dialog and the characters. I don’t exactly cover my eyes to the violence but that’s not what I buy a ticket to see. So it was kind of odd to find myself in that part of a Tarantino movie, but that was my job and that was my homework. I had scalping lessons, I looked up scalping on the internet and after a while, it just became like a calculus test I wanted to get an A on. I hated calculus, too, but I was a good Jewish boy who did my homework and that’s who Utivitch was. I don’t think he wanted to scalp, but if that’s his homework assignment from Aldo, he’s damned if he’s not going to get an A. That’s how I approached it on the set.
To be honest IB is not that violent at all minus a few short scenes, so hopefully it wasn’t too bad for him to watch on the big screen. On that note the big screen works well for The Little Man or the name he thought suited him better The Medium Sized Man. Find out on Friday if the little guy who could makes it to the Inglourious Basterds credits.
Diane Kruger and Melanie Laurent are the two leading ladies in Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece Inglourious Basterds that is out this Friday, August 21st. Although both women never have a scene together in the brilliant movie, both of their characters have the same objective to off the Third Reich.
The reason why Diane Kruger’s character’s Bridget von Hammersmark, a German actress who works as a double agent for Britain wants to bring them down is not clear to us, but according to what she told us at The Weinstein Company roundtable day is that QT gave her a 20 year backstory of why she turned on her country. Maybe that is something we will get in the much-wanted prequel! When the German native was asked what her response was to doing a movie that changed the history of her homeland, here is what she told us.
That’s why I wanted to do it. You can imagine as someone born in Germany, I get offered World War II movies once a week. And I never wanted to do it. Because why should I associate myself with that just because I’m German. So this came along, and I was like, that is cool. I will be able through Bridget von Hammersmark to bring down the Third Reich. I like it, let’s do it!
She told us that when the movie screened in Berlin a few weeks ago the reaction was 3X that of what they got in Cannes and there they got a 15 minute standing ovation there. So it just goes to show you how impactful this WWII epic is. She also told us how one of her scenes might’ve been impactful on the director himself…
Was it honor for you to be the foot fetish?
A: [LAUGHS] It was funny thing because I guess, I was lazy, I didn’t know about that. And then I was interviewed by a journalist as I just got the job. And he said, “So, ah, have you heard about this?†And I said, no. And he said, “Really, you don’t have a foot scene?†And actually, I do! And he filled me in. And then the day comes and I’m like, “Quentin, are you excited?! It’s the first day!†And he was like, “No, it’s not true. It’s all made up. Journalists made it up.†And I was like, Okay. Six close-ups later on my foot and not on my face, and I thought, maybe there is some truth to it. I don’t know!
It was your foot?
A: Oh yeah. It never looked better, are you kidding? The pedicure lasted forever.
She joked that maybe QT wasn’t exactly happy with her foot because he stepped in for Christoph Waltz in a very critical scene.
What was it like filming the fight scene with Christoph, the cast and being throttled out of your chair, looked a little rough and tumble?
A: It was rough, yeah. A really funny anecdote about that is that it is actually Quentin who was strangling me. I know it’s like, “ARE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME SOMETHING?†“DID I DO SOMETHING WRONG?†It was my last day, and he came into my trailer and he said, “Christoph is just an actor. He’s going to squeeze too hard or too little and we’re going to do it over and over. I just know exactly what we need, so I think I should just strangle you.†He trapped me, right? Sure thing, Quentin. And then, we see Christoph and Quentin is about two heads taller than him. So none of his costumes would fit him. So they had to make strap on and fake SS sleeves, that are strapped to the back of my collar. And here is this huge man on top of me – squeezing. He really was a lot less strong than Christoph, and I couldn’t tell him, “Oh yeah, no-no [feign coughing], we can do one more.†He’s so sweet, you know.
