I posted this review the night I saw the movie. At the time, this site didn't exist, so I posted it to facebook. What follows is a copy/paste of my original review of the movie - and my (BY FAR) worst of 2009. I apologize if the writing is somewhat lacking. I was ranting, for the most part.

First, some background.

I consider myself a movie fan more so than a film fan. Here's how I see it. I've got friends who are fans of film. The movie needs to have some Oscar-worthy aspect to it, or its not worth seeing. Movies like Wolverine, Transformers, and the Star Wars prequels are beneath them. If it's not artistic in some way, it's terrible. Then there are the people like me; movie fans. I love all movies. We love "terrible" big-budget movies that have no plot, terribly written dialogue, and are generally only there to provide us with some escapism. However, we also like the Oscar films, films that were made specifically as art. No movie is beneath us; we can appreciate all. Generally, I really like all movies.

I have at least liked every single movie I've ever seen. With three exceptions. I hate three movies with my entire being. One is The Seeker. I hate it because not only is it terrible shot, edited, scored, acted, set; it also is the single worst adaptation I have ever ever seen. I love the Dark is Rising series and to see it reduced to this drivel was truly sad. I don't mind changes in adaptations. I thought the Harry Potter movies were pretty good adaptations considering how large the books are. But this. Ugh. They invented a twin brother for the main character that he didn't know he had until the end of the movie. Ridiculous. The second movie I hate is Rent. I love musicals, but I couldn't stand Rent. I took it back to blockbuster about half-way through. The third movie I hate is Public Enemies.

I'll start with what's good in this movie. Bale and Depp do a perfectly passable job in their roles. In fact, the entire cast does. No one really wowed me in terms of acting ability, but everyone held their accents for the most part (Considering Bale is Welsh, holding the Southern was pretty good), and I believed some of the motivations. The violence is this movie is fairly heavy. Not that there's a whole lot of it, mostly gun fights. But, they are accurate gun fights. When someone is shot in the chest, they don't instantly die like every other movie. But along with that accuracy comes seeing chests with large gaping meat-holes with pretty copious amounts of blood. Now, I don't mind that. I can appreciate the authenticity. So that was good.

Now, let's talk about what was bad. Every. Single. Thing. Else. I don't really know where to being, so I'll pretty much just rant. This movie felt like an amateur movie shot with a webcam, recorded audio in a living room or on set, quickly editing on Windows Movie Maker and uploaded to Youtube. This movie was shot with High-Def cameras! I can't understand how the quality of the film is so so bad. Most shots never used a steady-cam and as such are constantly in a swaying motion. (Kind of like in Blair Witch or Cloverfield, only they MEANT to do it). When the camera pans, even slowly, EVERYTHING in the shot because ridiculously blurry. Things only look sharp if the camera is NOT moving, which is rare.

The picture quality of the film itself is so inconsistent that it literally grated against my nerves to watch. The opening shot of a penitentiary in 1933 looked great. High quality film. The next shot of a car pulling up looked like one of those History Channel historical recreations, or when America's Most Wanted does a recreation. This continued through out the film and reached its pinnacle of badness in a shoot out in the woods at a inn. I felt like I was watching a crappy television recreation of what might have been a cool event. After about 1/3 of the way through the movie, the film quality remains consistently bad. I didn't pay to watch TV. I paid for a movie.

Michael Mann's direction style in this movie was really hard to watch. He likes his extreme facial closeups, preferring 15 second long shots of a single facial expression. There's one scene in which Depp is in a jail cell and Bale walks in for the first face to face confrontation. Near the end of the scene, there is a shot over Depp's right shoulder (extreme closeup on Depp's hair line, which takes up roughly 1/3 of the screen) with Bale seen on the other side of the bars. Bale walks to his right placing his character squarely behind Depp's blurred scalp for the rest of the dialogue! I'm serious! For at least 30 seconds of the conversation, the only thing on screen is the backside of Depp's head; and it's blurry. Really Michael Mann? Really?

Onto audio. I suppose the score was passable, but certainly not memorable. The recorded dialogue was ABHORRENT. I do not understand how this passed as a final product. In a single dialogue scene between two characters, with camera changes as each character talks to the other, one characters voice was obviously recorded in post at a studio. It was clean, proper volumes, understandable. The seconds voice seemed to be the on-set audio. There's background white noise, it is significantly quieter and much harder to understand. This inconsistency spans the entire movie and gave me a head ache. Annoyingly terrible.

Now for the story. I have no idea why the public liked Dillinger. I know they did, but why? I was presented with absolutely NO reason in this film to like him as a Robin Hood character. Or really even to like him at all. The story arch was like this: Bale's character is after Depp. Somewhere along the line Baby Face Nelson shows up. That's about all I know. Dani and I were both confused several times in the plot, as I watched scenes having absolutely NO idea where we were or why. I've never had that in a movie before. I was shocked. You will not understand the smaller parts of the plot. Either the dialogue is too quiet or the accents too thick to understand.

This movie honestly feels like those production reels of unfinished scenes you see on DVD special features. I don't know how this got passed of as a final product. The ONLY thing I can figure is that it was an intentional choice. I can't figure out why, but that HAS to be it.

