Film: Glorious "Inglorious Basterds"

The Monocle Review (Pictured Left)

The Screaming,

Monocle, Fedora,

and Rubber Chicken

Review

(Pictured Right)

*****

First off, I want to apologize for the late update. I got caught up in a trip to Boston and the update managed to slip my mind.

Also, thank you for all the feedback you have given me. I am getting a lot of suggestions for books and movies, and I now have a fair list of titles I am preparing to review. Please continue to support the blog through your suggestions. Thank You.

*****

Synopsis:

“Inglorius Basterds” is a compilation of five intertwined stories. The first chapter begins with a French Jew named Shosanna being discovered, and then escaping from, a German SS Officer named Col. Hans Landa. The second chapter centers around Lt. Aldo Raine, an American officer who builds a commando team of eight Jewish American soldiers known as “The Basterds.” His unit travels around Germany hunting and killings Nazis. The third chapter returns to Shosanna, revolving around her life years later in the city where she is the owner of a movie theater trying to find another life. The fourth chapter returns to The Basterds where they are enlisted to take part in an operation to assassinate Hitler. The fifth and final chapter of the movie is when the plan to assassinate Hitler is enacting, which happens to be taking place at the theater which Shosanna owns.

*****

Plot:

In terms of a story, Shoshanna’s tale had much more substance than that of the titled Bastreds. It told the tale of a young woman struggling not only to survive, but to learn to live in an environment where she is perpetually surrounded by her oppressors, living in constant fear of discovery.

The Basterd’s story, unfortunately, could be summarized by, ‘Killing Nazis because they’re Nazis.” There was virtually no attempt made to add any deeper meaning to their fight other than simple entertainment through violence.

Characters:

The characters in this movie were almost exclusively one-dimensional. The face most of the characters wore upon their introduction and the face they kept at the end of the film were identical. The only character to even undergo a moderate change was Fredrick Zoeller, a German war hero who spent much of the movie pining after Shosanna, and even his was an abrupt, and change with no foreshadowing change rather than a legitimate development.

Visual / Audio Effects:

This was both a strong and weak suit of the movie. The graphic effects were convincing; although I cannot say they were altogether necessary. Much of the visual effects were of Nazis being brutally mutilated and massacred. Heads being scalped, scars being carved in bodies, and bullets entering flesh…all were shown in great detail

The music in the film was strong, catchy, and memorable. It was well composed and fit the scenes nicely. The soundtrack was one of my favorite aspects of this movie.

Overall:

Overall, there was not a lot of depth to this movie. One aspect I did highly enjoy, was that the dialogue of the movie was all spoken in the native language of the countries the movie took place in. Most of the film was spoken in either German or French – English was used quite sparingly outside of the parts featuring the Basterds. However, this was not alone to salvage the film, which was more concerned with action and being more historically inaccurate than “300” than it was with being a movie of any actual substance.

2 / 5 Stars

*****

Plot:

This movie is awesome. What’s it about? It’s about beating Nazis to death with a god-damn baseball bat, that’s what. It’s also about shooting Nazis, stabbing Nazis, burning Nazis, and blowing up Nazis. If there’s a way to kill a Nazi, they do it. It rocks.

Characters:

Lt. Raine is awesome. First off, whenever someone talks to him they say his title and military titles are badass. He is also the top-man in the Basterds; who are the ones who do the majority of the Nazi-killing in the movie. Hans Landa is probably the coolest Nazi you will ever see. He’s pretty much chill with everyone, and is clever as hell. If he weren’t a Nazi, he would toally be a badass.

Most of the characters in the movie are badasses, actually (except Hitler. He sucks.) But everyone pretty much does something awesome at some point.

Visual / Audio Effects:

This movie looked pretty good. There weren’t many explosions, or anything like that, but you got to see exactly how they killed all the Nazis. They also showed you when the Basterds were scalping the Nazis’ heads, and that was pretty cool.

The music was awesome. The main theme to the movie was catchy as hell – it was also one of those songs that will get stuck in your head; but you don’t mind that it’s stuck in your head. It’s awesome.

Overall:

This movie rocks. It’s got action, it’s hilarious (there are tons of jokes in this thing too,) and the ending is awesome. If you haven’t seen this, you should.

