Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds premiered in Cannes this morning to divided opinion. The primary positive line seems to be that the movie is enjoyable pop-culture fluff, way light on historical accuracy (yeah, really?) and heavy on the eccentric characters and dialogue that typically populate Tarantino’s films. Also highlighted left and right is the performance by Christoph Waltz as the Jew-hunting Nazi Colonel Hans Landa. Star-making, folks say. And Anne Thompson calls it “defiantly an art film,” which is an interesting quote, since that’s more or less what people who’ve been paying attention expected to see.
But many comments seem overly focused on the fact that the movie is more talk than action. (Really? Have you guys not been paying attention for the past 15 years?) Then The Guardian dropped a one-star review anchored by this: “an armor-plated turkey.”
Make of that what you will. I’m not reading most of the reviews; I’d rather wait until August.
In the meantime, Yahoo has QT introducing a clip from the film. He describes the basic setup, which leads into a little scene that only whets my appetitie for the movie. Oh, and the music in this clip? That’s Morricone and Pontecorvo’s ‘Algiers November 1, 1954’ from The Battle of Algiers. You can hear that track and the rest of the score as I previously assembled it here.
Head to Yahoo to see the clip in HD.