The 25 Best Movies of the Century: No. 4 - 'Inglourious Basterds’

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1:06I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is 25 for 25, a big picture special conversation show about Inglourious Bastards live

1:18at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, California. And I think this just might be my masterpiece, Amanda. We are talking about number four on our 25 for 25 list, Inglourious Bastards. Do you like this movie? Just a little bit. Just a little bit. It is written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Melanie Laurent, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Bruhl, Till Schweiger, August Diehl, The Little Man, a whole number of other people. This is simply one of my favorite movies of all time. Mine as well. Why is it on our list? This is our Quentin Tarantino pick.

2:01I feel great about this. I would like to know how you, Sean Fennessey, in the afterglow of this absolutely glorious print of this film that we just got to see. And thank you to the American Cinematheque and the Egyptian for making that possible because it looked awesome. But you know, this list is a collaborative effort. And the rule is one film per director. And Pulp Fiction was not eligible because that came out in 1994. But there was a discussion here still. And I was very firm in Inglourious Bastards, and you wanted some other options on the table. I'm on a journey with Quentin, as I have been since I was 12 years old.

2:44And I feel very, very good about this pick. This is a rollicking good time. And I think this movie is, this movie reveals the secret art to moviemaking. And I'm not saying that everyone can do it. In fact, very few people can do it. But the secret art to movie making is not cinematography. It's not performance. It's not music. It's just writing unbelievable scene after unbelievable scene. People forget this. They worry about plot and things making sense. And screenwriters write scenes where it's like, oh, well, we need to do this scene where the guy gets in the car and he drives to the store. And then he meets a guy in a store.

3:22No. No. Just write. Never go to a store again. People writing, like saying fascinating things to each other. And this scene is like the very highest example of why Tarantino to me is the ultimate master of scene writing. Because every moment in this movie is fun. We watch these movies before we record these episodes ahead of time. I watched this movie yesterday. As recently as three hours ago, I thought Amanda and I were going to go out to Musso and Frank across the street and have dinner. And then I got inside the movie theater and I was like, I'm just going to watch it again. Well, but even then, the Musou and Frank plan was like, okay, well, we'll introduce it, and then we'll watch the opening scene, right, the 20 minutes, and then after, au revoir, Shoshana, we'll go out.

4:06And then, like, I did, because I didn't eat dinner, but I could hear the sound here is so amazing that in the next room I could hear the scenes, and I was like, oh, okay, so I just scarf this, I can be back for Operation Kino, you know? And we marked it through what scenes we wanted to see. And it's really just like just one more or maybe just one more of this. But it does have two of the all time. I mean, they are not action in the traditional sense, but I would call them two of the great set pieces of the century in the opening and in Operation Kino. Yeah. I mean, not to mention the greatest revenge sequence in the history of movies in which Hitler gets his face blown off.

4:47I mean, that is just how satisfying in 2025 to watch Nazis get annihilated. I mean, it's a movie that does not expire for a variety of reasons. That's just one of them. I mean, to your point, though, there are several Tarantino movies that we could have picked. And the timing of our conversation is very interesting. It was just announced recently that Kill Bill, The Whole Bloody Affair is coming to movie theaters December 5th. I saw that movie by myself on my birthday this year. That was my treat to myself. It was a Friday morning, and I went to go see this four-and-a-half-hour movie. Okay, I do remember that.

5:25It was amazing. It was breathtaking and so rewarding, but it was never formally released in theater, so that was not eligible. I wouldn't say Kill Bill 1 or Kill Bill 2. Okay. Death Proof, which I love, which comes right before this. I don't think I could have gotten your approval on that one. Django. Django. I don't think that we were ever going to go there. Okay. And Hateful Eight. Good movie. Sure. But then was re-released as a TV series. So, you know, this is about movies. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Yeah. This was the big debate. Would you have been happy if that was the movie that we watched tonight?

6:03Okay, but, like, yes, we all love that movie, right? Like, that was tepid applause. Where are we on this versus Once Upon a Time? Not that you get to... I mean, I agree. You can't change it. It's done. It is done. It's officially done. Unless we delete this episode and do this again tomorrow night with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I'm not saying that's happening. I mean, there's a million things that we can say about this movie in terms of the background of the production. It's a film that Tarantino had been working on for a very long time. He'd started writing it in the early 2000s. He had a hard time figuring out how to make this movie.

