inglourious basterds

it's hard to find anything negative to say about quentin tarantino's newest film, "inglourious basterds". starring brad pitt (lt. aldo raine), mélanie laurent (shoshanna dreyfus) and christoph waltz (ss col. hans landa) the movie is an entertainingly humorous revenge story full of much-deserved blood and violence. brad pitt pulls off yet another outrageous character as the knowville, tennessee-born lieutenant of eight jewish-american soldiers who drop into nazi-occupied france before the normandy invasion. their goal is to inflict as much damage to the nazi forces as possible through apache guerrilla-style warfare; and yes, that includes scalping one's victims. the mission is about more than simply thinning the german herd, though; they enlist excessively violent and horrific means of killing and mutilating their victims. their reputation spreads throughout the nazi ranks as one survivor of each attack is spared to retell the atrocities he witnessed at the hands of the 'basterds'. they become the bogeymen of the third reich.
that's only one of many storylines that cross and converge at different times throughout the film.

tonight, being the saturday or the film's opening weekend, all viewers at the discover mills theatre were given survey sheets to fill out after the show. i gave high marks in every department although i was a little disappointed that the survey gave no section for viewer comments. the acting was superb, the script full of action and complex dialogue (written as only tarantino can), and the score was more than fitting. i especially loved the ramped-up version of beethoven's "fur elise" in the opening scene.
i was hoping for a bit more screen time from b.j. novak (pfc. smithson utivic - he also writes the scrpit for and acts on 'the office') but when he is on screen he is exactly what the story needs him to be.
and you gotta love that ending. classic tarantino. his best work since "pulp fiction".
i cannot say anything more without giving away too much.

trueblood

what the fuck is this horse-shit? ( should horse-shit be hyphenated?)
i mean, i understand the whole anne rice, laurell k. hamilton and that twilight chick craze going on right now but seriously, it has now been taken too far.
based on the popular vampire/romance novel series following one sookie stackhouse (a telepath who dates a vampire.) set in present-day new orleans - which, by the way, is full of vampires - vampires have "come out of the coffin" as one article put it and live (kind of) amoung the living. the show takes its name from a bottled beverage company which distributes actual human blood in a variety of blood types. i've only seen most of two episodes but this series has to be targetting the female high school demographic. frankly, i'm quite disappointed in the showtime network for stooping to this level to attain new viewers. (but hey, everyone's got to make a buck, eh?) showtime has some great hit shows out there; personally, i watch 'weeds', 'dexter', 'the l word' and would like to try out ' californication'. but this is more it's more soap opera than supernatural action. the plot is loaded with topless girls enjoying orgies and drunken dance parties but only as a backdrop to the actual storyline. it's as if the writers knew how deplorable the show would turn out so they loaded the scenery with an excess of supporting actress tits. it's like their way of telling their viewers boyfriends "we know this story sucks and the acting is horrible but at least we threw in some nudity for you."
as far as the actual plot line goes, i have no idea what's going on because the two episodes i've seen we're not order. their is however, a dedicated group of ultra-devout christian zealots determined to kill all vampires. this part is reminiscent of 'dark angel' and the super-secret pure-blood cult that tried to kill genetically-enhanced persons.

i think i may use the hyphen superfluously. i hope it's not too annoying to read.