Sure Thing

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It's understood that Quentin Tarantino is incapable of writing or shooting anything unironically -- everything he does has to have quote marks. He's never tried to ape Bressonian simplicity (which is pretty much the opposite of '70s exploitation shlock, which is where he lives), and he could never replicate it if he tried so why bring it up? I'm just saying I'd be delighted if Tarantino had shot Inglourious Basterds in black and white. God, think of the lusciousness.

From the just-published Vanity Fair gallery of Inglourious Basterds stills.

Escapist Tunnel Job<< previous | next >>Bad Timing?

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on April 4, 2009 at 11:53 AM

comment #1

raygo says ...

Meh, Nothing about this interests me.

Posted by raygo at April 4, 2009 12:55 PM

comment #2

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

Pitt has a weird gurn in every shot.

Posted by BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey at April 4, 2009 12:56 PM

comment #3

/3rtfu11 says ...

That idea has already been done - The Good German.

Posted by /3rtfu11 at April 4, 2009 1:31 PM

comment #4

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

Is it just me or does Tarantino look very much like his vampire-self from From Dusk Till Dawn.

D.Z. must be in the middle of something...

Posted by Deathtongue_Groupie at April 4, 2009 1:38 PM

comment #5

YRG says ...

I don't know if IB will be the breakthrough role to make Eli Roth a star, but it will certainly get him noticed... maybe enough for him to consider adding the actor hyphenate to his current multi role. All I know is that his cameo in Cabin Fever was the best thing in it (although, to be fair, I turned off the movie soon after). I hope he does get some acclaim from this role as he's a funny guy and i'd like to see more from him other than torture porn. Plus, I went to high school with him and would like to see a fellow classmate do well. Ah heck, who am I kidding, I wish he'd pull me up with him.

Posted by YRG at April 4, 2009 1:49 PM

comment #6

MickTravisMcGee says ...

I want to see this now, before any more stills, any more posters, any more trailers.

Roth was good in Cabin Fever, but I have to say my favorite aspect was the blond guy whose name escapes me -- he was the dick in the passenger seat at the beginning of "Supertroopers." In Cabin Fever, he was the only guy who didn't act like a character in a horror movie but acted like a member of the audience, stuck in a horror movie. That was brilliant. Of course Roth wrote all that, I suppose.

Posted by MickTravisMcGee at April 4, 2009 2:06 PM

comment #7

Sabina E says ...

Nah, I think shooting this in B/W would be too predictable and cliched. I'm glad it's being shot in color.

I read the screenplay, LOVED it, and am excited for the film.

Posted by Sabina E at April 4, 2009 3:24 PM

comment #8

frankbooth says ...

I thought you had to be kidding, YRG, until you got to the part about knowing him and wanting to suck up.

You're right. He's the greatest.

Posted by frankbooth at April 4, 2009 3:50 PM

comment #9

mutinyco says ...

I was of the impression that a section of this movies IS in B&W. Says it in the script, even the trailer showed B&W clips.

Posted by mutinyco at April 4, 2009 3:53 PM

comment #10

frankbooth says ...

Hey, you know how those Star Wars fans made their own Jar Jar-free edits of Episode One? Think anyone will do that with Roth and IB?

Might be worth holding out for. Seriously, his presence could make this the first Q.T. film I don't see in the theater.

Posted by frankbooth at April 4, 2009 3:53 PM

comment #11

Sabina E says ...

Mutiny, yes, there are some scenes in B/W in the screenplay.

Posted by Sabina E at April 4, 2009 6:18 PM

comment #12

lipranzer says ...

Whatever you may think of the merits of Tarantino's filmmaking, or lack thereof - and I'm not getting involved in that debate - I always find it strange his style is considered "ironic." Every film he's done is filtered, it's true, but they're all mash notes to the types of films he loved in his youth and still loves. None of that is ironic.

Posted by lipranzer at April 4, 2009 7:22 PM

comment #13

frankbooth says ...

Lipranzer has a good point. People who don't get him say that Lynch is ironic, too (or worse yet, "campy") and they couldn't be more wrong. He's as earnest as they come.

