Movies Make My Life: Taking Woodstock and Inglourious Basterds.

Being the avid, who-cares-about-the-price-of-a-ticket movie watcher that I am, I saw two movies this weekend: Taking Woodstock and Inglourious Basterds. Nice weekend, definitely.

First: Taking Woodstock. I liked it quite a bit. I didn’t read any reviews for it beforehand, so I’m not sure if some of this stuff is common knowledge to most people, but there were a couple of things that surprised me. The first was that you never see a single musician in this movie. Not one. In fact, the main character, Elliot (Demetri Martin), never even makes it down to the stage during the whole thing. He’s too busy dealing with his crazy, overbearing parents and dealing with running the concert and figuring out who he is – which was great! I was surprised that there was hardly any actual music in a movie about Woodstock, but the story focused much more on the people who attended Woodstock as audience members, not as performers. It was, I assume, a much different story than Woodstock the documentary. As one of my friends said: Everyone knows what Woodstock was. This movie dealt with other things.

I thought Demetri Martin was really, really good – the perfect awkward Jewish son. Very likeable. Also notable was, of course, Emile Hirsch, who played a guy named Billy who was fresh out of an army tour. I almost always think Emile Hirsch is fantastic (okay, always). But the people who totally stole the show, in my opinion, were Elliot’s parents, played by Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton. Aaaamazing. Hilarious. Absolutely loved them. The scene in which they eat hash brownies: so much better than the previews can even begin to suggest.

Finally, this movie is directed by Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain), so I don’t think it should come as any surprise that it is a bit lengthy and atmospheric. It’s not constant laughs or constant action. If you want to enjoy it, you need to just go along for the ride and try to appreciate it, I think. I did, and I really liked it.

Now on to Inglourious Basterds. It’s not even fair that I’m reviewing this movie in the same post as Taking Woodstock… because while I really liked Woodstock, I loved Basterds. Loooved it! Let me preface by saying that I adore Tarantino movies, and if you don’t – well, I wouldn’t bother reading any further, because most people I know who don’t love Tarantino tend to hate him. With a passion. In which case there’s really no point in seeing his movies, not if you have a chip on your shoulder about the guy. But, if you have an open mind, a Tarantino fetish, or an appreciation for brilliant dialogue, then please, carry on.

If you do go to see this movie, be prepared for spurts of gory action followed by long, drawn out scenarios and winding conversations – but if you’ve seen any Tarantino movie, that’s kind of obvious, I guess. And I always enjoy the long, clever conversations (though I'm positive that there were tons of movie references that went right over my head in Basterds, so a more educated film buff would probably get even more out of them than I did), but I know not everyone may feel this way. You can't be impatient with Tarantino. Like with Woodstock, you have to relax and just go with the story as it comes - these are not short movies - or you'll probably hate it. But such is life.

Now let me address a few things:

Yes, there are graphic depictions of dead Nazis getting scalped (complete with the requisite sawing noises... ouch). Yes, someone does get beaten to death by a baseball bat, wielded by “The Bear Jew” (Eli Roth, who was the only actor in the whole movie whose acting I didn't love... but he was fine). But if you can handle those things (which happen only briefly at the beginning, followed by very little violence for the rest of the movie), the rest of the movie is so funny and smart and well-acted, I think it’s worth sitting through a few scalpings. And I have to say, I am usually bothered by graphic violence, but the violence in this movie didn't bother me too much. I'm not entirely sure what that says, but... I didn't think it was that bad.

Yes, this movie is completely historically inaccurate. I know some people are, um, upset by this… to which I say: seriously? Seriously? There are tons of WWII movies in existence – puh-lenty. Isn’t it okay, by now, to have one that’s different? And to be honest, this movie seems to be much more a commentary on the genre of WWII movies than the event (WWII) itself. But if you can’t get past the made-up, alternate-reality nature of the movie, you’d better not see this. It will only anger the historian within you.

Yes, Christoph Waltz is fantastic. Amazing. Brilliant. So good at being a villain it’s scary. He really does deserve an Oscar for that performance if you ask me. I’m not even going to bother going into the other characters because there were so many (Brad Pitt, Shosanna Dreyfus, Diane Kruger, Til Schweiger, I could go on and on and on) and they were truly all so good. Just trust me.

Anyway, I don’t want to say much more than that; I feel like the previews already gave away too much (as they always seem to these days!). But even knowing everything I already knew going into the movie (read: basically everything, it seemed, including the ending), the plot was convoluted and twisty enough to keep me very much on my toes and wondering/worrying about what would happen next. Just keep in mind: some bloody violence, no historical accuracy, lots of dialogue, amazing acting. If even just one or two of those things appeal to you, I’d take the chance and see it. If nothing else, I guarantee it will stimulate some heated conversation – which is what Tarantino does best!