filmland / By Charlie Myers

Bloody Basterdos!

Plus: Post-Gilmore Bledel goes pure saccharine in Post Grad

(Aug. 27, 2009) Previews

Opening Friday, Aug. 28, is The Final Destination, the fourth installment of the franchise, wherein Nick O’Bannon (Bobby Campo) has a premonition about a horrible series of events that will kill his friends, including girlfriend Lori (Shantel VanSanten). Since his visions have a way of coming true, it’s time to get out of Dodge. Rated R for strong violent/gruesome accidents, language and a scene of sexuality. 82m. At the Broadway (3D and 2D), Mill Creek and Fortuna.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

GALLERY >

Halloween II (also known as H2) is a sequel to director Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake of Halloween. This film focuses on Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton, reprising her role) as she attempts to deal with the return of not-so-nice Michael Myers (Tyler Mane). It turns out they are closer than she suspects. With Myers for a last name, it can’t be good. Also featuring Malcolm McDowell. Rated R for strong brutal bloody violence throughout, terror, disturbing graphic images, language, and some crude sexual content and nudity. 101m. At the Broadway, Mill Creek and Fortuna.

Ang Lee takes stock (sort of) of the iconic music festival in Taking Woodstock. In his comic look at the festival, it seems it was all enabled by a guy (Elliot Tiber, who wrote the book the film is based on) trying to save his parent’s motel in the Catskills. Who knew? Rated R for graphic nudity, some sexual content, drug use and language. 110m. At Broadway and the Minor.

Reviews

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. Ever since Pulp Fiction hit the screens, I’ve been a committed Quentin Tarantino fan. His hallmark style of black humor, French New Wave-like self-referentiality, offbeat editing and composition and clever use of film history hit me just right back in 1994. All of these qualities are on display in Inglourious Basterds — certainly his best film since Pulp Fiction and arguably his best work to date after some missteps, including Grindhouse.

Set in Nazi occupied France in 1944 — after the allies have landed on French shores but not yet reached Paris — the film is an alternate history that combines two plot lines. One strand follows the exploits of the “Basterds,” a small group of Jewish-American soldiers led by Lt. Aldo Raine (a very funny Brad Pitt) who ambushes German patrols, kills the soldiers and takes their scalps. The other strand follows Shosanna Dreyfus (a wonderful Mélanie Laurent), a young French Jewish woman who owns a cinema in Paris under an assumed name and has specific reasons to hate the Nazis.

The two strands combine when both she and the Basterds conceive a plot to destroy the German high command (including Hitler) when they all attend a premiere of a German film at her theatre in a beautifully orchestrated and suspenseful climactic sequence. Standing in the way of both plots is the deliciously sadistic Col. Hans Landa (Christopher Waltz in a brilliant performance).

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