Posted by frankbooth at April 4, 2009 7:25 PM

comment #14

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

I wish these nerds would make a proper fucking film. Stop this homage bullshit. Pulp Fiction was so great because he took his influences and welded them to original, fresh storytelling. The recent stuff is just tired rehashes of shit that we've already seen. Fucking grow up.

Same goes for Snyder, who is following up the very good Watchmen with a film about sexy female prisoners. For fuck's sake. He made a movie that had fanboy appeal and yet crossed over to mainstream critical acceptance, and instead of following that up with a proper film he regresses to make a wanky wet dream fantasy chock full of TV starlets.

Posted by BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey at April 4, 2009 7:40 PM

comment #15

Glenn Kenny says ...

"Fucking grow up," says BBWD.

Not going to happen. These guys are who they are, and these are the films they make. As the guy in "Glengarry Glen Ross" says, "If you don't like it, LEAVE." Because you can bitch and moan and imprecate until kingdom come, and they'll never make that "proper" film you think they've got in them.

Posted by Glenn Kenny at April 4, 2009 8:17 PM

comment #16

D.Z. says ...

Man, Daniel Bruhl deserves better than this. He's the only [white] 30-something actor I've seen in recent years who's not trying to pander himself to the dumb jocks, the hipsters or the geeks, and he ends up getting typecast as a Nazi. But then the director was the same idiot who cast Sonny Chiba as a sushi chef and Kurt Russell as an emo stuntman, so why should I be surprised?

Deathtongue: No matter how long I take to respond, the fact that he's a plagiarist won't change, so...

YRG: Roth's a mellow and fun guy when he's hosting events at the New Beverly, which is why I'm wondering why he hangs out with a basement-dwelling control freak like QT.

Bosh: "Pulp Fiction was so great because he took his influences and welded them to original, fresh storytelling."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZKgptV4GmQ

"Same goes for Snyder, who is following up the very good Watchmen with a film about sexy female prisoners."

Snyder's trying to pull a George Miller and do a children's fantasy flick.

Posted by D.Z. at April 4, 2009 8:37 PM

comment #17

Hallick says ...

"It's understood that Quentin Tarantino is incapable of writing or shooting anything unironically -- everything he does has to have quote marks."

First of all, shooting in black and white doesn't innoculate anybody's movie from quotation marked irony, so I don't really get the connection you're getting here.

Secondly, Tarantino has several passages in all of his films that are what they are, no irony to be seen for miles (like Jackson and Roth's face off in Pulp Fiction, Willis' rage out at DeMeideros in the same film, Forrester and Grier talking about getting old and tired in Jackie Brown, Thurman's opening scene in Kill Bill, and so on). Even when Quentin Tarantino is lost up the butt of his own drive-in movie theater history, he's rather serious about it.

Posted by Hallick at April 4, 2009 8:47 PM

comment #18

nemo says ...

Tarantino, as always, the hippest video store clerk on the planet.

Posted by nemo at April 4, 2009 8:55 PM

comment #19

frankbooth says ...

Yeah, D.Z., but at least Reservoir Dogs was a highly original film that wasn't at all like anything that had come before it.

Especially the bank-robbery part.

Posted by frankbooth at April 4, 2009 9:35 PM

comment #20

lazarus says ...

Shut up, D.Z.

Someone had to say it.

Posted by lazarus at April 4, 2009 9:37 PM

comment #21

MovieBob says ...

QT isn't ironic. It's Rodriguez who seems incapable of taking anything 100% seriously. Go back and watch "Kill Bill" - the whole point of the whole damn enterprise is taking all these junky genre-beats that EVERYONE ELSE appreciates "ironically" and infusing them with weight and depth. Any idiot with a copy of the Psychotronic Guide could come up with O-Ren Ishii, the TRICK is that she's a real character of depth and pathos amid all that.

What people don't seem to "get" about Quentin is that it's not really "homage" with him - I honestly think that his filmmaking IS him being honest and introspective... that "the movies" makes up the vast, vast majority of his psyche and frame-of-reference. Dollars to donuts that if/when he gazes on a sunset and feels genuinely moved, his mind's-eye is already affixing a grainy filter and a scratchy Morricone riff to the image. It's who he is. And it's not a "bad" thing because the movies are good and come from a pure place - he's "about" film the same way that Herzog is "about" man-unhinged-in-the-forest-primeval.

