where: CENTURY 14 VALLEJO in Vallejo, CA
when: Friday, August 21st, 2009
show: 3:30 p.m.
costs: $7.25 Ticket + $4.25 medium Diet ( w/ Barq's & Cherry flavors ) Coke + $5.00 small Kettle Corn = $16.50
auditorium: 7
seat: 4th row, 9 column
synopsis: In 1941, during the German occupation of France, Shosanna Dreyfus ( Melanie Laurent ) witnesses her family's execution at the hands of Nazis led by Col. Hans Landa ( Christoph Waltz ). Barely escaping with her life, she goes to Paris and starts life anew as a cinema owner/operator under an assumed name, Emmanuelle Mimieux. Elsewhere, Lt. Aldo Raine ( Brad Pitt ) organizes a band of Jewish soldiers, The Basterds, to attack Germans in acts of retribution, Apache style. When the Third Reich's high command decides to see a movie premiere of NATION' S PRIDE at Shosanna's cinema sometime in 1944, The Basterds join a German actress/undercover agent, Bridget Von Hammersmark ( Diane Kruger ) on a mission to take down all the Nazis' highest officials and bring the war to an abrupt end.
prediction: Col. Hans Landa is easily THE Bad Guy for this year come OSCAR NIGHT--think ... NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN ( 2007 )-type of Evil Bad Guy, Anton Chigurh, only smarter.
noteworthy scenes: 1.) The LaPadite farmhouse; 2.) The tobacco pipes; 3.) The English conversation; 4.) Shosanna; 5.) The Jewish recruits under Lt. Raine; 6.) The scalpings; 7.) Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz ( Til Schweiger ); 8.) The spared soldier; 9.) The popularity of Frederic Zoller ( Daniel Bruhl ); 10.) Nazi lunch time; 11.) The nitrate films; 12.) The card game; 13.) The stand-off; 14.) The veterinary hospital; 15.) The Napkin; 16.) The "Italians;" 17.) The Shoe; 18.) The interrogation; 19.) The movie; 20.) Negotiating with the OSS; 21.) The projection room; 22.) The vengeful spree; and 23.) The switching of places.
audience reaction: The audience really enjoyed this movie.
recommendation: Go see this entertaining war movie, the best Tarantino film that I've ever seen.
spoiler alert! I don't know why Tarantino chose to spell the movie title in such a way. At one point, Monsieur LaPadite said , "Merci," to Col. Landa but the subtitle stayed with the French word instead of showing its English equivalent. It's impossible for any lone sniper in a FIXED location, a bell tower in this case, to hold off hundreds of soldiers for three days! The sniper could easily be surrounded, bombed/strafed by a fighter plane, shelled by artillery or tank fire, stormed at night, and/or--in three days' time--be starved/dehydrated and sleep-deprived into a compromised situation. And everytime the sniper had to reload, his enemies would not only gain more ground but would also be able to aim their rifles at his location so that as soon as he popped-up his head, it would be easily blown to bits in a hail of fire. Sgt. Stiglitz could have easily disarmed the Nazi officer by shooting at the center line of the inside wrist--this disables the trigger finger--and altering the outcome of the shootout since that would have added to their advantage then because they already had their guns drawn. The posted German soldiers should have easily seen the concealed gun--it should have been kept in the other sleeve since it was intended for use at close range only. Hitler used look-alikes. Lt. Raine's neck scar was never explained. This is just a fictional retelling of one of many attempts on Hitler's life.
fyi: According to Jewish folklore, a Golem is a giant humanoid made of clay which is artificially given life and which obeys its creator's command without question.
The Bubonic Plague actually started in Germany. When some Roman Catholic missionaries arrived at German port towns, they were shocked to find that the locals practiced a form of pagan worship whose goddess is associated with the domesticated cat. So the missionaries had all the cats eradicated in these towns, making them a hotbed for rat and mice overpopulation, the very same rodents which were infested with Bubonic disease-carrying fleas!
The practice of scalping was actually introduced into this country by some European fur traders ( The Dutch, I think ). When the Native Americans adopted this practice, they found out that they "got the short end of the deal" because Europeans carry the gene for male pattern hair loss, which they don't!
