Inglourious Basterds- OH MY GOD!

Last night I decided that I would watch the famous Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds. I have to say I was taken away by the amount of gore and bloody action and even covered my own eyes at times when it was extremely graphic. I didn’t realise it was an 18 until I started watching it, and by then I was already intrigued.

I wanted to see this movie for a while because in class when doing research on film openings, Sir showed us the opening of Inglorious Bastards, I was hooked! I’m not usually a fan of gore films, as that is how I would describe this one. However, I have to say I really enjoyed it, Quentin Tarantino is an excellent director and his technique of filming shots was so slick and fresh!

The plot of the film is about a Jew, Shosanna who, in 1941, witnesses the murder of her own family by ‘Jew hunter’  SD standartenfuhrer Hans Landa and his men, and narrowly escapes her death. She escapes and flees to Paris where she takes a new identity as a cinema owner and her friend who is black helps her in this business. He is the only other person on the planet she trusts.

The Basterds are a group of Jews who hunt the Nazis and kill them as they have incredible hatred for Hitler and his Nazis. In the Bastards, there is the leader  Aldo Raine who recruits  eight Jewish-American soldiers for a mission behind enemy lines, telling them they each owe him 100 Nazi scalps and will take no prisoners. For the Nazis he frees and doesn’t kill, if they have told him the Nazis plans, Aldo carves a Swastika into the forehead of the men, displaying how if they have worn the uniform, they will always be a Nazi as its imprinted on their skin.

In 1944, Shosanna adopts her new identity as  “Emmanuelle Mimieux” and runs her cinema with Marcel, her lover and friend who is black. She meets Fredrick Zoller, a German sniper whose exploits are to be celebrated in a Nazi propaganda film in which he stars. She hates him, however it is clear that he sees her as a possible lover and keeps trying to see her and visit her. He has no idea she is actually a Jew and she has to act completely calm at all times even though her hatred for him and anger towards the Nazis grows. Attracted to Shosanna, Zoller convinces Joseph Goebbels to hold the premiere at her cinema. Shosanna seizes the opportunity, as her and Marcel devise a plot to burn down her cinema and kill the top Nazi leaders at the premiere. 

During the screening, Zoller slips away to the projection room to see Shosanna, who rejects his advances and he becomes angry and seems to take a violent approach but then has Zoller lock the door which he does instantly as he thinks hes going to get some. He closes the door with his back turned, and she fatally shoots him, however he is not dead and he manages to turn and fatally shoot her as well. They both lie motionless on the projection room floor. Meanwhile, Ulmer and Donowitz, Aldo’s Basterds, manage to kill the soldiers guarding Hitler, as they are at the premier to try and end the war aswell, and kill the top leaders of the Nazis.

A clip of Shosanna’s cackling in the cinema film informs the audience that they are about to be killed by a Jew. She and Marcel decided that they would do this to manipulate the Nazis and inform them of their defeat by a Jew. Marcel, having locked the cinema with the audience inside, ignites a pile of extremely flammable nitrate film behind the screen of the cinema, which quickly sets fire to the screen leaving the audience in a screaming mess. Ulmer and Donowitz (two of the Basterds) burst into the screening as it burns and machine gun Hitler, Goebbels, and the trapped crowd, until the bombs go off and destroy the cinema killing every person in it.

Aldo and his recruit Utivich were not in the cinema when it was burned down as Hans had kidnapped them to make a deal, yet they take advantage of this and kill Hans’ radio operator and has Utivich collect his scalp. Hans is left angry and vulnerable, Aldo is  unable to accept the notion that Hans might go unpunished for his career as a Nazi officer, so he carves a swastika into Hans’ forehead as a permanent reminder of his crimes against the Jews. Proudly inspecting his handiwork, he smiles and says to Utivich that “this just might be my masterpiece”.

The camera work in this film is terrific, using panning, zooming, close ups and symbolism in filming to display character emotion.

Here is the trailer for anyone who is interested in  German-American black comedy war films. Do take in that is is an 18, so it is not for the faint hearted and is quite distressing to watch at times.

Attack the Block (Written and directed by Joe Cornish 2011)

This is a British monster movie, set in a council estate in South London on Bonfire Night The plot of the film centers a street gang of teenage lads who are partial to mugging randomers in the street and carry knives, regularly visit Ron for weed and carry fire works in their backpacks. The gang have to defend themselves from an alien invasion which chases them all around the block in order to catch them and eat them.

I watched this film a couple of nights ago and I have to say it has to be one of my all time favorites. I have watched it numerous times, all with different people, all of which get obsessed with the film after watching it, taking lines which the characters say and repeating them till they loose their novelty. From looking at the cover you think its just another alien invasion film, which quite frankly it is, however, the heroes are unexpected, and the set of the whole film is so different, so normal and I think that’s what makes it so entertaining, it takes the normal and turns it into the unexpected.

