Freaks and Geeks

Freaks and Geeks is a show from a decade ago that was liked by everyone who saw it. Unfortunately, the number of people who saw it was too small, and it was canceled after one season. It's still relatively well known today though, because it was produced by and starred several names that are still big today, most notably Judd Apatow and his favored actors Jason Segel, James Franco, and Seth Rogen. The trio form the "freaks", new friends of protagonist Lindsay Weir who prefer smoking pot and jamming in their garage band to focusing on school work. