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Sunday, October 18
It's been two years since Eli Roth directed a feature, but he's kept busy on the side with writing, producing, and acting. After his recent appearance as Sgt. Donny Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, Roth is returning to horror, the genre that made him famous with his Cabin Fever and Hostel movies. He's also readying himself to take on science fiction.
At the Morelia International Film Festival in Mexico, Roth announced that he is finishing a script for a new sci-fi movie called Endangered Species, which he also plans to direct. He also mentioned that he's writing and directing a feature-length version of his Thanksgiving mock-horror trailer that appeared in Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse double-feature. Roth said that he needed the time away from directing to revive his creativity.
I haven't been this excited since the first Hostel. I had to divorce myself from the [Hostel] project 100% to free up my brain for other things.
Posted 10/18/2009 by BrentJS
Related: Quentin Tarantino | Robert Rodriguez | Eli Roth | Inglourious Basterds
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Monday, September 14
Christoph Waltz, the evil Nazi from Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, is getting another villainous role — in The Green Hornet, according to Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood blog.
Waltz's slimy, yet playful, performance in Basterds is likely what brought the 52-year-old into the limelight, and and it's perfect for director Michel Gondry's action-comedy aesthetic.
Recent reporting had pegged actor Nicolas Cage as the lead villain for the movie, only described as a "gangster villain." But it seems this latest news has put him out of the film for good.
Next Showing: Green Hornet releases December 17th, 2010
Posted 9/14/2009 by Jim
Related: Christoph Waltz | The Green Hornet | Inglourious Basterds
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Sunday, August 23
Bomb of the Week: This week's winner is X Games 3D: The Movie. The 90-minute advertisement for ESPN's X-Games was hard-core avoided by moviegoers as it earned just $572/screen, one of the worst averages for any new release all year.
Posted 8/23/2009 by reelz
Related: Inglourious Basterds
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Friday, August 21
It's been a cruel summer — and spring — at the box office for Hollywood's biggest stars. The less-than-stellar success for A-Listers has many in Hollywood worried, according to The New York Times.
A-list movie stars have long been measured by their ability to fill theaters on opening weekend. But never have so many failed to deliver, resulting in some rare soul-searching by motion picture studios about why the old formula isn’t working — and a great deal of anxiety among stars (and agents) about the potential vaporization of their $20 million paychecks.
The under-delivering stars cited include Denzel Washington, Julia Roberts, Eddie Murphy, John Travolta, Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks, Adam Sandler, and Will Ferrell. At best their films had weak returns. Others close in on the bomb category. Even Johnny Depp's turn in Public Enemies didn't bring the hoped for audience.
The trend is especially clear when you look at the movies that have topped the box office this summer and their leading stars — Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Shia LaBoeuf), Up (Ed Asner), and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Daniel Radcliffe). Will Brad Pitt "stop the bleeding" with this weekend's Inglourious Basterds?
Harvey Weinstein and The Weinstein Company built the marketing campaign for the film almost entirely around Mr. Pitt.
And the actor may pull it off — kind of. Mr. Weinstein contends that Mr. Pitt’s drawing power is not remotely in question. "Brad Pitt is a super-superstar at the apex of his popularity, and he's a large part of why people want to see this movie," he said.
However, box-office predictions for Inglourious Basterds this weekend range from $25 to $30 million — solid for a Tarantino movie but only midling for Pitt.
What or who is to blame? The instant peer feedback available from social networking, says Peter Guber, the former chairman of Sony Pictures.
You look around the theater and can see the glow, not on people’s faces from watching the movie, but on their chins — from the BlackBerrys and iPhones. They are immediately telling their friends whether it's worth their time. And the answer to that, more often than not, seems to be no.
To which we say, keep the reviews coming, movie lovers!
Posted 8/21/2009 by reelz
Related: Adam Sandler | Brad Pitt | Denzel Washington | Eddie Murphy | Harvey Weinstein | John Travolta | Johnny Depp | Julia Roberts | Tom Hanks | Will Ferrell | Russell Crowe | Inglourious Basterds
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Thursday, August 20
Despite having one of the most famous actors in the history of America cinema fronting the movie, a lot of the early buzz about Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds isn't about Brad Pitt's performance, but rather that of Austrian actor Christoph Waltz, who plays "Jew Hunter" to Pitt's "Nazi-scalping basterd."
Waltz, a veteran actor in Europe with a career spanning three decades, won the best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of Col. Hans Landa of the SS in Basterds. He calls his character "one of the great villains in dramatic literature" and gives much of the credit to Tarantino.
It's what Quentin has written, and let me tell you, that's plenty. Because I could still be sitting there trying to figure out what else is in there. And it's bottomless.
Waltz said that Tarantino discouraged him from chumming around with the other cast members and that he insisted on numerous rehearsals, which helped Waltz delve even deeper into the mind of Hans Landa.
Films tend to break up scenes, but Quentin insisted that we rehearse and play them in real time. Without all that stop and start, you really get the opportunity to play, to really get things going, to establish the rhythm.
Quentin didn't want to establish a form of security. He didn't want us too comfortable. He wanted to keep everyone on our toes.
Posted 8/20/2009 by BrentJS
Related: Quentin Tarantino | Christoph Waltz | Inglourious Basterds
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Wednesday, August 19
German actress Diane Kruger has appeared in dozens of movies, but other than the National Treasure flicks, few have been seen by American audiences. Her appearance in Quentin Tarantino's new film should expose her talents to a much wider audience.
In Inglourious Basterds, Kruger plays Bridget von Hammersmark, a popular film star in Nazi Germany who is secretly spying for the Allies. She admits to The Insider that she was not Tarantino's original choice for the role.
