“Inglourious Basterds” DVD launch: A less deadly Operation Kino kicks some Nazi ass
So, while I was procrastinating conducting in-depth research for this post, covering a promotional screening for the rather glorious “Inglourious Basterds,” I found myself going over numerous reviews and think pieces. One piece for a very respectable and staid looking website started out normally enough but, while praising “Pulp Fiction” and other older films in the Quentin Tarantino catalogue, it quickly became unusually vicious. Tarantino is a filmmaker who has a special gift for generating a certain degree of critical anger, the cinephile hubbub kicked up by critic and film historian Jonathan Rosenbaum over the film’s non-portrayal of the Holocaust being one prominent example, but this was different.
As I noted the attention this particular review seemed to be paying to the ancestry of the cast, crew, and characters, I realized that the hate was not over anything so conventional as concerns that “Basterds” might be trivializing the Holocaust or World War II. I was reading a “white nationalist” web site. Yes, even more than some overly sensitive liberals, Nazis hate “Inglourious Basterds.” Considering it’s a movie in which a bunch of Jews, a part Cherokee good ol’ boy lieutenant, an African-French projectionist, a traitorous movie star, and a few odd others defeat the Third Reich in a painful and fiery manner, displeasing Nazis is kind of the whole idea.
Certainly, no one was feeling conciliatory towards facists or racists of any stripe as a good portion of the “Basterds” cast and crew turned up at the last of L.A.’s revival houses, the legendary New Beverly Cinema, to celebrate the DVD/Blu-Ray release of the the award-winning, genre-blending war flick. Indeed, as neighbors from the heavily Hasidic West Hollywood-adjacent neighborhood ignored the commotion, a few of us less observant entertainment scribes got the chance to talk to a select group of not-quite superstar basterds, including players in two of the more acclaimed sitcoms of all time, a personable musician and Tarantino-buddy turned actor, and a passionate producer who is not about to let any conservative climate deniers take away his Oscar…but that’s all ahead.
You can follow us on Twitter @moviebuffs and on Facebook as well.
Posted in: Action Movies, Actors, Actresses, Horror Movies, Lost, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movie DVDs, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies, TV, TV Action, TV Comedies, TV Sci-Fi
Tags: Academy Awards, Airplane, An Inconvenient Truth, Andre de Toth, B.J. Novak, Bridget von Hammersmark, Cabin Fever, Chuck Conners, cinematic cockblocking, Climategate, Cotton, Damon Lindelof, Death Proof, Detour, Diane Kruger, Edgar G. Ulmer, Eli Roth, Endangered Species, Freaks and Geeks, Headlines, Hornet's Nest, Hostel, Inglorious Bastards, Inglourious Basterds, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Judd Apatow, Kelly's Heroes, Kill Them All and Come Back Alone, Lawrence Bender, Lionel Chetwynd, Lost, Marilyn Monroe, Michael Caine, Minday Kaling, Mission: Impossible, Nation's Pride, Nazis, Neal Scweiber, Neo-Nazis, New Beverly Cinema, Ollie Klublershturf vs. the Nazis, Omar Doom, Operation Kino, Oscars, Paul Lieberstein, Peter Graves, PFC Omar Ulmer, Play Dirty, Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino, Reservoir Dogs, Rock Hudson, Roger L. Simon, Ryan Howard, Samm Levine, The Big Book of Jewish Humor, The Dirty Dozen, The Five Man Army, The Office, Uma Thurman, William Novak, Xena: Warrior Princess