6:38the primary reason for that was because he could not find Hans Landa, who is one of his great creations and requires an incredible performer to fill in this role, this kind of one part evil Nazi, one part Sherlock Holmes. And he looked and he looked and he couldn't find anybody to do it. And then who does he find? Christoph Waltz. Christoph Waltz, before this movie, was an Austrian-German actor of little renown who'd only worked in Europe and was 50 years old when Tarantino found him. And you watch this movie, like we watched this movie tonight. Yeah. Like this is one of the most entertaining performances in movie history.

7:17He is just captivating. He's a motherfucker, but he is so captivating and funny and you can feel the actor having so much fun realizing his moment has arrived. You know, there's something really tangible and energetic about it. It is funny to watch it now, what, 15 years later, and having seen all the Christoph Waltz performances that have come after, and we're used to them. I mean, we watched one recently. I mean, Frankenstein, he was fine. He was doing his shtick. And he does have a note that he hits a lot, but this debut, first of all, I mean, just you couldn't ask for a better like American debut than this.

8:03But it is the perfect and the perfect melding of actor and role. But he's doing more than the one note, you know, like he never gets back to this magical moment of both glee and competence and like psychosis, you know, in in a very like mundane, amazing way. but the way his face can just switch in a second from that's a bingo to I am literally about to murder you after I order you a glass of milk. It's incredible. He won the Oscar. Then he won another Oscar in a Tarantino film. And then, I don't know, he was just inspector and other stuff. Yeah, he's a wonderful actor. He's never reached the heights of this movie again.

8:48His second Oscar for Django Unchained was very surprising, but there's just something about him. I wonder if he will surface again in the final Tarantino movie. He says the next movie is his last movie. There's really an opportunity there for him to write one more part for Waltz. I think of this movie also as a pretty pivotal one in the Tarantino arc. There is something about his reputation where he's like the great synthesis. He's somebody who pulls from all kinds of movie history and puts it in a blender and makes something very special. It's not that he doesn't do that in this movie. I just think that this is the movie where he finally transcends that reputation there's plenty of world war ii movie escape movie energy in this the dirty dozen is a huge inspiration there already is a movie called the inglorious bastards directed by Enzo Castellari which I know you watched five times to prepare for this conversation um but this is one where it feels like this is his invention this is his world well and in addition to all the references movies are a huge part of the actual text.

9:50We watched a movie theater be the main location and then eventually blown up. One of the spies is a former movie critic. Another is a movie star. They are referencing actual movies as a means to the plot. It's like diegetic. So he is bringing everything in, but it's almost like he's acknowledging, this is my intention. Yes, this will be a thing about movies and how I've consumed them and how I imagine them. Yeah, and the real... And re-imagine them. And the real hero of the movie is a person who is the real hero of the night, the projectionist. You know, the projectionist, the person who shows us films and hopefully not tonight, burns us all alive inside of a locked movie theater.

10:40Yeah. I mean, the final image of all of the old 35mm going up in flames as he rewrites his own cinema history. It's on the nose, but it's really good. Let's talk about that. So the big takeaway from this movie was that this was a reimagining of history, a revisionist history, a what-if sort of thing. That has happened before. There are a lot of movies that I really like that are sort of like that. JFK, you might say, sort of reimagines how history really played out. How do you feel about the idea of him showing us what could have been if we could have exploded the high command all in one room?

11:18Yeah, there was a lot of controversy at the time. Yeah, just so you, you in the front row who have never seen this before, people are like, huh, this is what you're doing. And there, and there were, you know, the reviews were pretty mixed. 15 years later, it feels less hot button and also kind of less like, I mean, I guess, yes, that didn't happen, IRL, that we know of. But especially now that the Tarantino... Are you saying that didn't happen? That we know of. But, you know, the movies that Tarantino has made sense are sort of, I mean, an antebellum, and then like a reimagining of like a Western whodunit.