I fought for the part. I knocked down doors. I wasn't meant to be in this movie at all — Quentin had someone else in mind, and for whatever reason that didn't work out, and then I finally got to audition and that was it.
He doesn't care who you are or what you have done before — he totally resurrected Bruce Willis's career and John Travolta's career. So just being hired by him is the greatest compliment anyone can pay you.
Inglourious Basterds stars Brad Pitt, Mike Myers, Diane Kruger, B.J. Novak, Julie Dreyfus, and Eli Roth.
Next Showing: Inglourious Basterds opens August 21
Posted 8/19/2009 by BrentJS
Related: Diane Kruger | Inglourious Basterds
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Did you know about Quentin Tarantino's supposed foot fetish? Well, you can learn more in a report from MTV Movies in which cast members reflect upon the director's idiosyncrasies.
Regarding the foot fixation, the article cites Tarantino's many uses of foot close-ups in his movies, as well as his appearance on The Tyra Banks Show as a foot judge. Basterds cast member Diane Kruger recalled one conversation she had.
You know what? A journalist told me about the foot thing, and it's funny, I didn't know about it. And then he said, "You didn't know? Don't you have a foot scene in the movie?" And I said, "I actually do, that's so weird."
There's also a vague account of "Big Jerry," an "NC-17 toy" that Tarantino photographs with actors who fall asleep during production.
And Eli Roth, star in Basterds and director of the Hostel movies, talks about the director's "thoughtful precision."
Quentin — he's so careful about everything he does.... For Kill Bill, he spent ayear and a half writing one fight scene! And with Inglourious Basterds, he had written it over the course of eight years. He thinks about every character, and he thinks about every detail in the universe — there are very few directors that do that.
This Friday, we'll all be able to see Tarantino's nearly decade-long labor of love.
Posted 8/19/2009 by Rich Z
Related: Quentin Tarantino | Eli Roth | Diane Kruger | Inglourious Basterds
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Tuesday, August 18
With the opening of Inglourious Basterds only a few days away, Quentin Tarantino fans will once again be able to get their fix of excessive violence and snappy dialogue, this time in the form of Nazi-hunting Jewish "scalp hunters." While Tarantino recently said that he plans to retire at 60 to become "a man of letters," as of right now he's still a filmmaker and one of his own best promoters.
In a recent interview, Tarantino said that "revenge" is the essential ingredient that earns Inglourious Basterds a special place among WWII movies.
Revenge isn't usually an element of World War II films — there may be a hint of it, but it's not usually what they are about. I think that's what makes this movie rather unique.
It's the fun of the Jews getting revenge against Nazis — I've seen the other story ad nauseum.
Tarantino defended his extensive use of subtitles and dismissed other movies (Tom Cruise's WWII action movie, Valkyrie, comes to mind) in which foreign characters speak English.
I think the other style — with everybody either speaking English, or Germans speaking English with a German accent — those are the things that made World War II movies for the last couple of generations old-fashioned.
Often criticized in the past for the amount of excessive violence in his movies, Tarantino refused to apologize for it and said that he likes to "squirm" in movies.
I will never feel squeamish about my own movies, because I know them and I know how we achieved the effects.
As for the scalping — those guys are already dead, it's about taking mementoes.
When asked about working with Brad Pitt, who stars in the movie as Lt. Aldo Raine, the Nazi-hunter recruiter, Tarantino said, "It was kind of a love affair." Tarantino explained that Pitt remained in character there entire time he was on set, so it was like being around one of his own creations all day.
Posted 8/18/2009 by BrentJS
Related: Brad Pitt | Quentin Tarantino | Valkyrie | Inglourious Basterds
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Monday, August 17
When the final credits roll on Inglourious Basterds, expect to see the name Eli Roth pop up more than once. That's because in addition to playing Donny "The Bear Jew" Donowitz, Roth directed the short movie-within-a-movie Nation's Pride that is a central feature of the Basterd's plot.
Roth said that he was Tarantino's de facto "Jewish fact-checker" on the film and that he invited his mentor to his house for Passover Seder in 2007, at which the two engaged in many philosophical questions about WWII. In one exchange, Roth told Tarantino that he could "never" forgive the Nazis for what they had done to his people.
It's not that we don't forgive; we don't forget. Being Jewish is to remember. If I had the chance, I would kill every one of those (Nazis).
In Inglourious Basterds, Adolf Hitler and many of his elite officers gather together to watch Nation's Pride, a propaganda movie about Germany's best sniper. Tarantino normally directs everything himself but he allowed Roth to shoot the short movie, giving him a much larger second unit than he had planned for himself. Roth said that he learned a lot by working with Tarantino, but barely survived the process.
I almost died shooting it. But it's one of the most satisfying, orgasmic things I've done in my life. It's kosher porn.
Posted 8/17/2009 by BrentJS
Related: Quentin Tarantino | Eli Roth | Inglourious Basterds
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Only days ago, it was reported that Brad Pitt would only bring his oldest child, Maddox, to the set of Inglourious Basterds because Pitt didn't "think it would be right" to bring the younger children. Despite this patriarchal dictum, Pitt apparently has no problem taking Inglourious Basterds home with him.
Pitt plays Lt. Aldo Rains, a hillbilly from the mountains of Tennessee and the orchestrater of the revenge plan against the Nazis that serves as the spine of the movie's plot. In a recent interview, Pitt said that he often practiced his character's accent at home.
I did! I'd tell those little "basterds" to get out there and start scalpin'!
Inglorious Basterds also stars Mike Myers, Diane Kruger, B.J. Novak, Julie Dreyfus, and Eli Roth.
Posted 8/17/2009 by BrentJS
Related: Brad Pitt | Inglourious Basterds