4.5 / 5 Stars

*****

ANSWER TO MONDAY QUESTION OF THE WEEK:

Q: How long before Octipus overthrow humans as the dominant species on earth?

“The Mayan apocalypse is undoubtedly going to be caused by an octopus god (Cthulu).” – Dan

“I thought banana slugs were the dominant species on earth.” – M

SATURDAY QUESTION OF THE WEEK:

What country do you think will be coming out of the Olympics with the most Gold medals?

What other movies do you want to see reviewed? Leave a comment and let me know!

Book: Reading "The Reader"

The Monocled Review

(Pictured Left)

The Screaming,

Monocle, Fedora

and Rubber Chicken Review

(Pictured Right)

*****

Sorry about the delay, here is the review of “The Reader.”

Next week is “Twilight” and after that no other books have been suggested: so remember to leave a comment!

*****

Synopsis:

“The Reader,” by Bernhard Schlink focuses on the life of Michael Berg, a fifteen year old boy from Germany. One day he meets Hanna Schmitz, a 34 year-old tram conductor. The two begin a sexual relationship which lasts for several months before Hanna suddenly disappears.

Life goes on for Michael, and years later he meets Hanna again; this time in a courtroom where Hanna is on trial for war crimes committed during World War II. As he watches the trial, Michael begins to gain a greater understanding of both Hanna’s and his own emotions and lives.

Plot:

The plot of this movie cannot be judged as much by what happens, but by how it happens and how it is handled by the characters. The back-cover synopsis sums up the total events of eighty percent of the plot quite nicely; but this story is about so much more than simply what happens.

The book is comprised of three parts. The first being Michael’s meeting with Hanna and their experiences together: Secret visits to Hanna’s house, a summer biking excursion, Michael looking for Hanna on the tram where she works… the book goes into great depth detailing the experiences which Michael and Hanna built their relationship on.

Characters:

The characters are what make this book, despite their only really being two: Michael and Hanna. All the other characters in the books are blatantly secondary and do not receive much development.

Michael is shy individual who is gradually changed through his experiences with Hanna. He is heavily dependant on others, often turning to them to tell him how he should act and live his life. He is constantly mulling over his emotions within himself; and throughout the book he is always trying to determine how he should feel about what is happening to him.

Hanna is a wonderful and mysterious character. Throughout the book, we are gradually given hints concerning her personality and how her mind works. We are never given too much information, and as a result Hanna holds the same mysterious air to us as she does to Michael.

Writing:

I loved the language in this book. All of the scenes were vividly painted with fluid language. The workings of Michael’s mind were clear: the writing was excellent in conveying Michael’s thoughts to me as a reader.

Compared to other pieces I have read, this book had very little dialogue; but the dialogue which was included was very good. The book was originally published in German, but all of the dialogue retained a very fluid feel even after translation.

Overall:

I loved this book. The writing was excellent throughout, and the characters were wonderfully developed. They were human: layered, flawed, and sympathetic. I recommend this book with a caveat: there are plausible interpretations to the story that would make it seem sympathetic towards the German internment and concentration camp guards of World War II. That being the case, if the camps are a personal subject to you, you may want to skip reading this book.

4 / 5 Stars

*****

Plot:

Not a whole lot really happens in this book. You got pretty much a montage of a relationship, a montage of a multi-week court case, and an epilogue. There was only, like, one or two twist in the entire book and for the primary one it was like, ‘Okay. And?’ You spend the book waiting for something to happen, but then nothing happens.

Characters:

Michael is great. He’s a total player, hitting on anything within sixty feet of him, and that’s only in part one. In the second part of the book he turns into the classical badass gentleman – the type of guy from the olden days who defined anything to do with giving into physical or mental discomfort as womanly.

Hanna was awesome: she didn’t take shit from ANYONE. Even when she was being accused of god damn war crimes, she was treating the accusations like a check-the-box restaurant survey. It was either ‘Yes, I did it,’ or ‘No, get off my case.’ No bullshit, just truth. Nice.

