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This article was published 17/12/2009 (6118 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Inglourious Basterds (Two-Disc DVD Special Edition)

FILMMAKER Quentin Tarantino pits cinema against history in this Second World War revenge fantasy.

Cinema wins.

It’s unconventional cinema, to be sure. The movie offers up three narrative streams: An American officer known as "Aldo the Apache" (Brad Pitt) commands a guerilla campaign against the Nazis with an all-Jewish commando unit; ruthless Nazi officer Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), known as "The Jew Hunter," attempts to uncover a plot to assassinate Hitler; and the Jewish cineaste Shoshanna (Mélanie Laurent), the sole survivor of an early attack by Landa, operates a cinema in Paris where she sees an opportunity for revenge when she is asked to host the première of a German propaganda film.

Tarantino takes astonishing chances, from stretching out a single scene set in a tiny French tavern to maximum length to presenting an alternate history of how the war actually ended.

Lucky it’s such captivating cinema. That tends to dispel any anxiety you might feel about future generations seeing this movie and assuming it must be true.

The second-disc extras features a tribute to the cheesy Italian film from which Tarantino took the title, and an interview with Tarantino and Pitt by film critic Elvis Mitchell. 4 stars

 

Taking Woodstock

COME with us now to the heady days of SSRq69, when rock music was subversive, sexuality was adventurous, and the casual smoking of a doobie didn’t inspire news pundits to call for the return of the knout.

This fact-based film from director Ang Lee follows Elliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin), a nice, Jewish, (secretly gay) interior designer living in Greenwich Village when he answered to a call of duty from his bitter-pill mom (Imelda Staunton) to help revive their ramshackle "resort" (read: motel) in the Catskills.

As the president of the local chamber of commerce, Elliot holds a permit for a music festival, and coincidentally, plans for a giant three-day rock fest have been shot down in a neighbouring county. Enlisting the aid of dairy farmer Max Yasgur (Eugene Levy), a man with sufficient property to accommodate a mega-music festival, Elliot helps bring the Woodstock festival to fruition.

Director Ang Lee smartly employs techniques such as split screen to write with the same cinematic lexicon as the documentary Woodstock and the film functions as a fresh affirmation of freedom and tolerance in the face of small-minded prejudice. 3-1/2 stars

 

The Hangover

AS a mystery-comedy, the premise is gold.

Three friends go to Las Vegas for a sustained weekend bachelor party. The next morning, the group’s de facto alpha male Phil (Bradley Cooper) wakes up in the deluxe suite wearing a hospital bracelet. Stu (Ed Helms), a dentist, is missing a front tooth. The creepy misfit Alan (Zach Galifianakis) has the tooth in his pocket. But he’s as stumped as anyone else as to the more compelling mysteries presented by a) the absence of the groom; b) the presence of a baby in the closet; and c) the real live tiger in the bathroom.

This could have been a unique new entry in the mystery genre. It’s not a who-done-it or a how-done-it, but a what-the-hell-have-we-done? But director Todd Phillips (Old School) doesn’t embrace this as a mystery story and instead falls into the default mode of raunchy comedies about men behaving badly. Like we don’t have enough of those.

Still, the film has its pleasures. Helms is an appealing second banana, with his girlish scream and his anything-for-a-laugh ethos. Galifianakis is also as distinctive a comic character as he is a standup comic, even if Alan is a tad more skeevy than the average comedy oddball. (Alan is not permitted within 50 feet of a school or a Chuck E. Cheese.)

I especially disliked his use of a baby as a comic prop for a rude joke. "Not cool," Stu observes.

I concur. 2-1/2 stars

 

Robot Chicken: Season Four

FAMILY Guy creator Seth MacFarlane courts unfavourable comparison when he contributes a puppet cameo in the first sketch of the Cartoon Network’s audacious stop-motion series.

Personally, when it comes to cruel, puerile humour and relentless pop culture evisceration, I’ll go with Robot Chicken over Family Guy any day.

Utilizing retooled action figures and elaborate mini-sets, co-creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich offer up multiple goodies in this season. Quickie episodes also include a building contractor selling an Amazon chieftain on the booby traps that would go into that opening temple sequence in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Guest voices Tila Tequila (here presented as a robot with a malfunctioning emotion chip) and Billy Dee Williams (forced to defend the actions of Lando Calrissian while purchasing Tic Tacs at a convenience store) demonstrate an amazing willingness to participate in celebrity self-flagellation. 3-1/2 stars

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

 

Top 10 DVD Rentals

1. Public Enemies

2. Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince

3. Four Christmases

4. Julie & Julia

5. Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian

6. Terminator Salvation

7. Angels & Demons

8. Funny People

9. Star Trek

10. The Ugly Truth

— Rogers Video, week ending Dec. 13