A Basterds Story

Check out this INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS one-page comic I did featuring PFC OMAR ULMER aka OMAR DOOM!

Hopefully, if the rumors are right, IB will be released on DVD before XMAS!

More to come!

Paranormal Activity... Completely Terrifying

I seldom see a movie that is actually terrifying, but this is one of them.

Clearly this is not your standard Hollywood movie. It doesn't start with a credits and a fanfare. The movie is presented as if the footage we're seeing is real. I was immediately reminded of seeing The Blair Witch Project in my home town's local indie theater ten years ago. I still get the creeps when I remember Mike standing in the corner at the end of the The Blair Witch Project. I have a bad feeling that Paranormal Activity will have the same effect on me. But that's a good thing.

Like The Blair Witch Project, the film quality is not great and that just adds to the frightening atmosphere. The thing that makes paranormal activity truly frightening is that it plays on our fear of the night. All the creepy stuff that happens to them, happens while they sleep. There is nothing they can do about it. It makes you wonder what would happen if you filmed yourself while you were asleep...Ahhh!

Anyway, I like the mood of the film. It's often very funny. As the film goes on and they get more stressed out the humor fades and the tension rises.

A lot of the movie is filmed from the first person perspective. Every time they hear some scary noise they run to the camera, pick it up and go looking for the noise. When a movie is filmed like that, it feels like it narrows your viewing angle. So it just makes you wonder whats on the left and right that you can't see. The first person perspective just creeps me out because it seems like something could jump in the way of the camera at any moment.

All of the terror in the movie is psychological. Little things like a door moving really freaked the audience out. It was all about what we didn't see. That's what was really scary.

I think this was a really good movie for the horror genre. I hadn't seen anything this good in a while. I rate movies out of 10 stars for IMDB. I would give this movie 8 stars. I think the director did exactly what he set out to do. My only critical comment would be that the very ending is pretty cheesy and it doesn't fit the rest of the movie.

My Movie Posters

Not only do I love movies, but I love movie soundtracks and movie posters.

These are the list of movie posters that proudly hang on the wall of my apartment. In no particular order.

This is the teaser poster from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Now, let me say this, I didn't think that the movie itself was all that great. I loved the original transformers movie; it was action packed and funny. It had that same kind of mixture that you would find in the Die Hard movies. The sequel just got a little too silly I think.

Anyway this poster hangs right behind my TV and it's huge 43x62 inches. It's very creepy as you can see and I like creepy things. Most of my posters are 27x40. But I felt like a poster like this needs to be big. It's so simple and ominous that it needs to be huge in order to have a real presence! The only problem with this poster is that it's so dark that if there is other lights in my room it's hard to see because of the reflections. Besides that, its a great poster and it gets a lot of comments.

This is the italian poster for Once Upon a Time in the West or C'era una volta il West in Italian. I got this poster because I love the style of this movie. It's a western that really stood out to me. It was very stylized in the same way that Hero is stylized. Everyone moves real slow and deliberately. The focus of the movies seem to be the build up to violence rather than the actual violence itself.

In my opinion, this is a very strange poster. The colors are basically pink and yellow and Charles Bronson just looks very odd. What I like is that this is just a very unique poster. It doesn't really give you any idea of what the movie is about. But I like it because it stood out from the average poster I have seen.
This is one of the most interesting posters I have seen. This is the spanish poster for M. The reason I went with the spanish poster is because I like the artwork of this poster the best. Almost all of the movie posters for M had some kind of hand with M drawn on it because it's part of the movie.

This image of the wrinkled up hand with M drawn on it conjures up a lot of different thoughts. It's hard at first to imagine why anyone would have an M on their hand. For some reason, it's also just a creepy kind of demonic looking image.

The poster for M is another example of a poster that really doesn't tell you anything at all about the movie. It just gets you interested with powerful imagery.
This is the movie poster for The Grand Illusion. This is another example of a somewhat strange poster. It has a large illustration of a man looking up and to the left. He looks a little dirty and somewhat mystified. Then in the bottom left, you have a military officer in a neck brace looking off to the right. His hat is clearly askew.

The Grand Illusion poster is seemingly simple, but I think at the same time it tells a lot. When you watch the movie, it might become clear why the officer is smaller than the other man. It also makes sense that the poster would have them on opposite sides looking in opposite directions.

This isn't a great or unique poster. It just happens to be the poster for one of my all time favorite movies. Die Hard: With A Vengeance has it all. Action, comedy, racial tension... well maybe that's not everything, but it's still fun. I just love the dialog between Sam Jackion and Bruce Willis
Here is a great movie with a great poster. The Deer Hunter is an academy award winning film with top notch performances from De Niro and Walken.