You will have to see the movie on Friday to see if she survives that scene. According to a lot of reports out there this probably won’t be the last time we see her in a QT movie because they are saying she is his new It girl. She really earned that title because she really held her own as the only woman in the almost all-male scenes. Her scene with Brad Pitt gave me the heebie jeebies, I am still squirming just thinking about it. Let’s just say you have to see it to understand why I am saying that and she played it so realistically, I can still feel her pain. Sincerely this model-turned-actress won me over in her role of Bridget von Hammersmark in Inglourious Basterds!
From Diane Kruger to Melanie Laurent, the character who has a reason to bring down the Third Reich in the history changing movie Inglourious Basterds. Laurent plays the Jewish girl Shosanna Dreyfus, a woman whose family is gunned down next to her as they hid under the floorboards of man who had taken them in. The man responsible for their deaths is The Jew Hunter played by the scary Christoph Waltz. Fast forward a few years, Shoshana is now running movie theater in Paris and has caught the eye of one of the most famous Nazis in the world, Fredrick Zoller played by the gorgeous Daniel Bruhl. When he decides the film about the actions that made him the star that he is, needs to be screened at her movie theater, she puts into action a plan that will bring down the Third Reich as revenge for what they did to her family. In one meeting where they discuss bringing premiere to her theater, The Jew Hunter is a surprise guest and their interaction is one of the most well-acted, chilling scenes I have seen in a while and you can really feel her tension as she prays he doesn’t recognize her. Lucky for her and us he doesn’t and her plan is put into motion. In her final scene she had to have a diabolical laugh that would last for 5 minutes and she told us she dreaded that scene most.
I did not know how to do that for the life of me. For months, I was like, (gasp) “How am I going to do that?†Because in the script it was like, “She’s laughing like the evil, during 5 minutes.†I’m like—“What? What? During 5 minutes? I’m gonna be like—huh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hunh ha ha—it’s gonna be a nightmare!†And I remember that day, I was like, “Ok Quentin, you know what, I’m so stressed out. I really don’t know what I’m going to do. ‘Cause I never took some theater lessons, for example. I just made movies. So I have very—and I’m French. We are lazy! You don’t work on that laughter in 6 months. You just like, “Oh my god, it’s tomorrow! My laugh is tomorrow!†You know? Well maybe, just for me. So, and I was like, oh my god, how am I going to do that. And so I said, “I’m stressed out! Because it’s so important. Ok I’m stressed out more now.†So he says, “Ok, ok. You know what. I’m gonna fire everybody!†So he just asked people to get out. And I was like, oh my god, is this a sick scene? Because usually when—“Can I have the script please?! I just want to check something!†And he was like, “Ok. We are 5 here.†In a huge set. You can imagine. It was funny because the set was like—in the stairs—but in the very corner on a huge, huge set. So we were just 5 people, just for the camera and me, and and he said—and he took my hand and he said, “You know what? I just trust you. You’re gonna be great. You’re gonna give me a great evil laugh.†“Ok! [She clears throat] Action!†And I just did something. You know. First day. And he was like, “Ok. You can do it. Ok, let’s work.†He just wanted to know if I could just forget everything. And it remembers me a little bit of like the scene in Kill Bill 2, where she just finally goes—find Bill. And she’s on a car, and she’s like front of camera, black and white, and she says, “And I’m gonna Kill Bill!†And we’re like, ok, why are you saying like this. And it’s because, it’s completely unreal. And at the end you just love that sort of scene. Because it’s just completely creative. And on your imaginary end—it’s just like—and he’s so stressed out for you—because he knows it’s going to be hard to find the right way to say it, but at the end he just—here—takes your hand and say “You know what, I trust you.†And you’re like, “Ok cool! You are the only one.
You will have to see Inglourious Basterds on Friday to see how hauntingly she pulled off that laugh. That and you have to see how this 26 year old actress who barely spoke English before this film stole the movie. She is just so tremendous in the movie, I forsee a lot of interest in this little French girl who was a huge part of Inglourious Basterds.
Come back tomorrow to hear what two of the Basterds, BJ Novak and Michael Fassbender told us about their pivotal roles in Inglourious Basterds.
Huge thanks to The Weinstein Company for inviting me to cover the junket for Inglourious Basterds!!!
