film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022
Charming entry-level spookiness and nicely old-fashioned eeriness for budding fright fans. A disarmingly goofy Jack Black and a vamping-it-up Cate Blanchett meet in a comic middle that is perfectly pitched.
If there is a target for the pitiless cynicism of this brutal exercise in cannibalistic gore, I can’t figure out what it is. Inhumane in multiple directions.
I’ll be curious to hear what audiences think of this film after it opens, particularly those who were drawn by this trailer.
The movie within the movie in Inglourious Basterds: Presumably this would have been a feature film in the world of Basterds, what with all the to-do surrounding its premiere, but still… this is a lot more than the “trailer” I featured last summer offers. It’s the back of Tarantino’s head starting around 3:12. Eli Roth … more…
Take a break from work: watch a trailer… Fooled ya: this is the “trailer” for the fake film-within-the-film in Inglourious Basterds. It’s meant to have been directed by Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister for propaganda, but actually it’s directed by Eli Roth, who made the low-budget Cabin Fever and then helped invent torture porn with … more…
Only Quentin Tarantino — cinema’s bad boy, the film geek who’s film-geekier than thou — would have the balls to state, as *Inglourious Basterds* comes to a close, that this could well be his masterpiece.
Bad Things Happen When You Leave the City Well, there goes my dream of driving across Australia. I used to think, Hey, if I’m ever gonna go to all the expense of traveling to the opposite side of the planet, and spend 24 hours on a plane to get there, I’m not gonna go for … more…
