2 posts tagged “samuel l jackson”

Tarantino's latest film is just odd. It exists in a kind of cartoon, comic book world that existed before America actually entered WWII. At least on the covers of those early comic books the heroes would go over to Europe and kick Hitler's butt and end the war.  At that time, while the war was actually going on, those comics served as a kind of propaganda and as a way to raise moral.  But to make such a film now, more than 60 years after the end of the war? It just seems odd.

And the oddness of the film extends beyond the way the film rewrites history. It is pervasive throughout the film starting in the opening credits.  In the opening credits Tarantino uses a number of fonts for the names of actors and they aren't all in a similar font family and there doesn't really seem to be a reason for it.  Now noticing that the fonts on the opening titles change might be a small thing but it isn't an accident.  Things like that don't just happen.  So someone, probably Tarantino himself, decided, "let's use a different font here" and I don't really know why.  Then later on when the Nazis are gathering there are a couple times where names of historically well known Nazis are put on the screen looking like the names were written in chalk or something.  Why? Who knows. There is also no real reason for why we even need to know the names of these people. Like I said, it is just odd.

The acting is fine. The actors who had multiple languages to speak did a good job.  I have to hand it to Tarantino: I like the women he casts.  I'm less sure of their roles in the films or even why their characters exist, but they sure are purdy...I didn't have any issues with the job any of the women or the men did in the film eexcept for the appearance of Mike Meyers in one scene. That he's in makeup doesn't help. It is clear that it is him beneath the makeup and so I just kept waiting for him to start using a funny voice from Austin Powers or something. Samuel L. Jackson also does a voiceover in the film and it is equally distracting.  His voice is so distinctive and he's strongly associated with Tarantino so I kept waiting for him to start cursing and using racial epithets. Of course perhaps both of these say more about me than Tarantino.  Perhaps I'm just on some level wanting him to do the same things he did in the past.

This desire or expectation of Tarantino to do the things he has done over and over again also comes up early on in the film when the main bad guy is talking to a French peasant. I kept waiting for one of them to echo the Bruce WIllis and Ving Rhames scene in Pulp Fiction and "go medieval" on someone's ass. There is a character introduced in this scene and then we jump forward in time a few years and are immediately told that this actress is supposed to be the same person.  But then later in the film we are shown a flashback to when that character was introduced.  Ummm.... why did we need that? You told us from the start that this was the same person so that flashback didn't clarify anything.  We saw the acress' reaction so we know what she was supposed to be feeling. 

This isn't to say that the film is bad. It is just odd.

three thumbs up

Motherfuckin' odd
What is he trying to do?
I got no idea