I love that this poster only has three colors, black, white and red. Even though the red in the bandanna stand out, what catches my eyes in the intensity in De Niro's eyes. He just looks completely frightening. I suppose if you had never seen the movie, it's probably a pretty disturbing poster.
This is my other huge (43x62) poster. The Dark Knight is one of my favorite movies. I saw it six times in the theater. The only other movie I have seen more than twice was Batman Begins. Hmm seeing a pattern here?

Anyway, I figured I should have a big poster to celebrate one of my favorite movies. I choose this one mostly for its creepy factor. It also has a small puzzle at the bottom which was part of The Dark Knights guerilla marketing campaign. It lead you to a website that had the preview for the movie on it. I was there refreshing the page the moment they released the preview. So this poster kind of reminds me of all that.
Anyone recognize this poster? It's the poster for Alexander Nevsky. What I like about this poster is the kind of forward lean of everything. It kind of conveys a single mindedness or a strength/unity. Clearly Nevsky is a powerful figure even though I can't read anything on the poster.

If you haven't seen the movie, you should. It's kind of cheesy in certain parts, but the music and battle scenes are great. It clearly had influence on a lot of the epic battle movies like Braveheart or Richard III.

Why the Unfilmed Inglourious Basterds Ending Is More Heroic

The ending of Inglourious Basterds (IB) is not the same ending written in the screenplay. I’m talking about the explosive ending of the fiery Theater scene. Though the ending that everybody saw is more controversial and direct, the original ending is more emotional and heroic.

I’ve been waiting for IB for a long, long, long ass time. When the script was leaked in summertime 2008, I stopped whatever lame thing I was doing and searched frantically for it until I found it.

I read the script. It felt like authentic Tarantino. I was excited. But at this point, Brad Pitt wasn’t even cast as Aldo Raine. At least I had the script, I thought. I read the script couple more times and played out the scenes in my head the way I imagined them. And every scene was EPIC. I imagined the conclusion of the movie in the forest between Aldo and Landa as if it was a scene straight out of 300, with a monstrous, fiery storm brewing behind our heroes in a sullen, hellish emptiness.

TONIGHT....WE DINE....IN...NAZI-OCCUPIED FRANCE!

But back to the Theater scene.

The Film Ending.

In the film, the bomb-strapped Basterds, the Bear Jew and Pfc. Ulmer, step out of the theater, go to the men’s restroom, load their pistols, head over to Hitler’s box seating, and riddle Hitler, and a bunch of Nazis, with burning bullets. Their ankle bombs explode, finishing off the two Basterds and whoever else was still alive.

I liked this ending. I liked the fact that Hitler was finished off at the hands of our very own Basterds. This provides us with a more cathartic conclusion. Not just a tease. If you’re gonna break the rules, you might as well go all the way and blast Hitler’s brain with a pair of machine guns. And that’s just what QT did.

But that’s not what took place in the original script.

The Script Ending.

In the script, the Bear Jew heads out to the restroom alone to activate his ankle bomb in the stall. He walks out of the stall and heads calmly towards the exit. But there’s a Nazi soldier in there washing his hands. The Nazi turns casually towards the Bear Jew, and his face begins to scream. The Bear Jew sees the Nazi’s exasperated facial expression and notices the swastika scar on his forehead. The two have crossed paths before.

Both the Bear Jew and the Nazi, who are only a couple feet away from each other, pull out their pistols and blast each other away until they empty their chambers. Both fall dead.

When I first read this, I imagined this whole scene in slow motion. It also reminded me of the close up gunfight in the gun fu movie the girl in True Romance watches in Christian Slater’s apartment.

Meanwhile, Pfc. Hirschberg, is still sitting in his theater seat. After Shosanna’s message is delivered and the theater is bursting in flames, Hirschberg tries to get out of the theater, but can’t since everybody is stampeding madly. He knows he won’t be able to get out on time and accepts his fate right before the bomb explodes.

This is what was originally in the script. The fate of both Basterds is unique and their reactions are more human. Hirschberg still tries to get out. He doesn’t wanna die. But at the end, he wrestles with his emotions and accepts his fate, unlike the rest of the Nazi theatergoers. It’s admirable. It’s human to do whatever you can to survive. It’s heroic to accept the dire circumstances with a heads up.

In the script, the emotional conflict the Bear Jew undergoes is evident when he faces the Nazi soldier. When he looks into the eyes of the Nazi, time freezes. It is the point of no return. If he doesn’t dive for cover, the Nazi will blow him away. What is he going to do? He decides to go down fighting. This ending is as QT described it in the script, “romantic.”

In the film, you completely lose this sense of urgency and human need for survival. The Basterds completely ignored the bombs strapped to their ankles. They didn’t care they were gonna die. It’s hard to sympathize with them when it doesn’t seem like they were overcoming any emotional conflict when deciding to bombard Hitler’s theater box until their bombs exploded.