Writing:

This guy is kinda like Shakespeare in the ‘Why use three words when you can use twenty seven?’ train of thought. He would describe EVERYTHING in a scene, even things that really didn’t matter – like curtains. The book still moved pretty fast, but I could do without knowing the color and shape of every little object in the room.

Overall:

This book iffy. The characters were awesome, but everything else was slow and overinflated. It also kinda seemed like it was painting the Nazis as good guys. If you have a lot of free time on your hands, try this thing. If not, you aren’t missing much.

2 / 5 Stars

*****

ANSWERS TO SATURDAY QUESTION OF THE WEEK:

“I’m thinking the Colts will win 31-17.” -- Eric

And… that’s the only one we got.

MONDAY QUESTION OF THE WEEK:

Recently there has been proof that Octopi have learned to use coconut shells as tools for protection and hunting. The question is:

How long before the Octopus species develops further and overthrows humans as the dominant race on earth?

What other books do you want to see reviewed? Leave a comment and let me know!

Delayed Update

The update is going to be a little late today. I had a bit too much fun watching sports over the weekend, and shamefully didn’t finish the review by this morning.

The review will be up by 6 pm tonight, if not a little sooner. To tide you over, I've included a picture of a cymbal-monkey. Sorry about the delay, and thanks for your patience.

--David F. Ducey IV

Film: Trippin’ Over “The Lovely Bones”

The Monocle Review (Pictured Left)

The Screaming, Monocle,

Fedora, and Rubber Chicken

Review (Pictured Right)

*****

Thanks for the suggestions. See? I'm listening. The next book to be read will be “The Reader” by Benhard Schlink. After “The Reader” will be “Twilight” by Stephanie Meyer.

As for movies, I had a suggestion to review some of the Oscar Nominees. I couldn’t get my hands on any of them this week, but next week I will be starting that with “Inglorious Basterds”, followed by “District 9”, “The Hurt Locker”, and “The Blind Side.” That’s probably all I’ll have time for before the Oscars on March 7. After the Oscars, it will be back to other suggestions by you, or the AFI Top 100.

Thanks for the suggestions, and keep ‘em coming. Hope you enjoy the reviews.

*****

Synopsis:

Susie Salmon was an average fourteen year old girl. She went to school, got into arguments with her parents, and held crushes on guys…until she was murdered. “The Lovely Bones” centers around Susie’s ghost trying accept her death, and on the efforts of Susie’s family to find her killer.

Plot:

When critiquing the plot of this movie, I found it important to distinguish which plot I was reviewing. There was the one plot about Susie venturing through the after-life, trying to come to terms with leaving the world of the living. There was the plot of the father trying to hunt down Susie’s killer while still holding the family together. Finally, there was plot of the post-death romantic relationship of Susie and her crush. The qualities of the plots were fair, impressive, and poor, respectively. Susie’s afterlife seemed like an extended dream-sequence: completely surreal with imagery being tossed to and fro in an attempt to convey a deeper meaning. The plot of the father and the family was that of an average mystery. The final plot seemed to be there simply as an underdeveloped excuse to keep Susie occupied in her struggles with moving on. None of them meshed together successfully, and the resulting product gave the film a schizophrenic feel rather than a sophisticated one.

Characters:

The characters were the strong suit of this movie. All of them had depth beyond what was originally presented, and all of them (exempting the killer) changed over the course of the movie. Susie was a likeable character, albeit only because she saved her brother’s life in the very beginning of the movie. Her struggles were also realistic to those of a young girl, even in death. The father was my personal favorite. His struggle with accepting Susie’s death, and his slow spiral and gradual disconnect with logic and reason was one of the most interesting facets of the film. The killer was also an interesting character. The film does an excellent job of delving just far enough into his mind to understand him, but not far enough to bring us to sympathize with him. I enjoyed this, as I had a feel for who he was while keeping my sense of satisfaction when he received his inevitable karmic retribution.

Visual Effects / Audio:

The visual effects were impressive. Granted, they needed to be considering a good half of the movie took place entirely within a computer generated world of imagery and surrealism. All of Susie’s afterlife sequences were jammed full of special-effect enhanced metaphors. Personally, I think that it was overdone. A lot of the messages the film was trying to convey could have been communicated with much less complication. The audio was, unfortunately, entirely forgettable and left no lasting impression at all.