12:03And then the real reimagining in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which is another thing of like, what if this happened, but actually it happened completely differently. And so I start to see it less in terms of he is rewriting history and more he is rewriting movie history or the movies in his head and everything that came before and offering his own version. So it's still very satisfying to watch Hitler's get his face blown off like 45 times and then they put more bullets in um but I I don't know how do you feel about it now I think that's right I think that there's definitely something to probably the way that I experience a lot of history now which is through movies you know when you're 11 and you're in social studies class you're learning about things that are happening for the first time but once you've accepted that information and synthesized it if you're a movie freak like I am it tends to become like what happened in where eagles dare and is that what really happened in that mission in that time in history and it is him synthesizing through that way but i think there's also just something genuinely emotional about his relationship to revenge and if that's you know a freed slave who fights back and is able to you know kill a slave owner in the deep south or if that is you know saving the life of sharon tate and annihilating manson family members i think that there is something genuine and emotional and deep about what he's trying to do and put on screen and give us the sense of catharsis.

13:31Like, this is a real movie of catharsis. Even though a lot of our heroes are killed or violently maimed or blown up or captured or assassinated in taverns. Yeah. When you get to the end of this movie and that Ennio Morricone dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun, I'm like, yes! Yes! We did it! Movies! Though I still, re-watching it again, I find all the Shoshana stuff quite sad. And, you know, and especially like the overhead shot and the score that comes in. And there is in the revenge still a lot of sadness. And maybe not little reality, but literal reality, but a sense of what this cost. Let's talk about Brad Pitt.

14:14Okay. This is not the first Brad Pitt film on our list. Is it the last? Let's not reveal that. Okay. I was like, I'm going to have to think really hard. Don't say anything. You know, this performance is pretty weird because it's very affected, right? He's doing a real accent. It's very jokey and hammy. And yet, I can't imagine the movie with anybody else. No. I can't picture anybody else trying to do Aldo. This entire movie has amazing line readings to a person and amazing dialogue, by the way. In addition to Tarantino being able to be, he's one of the great scene writers, but obviously dialogue, just A plus.

14:56You know, so oblige him is one of many quotes that rings in my head. A sauerkraut stanich. Yeah. So definitely weird. I spent a lot of time in that part of Tennessee, and I never heard anyone speak like that. but that's okay because in addition to it being really big there is it's not flat but it is it's giving Hans Landau all the space to be as big as he needs to be and there is almost a deadpan quality to what Pitt is doing that's very much a choice and very smart and balances out the energy between the two of them he's fantastic in it yeah I really like this one obviously it kicks off a relationship with them and he goes on to do amazing Oscar winning work in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as well.

15:46I was struck by Eli Roth this time around. He also is one of the only actors who really knows what movie he's in where he's like, I don't give a fuck. Teddy fucking ball game. Particularly when he's holding a machine gun and his eyes are bulging out of his head and he's just really excited to be murdering Hitler in real time. Sure, but don't forget when they finally make it to the premiere. and Tony Margarets, you know, and the little hand gesture. Really, really funny stuff. What would you say is your favorite scene in this movie? Because you mentioned that the opening, there's this interrogation sequence.

16:17Yeah. There's the tavern sequence. Yeah. There's the big explosion at the end. There are a great many moments. I mean, it's got to be the tavern, right? Which is its own world unto itself and has the intro scenes and Wilhelm and Maximilian and also life lessons don't fight in a basement. And then once August Steel shows up, has a heads-up game. It's got a classic Tarantino cinema bit in the middle that's also about American history. That's famously his review of King Kong. Yeah, of course. His reading of King Kong. And we recognize that as Tarantino's stans, but it also plays perfectly within the scene.

17:02and then the very tense, dramatic, well, the whole thing is tense, but the conclusion with the three fingers, I can't do the German one, so I would also be giving up. Yeah, no, I can't do it. Try to glaze it? Yeah, so one note I had on this rewatch, they're not very good spies, you know? So I guess I wouldn't be either because I can't do the three, but I had some notes. I also, we don't know anything about Brigitte von Hammersmark's like cinema career, but I wouldn't say that the acting is the subtlest I've ever seen. Oh, I see. Yeah. So. I'm just putting that out there. They failed because they're bad spies and bad actors.

