Here's a shoutbox conversation about this movie. Some Django (with spoilers), but mostly Basterds.
I'll try to break this up for readability, but I'll leave everything in.
Garam [24|Oct 07:46 PM]: basterds is my favourite QT film since Jackie Brown
Garam [24|Oct 07:46 PM]: I enjoyed the irreverence
Garam [24|Oct 07:46 PM]: thought it was quite pynchony actually
Drenk [24|Oct 07:47 PM]: It has two good scenes and a lot of filler.
Drenk [24|Oct 07:47 PM]: And Google traduction for Mélanie Laurent. But it doesn't matter.
Garam [24|Oct 07:47 PM]: i'm not planning on watching it again in a hurry, but it's not as bad as that
Drenk [24|Oct 07:48 PM]: No, it was fine when I watched it a second time.
Drenk [24|Oct 07:48 PM]: It was a huge disappointment the first time, though.
Garam [24|Oct 07:48 PM]: i'm a world war 2 geek which helps, but i appreciated the strange jarring clashes in tone, though the kill bill style 'nazi killer' subtitles made me cringe, with the samuel l voiceover
Garam [24|Oct 07:49 PM]: ok. i gave up on tarantino with kill bill so it was a pleasant surprise for me. i didn't watch it till 2011
jenkins<3 [24|Oct 07:49 PM]: it scares me that aging artists gravitate toward period pieces
Drenk [24|Oct 07:49 PM]: I enjoy Kill Bill, but I watched it a long time ago...
Garam [24|Oct 07:50 PM]: the more ww2 period pieces the better
jenkins<3 [24|Oct 07:50 PM]: makes me fear that when i age i won't understand the world anymore
Garam [24|Oct 07:50 PM]: too many angles too view that war from
Garam [24|Oct 07:50 PM]: and they're our grandpops
Garam [24|Oct 07:50 PM]: to
Garam [24|Oct 07:50 PM]: i'm drunk by the by
jenkins<3 [24|Oct 07:50 PM]: lol garam you got no probs finding ww2 movies!
jenkins<3 [24|Oct 07:51 PM]: what's your favorite? tough question innit
Drenk [24|Oct 07:51 PM]: But Basterds and Django are really inferior to Pulp and Jackie. It feels like Tarantino just wants to giggle. Like: aha, blood, it's so cool, haha.
Lottery [24|Oct 07:51 PM]: Tarantino always just wants to giggle.
Garam [24|Oct 07:51 PM]: i hate django so fucking much, weirdly. cos it seems people couple those two together a lot
Garam [24|Oct 07:52 PM]: i'm as interested in that era as much, so no problem there
Drenk [24|Oct 07:52 PM]: He always wants to giggle, but, I don't know, I feel a soul in Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown.
Lottery [24|Oct 07:52 PM]: Django seems not as well made in some regards. Feels sloppy. But I enjoyed it.
Drenk [24|Oct 07:52 PM]: Yes, I always enjoy his movies.
Drenk [24|Oct 07:53 PM]: I just don't wait too much from him anymore.
Lottery [24|Oct 07:53 PM]: Same.
Garam [24|Oct 07:54 PM]: me and my flatmate paused django halfway through cause we had work early the next morning and forgot about resuming it until almost a week after
Drenk [24|Oct 07:55 PM]: Django is better than Basterds. I like the superhero transformation.
Garam [24|Oct 07:55 PM]: i have bad memories of strange b-movie sergio leone homage zoom-ins to leo dicaprios unconvincing prepubescent face
Drenk [24|Oct 07:56 PM]: The only movie where I find DiCaprio truly great is the wolf of wall street, I just don't like this movie at all.
Garam [24|Oct 07:56 PM]: same. that film is his raging bull. still love it
jenkins<3 [24|Oct 07:57 PM]: phones are lot up regarding ww2 movies
Garam [24|Oct 07:57 PM]: sorry, missed your Q
Garam [24|Oct 07:57 PM]: allow me to drink and think on it
jenkins<3 [24|Oct 07:57 PM]: been wanting to watch this, and don't it sound a bit basterds and a bit django:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041481/Garam [24|Oct 07:57 PM]: off the top of my head i'd say come and see
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 07:57 PM]: After my Django rewatch, I'd put Basterds above it
Garam [24|Oct 07:58 PM]: which i've only seen once and have no intention of ever seeing ever again
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 07:58 PM]: Most of Django's impact is about the first viewing
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 07:58 PM]: C'mon Basterds is great
Garam [24|Oct 07:59 PM]: a good part of basterds is the closest there's ever been to a gravity's rainbow adaptation
jenkins<3 [24|Oct 08:00 PM]: i lean away from period pieces, too easy imo, but i watch them and like them because i'm a goddamn movie citizen
Garam [24|Oct 08:00 PM]: come on...'scusi' is straight out of pynchon
jenkins<3 [24|Oct 08:00 PM]: come and see, nice
Drenk [24|Oct 08:00 PM]: I disagree completely about the gravity's rainbow comparaison.
Drenk [24|Oct 08:01 PM]: In GR, you know, a lot of stuff happen, people travel. In Basterds, they stay mostly at the same place then they shoot themselves.
