Inglourious Basterds
Man, does this movie talk. All they do is talk, talk, talk.... I'd rather see more scenes of the basterds in action. This does zilch for me. The pacing is sluggish, the story not that interesting, and any thoughts of it being remotely historically probable is nixed by the ending. The dialogue is lively although it doesn't lift the leaden plot much. I just liked the doomed love affair between the Nazi and the Jewish girl, the other parts leaves me cold. And the violence is rather understated. Brad Pitt also sucks majorly. And trivialising the Holocaust? Oh well, it's somewhere along the lines of a WW2 comic I thought of writng and drawing - Uber-Juden, about a Jewish superman saving Jews from being executed. D-. I didn't even like this as much as the first half of "Deathproof".
Thirst
Park Chan Wook's (Oldboy) latest. Supposedly controversial, I fail to see how its religious ramifications would upset anybody. Basically, it's just a cautionary tale about how to live a little would lead to an eventual fall from grace if left unchecked. The plot is about a priest who volunteers for an experimental virus vaccine, dies, gets a blood transfusion and becomes a vampire and falls for his childhood friend's wife. As such, it's more along the lines of a really twisted vampire rom com. The jokes are highly original, as he drinks blood through an IV. There are some bits of blood and gore, but they're not excessive. And the second part drags.... after the priest has found a vampire partner. Best scenes are the love making scenes with the ghost of the departed haunting them. Some really dark comic there. Fair to middling. C+.
Creepshow
A rather snazzy five tale compendium from Stephen King and George A. Romero. King even stars in one episode although he doesn't play much more than a retarded hick. Not really scary per se and the ideas aren't really original, most of it ripped off from 50s EC comics like "Tales from the Crypt", but even then, there aren't any of the infamous gory twist endings which eventually led to prosecution of EC and the formation of the watchdog Comics Code Authority. The first one "Father's Day", is startling rather than scary, and boasts the best ending, humourous and macabre. "The Crate" is the worst, supposedly there should be a more ingenious monster in the box, and Adrienne Barbeau doesn't even get her kit off. "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Ventrill" is a boring UFO story, saved by KIng's acting inanity. The one with Leslie Nielsen is sub-par, another tepid re-animation story whilst the last one about cockroaches is at least creepy, even if that's just me, I have a degree of phobia about roaches. All in all, not too bad, and miles better than its monotonous sequel "Creepshow 2", which was only remarkable by the amount of topless teens it had. B
