Before I begin this review (which is the first one in quite some time now) I’d like to begin with saying that I’ve changed the review method slightly – no more 5-point based scoring-system. It’s hard to put a number on films, and I know that I might have a tendency to “overrate” a lot of films I see – which is why I’ve decided to just keep the review as a purely text-based thing and not something where I’ll just slap a number on it at the end. Anyway, let’s get this review underway!

I had been looking forward to Inglourious Basterds, the latest film from director Quentin Tarantino, for quite some time. Having watched the first trailer my expectations remained on the same heights, and once it had been very well recieved at the Cannes film festival, with Christoph Waltz winning the “Best Actor” award earlier this year, I just knew it: I had to see this film. Now.

Needless to say really, the film lived up to my expectations and in some cases, exceeded them – so what is it about really? Similar to other films by Tarantino (excluding Death Proof and Kill Bill) there are several smaller stories featuring their own main characters, that are intertwined at the end in a big, no-holds-barred confrontation – come to think of it, this makes it rather similar to the gangster films made by UK director Guy Ritchie. The story combines different actors with different spoken languages and in some cases, different genres into a mishmash of greatness. Speaking of languages, the dialouge in this film is really rather brilliant – all scenes with Christoph Waltz’s character Hans “The Jew Hunter” Linda are fantastic – the actor is clearly the perfect fit for the role, which in some scenes is the best villain Tarantino has put on screen to date. Not only is he a great actor who is like a ticking bomb to watch – calm one moment, aggresive and lethal the next – he also speakes several languages fluently throughout the film. It’s a joy to watch Hans Linda effortlessly switch from German to French to English to Italian. In one scene. And while we’re on the topic of Italian linguistics, a scene featuring Brad Pitt’s’ Tenesee-born Aldo Raine completely mastering the language. Sort of.

Brad Pitt leads a gang of undercover soldiers – the “Inglourious Basterds” – dropped into France a mere weeks before the American invasion during the 2nd World War. Their mission is simple: kill nazi soldiers – or as Aldo Raine puts it: “Nazi ain’t got no humanity and need to be dee-stroyed”. Among the Jewish, American soldiers Aldo Raine has recruited are some unknown and some fimilar faces – most notably Eli Roth (director of the two installations of Hostel as well as Cabin Fever) who plays Donny Donowitz, a character among enemies also known as “The Bear-Jew” with a fondness for baseball. Also great in the film is Til Schweiger who plays former German soldier turned Nazi-killer Hugo Stiglitz – I had previously only seen him in Uwe Boll’s Far Cry – a rather miserable film – but he’s absolutely fantastic in this. Other notable roles include Diane Krueger as a famous German actress who does a really good job with her role, as well as Mike Myers who plays a general in the British secret service – while he plays his role quite well, it’s still not quite up to par with the other actors who do an amazing job, and it all feels like a bit too much of Austin Powers shining through.

I could go into details on how the setpieces are great, the music (mainly pulled from 70′s spaghetti westerns) fits beautifully and how all the small twists and turns make it this dialouge-focused piece of film a joy to watch. I could even say that the first scene/chapter of the film is probably among the best scenes by Tarantino ever, but I’ll stick to the fact that the film was planned, shot, edited and finished in less than 8 months. The film consists of 5 chapters, which are basically long scenes that begin peacefully while the tension slowly builds throughout. And to think that there are, in total, a maximum of maybe 10 setpieces in the entire film with it’s runtime clocking over the 2h 40min mark – it never gets anywhere even close to not being highly entertaining, should be praise enough. Seriously, you should go see this film. Now. Twice.

More info: Trailer – Metacritic – Official Website

[UPDATE] Hope you enjoyed this new review format, check back tomorrow Wednesday evening for my review of the newly released sci-fi action film by debut director Neil Blomkamp, District 9!

Hey everyone – it’s been a bit over three weeks now since Campsite was released, and I’m pleased to say that it’s been positively recieved by loads of people =) While making the film it’s been a hard time not to think about writing new films and shorter stories to try out techniques and different genres. Currently writing together a small synopsis of my next film project – it won’t be as long as Campsite or take as long to finish, as I’m hoping it could be a short film with some minor VFX – I did say that when I started to shoot Campsite, I know, but it should be true this time

Oh, today is exactly one year since we started filming Campsite! Time certainly flies! I’m currently in a hotel room on Mallorca enjoying the last week before I begin university on September 1st – will be studying film theory, and while it’s been a pretty amazing summer, it feels good and exciting to enroll in a new school, focusing entirely on the subject I love.

I also recorded a small promo/event film little over a week ago with Mahdi and Fredrik which I have been editing together – will post it on the website once it’s done – it’s not anything really exciting though – although come to think of it, I’m pretty happy with some of the shots I managed to get. Depending on wheather I will continue to do more and more event filming and photography, I’ll have to divide the movie section of the website somewhat to make a clearer distinction between the fiction-based stories, documentaries and event films/jobs. That’s still a bit away on the horizon though.

Will now continue to read the last remaining chapters of Stieg Larsson’s “Män som hatar kvinnor” – a thriller from 2003. It’s really really good so far, although quite disturbing – can’t wait to see the newly released Swedish film based on the same book which looks quite great.

I wish I could tell you more about the script or synopsis I’m working on/thinking about right now but it’s a bit difficult seeing as it’s either quite crap or not really thought-through just yet. Talk to you soon though, I’m hoping to be able to go back to writing more reviews too now that Campsite has been released Speak to you all again soon!

Take care everyone!

Hey everyone! The last two weeks since Campsite was released there’s been a whole lot of downloads and comments, which is awesome! Checking the statistics for this month, the bandwith compiled so far (and with less than half of the month passed) is way over the last 11 months combined, which is pretty cool.

Today I have a “special feature” for Campsite which have been prepared to show you all a comparison of the film in it’s first rough cut, compared to the final film Currently working on the upcoming DVD and Blu-Ray release of the film, but more info on that soon. Until then, check out the comparison video below:

Campsite Before/After comparison (280 Mb) [Quicktime 7] (right-click, “Save Target As…”)

Take care everyone!