17:44I mean, they gave many things away many times. Yeah, Tarantino has said that he sees Brigitte von Hammersmark as like Greer Garson and Mrs. Miniver, which I'm sure is a reference many people here understand. You know, she's obviously somewhat modeled on Marlena Dietrich, who did not stick around in Germany for the Third Reich, probably quite wisely, but that she has kind of a similar screen presence and was sort of a bombshell and a singer. And, you know, I think she's under some duress in these scenes, so I'm going to give her some latitude for her inability to perform after getting shot in the leg amidst a crazy basement shootout.

18:18I mean, there is also, it's like you don't actually have to stay for a drink once there are all those Germans there. You could just leave. That's a good point. I wanted to talk to you about Michael Fassbender. Okay. So, at the time of this movie, Fassbender was a fast-rising star in Hollywood. And it dawned on me watching this the last couple of times that this is probably the closest we're ever going to get to seeing him as James Bond. And he gets a series of James Bond-esque sequences in this movie. He gets this introduction to his mission in which he gets to basically host a movie podcast for five minutes, which is very charming.

18:52And Mike Myers doing fascinating work as a elder British lieutenant. And I love the bar in the Globe. That's straight out of a British spy thriller. Wonderful stuff. And then when he is down in the basement, a lot of fake laughing. And we catch him. A lot of teeth. Yes. Which you don't otherwise see from him very often. He doesn't play that card very often. And then finally at the final moment before he knows he's done for, shortly before Hugo Stiglitz says goodbye to August Eel's Nazi balls. It's on Wiedersehen, but anyway. he switches over back to his British accent, and he's doing some version.

19:33The Kings. The Kings, yes. He's doing some version of David Niven or George Sanders, a sort of, you know, 1940s British star. And I wish we could have gotten him as James Bond. I really think that would have been nice. Now, I know your beloved Daniel Craig, he did well, that was fine. Yeah, and I think he did well, that was fine. I do think also, you know, Like, Fassbender's doing a good send-up of all of those characters and James Bond. So I think that he would have been great. And also this is probably what disqualified him, you know, because he's hamming it up. Also, because the Broccolis, I don't know what they were up to.

20:11Getting very rich. This is good for them. But he's past the joke at this point. So I think he would be okay. I mean, he would be good as a James Bond, but he's funnier as this. And then being really weird in movies ever since. His part in this movie is fascinating because he is of German, Irish, English descent. And he speaks English, Gaelic, and German. In real life. In real life. Yeah. And so much like Landau, or much like Christoph Waltz, how many actors could have really pulled this off? And he said in interviews that he is purposefully making his German accent a little bit strange so that that scene is coherent.

20:58He was like, if I needed to speak in a perfect German accent, I could do it. But just for this part, I made it seem a little bit strange as though I was from Pittsburgh. Wasn't he born in Germany and then he moved to Ireland? And didn't he also audition for Londa like multiple times and really wanted it? Yes. So that's, I feel for him. He does say that German is his third best language and his second best is Gaelic. And I think you should do the rest of this part of Gaelic. Okay. Yeah, I don't, I mean, I would, I'm sorry, I can't actually try. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. There's nothing better than having friends who support you and your passions.

21:38Think of all of the times on this show when you've had to sit here and listen to me talk about my love for physical media and all of my recent Blu-ray splurges. Yes. Like those friends and like me, State Farm is there to help you along the way. With so many coverage options, it's nice knowing you have support in finding what fits for you. Go online at statefarm.com or use the award-winning app to get help from one of their local agents. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Melanie Laurent. I mean, definitely. Another actor who I'd never seen until this movie. This was the first time. And you mentioned that you find her bit quite a bit sad.

22:15Talk about why you like her. Well, I mean, she is the Shoshana, and we first see her hiding behind floorboards, that absolutely devastating pan down, where every time I watch it, even though I know it's coming, your stomach kind of sinks with it, as what you suspect is confirmed to be true. And then she just shows up again in Paris in just absolutely slamming trousers and owns a, should I get that button down cardigan that she wears? Kind of some Dobbins style. You know, I was, I mean, this night, tonight I clocked that she's like actually wearing it in the video, or I'm sorry, the film that she makes when she, right before they burn it down.