Posted by MovieBob at April 4, 2009 9:54 PM

comment #22

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

lazarus - he's either slippin' or (egads!) getting healthier with his Tarantino obsession: nearly 12 hours to post something.

Of course, he still had to post something, didn't he?

God, 4 months of this with a peak next month for Cannes. Well, at least we might be spared the endless thread hijackings for the duration, so there's that...

Posted by Deathtongue_Groupie at April 4, 2009 9:55 PM

comment #23

D.Z. says ...

Bob: "the whole point of the whole damn enterprise is taking all these junky genre-beats that EVERYONE ELSE appreciates "ironically" and infusing them with weight and depth."

If reading an entry from an encyclopedia on snakes and stealing a quote from a book on superheroes counts as "depth", then sure.

"Any idiot with a copy of the Psychotronic Guide could come up with O-Ren Ishii, the TRICK is that she's a real character of depth and pathos amid all that."

If character means involves bringing out those tired Dragon Lady stereotypes, then sure.

Deathtongue: I can't wait for that woman who called him a fascist at Cannes to be vindicated.

Posted by D.Z. at April 4, 2009 10:47 PM

comment #24

Movie fan09 says ...

frankbooth Author Profile Page says ...

Hey, you know how those Star Wars fans made their own Jar Jar-free edits of Episode One? Think anyone will do that with Roth and IB?

FB-
Did they ever do one without Hayden C?
maybe just have someone reading the lines via badly tacked on sound?
That would be great.

Posted by Movie fan09 at April 4, 2009 11:33 PM

comment #25

frankbooth says ...

The only thing that could save the prequels would be going back in time, writing decent scripts and hiring a director who talks to his actors. Cutting Christiansen out couldn't hurt, though.

Yeah, Reservoir Dogs. Not like ANYTHING EVER MADE BEFORE. Particularly in ASIA.

Way better than all those crappy, derivative movies from HONG KONG. Yep.

Posted by frankbooth at April 5, 2009 3:15 AM

comment #26

actionlover says ...

This movie's gonna be AWESOME!

Posted by actionlover at April 5, 2009 7:39 AM

comment #27

astrophore says ...

lipranzer and MovieBob are spot on.

Wes Anderson is an ironic filmmaker, the Coens are ironic, but QT only imitates irony. What you see is, ultimately, what you get.

You can attack him for this, but he ain't changing. Whereas the great American filmmakers of the 1970s took their love of classic film and turned it into something personal and different, Tarantino does the same with his obsessions.

You can argue that he's a rip-off artist or that the source material is inherently unworthy of homage. I disagree. I'm happy to have him make these movies.

Posted by astrophore at April 5, 2009 8:32 AM

comment #28

MilkMan says ...

Tarantino is a thief. He's a petty criminal who somehow decided to make movies instead of jacking cars and breaking into homes. So I agree with DZ and other people who like to point this out, because it should be pointed out. However, who says that thievery isn't a viable artistic method? It is. Tarantino is a Pop Artist. He uses trash and his material, the shit that other people didn't want. He's like Rauschenberg. I wish more people would follow his example instead of just nutballing him. There is a lot of trash out there for other people to collect and do their own thing.

Posted by MilkMan at April 5, 2009 9:57 AM

comment #29

astrophore says ...

Every artist is a thief. A genius is just one who steals the least.

Tarantino is not a genius, but I enjoy watching his thievery. When he ransacks those homes, I want to shake his hand.

Posted by astrophore at April 5, 2009 10:38 AM

comment #30

YRG says ...

BBWD's complaint that these filmmakers should grow up and make a proper film remind me of the complaints that Spielberg had too much childish fantasy in his films and couldn't make a serious film. Then he made Schindler's. So, once they get all this out of their system, it could be coming... but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Posted by YRG at April 5, 2009 3:22 PM

comment #31

D.Z. says ...

Milkman: "However, who says that thievery isn't a viable artistic method? It is. Tarantino is a Pop Artist. He uses trash and his material, the shit that other people didn't want."

