Inglourious Basterds

Wow... Inglourious Basterds is so amazingly awesome. I'm still blown away thinking about the final action scene. Now, Quentin Tarantino is my favorite director, and Pulp Fiction is my favorite movie I've ever seen, but I don't let my bias get in the way of how I feel about this movie. About the plot, if you are expecting to go into the movie and see 153 minutes of Americans killing Nazis I have to inform you that Inglourious Basterds is not that movie. Instead the film consists of many long scenes of that amazing Tarantino dialogue, slowly building up suspense to the final powerhouse of Nazi killing awesomeness (and I'm talking really awesome). Besides the final action scenes there is another one in a tavern that is also fantastic. I know you will probably hear this in every review of this movie but Christoph Waltz is perfect as Hans Landa, sometimes you are scared by him and sometimes he makes you laugh, sometimes he is being very pleasant but is extremely terrifying at the same time. His talent is best exemplified in the first scene of the film in which he interrogates a man hiding Jews in his house while the Jews are under the floor-boards listening, it is an amazingly intense scene yet it still involves some comedy and the way it ends up is not how you would expect it to. There is also comedy in many other moments in the film, but I'll opt not to give them away because of the sheer hilarious surprise they turn out to be. One more thing I have to mention is that this film is very gory and not for the faint of heart, but you won't find yourself feeling bad for Nazis when they are hurt because, well... they're Nazis. I'd if you are squeamish see this movie anyway and cover your eyes during the gory scenes. In comparison to Tarantino's other movies, I'd say if you had Kill Bill Volume 2 except at the end instead of facing Bill, The Bride faces a Crazy 88 of Bills in the House of Blue Leaves than it would remind me of Inglourious Basterds in the way that it is a sequence of events building up to the huge climax. This movie might be higher than 500 Days of Summer on my best films of the year so far list, but I'll have to see it a second time to confirm my suspicion (any excuse to get to experience this masterfully made epic again).
Inglourious Basterds - 4 out of 4
-Zach

District 9... FROM SPACE!!!!!

District 9 is a film bleeding with originality, as well as many other thing. It is a story about how the human race doesn't learn from its mistakes and how money is more important some people than any single life they ruin while trying to gain it. With absolutely fantastic special effects and jaw-dropping set pieces this is defiantly one of the best films of the year. The beginning of the movie is shot like a documentary and it seamlessly converts into a narrative very quickly. The protagonist named Wikus van der Merwe starts out as a mild-mannered kind of average weakling of a guy. He slowly turns into a Rambo-eske character after a substance begins to turn him into an alien. Sharlto Copley gives a fantastic performance as Wilkus. The action in the movie is so cool and so heart stopping it makes my time seeing this film in the theater one of the most intense film experiences of my life. This is director Neill Blomkamp's first feature length film and I've hear rumors he is in the running to direct the Halo film. If Halo is any where as good as this movie I'll be first in line to see it.

District 9 - 4 out of 4

-Zach

In the Loop

In the Loop is a British farce centering around the communication or the miscommunication between the U.S. and U.K. governments. The whole movie is about words. In the very beginning the U.K.'s Secretary of State for International Development says that war is "unforeseeable." Apparently that made his department look bad and it starts a whole chain of events that leads to mass confusion and hysteria. The satire is spot-on the entire time. But the stand out feature of the film is the screenplay which was written by five different people is so amazingly funny that I had some of the best lines running through my head while chuckling to myself while other people stared at me wondering "what's that guy laughing about" for several hours. There is so much cursing and fowl-mouthary in this movie and the usage of these words is perfect. Notable performances are those of Peter Capaldi (the most fowl-mouthed character in any film this year, probably), James Gandolfini, and Steve Coogan. My favorite moment in the film (which is featured in the trailer) is when a man says to his assistant "this will be easy peasy lemon squeezy" and his assistant replies to him "No, it'll be difficult difficult lemon difficult!" In the Loop is one of the funniest movies of the year.

In the Loop is in limited release and is available On Demand.

In the Loop - 3.5 out of 4

-Zach

Funny People

Funny People is a movie I can't describe what I really mean to say about this movie but I will try. Well before I start to talk about my dislikes of the film I just want to make it clear that I did truly enjoy this movie but for some reason I don't feel as connected to it as I do to Knocked Up or Forgetting Sarah Marshall (which was produced by Apatow). I think the main reason is that I did not want Adam Sandler's character to succeed at regaining the love of his like, who is played by the love of my life, Leslie Mann. This is mainly because he is just not a nice guy. On the other hand, the character played by Seth Rogan I was with the entire time. I really love Jonah Hill as Seth Rogan's roommate. I also loved the scenes of Adam Sandler's Character, George Simmons's Movies which were parodies of the type of movies Sandler makes. Unfortunatly shortly after the beginning of the movie there was about 20 minutes which I can't pinpoint exactly, but they struck a wrong chord, I'm not sure exactly why but it just didn't feel like the rest of the movie, but other than that I think Funny People is one of the best comedies of the summer so far.

Funny People - 3 out of 4

-Zach