The biggest obstacle heroes face is the most prevalent obstacle that people can relate to: overcoming one’s emotions. Bitchslapping your instinct for survival, and knowing that if you’re gonna go down, at least you’ll go down like a man. This scene in the film missed the first half of this equation and without it the result is a little less human and a little more robotic.

I loved the film. I watched it twice and I can’t wait to see it a dozen more times when it comes out on DVD. I just couldn’t help but feel as I walked out of the theater how much more awesome it would have been to have seen the “romantic” end I had replayed in my head so many times over the past year.

Law Abiding Citizen

Our first review!

I just watched Law Abiding Citizen which stars Jamie Foxx, and Gerard Butler. It just came out today and the preview was interesting enough that I decided to go see it.

The movie starts off with Clyde Shelton and his family being senselessly attacked in their home. Within the first few minutes, the stage is set for the whole movie. They really waste no time.

Flash-forward ten years. Clyde Shelton has murdered the two criminals and is brought to jail. Somehow from within jail he is orchestrating very complicated attacks on everyone who was involved in the trial that let the murderer of his wife and child go free.

The movie has some pretty good twists and turns as we find out how Clyde Shelton is orchestrating all of these attacks from his jail cell. The only issue is that the resolution is actually pretty stupid, but I won't spoil it here.

This is definitely a movie that can't be taken too seriously. It would go well with pizza and beer. There are many scenes that had the audience laughing, but at the same time there were many gruesome scenes that showed us just how insane Clyde Shelton is. I also had trouble understanding why Jamie Foxx's character was running all over the place like a detective when he was playing a lawyer.

The ending is also a bit of a cop out in my opinion, but I won't spoil that either.

Overall, the plot feels like a combination of Saw and Falling Down. There are a lot of blood and guts for a movie of this genre. The main characters in both Law Abiding Citizen and Falling Down are pretty similar. Both have lost their wife and daughter in someway. Both feel like the country or the system has failed them in someway. Neither one really feels like the bad guy. The main difference would be that Clyde Shelton seems to be pushing the insanity a little further.

If you aren't into blood, guts, or revenge you needn't bother seeing Law Abiding Citizen. Otherwise, it makes for worthwhile violent trip to the theater.

Yes, It's a Blog

Well, I guess it was just a matter of time...

JP and I have been talking about movies since I was a freshmen in college. Lately, I have been watching more and more movies and I've been starting to write my thoughts down. So I guess it only makes sense to have a blog. The only issue is that there are so damn many blogs. So I guess we have to have some clear goals in mind.

I think mainly this will be a good resource for writing down our thoughts about movies and improving our ability to critique and think critically about movies. Even though I have seen a lot of movies, I don't think that I'm particularly good at picking out the good from the bad. So hopefully putting some thought into occasional reviews will help.

We should also have more than just movie reviews. I think it would be cool to have top 10 lists, movie trailers, and just comments about movies that are coming out. We might also post about the movies that we buy and the ones we hope to see.

I don't expect there to be a huge readership. In fact it will probably be just me and JP reading this. Regardless, I think it will be nice to have a place to post our thoughts about movies.

Anyway, I think the first thing I want to talk about is movie review systems. In general, I think it's hard to trust a single movie review unless you are really familiar with that critic. That's why it's so nice to have the movie review aggregators. They're handy when you don't really know what's in the box office and you just want to see something good.

There are three big movie review aggregators that come to mind: Rotten Tomatoes, metacritic, and MRQE. All three are kind of different but my favorite has to be MRQE.

Rotten Tomatoes was the first movie review aggregator that I used. I really liked it. The biggest problem with Rotten Tomatoes is that it's at very slow site. It also doesn't have a mobile version. None of these three sites actually have a mobile site for that matter. I'm not sure why. Don't they think people will be at the theater with their mobile phone and want to check out the aggregate review?

The other issue I have with Rotten Tomatoes is that a review is scored as a 0 or 1. Basically, the critics' reviews are scored somehow as being either good or bad (fresh or rotten). The aggregate score is the percentage of good reviews. This makes sense in principal, but if a lot of critics feel that a movie is worth seeing but not great, it seems like the RT score will be inflated. But that's a minor issue.

The issue I have with metacritic is that the ratings seem to be artificially precise. Like what exactly is the difference between a 75 review and a 70 review. It seems like it would be hard to quantify.

MRQE on the other hand seems to be just about right. It's breaks the reviews down into A/B/C/D/F buckets and aggregates over that. One of the nice features is that you can actually see the distribution of ratings. What MRQE is missing is a good Forum or social networking kind of aspect. Users can submit a review, but there isn't a way to see all the reviews you've written. That just seems silly. You also can't comment on other users reviews. I think MRQE has a lot of potential.

Well, I just wanted to write about something. Mission Accomplished.