Overall:

While not a bad movie, I can’t say that “The Lovely Bones” was particularly good either. I wouldn’t suggest seeing this in theaters; but if you have some spare time on your hands once it comes out on video, I would say give it a look then,

3 / 5 Stars

Plot:

The movie was okay. In the beginning, there was a kick-ass car chase, but after that, things slowed down. A lot. It was mostly suspense after car scene. I normally don’t mind suspense, but this had absolutely no tension. There wasn’t anything thrilling about it. The suspense scenes were just the movie going, ‘I’m gonna do it! I’m gonna do it! I’m stillllll gonna do it. BOO! HA! I did it!’

Then again, tt wasn’t all bad that the movie was like that. There were a few scenes, such as Susie’s visit to an otherworldly bathroom, where I think they were trying to be dramatic, but came off as ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS instead. Kinda like Vader’s “NOOOOOOOOOO!” from Star Wars.

Characters:

A lot of the characters in this movie are annoying idiots. Susie is clingy whiner, the dad is an obsessive nutcase, and the killer is, well, a wack-minded psycho. None of them have an ounce of common sense, and the only reason the killer wasn’t found twenty minutes in was because everyone else was just as stupid as he was. The only person with a brain at all is Susie’s sister. By the way, she is also the only one who does anything productive when trying to find the killer.

Visual Effects/ Audio:

When I was watching this movie, half the time I didn’t know whether I was in a theater or on a drug trip. Seriously, trees were melting, beach balls were the size of random islands, and the environment changed more times than Brett Favre’s retired.

Overall:

This movie is pretty bad. There are maybe two or three cool parts in the entire thing, and I, personally, was happy when the main character died for good. Skip this one.

1.5 / 5 Stars

*****

SATURDAY QUESTION OF THE WEEK:

Who do you think is going to win the Super Bowl?

Best Answers (Read: Most Entertaining) to be posted along with next question.

What other films do you want to see reviewed? Leave a comment and let me know!

--David F. Ducey IV

No Refuge From Terri Blackstock’s “Cape Refuge”

Cape Refuge is a small town off the coast of Savannah, Georgia. Like most small towns, it is as close-knit and peaceful as a place can be – until the old couple in charge of the town’s halfway house is brutally murdered. The town, thrown into turmoil, searches desperately to find the killer while dealing with the emotional blow of losing two of its most beloved members.

Story:

The story starts fairly quickly. Shortly after you are introduced to the primary characters of the tale, the murder is discovered and a presumably innocent suspect is arrested. Unfortunately, the story stalls at that point for almost the entire rest of the book. The characters struggle with the loss of their loved ones for the entirety of this section, but not in a convincing fashion. By the time a little progression returns to the plot, you are over halfway through the book. Even then, the plot is so slow to move it is hard to notice any progression at all. The pace finally picks up at the very end of book, but that is long after any interest in the plot and story fades away.

This is a story about nothing. Early on, there is a murder, so you get all psyched up for a mystery story... but then nothing happens. And nothing continues to happen for the entire book. There was maybe one event worth reading per every fifteen chapters – and there are nearly 90 chapters in this thing.

Characters:

The characters are static and uninteresting. Once the murder happens, the rest of the book is spent exclusively in grieving. Their grief isn’t as much consistent as it is redundant. The same things are saddening them, and there really isn’t much depth to their anguish outside of the obvious. I was simply unconvinced that the characters had any sort of depth.

This book is full of idiots. I hated them all. The only guy I kinda liked was thrown in jail at the beginning of the book and never let out. Most of the characters were over-emotional morons with the common sense of a desk lamp.

Overall:

I can’t say I cared for this book. The plot progression was slow, and I found the characters to be uninteresting and unsympathetic. Throughout the book, there was also an extremely heavy-handed religious message – the book could be more likened to a sermon than a mystery. I don’t see myself reading anything else by this author.

2 / 5 Stars

This book is just not interesting. The only part which was interesting was the final climax like, eighty chapters in. Don’t bother with this one.

1 / 5 Stars

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What are some books you want to see reviewed? What do you think of my review format? Leave a comment and let me know!