"That's a Bingo!" - INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS est plus frais dans le français

The Weinsteins have truly had some serious difficulties in promoting Quentin Tarantino'sInglourious Basterds, a movie that many are calling a decisive release for the longevity of the company. The screening of Public Enemies I attended on Monday night played one of the early U.S. trailers and it simply fell flat on it's face, crickets were chirping, barrels of hay were rolling around, and a few groans were heard from the 20somethings Tarantino's movie needs to play too for success. Sadly at this point, all the signs are he has another Grindhouse flop on his hands. Not because of the film's quality, because from a trailer like this it looks perfectly fine, just because this ain't a large audience pleasing kind of flick. The U.S. and U.K. trailers have clung on to Brad Pitt with all their might, hopeful that his name recognition and star power will attract mass audiences for a non-mainstream kind of genre (has the Euro-Spaghetti-War movie ever made money?) but what that's done as a negative is that we see the same few Brad Pitt scenes over and over again. We are bored of them now, and the movie doesn't open yet for another eight weeks. Thankfully as some kind of relief, the French don't care as much about Pitt, and The Weinsteins strategy over there is to show more of the ensemble cast and it works. We have new scenes, or the same scenes at a different points from another angle and even the use of fast editing and gimmicks like zooms, and "over-the-top, probably not in the movie noises" helps make the movie seem more fun. It's still kind of a misrepresentation of what the film really is, as it's not an action film or a comedy, but damnit it looks more appealing now.

P.S. - Simon's review of the film from Cannes is still ONLINE!

Sick of me telling ya about it yet? Well think of poor me... I have to see that Basterd nearly everyday and he smiles knowing everytime I look at him, I'm envious as hell that he has seen this flick.