Prelude to a Kiss
The Inglorious Bastards (1978)
directed by Enzo G. Castellari
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
With 45 minutes left, The Inglorious Bastards breaks from the summer camp school of zip lines out of SS officers' windows to a bona-fide slow motion action epic. Trains are great sets for organized chaos - cabin claustrophobia competes against the open country on either side of the tracks - and train films inspire a kind of cinematic locomotive bender in me. But if Burt Lancaster is holding steady at #3 in the queue, I can't very well re-board the always ahead-of-schedule Frankenheimer Express without first giving Castellari his due.
Dave Kehr doesn't think that Tarantino can retain the low-key verve of Bo Svenson's mid-western/Swedish cross-stitch, but isn't that Bo at the Massacre at Two Pines? If Quentin wants "childlike playfulness," he'll get it, but I imagine it's more of a spectacle he's after: blood, guts, and Maggie Cheung inside Nazi-occupied Paris. Still nonchalant, but more consistent; Castellari's frat-pack laughs are easy right up to the point where everyone gets serious about the mission, and then it's gimlet-eyed grimaces and grave goodbyes. A first half for June, a second for December.
directed by Enzo G. Castellari
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
With 45 minutes left, The Inglorious Bastards breaks from the summer camp school of zip lines out of SS officers' windows to a bona-fide slow motion action epic. Trains are great sets for organized chaos - cabin claustrophobia competes against the open country on either side of the tracks - and train films inspire a kind of cinematic locomotive bender in me. But if Burt Lancaster is holding steady at #3 in the queue, I can't very well re-board the always ahead-of-schedule Frankenheimer Express without first giving Castellari his due.
Dave Kehr doesn't think that Tarantino can retain the low-key verve of Bo Svenson's mid-western/Swedish cross-stitch, but isn't that Bo at the Massacre at Two Pines? If Quentin wants "childlike playfulness," he'll get it, but I imagine it's more of a spectacle he's after: blood, guts, and Maggie Cheung inside Nazi-occupied Paris. Still nonchalant, but more consistent; Castellari's frat-pack laughs are easy right up to the point where everyone gets serious about the mission, and then it's gimlet-eyed grimaces and grave goodbyes. A first half for June, a second for December.
posted by NPK at 10:39 AM
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