The plot:

The film begins on Bonfire Night and character Samantha is mugged by a small gang of boystrous youths. The main character of the gang, Moses, is the ring leader. The other members of the gang are Pest, Jerome, Dennis and Biggz.

The mugging is interrupted by a meteorite hitting the car that is parked next to Sam in the street where shes lying after being pushed to the floor by Moses. It smashes into the roof of the car spraying glass everywhere and the lads take cover whilst Sam sees her escape runs off as fast as she can. Moses, being the brave one goes to the car and takes a look inside, where an alien jumps out and attacks him, scratching his face, and runs out of the car into the park. The lads chase after it thinking its probably a dog or a monkey, and kill it with fireworks. From doing this they believe they will acquire fame and fortune as they discover the creature they just killed is not anything they have ever seen. They decide to take the dead alien to their acquaintance Ron (Nick Frost) who lives at the top of the block and grows and sells weed to get some advice at what they have found.

Moses asks Ron and local gangster Hi-Hatz if he can keep the alien in their Weed room as its the safest room in the block.

More objects begin to fall from the sky, and as the gang are eager to fight more creatures they arm themselves with base ball bats, knives and swords and rush to the nearest site where they saw one crash land. They soon discover these creatures are much bigger and gorilla like than the one they killed, with rows of glowing teeth and blacker than black spiky fur. The gang run away and become chased by them, whilst they are running, Moses gets arrested by the police as they were out looking for the gang who mugged Sam. Moses is put into the police van which Sam is also inside. The police men both get mauled outside the van by the aliens who are after Moses, then they attack the van knowing Moses is inside. Dennis bravely reaches the van and frees Moses and they decide to jack it and drive away in it still with Sam inside. Dennis takes the wheel and accidentally crashes the police van into Hi-Hatz’s car, Sam sees this as her chance to escape again and runs off, the rest of the gang catch up to the crashed police car where they all confront Hi-Hatz.

Raging about his crashed car Hi-Hatz threatens the lads with a gun whilst they tell him about the aliens which he refuses to believe until his henchman is attacked and killed by one right in front of his eyes, the lads escape at this moment only to be chased by more aliens. The decide to run to their block but Biggz gets forced to hide in a plastic skip/bin where he becomes certain that he wont survive as one alien waits outside. Pest gets his leg bitten and is dragged up the stairs of the block by his gang. They notice Sam lives in the same block as them and force their way into her flat where they think they will be safe for a moment. Sam refuses to believe their alien story but believes it after one alien smashes into the flat but is attacked my Moses with a samurai sword and killed. Sam decides to join the lads so as not to be left alone. The gang and Sam move upstairs to their neighbors flat who are a bunch of girls. They are again attacked by the aliens who get in through the window and decapitate Dennis. The girls, traumatized note that they aliens are clearly after Moses and flee the building. The gang carry on up the block only to be confronted by Hi-Hatz with some more henchmen who try to shoot Moses and his gang. An alien chases Hi-Hatz and his men into the lift where Hi-Hatz kills the alien but the henchmen are killed too, but he is still raging at Moses and continues his search to get him.

The group make their way upstairs and reach the top floor where they meet Ron’s weed customer Brewis who joins them. They set fireworks through the halls of the floor to kill any aliens that are there in waiting and walk through the smoke, Jerome becomes disorientated by the smoke and is killed by an alien. The group finally reach Rons flat at the end of the corridor and enter it only to find Hi-Hatz waiting for them. He threatens Moses with a gun until aliens crash through the window, killing Hi-Hatz whilst the gang retreat to Rons weed room where they are safe for the while.

Whilst in the weed room, Brewis discoveres a luminescent stain on Moses’s jacket which he theorizes is a feramone which the first alien they killed left on him, as it must have been a female and  it had left a mating scent on Moses that the larger male aliens have been tracking for the evening.  After discovering this they use the luminescent light on Sam to see if she carries the feramone, she is clear so they devise a plan to kill all the aliens when they are in one room together.

Sam escapes out of the flat and runs to Moses’s flat where she turns up all the gas and leaves the door on the latch then runs out of the block. Moses attatches the dead female alien onto his back after finding it in the weedroom where they had left it and runs out of the flat where all the male aliens chase him down to his flat.

 

He throws the female in the flat where all the males gather and ignites a firework which makes the flat explode whilst he jumps out of the window and hangs onto a flag hanging from it. The aliens are all killed and Moses is alive.

In all the aftermath, Moses, Pest, Ron and Brewis are arrested as they are considered responsible for all the chaos of the evening and the deaths of all the people around the area, but Samantha comes to their defence as they saved her. Moses and Pest are shoved into the police van whre they hear the crowd outside cheering for Moses, causing Moses to smile for the first time in the film.

 

Overall I believe this film is brillaint and brings excitement and laughter to your living room when you watch it. I would definately recomment it to anyone, its has no particular audience and is far from a nerdy alien film, its much better than that.