Did You Know that before the duo teamed up for the recent X-Men: First Class, Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy both appeared in the HBO series “Band of Brothers” (2001) at the start of their careers. Band of Brothers tells the story of American soldiers fighting Nazi forces during World War II.  Currently Fassbender plays a young Magneto and McAvoy plays a young Professor X in the current X-Men film.

Ironically enough Fassbender’s character Magneto is a Holocaust survivor, who is determined to take on a former Nazi foe in X-Men: First Class.   Fassbender also played a British ally to Brad Pitt’s Nazi hunting, band of misfits in ‘Inglorious Basterds.’  He was the guy at the pub who showed three fingers the non-German way and blew his cover.

Unfortunately for Mr. Tarantino, his script leaked online a little while ago. People are all up in arms about this, which is fair. But there is a difference between this and your average run of the mill script leaking. For something like a superhero picture, if you read the script, it’s going to look great onscreen, but you could have pictured it regardless. With that script, you almost know everything about it. With Tarantino, though, a script is only a piece of the puzzle. Given, a significant piece, but still only one. His films are glorious spectacles that really explode when everything comes together. When you see it come to life, the bigger picture blows your mind. He takes things to the next level and beyond, often reaching for things maybe even when he shouldn’t. This brings me to the next little piece of news:

Will Smith is in demand for the lead role.

Smith would be the title character in Django Unchained playing the freed slave craving revenge. Controversial and I’m sure extremely weird, it is the perfect Tarantino film. He handled Nazi Germany better and different than I think anyone was expecting. Speaking of Inglorious Basterds, Christoph Waltz is the other lead in the film as an ex dentist turned bounty hunter. This could be a great opportunity for Smith, who must be in search of that Oscar glory. Tarantino would be the one to walk with him right down that red carpet.

Personally, having not read the script, it sounds like a great idea. Tarantino is not new to film and has a way of pushing boundaries that no one was even looking to push. Sure, this will ruffle some feathers, and it hasn’t even begun filming yet. (I can’t wait for the media frenzy after that…) But it’s time to let him do what he does best and make a film.

Bloggers are always going to complain. I know I’m guilty of it many a time. But this has so far to go, and such promise. I know the day I sit in front of that screen, having read about almost every aspect of the movie, I will still be blown away. Classic Quentin.

The month of February is commonly considered a dark period for movies. Nick mentioned that it is the graveyard for film. New releases are basically overshadowed by the award season.  In fact, Oscar nominated films get a distribution boost in February in order to milk the buzz they get from the nomination.

So, we know that you are not going to hit up the theaters for new releases. Instead, we know that you all are going to try to catch up on the Oscar movies that you didn’t get to see the first time around.  Get this, “An Education” went from 100 theaters before being nominated for the award, to over 700 after receiving the nod for Best Picture. However, Summit’s “The Hurt Locker” was sent to DVD, which went from being in theaters to being completely removed. Theaters will not show movies that get sent to DVD FYI. So, Summitt messed up.

As we are in the Oscar season, there is trophy talk everywhere. We have a year where 10 films got nominated and lots of movie hooplah to go through.  Since we know you all are trying to play Oscar catch up, we wanted to help you out.   Here are the 10 films nominated for Best Picture and our review for each one.

1. The Hurt Locker

2. Avatar

3. Up in the Air

4. Precious

5. Inglorious Basterds

6. The Blind Side

7. District 9

8. An Education

9. UP

10. A Serious Man

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This past Saturday night, while I was stuck on Martha’s Vineyard (“MV”) with no ferry going back to Cape Cod, I caught the end of the SAG’s at the steamship authority. I crowded around the only TV there along with all the authority attendants, and we all watched Inglorious Basterds take home the top prize for Best Ensemble.  If you don’t know by now I am a huge Hurt Locker fan, and being loyal to my fanhood, I was pulling for Kathryn Bigelow’s masterpiece to take this trophy.  One of the attendants was screaming for Nine and another was clearly pulling for Precious but wasn’t so overly emotional about it.

After the Basterds was announced as top dog, I immediately felt a sigh of defeat. At this point, I’m pretty emotionally invested in the Hurt Locker.  However, being stranded on MV allowed me to really think about this. Hey, I had nothing better to do. Hurt Locker really had 3 people in it, Precious had only a handful, An Education was dominated by Carey Mulligan, and Nine wasn’t going to win. Let’s just be honest, that attendant was going nuts for basically nothing. The Basterds had lets say between 12-15 people that all had fairly important roles in the movie. The star of the movie wasn’t Waltz, as much as it was Tarantino.   The Basterds was a true ensemble movie.

Christoph Waltz, who will win Best Supporting Actor, was still supporting. He’s as much a lock as Brett Favre’s dramatic tussle with whether to return or not next season.  Sure, he had the best performance of the movie but his screen time did not dominate the film. Only those scenes where he actually was in, did his presence really dominate.  Each personality in this film played an important role and added to the dynamic and wit that made the Basterds great.   I think that handling such a large cast and producing such a great result was what put this movie over the top from the SAG voters.  Clearly actors know good acting, and I think they got it right here.

Judging from results alone, it is apparent that actors clearly think that managing a cast of 15 people is a lot harder than managing a 3-5 person cast.  I’m not taking anything away from The Hurt Locker or Precious but managing a large cast has got to be straight tough. While I think The Hurt Locker is a better movie than the Basterds, the top prize at the SAG is best Ensemble performance, not Best Movie. The ensemble performance for Basterds was second to none and deserved the trophy. SAG got it right.

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Those who flocked to the theaters this weekend to see the new Tarantino film, Inglorious Basterds, know what I’m talking about.  Cristoph Waltz, who plays ‘Colonel Hans Landa a.k.a. The Jewhunter’ in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, could be nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

Most of the feedback I have been hearing is that Waltz stole the show.   In addition, I have been hearing from friends and critics that he deserves to be there come Oscar time.  Can a Summer blockbuster lead someone down the path of Oscar nomination, or even glory?  The last time we saw evidence of that was “Gladiator.” Not to take anything away from Gladiator, because I truly think it’s one of the best films ever made, but that year was a bad year for movies.  Gladiator was a Summer blockbuster that led Russell Crowe and the film itself to Oscar glory.

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Will Waltz’s performance as “the Jew killer” lead him down a similar path?

Who saw Inglorious Basterds this weekend, and wants to share some thoughts? Let us know

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Director Quentin Tarantino has done something here that I have never seen him do with any other movie–he made me totally forget I was watching a Quentin Tarantino movie. Inglourious Basterds Sugarhouse film

is a far cry from his previous classics like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs Night Skies video with their big name stars and cool-as-ice swagger. But as different as it may be from other Tarantino flicks, Basterds borrows its ultimate revenge theme from Kill Bill

Pride & Prejudice dvd . But rather than a pissed off bride wreaking havoc on her attempted murders, Basterds follows pissed off Jews wreaking havoc on ruthless Nazis during WWII. You’d think a movie about World War II would make for a tearjerker. But in comes Brad Pitt, the leader of a Jewish anti-Nazi gang whose sole purpose is killing “Nat-zis,” and all seriousness goes right out the window. Pitt, donning a heavy southern drawl and a quick-draw-Mcgraw attitude, show no mercy for the enemy, providing comedic relief in an otherwise somber premise.
The movie is a bit long, well over two hours and probably could have been two hours had the first half of the movie not dragged. But the second half is well worth the build-up.

My rating: B

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