Drenk [24|Oct 08:01 PM]: In GR, you're petrified about mass and instant destruction; in Basterds you're just waiting for nazis to be killed.
Drenk [24|Oct 08:02 PM]: I'm hating and all, but I like Basterds.
Drenk [24|Oct 08:02 PM]: Still disappointed that it feels empty to me, expectations are heavy sometimes.
Garam [24|Oct 08:03 PM]: they travel in parts of GR. All of part 1 is in London, all of part 2 is in France. Basterds definitely has the tone of the more zany, Slothrop driven episodes
Garam [24|Oct 08:03 PM]: i don't think basterds is even a classic, just good fun for 00s tarantino. still don't think it's close to his 90s stuff
Garam [24|Oct 08:04 PM]: wayyyy better than django though imo
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:04 PM]: I admire the moral confrontationalness of Basterds, certainly don't think it's empty
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:04 PM]: Tarantino raised a lot of questions about his own depictions of violence
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:05 PM]: Whether intentionally or not
Drenk [24|Oct 08:05 PM]: What's the moral confrontation? I don't see it
Garam [24|Oct 08:05 PM]: i just remembered europa as a runner up great ww2 film that i need to revisit
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:06 PM]: It's like you're supposed to enjoy this revenge fantasy, but suddenly the Holocaust is in the middle of everything
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:07 PM]: You have to actually see Nazi faces being melted.
Drenk [24|Oct 08:07 PM]: You don't see the ending as an orgy? In the theater? It's like an orgasm.
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:07 PM]: Nope
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:07 PM]: In that theater scene you're confronted with what the revenge actually has to be. It's thrilling but sickening at the same time.
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:08 PM]: I hope I'm not alone in that interpretation
Drenk [24|Oct 08:08 PM]: I'll probably watch it for a third time at some point, but every time it felt like we're supposed to enjoy it.
Drenk [24|Oct 08:08 PM]: How you see it is way more interesting
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:09 PM]: The whole movie kind of felt like that for me
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:10 PM]: The opening setpiece creates this unease that you can't shake
Drenk [24|Oct 08:11 PM]: I love the first scene, it's horrifying.
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:11 PM]: The very final scene ("I think this is my masterpiece") is supposed to be the actual victorious revenge moment
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:12 PM]: There's so much moral complexity in that theater though
Drenk [24|Oct 08:12 PM]: But the ending never feels like violence to me.
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:12 PM]: Doesn't the war hero get sickened by the movie?
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:13 PM]: The scalping and the skull-bashing... certainly we're supposed to be horrified by that, at least a little
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:14 PM]: Tarantino is not quite that demented; he understands the difference between fun violence and sick violence
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:14 PM]: (See his Fresh Air interview)
Drenk [24|Oct 08:15 PM]: Oh, yes, the scalping, definitely. The theater scene is so much bigger before than, just after, the horror of the scalp isn't effective to me.
Drenk [24|Oct 08:15 PM]: Maybe I'm too much used to violence in movies. I watch people enjoying themselves, I know I'm not amused, I should not be amused, but I'm not horrified either.
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:16 PM]: It's not a straight-forward revenge fantasy like Kill Bill that you're just supposed to jump on board for...
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:16 PM]: There's sickness all the way through it
Drenk [24|Oct 08:16 PM]: I'll listen to the Fresh Air interview
Drenk [24|Oct 08:16 PM]: What about Django, though?
Drenk [24|Oct 08:17 PM]: I can understand the ambiguity in Basterds even if it's not effective to me, but Django...
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:17 PM]: The Fresh Air interview is mostly about Django, and he's pushed on his use of violence in that interview
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:17 PM]: He talks about how he tried to have 2 distinct types of violence in Django
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:18 PM]: Violence against the masters, which was supposed to be fun and cartoonish (when that woman flies into the next room for example)
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:18 PM]: And violence against the slaves, which is always meant to be deeply disturbing
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:18 PM]: (and is less cartoonish, more realistic)
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:19 PM]: That division was designed into Django from the beginning
Drenk [24|Oct 08:20 PM]: Yes, but I wonder if the movie wouldn't be better without the cartoonish violence
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:25 PM]: Possibly. I have to say that stuff was less fun/exciting on the second watch. Everything felt sadder. Definitely a weakness.
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:26 PM]: But that first watch was one of the most magical theater experiences I've had in recent memory
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:27 PM]: Horse dance reaction on the first watch: OMG this is so crazy, this movie just blew my mind, of course the horse is dancing.
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:28 PM]: Horse dance reaction on the second watch: Ughh... this is all so sad. Why is the horse dancing?
Jeremy Blackman [24|Oct 08:28 PM]: *** WARNING - SPOILERS FOR DJANGO & BASTERDS ABOVE ***
N [24|Oct 09:18 PM]: I like the part with ancora qui
jenkins<3 [24|Oct 10:06 PM]: good job laying down your perspective jb. and drenk was listening and responding. you guys <3
Jeremy Blackman [25|Oct 01:41 AM]:
polkablues [25|Oct 01:52 AM]: You should probably paste that exchange in the actual thread so it doesn't get washed away in the next rain.