Well, I want the full version of Fist of Legend and a subbed and uncut Drunken Master 2, as well as an uncut Supercop. And I'm sure a lot of fans want Zatoichi's Piligrimage, rather than a remake. But what makes him a real a-hole is claiming that he only watches trash cinema, and then swiping that dance scene from I, Vitelloni for Reservoir Dogs, because it keeps people from watching those types of classics. At least Lucas and Woo actually tried to give audiences some culture with their support for Kurosawa and Melville, but QT will always be remembered as a carnie trying to sell his crap in a new package.

astrophore: "Every artist is a thief. A genius is just one who steals the least."

So you're admitting he's an idiot?

YRG: "BBWD's complaint that these filmmakers should grow up and make a proper film remind me of the complaints that Spielberg had too much childish fantasy in his films and couldn't make a serious film. Then he made Schindler's."

IB is more like Ilsa than Schindler's List. Anyway, we'll validated again on Spielberg when he tackles Oldboy.

Posted by D.Z. at April 5, 2009 4:24 PM

comment #32

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

I just think that it's a shame these guys don't expand their range a bit. PTA made a fucking belter of a film with TWBB - it should have been held up as a life lesson to the other movie nerds that you can stray away from your signature style and still make a crackerjack of a movie.

Posted by BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey at April 5, 2009 8:11 PM

comment #33

Gordon27 says ...

Shut the fuck up and die, you stupid piece of shit.

Posted by Gordon27 at April 5, 2009 8:15 PM

comment #34

Gordon27 says ...

(that was directed at DZ, not Wonky Donkey)

Posted by Gordon27 at April 5, 2009 8:16 PM

comment #35

astrophore says ...

I think PTA is one American filmmaker who has the best shot at greatness. Ranking artists is a fool's game, but I love Anderson precisely because he swings for the fences every time, and stubbornly, almost pathologically, refuses to make the same movie twice. He's a natural risk taker.

But I can't punish Tarantino for not being able to take those risks. He has his limits, he's got his groove, and people like it. He's an expert remixer, but there's art in that process.

Cinema is a mature art form -- it is expansive enough to encompass different techniques and influences.

Posted by astrophore at April 5, 2009 8:49 PM

comment #36

frankbooth says ...

No, a genius is the one who steals BEST.

And D.Z., you've never seen I Vitelloni, have you? I doubt you've even seen Reservoir Dogs, because there's no dance scene in it (unless you mean Madsen's "dancing" to Stuck in the Middle).

Was Stealers Wheel used by Fellini? Which character gets his ear cut off?

You've even made this coment before:

"Plus QT's an ass for swiping that Madsen dance scene from I, Vitelloni."

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2007/05/bart_moore_durl.php

Did you mean to say that he stole the MADISON scene from Band of Outsiders for Pulp Fiction? If so, you only got every single detail wrong.

Posted by frankbooth at April 5, 2009 11:16 PM

comment #37

D.Z. says ...

frank: Um, yeah, I do mean the dance scene. And the only difference is the ear-slicing and different song, which means it's totally original now. As for Pulp Fiction, the dance scene there was stolen from the Adam West Batman.

Posted by D.Z. at April 5, 2009 11:41 PM

comment #38

Floyd Thursby says ...

Griffith stole from Melies.

Posted by Floyd Thursby at April 6, 2009 5:07 AM

comment #39

nightheat says ...

There's no point in arguing with Quentin Tarantino apologists. They'd love any and every crap movie he makes, case in point... Death Proof. And stop arguing with me about how its great. Isn't it common knowledge that Grindhouse completely bombed? I have no hopes for this Inglorious whatever.. will not watch. bored by tarantino.

Posted by nightheat at April 6, 2009 11:34 AM

comment #40

frankbooth says ...

"And the only difference is the ear-slicing and different song, which means it's totally original now. As for Pulp Fiction, the dance scene there was stolen from the Adam West Batman."

D.Z. , you're the only person I can tell this to, because you're the only one who will believe me: the little people are shaving off layers of our toenails as we sleep, to build their spaceships to spirit away our collectible figurines to Tralfamadore.

Pass it on to those you trust.

Posted by frankbooth at April 6, 2009 2:35 PM

comment #41

/3rtfu11 says ...

There's no point in arguing with Quentin Tarantino apologists.

I feel the same way about Lars Von Trier - Terrence Malick - Michael Cimino - Wes Anderson - Gus Van Sant - David Fincher - and M Night Shyamalan apologists.

Posted by /3rtfu11 at April 7, 2009 11:30 AM

comment #42