Sep 20, 2009

Inglourious Basterds



No expectation. That is the key to watching any movies nowadays. Even though, I must admit I did have some level of anticipation when I watched Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds two days ago.

I mean it IS a Tarantino flick and my expectation are always high when it is a Tarantino flick. Although I am not a hugh Tarantino fan, I loved Reservoir Dogs (I considered this as his best) and Pulp Fiction. Therefore, Basterds will inescapably be pegged to that level Tarantino set for himself.

Despite it being a very good movie – better than Valkyrie but Valkyrie is at a different level the bad kind – , it was to me, still below those standards. For example Reservoir Dogs, even the minor characters were given more depth. Here, in Basterds, I felt that only Col. Hans Landa, exceptionally played by Christoph Waltz, were given enough credit. Fortunately, there has been talks of a prequel already and, hopefully, characters like Eli Roth's "Bear Jew", will be explored further.



What I really like about Tarantino's films are their posters. This time the title of the film is set in Clarendon – my favorite classic slab-serifs. The overall design is wonderfully executed. The article on movie posters by FontFeed couldn't have say it better:

Offsetting the figures with desaturated skin tones and greenish grey hues against the vivid red painted bands works very well. The images just ooze pulp sensitivity – they could have been lifted straight from the covers of comic books –, and the casual placement of the logo adds liveliness and spunk to the posters in this series.

The final verdict: Basterds is a well-executed, and, even though by Tarantino standard it is not the best, an excellent film .

Sounds good? Then, check out the teaser 6-page comic here.

(First image is from my Make Something Cool Everyday flickr set.)

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