Just like Adolph Hitler, Saddam Hussein also used look-alikes. If you compare pictures of Saddam taken before the 2003 war to those of Saddam captured, sentenced and executed, you'll notice two things: 1.) The 2003 Saddam is much older in appearance and 2.) The pre-2003 Saddam has good teeth and good mandibular arch but the older Saddam has bad teeth and bad mandibular arch--teeth and mandibular arch are not always factored into plastic reconstructive surgery since they would just further complicate matters! Supposedly, Saddam is hiding-out in Saudi Arabia.
When I was younger, I fasted ( i.e. gone without food ) a number of times. They were usually just for three days, but I fasted for five days twice. The third day was always "hell" for me because that was when I would become weak and faint and have horrible food nightmares in which I would gorged myself with food! If you think food is not scary, try going on a fast for at least three days then tell me about your nightmares. Supposedly, Zoller was without food AND water AND sleep for three days so, in real life, he would have been easily overcome by the allies through these simple factors.
Back in Kidapawan, Cotabato, Philippines, when I was about five years old, I took the seat cushions of our Korean War era one star general army jeep and set them on the downstairs living room floor so I could play "house" by myself one rainy night. One of our pigs was tied outside the house opposite of the side where the pig pen was at. Because of the rain, one of our maids decided to take the pig across the living room instead of taking it around the back. As the maid was closing the door, the rope slipped-off her hand and the pig dashed across the floor. As it ran past my playhouse, I grabbed the rope and wrapped it around my wrist to keep it from slipping. The pig panicked, then ran around me in circles with the muddy, feces and urine-soaked rope wrapping around my neck! I was pulling one way while the pig was pulling the other way so that the rope tightened around my neck. The maid just stood shocked at the doorway as my vision started to blur and as the room seemed to go around while I suffocated! Then, something in me made me dig with my nails at either side of my neck. I kept clawing until I could get my fingers between the encircled rope and my neck; and I pulled hard, as hard as I possibly could. The rope loosened and I was able to draw in much needed air. I slipped the rope over my head and ran out of the room because I was afraid that the maid would tell my dad and make him angry at me then beat me! To get to the hallway, I had to duck under a chalkboard that my dad had put in place as a room partition. But I stood up too soon and hit the back of my head against the bottom of the chalkboard. I fell down. I got up and ran into the unoccupied front room ( which at one time was rented-out as a beauty parlor ), exited through its front door, and sat alone in the dark on the front porch while mosquitoes feasted on me as I waited for everybody inside the house to fall asleep. One of my Grade One classmates happened to walk by and kept me company just to while the time away until it stopped raining. When my classmate left, I realized that it was already late enough at night for me to safely sneak back into the house and sleep on my mat in the huge bedroom where everyone in the family slept.
I overslept ... on a school day! My eldest sister came over to my side to rouse me only to panic at the sight of me in my mud and blood-soaked white T-shirt, and with a gory gash around my neck like I was just hanged! Did I get rushed to a hospital or to a clinic, even? No, my mom just swabbed my neck with Merthiolate and had me go to school! Even at a little after 8:00 a.m., the sun was already bright and hot as my salty sweat beaded down to my unbandaged neck wound and added to my pain while I walked to school which was about a mile away--I wasn't even given any pain medication! And flies were everywhere. It didn't help matters for me that my teacher and classmates just made fun of me! I could have died of septicemia, meningitis or encephalitis! A nice set of parents I had! This is just one of many instances in my life in which I could have died or gotten killed easily. ( This particularly unpleasant event in my life is why I was fixated on Lt. Raine's neck scar. But, unlike Lt. Raine, I didn't end up with a scar around my neck. )
word of advice: Anybody who glorifies war probably never experienced its Hellish conditions.
tidbits: At work today, I decided to treat myself to a maple bar, my favorite, at break time since I hadn't eaten one in about a year. The funny thing was, I found it to be just too sweet for my taste now and ended up just throwing half of it away. The sense of taste is suppose to get duller with age, but I guess my case is an exception to the rule.
I also swung by Sir Speedy today, after work, to pick up my new movie reviewer business cards before going to the cinema to see this movie. I like my new cards better.
