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16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fun Film, Great Package, July 28, 2008
The Italian Dirty Dozen knockoff finally makes it to DVD. The wait was worth it. This review is for the 3 disc edition. A single disc edition is available, but the 3 disc is indeed loaded with goodies. Whatever floats your boat.
Disc 1. The film is actually quite good. Even if it is a Dirty Dozen knockoff, it still has it's own unique charm to stand alone. The characters are all quirky. It doesn't take itself too seriously. It knows what it is (A WW2 men-on-a-mission adventure) and it really wants it's audience to have a good time. Fred Williamson is probably the best actor in here. I don't know what the word would be, but he's just naturally cool. The rest of the cast does a fine job. Sit back and enjoy the ride.
I didn't really give a synopses, but as most would know. It's not the destination, it's the journey getting there. The film is adventurous where it need to be, and humorous in between. I figure anybody looking at this obscure title knows about it already.
The picture quality is really fantastic. With the source material at hand, it's really hard to ask for something better. A Blu-Ray release would have been nice. But I can't complain. We get Inglorious Bastards in it's full uncut glory.
While I didn't listen to the whole thing (Don't have that much free time) Director Enzo supplies the film with an audio commentary. He obviously loves his work, and gives more info then we should know. It's completely worth a listen for the fans. I hope to soon finish it myself.
Disc 1 finishes off with a conversation between Director Enzo G. Castellari and super fan Quentin Tarantino. While I usually despise shameless self promotion (See the back of the package and all it's Tarantino-Esq quotes, eg. "Director [...] Is One Of Quentin Tarantino's Heroes!" Do we care?) This is actually a very good interview in the end. Tarantino being the obsessive fanboy he is, asks a lot of obscure questions. It's worth while in the end. Runs 38 minutes, and is filled with info super fans want to know about.
Disc 2. We start of with a 13 minute featurette where director Enzo revisits shooting locations and gives some interesting tidbits. Only for the super fans. Wasn't that interested myself.
Featurette number 2 is where all the good stuff is. It runs at a lengthy 1 hour 15 minutes. It includes interviews with most of the main players and production team. The best one here is again Fred Williamson. This Doc should easily please all fans. Even someone like me who wasn't a massive follower found this very insightful and well worth my time. A+ material for sure.
Disc 3. The die hard fans should get a kick out of this, but for me it was useless. It's an audio CD with over 20 minutes of unreleased score tracks. Why not just give us the whole soundtrack? It's odd, but I guess they wanted to include everything. Can't fault them for that.
The film: 7.5/10. A really fun WW2 adventure, but it is no where close to the league of Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare, or The Guns Of Navarone.
The DVD: 9 for the extras. Even though a few little add ons were a little useless. This is a great little package for the fans.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
great fun, not a brilliant movie, February 7, 2009
it's hard to say what I think of this film. It's, in some ways, a brilliant war film that deserves recognition, while it can simultaneously make you shudder. it has a clever plot but then you have dialogue like "hey, those are our flyboys!" (impersonates an airplane while making a machine gun noise); there are some great effects and sets that are made good use of, but you can see the ropes pulling men from an explosion more clearly than you can see the strings in an Ed Wood film; you have naked german women firing machine guns at retreating American troops, and then you have the fact that this scene only lasts a couple of seconds (this is first time that an Italian movie has skimpped out in this category, let alone not completely over do it. It should have been at least a few minutes long, if not for the sex appeal then for the pure hilariouty of it.)
It's like a movie that's so bad that it's good, but at the same time is actually good. And, like many films of this sort, it's main source of entertainment comes from it's cleverness that simply oozes from it's different aspects including plot and filmwork.
The only major problem is that I had expected it to actually go on for about two hours or so until it ended. I would've given it four stars if it were only longer (especially certain *clear throat* scenes).
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This That Real Ish!, September 11, 2009
From Spaghetti Westerns to Post-Nuke cinema, I'll be darned if there's a genre film Enzo G. Castellari can't handle! The Inglorious Bastards is just such an exceptional example and undoubtedly the kind of film that's able to rise above the classics it so heavily borrows from. Forget The Dirty Dozen, forget Cross of Iron, The Inglorious Bastards has one thing neither of those milestones in combat cinema have...Fred "The Hammer" Williamson.
What? You were expecting something deep and profound?
There's not one single thing I disliked about The Inglorious Bastards; the action is of the non-stop, two-fisted variety and the characters are incredibly likable, despite being a motley assemblage of thieves, murderers and cowards. The film tackles topics like race, true love and self-sacrifice in the face of impending doom; some emotionally charged topics there for a film many might consider exploitation.
The production design far exceeds anything one might expect going into this film and Giovanni Bergamini's cinematography was more than adequate. The score by famed Italian film composer Francesco De Masi was good though perhaps not as memorable as some of his other work in spaghetti cinema.
While The Inglorious Bastards may not have been the last film Williamson and Svenson worked on together, this is undoubtedly the best of the lot and an absolute must-see film for cult cinema fans. Severin has really gone all out on this fantastic release and the sound, transfer and extras really set this apart from the film's previous release incarnation. This has got to be one of the top cult cinema DVD releases of 2008! Forget Tarantino...IT'S ALL ABOUT THE CASTELLARI!
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