I hate this movie. Hate it hate it hate it. It is a 2.5 hour waste of your time. Do not go see it. The worst part of this? It's getting decent reviews AND on imdb.com forums for it, people are calling for a best picture nomination. WHAT?! If you've seen it, feel free to reply. I'd like to see your thoughts, either for the movie, or against it.

For the first time in my life I had truly regretted paying to see a movie in a theater. Thanks Michael Mann.

-Kris

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Another view, from Kris:

I'll have to agree with Caleb on this one. Not one of the better action movies I've seen. The choice of editing gimmicks, obscenely loud sound effects, over use of nudity, and general camp of the movie drug it down several notches (it didn't start very high to begin with). There are a few note worthy aspects of the film:

1) Throwback to Halo, someone teabags someone in real life. Haha!
2) A cool shot of a blood splatter in a rave under blacklight, looks nifty.
3) Michael C Hall's "puppet" dance at the end.
4) Totally offbeat cameos: Peter Petreli from Heroes, John Leguizamo, Allison Lohman, and Shawn AND Juliet from Psych.  

Which brings me to the one thing I really liked about this film: everything Michael C Hall. I've never watched Dexter, but Michael easily steals every scene he's in. I can't wait to see what other sinister characters he can play. Easily the best performance of the movie. If you liked Crank and Crank 2, watch this one. If not, wait for DVD.

-Kris

Harry Potter is a series for children.

Quentin Tarantino and I have a love/hate relationship. The first movie of his I saw was Kill Bill on DVD. Until then, I had only passing knowledge of his name. I was unaware of his particular style, his friendship and frequent collaboration with Robert Rodriguez, or his propensity for extreme violence. I went in to Kill Bill knowing none of that and only really expecting some fantastical gore sequences.

Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to experience more films from Tarantino. I loved Kill Bill 1 and 2, was not a big fan of Death Proof, and was thoroughly confused by the popularity of Pulp Fiction. I haven’t seen Reservoir Dogs. I have, however, come to understand and appreciate his slice of film making individuality. No one can make hundreds of severed limbs as fun as he can.

I went in to Inglorious Basterds not really knowing what to expect. I figured it would be split up into his trademark chapters (it is), there would be copious amounts of bloody violence (not as much as I expected), and I figured I would at least like it.

I’m sorry Tarantino for more poor expectations.

This film rose above any and all of these expectations. I absolutely loved this film. I’ll discuss it as a movie first. As a movie, some might find Tarantino’s like of long dialogue filled scenes a tad dull. It certainly isn’t as fast paced as Transformers and it certainly doesn’t take a whole lot of thought storyline wise. But, even as a movie, I figure you’ll be clapping by the end. If not for the movie itself, then at least for the movies delicious twisting of history. Two words: Swiss cheese.

As a film, this truly sores. There are 5 chapters, each around 20-30 minutes long. They play as one-acts with very little scene changes and only the setting characters. (For example, Brad Pitt is only in 3 of the chapters.) Each chapter has its own narrative storyline while quietly advancing the overall plot. Chapter 5 really ties everything together in one neat bloody little package.

Chapter 1 is quite possibly one of my favorite scenes committed to film in the last decade. Tarantino truly excels at the written word, creating vast amounts of suspense and terror in what were basically kind words. Christoph Waltz (Col. Hans Landa, a Nazi SS Officer) steals every scene he’s in (when he’s not playing off Brad Pitt). He’s an Austrian born actor that wonderfully flows through three languages in this film effortlessly. I have a feeling we will be seeing much more of him (and a best supporting Oscar nom).

Hans Landa comes to the farm of a French diary farmer and his three daughters. The scene unfolds with Landa quizzing the farmer about the known locations of a certain Jewish family that had lived nearby before the war. Hans Landa never makes a single mean or striking statement and yet, through Tarantino’s expertly written dialogue, the sense of shear terror and suspense are palpable.

Chapter 2 introduces us to the titular Basterds; a small but merry band of Jewish boys walking the Nazi occupied country side killing and scalping them. They do this to strike fear into the hearts of the Nazi’s. And it works. The scene plays out introducing us to their ways of interrogation, beating, and finally scalping of the Nazi’s. Many expected this to be the center of the movie. I must say, I would have loved to have seen more of these characters and their story.

Every single line of dialogue (no exaggeration) out of Brad Pitt’s mouth is gold. Just wait until you hear “Bon-Jair-No.” Other notable performances from the underused Basterds are Sylar from Heroes – wait. I mean Eli Roth (seriously, look him up on imdb, he looks just like Sylar), director of the Hostel movies and Til Schweiger as the stoic and fearsome German officer turned Nazi killer Hugo Stiglitz.

Several German officers play drunken games to congratulate their friend.

I won’t spoil the rest of the movie for you (if you don’t know the end PLEASE do not look it up before seeing this movie). It’s amazing to think that Tarantino wrote, directed, edited, and released this movie in his promised 10 month time span. To release something that fast and do it amazingly well is a testament to his talent.

This is one of my favorite films of the year. I highly recommend it as a show of what is capable in Hollywood when one throws out Hollywood norms. It’s not an easy movie to sit through, nor is it anything resembling normal. But that’s Tarantino. Go see this film.

Good day, and Bon-Jair-No.