Can You Tell Where I Am? lol

Out and about writing today, so life is good. In addition to some touch up work on a couple of things, still working on a couple of scripts, may even go back to one I wrote a while back that I've been slowly updating and making more current. I love the idea, it's a comedy and I think pretty funny, but you never really know until it's read out loud and hopefully made! I can remember the last two scripts I wrote and worked on... the first time they were read aloud with the cast was very exciting and powerful. Both were really funny, still we tweaked things right up to the shooting as well, the life of a script. But that first read... the emotions and excitement behind it, it's hard to beat.

Now those of you who follow my blog, know I always respect anyone who gets a film made, it's a huge accomplishment. That goes for the big folks as well and Quentin Tarantino is back in the mix with his new flick, "Inglourious Basterds." Now I saw him on Letterman the other night talk about the film and what he was hoping to do with it, essentially throw his hat in the old time genre of a group of guys going on a mission during World War II, ala the "Dirty Dozen." I've also seen both Brad Pitt and Mike Myers talk positively about the film as well, but to be fair, they're both in it and helping to feed the publicity machine.

However to me and this is just one person's opinion... I don't think it's his "Masterpiece." Some of the performances are outstanding, namely Christopher Waltz as "Hans" and Pitt as "Aldo Raine." There is no mistaking the look and feel of a Tarantino film and it's all there in this one as well, but for me the film is entirely too long and slow in some places. It misses it's mark about being one of those "Guys on a mission" film because it leaves the mission for a huge part of the film and almost has a separate storyline that takes away from the overall idea of the film.

I am also tired of Tarantino using graphic images of violence just for shock value and there are a lot of these in the film. I get that's his thing and he wants to take those 70s kind genres that weren't allowed to be as graphic and make them up-to-date and graphic now, but you don't always need it.

A lot of folks like the film, it was number one in the box office after the first weekend, but I suspect this will be one of those films that will be enhanced by the DVD with extras and more insight into what Tarantino was thinking about when making the film and what he was trying to do.

As a stand alone film right now however, it's good, but not great and maybe not even worth seeing on the big screen, but on a big screen television instead.