Moneyball

I have been a bit out of the movie viewing business lately.  This is mostly due to the paltry offerings from the studios as of late.  I am looking forward to the holiday season when we will get some of the better movies for the year.  I did decide to try out Moneyball with a friend recently.  I thought that all in all it was pretty darn slow, but when it did pick up it was pretty interesting.

Moneyball is the story of the Oakland A's 2002 season.  This season stands out for the A's becuase of the interesting tatctics used by the team's general manager, Billy Beane played by Brad Pitt.  Beane is trying to field a winning team with a very small, by the standard of baseball not normal people, budget.  He meets a young man, Peter Brand played by Jonah Hill, who is taking a different view of hiring players.  The plot is pushed forward by the opposition that these two meet while trying to implement their new system of evaluating players.  Brand's theory involves looking at the statistics and the math behind the game of baseball.  The math nerd in me loved this part of the movie, normal people may find it a bit dull.

Hill and Pitt both do a wonderful job in this movie.  It was very interesting to the see the more serious side of Hill.  I would have liked to have gotten to experience a bit of Brand's world away from the stadium to really get to see Hill stretch his ability, but that would have added time to an already very long movie.  Pitt is fabulous as always, although I have to say that one of my favorite things about the movie was watching him stuff his face.  I once read an interview with a man that "plays" Pitt, in voice-over French translations of his movies,  who said that the hardest thing about voicing Brad over was that he was always eating.  Seriously watch any movie with Brad Pitt in it and just watch for him to eat.  It happens a lot!  I find it hilarious for some reason.

In the long run I would say this is definitely a renter movie.  There is nothing that really needs to be seen on the big screen with this film.  If you don't like math, baseball or character movies you should probably skip this one.

Happy Viewing

Inglorious Basterds

I have already mentioned that I wanted to see the Best Picture nominees before the Oscars, it should be noted that I failed miserably. I managed to see 3 out of 10. I will eventually see most of them, but 10 is a big number. I did manage to see Inglorious Basterds before the awards show, and I am tremendously glad that I did. I wasn't sure how I felt about this movie going into it. I had heard that is was incredibly violent, and knowing Quentin Tarantino movies I didn't doubt this. I also thought that this would be a very sad movie, you don't often go to a WWII film and laugh your way through it. I watched this one because my roommate wanted to, and I ended up loving it.

The title of the film refers to a group of Jewish-American soldiers who tromp through Germany killing and scalping Nazis. This group is led by Leiutenant Aldo Raine, played by the brilliant Brad Pitt, a soldier from Tennessee. The Basterds are very good at what they do and their name is soon feared by all Nazi soldiers. The Basterds are a very violent group, and much of the film's gross out moments come when they are on the screen. The scalping, while disgusting, was not too bloody for me, the chicken, to watch. I did turn away when they took a bat to a Nazi's head but apparently it wasn't too terrible to watch. Another name among the Basterds is BJ Novak from The Office. His character doesn't talk much, but it was interesting to see him play someone very serious and stoic.

While the title of the film would indicate that the story is about these Basterds, I would have to say that the movie is only half about them. The rest of the movie is taken up by two brilliantly portrayed nemeses. Christoph Waltz won an Oscar for his role in this film as Colonol Hans Landa of the Third Reich. Col. Landa is known as the Jew Hunter among his peers, and Waltz does a stunning job of bringing out this man's true brilliance and creepiness at the same time. I truly hated this man while watching this film, and while I guess that is probably not hard to do while playing a Nazi I really believe that Waltz took it to another level. His nemesis is Shoshanna Dreyfus played by Melanie Laurent.

Col. Landa and Shoshanna first encounter each other in the dairy region of France when Landa slaughters her family and she narrowly escapes. This is our first glimpse of the relentless heartlessness of Landa. Shoshanna picks her life back up in Paris where she runs a relatively small cinema. Landa and Shoshanna are reintroduced when the Third Reich decides to hold a movie premiere at Shoshanna's theater and Landa is in charge of the security. The brilliance of these two actors is highlighted in a cafe scene where Landa goes on and on about putting creme on Shoshanna's apple strudel. The scene is so incredibly tense, you sit on your edge the whole time, yet really they are just talking about dessert.

The movie comes to a peak as we near the movie premiere. The movie is about Frederick Zoller a sniper that held down a town for the Nazis single handedly. Frederick, who plays himself in the movie called Nation's Pride, falls for Shoshanna. It is his idea to have the premiere at her cinema. The Basterds hear about the premiere from a prominent German actress, Bridget von Hammersmark played by Diane Kruger, who has turned against the Third Reich. When they hear that Hitler himself will be at the premiers the Basterds come up with a plan. The Basterds are going to go into the premiere with Bridget and with tons of explosives strapped to their ankles.

What the Basterds, and the Third Reich, don't know is that Shoshanna has devised her own plan for taking out the people in the theater. Shoshanna and her projectionist have a large collection of film as you would expect a theater to have. The upside for them is that at this time in history film is one of the most flammable items on the planet. They have enough to burn the theater to the ground.

I won't tell you how the whole things comes to an end because I really want you to see it. If you don't mind a little blood and a lot of tension, you will love this film. It's a good story, everyone loves to hate the Nazis. Brad Pitt is always talented, and you will definitely want to hear him try to speak Italian with his Tennessee accent. There is enough humor in this film to break up the tension and find that perfect balance of action and comedy.