23:00So I don't know if that would be appropriate for me to wear, but she is. Emmanuel Mimou style icon. I think she is. Also hair icon. but it seems like a lot of twistings evolve. Anyway, she manages to be both like an amazing, indifferent, like impervious French bitch and a very wounded, obviously, person walking around and she communicates both the anger and the tragedy that you really need to feel this revenge because there are two revenge plots in this movie, right? And one is the comedic and one is the emotional catharsis. So she has a very tricky job and she also doesn't overdo it. She is more reserved, you know, opposite Daniel Brühl, who is like a very annoying golden retriever or whatever the German equivalent would be.

24:00And very good at that. I mean, that's what the character is supposed to be. But yeah, I mean, this movie to her performance is excellent. Yeah, Brühl also was sort of a discovery after this, had been recommended by a couple of actors to come on to this film. I think Fassbender recommended him, actually. And he is wonderful. He's become a staple of American and English productions over the last 15 years, too. And Frederick Zoller is also an interesting figure kind of pulled from movie history, except really more American movie history. You know, Audie Murphy was a war hero who eventually became a U.S.

24:36film star. and there's even a reference to Sergeant York, the Gary Cooper film that is modeled on a true life story during World War II. There's just dozens. We could spend an hour just going, you know, coursing through all of these details that he puts into the movie. You've also got a little subset here of just, like, within the Tarantino world. Yes. There are a bunch of references. Do you want to read those? Yeah, sure, but you vamp while I scroll through the document. Okay, great. Keep going. It's right after Sergeant York in the doc, just so you know. Well, according to Quentin, Aldo Rain is Floyd from True Romance's grandfather.

25:10Okay. I mean, sure. Which is something I like. Okay. I want to say I appreciate that level of attention to detail. Floyd, of course, best known for smoking weed out of a bear bong on the couch. Yeah. Consistent, you know? He does give up his friends, unfortunately, in that film. so he doesn't have the same integrity as his grandfather it appears right thoughts yeah uh there's another one which of course another true romance connection donnie donowitz the bear jew as portrayed by eli roth is the father of lee donowitz which who's the producer in the film true romance of the legendary vietnam film coming home in a body bag which i think is playing here at the Egyptian in a couple of weeks.

25:58We'll all be gathering to see it. And, you know, this is obviously something Quentin does. He has a connected universe of a sort. This is a slightly more mild version of it, but I like this one very much. I also just like that this movie still has a couple of flourishes. You know, one of the biggest laughs I think we got here tonight was when Hugo Stiglitz's name hits the screen, just right in the first third of the movie, and then you get that metal guitar riff, and then we hear Sam Jackson's voice, nice to just hear Sam Jackson saying Quentin Tarantino dialogue. And he just briefly tells the side story of Hugo Stiglitz and later explains how flammable nitrate film is.

26:36Right. And then... No other directors do shit like that. I don't know why people are not confident enough to just stop their movie and let Sam Jackson explain the history of nitrate film. Yeah. Cowards, don't you think? I do. We haven't talked about Diane Kruger. We haven't. I like smoking, drinking and ordering in restaurants uh was very important to me the first time i saw it and was still important tonight yeah as far as i know it's still something you're interested in uh another actress who tarantino originally thought was too american he did not realize how bone how german her bona fides were and gave her performance in german during an audition and he was blown away and cast her she's on the mind this year she's so wonderful in that movie the shrouds the and she's terrific in this film it's a tricky part because you need to be glamorous and cunning at the same time right and and also when things go wrong um in the the mix of impatience and dedication and um and and fear honestly just like what am i supposed to do and especially the death scene where sorry spoiler alert that we all just watched it uh if anyone at home is listening to this without knowing.

27:54I hope some people are listening. I mean, well, without having seen the movie. We know there's a lot of psychos that do that. Yeah, she's not the only person that dies, guys. You know, so much of that scene relies on her face, and she doesn't even have any words, and she is just communicating the dread that we all, I mean, you know, that we all feel, and that Landa inspires in like every single character, but most of them don't get long enough to communicate it. It's just very good. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? ZepBound Terzepatide may be able to help. ZepBound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.