Inglorious Bastards (1977)

"The Hammer" Goes To War!!

Enzo Castellari and Fred "The Hammer" Williamson? Why the hell isn't this DVD in your cart yet?
I remember seeing this movie in it's edited version entitled G.I. Bro back in the day, but now I finally got to see it in it's original version.
It's the story of a small group of military prisoners who escape while being transported to the slammer, but through a clever plot twist wind up on a top secret mission with the French and U.S. military.
It's fun stuff. Not a heartwrenching war pic, but a fun little adventure film. Bo Svenson(from the Walking Tall sequels and T.V. show) is the lieutenant who leads the bunch. He does a decent job. Fred Williamson is...well, Fred Williamson. It's pretty hard for him not to be cool. The movie goes about throwing the group from one action sequence to another until the final mission. There is quite a bit of action. It looks like Castellari was working with a decent budget. Castellari certainly doesn't get enough credit as a director in the U.S. The guy's pretty damn good.
The 3 disc version gives us a "Conversation with Enzo Castellari and Quentin Tarantino". Naturally Tarantino dominates this discussion considering he can't shut up and Castellari doesn't speak English too well. Tarantino is remaking Inglorious Bastards, and that is discussed a bit. Apparently the movie means alot to him. Personally I'm discouraged to hear Tarantino jumping on the remake bandwagon, but at least you can say he truly loves this film unlike other directors who have remade movies(most likely half of those directors never even saw the film they were remaking until they were hired to make it). Anyhow, the interview is about 35 minutes long. There a documentary on the making of the film that features Castellari, Bo Svenson, Fred Williamson, as well as members of the fx crew and screenwiters. Also is a documentary with Castellari showing the shooting locations. The third disc is the film's soundtrack.
A good movie and a good package. August 3, 2008

Inglorious Bastards Is a Remarkable film that is going to be a great remake!

I was not looking for anything special, but I did find it with Inglorious Bastards, It had some of the best shooting sequences and had a lot of rich good old fun humor. I was very surprise with this item.

The 3- disc set includes:

Disc 1 - movie
Disc 2 - Extras
Disc 3 - rare soundtrack.

The music and the film is so amazing that I really can't wait to see how far Quentin is going to take this movie. However I just don't see it split up into two parts. August 1, 2008

Fun Film, Great Package

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. July 28, 2008

The Greatest Film of All Time

This is a marvelous film. Fred Williamson's performance is both tear-jerking and thought provoking. I greatly enjoy motion pictures about black militants filmed in Italian and dubbed into English. Great... September 20, 2002

TERRIBLE!!!

OK, the tagline is great - "If you're a kraut, he'll take you out," but that's about the only good thing in this movie. It's not even campy-funny good, it's just awful. Considering it was shot in Italian and dubbed, I'm not surprised. Also, considering Italy had to import everything cool about it - Roman Gods, tomatoes, and now blaxploitation movies, it's a wonder Venice is still such a great place to visit. March 28, 2002

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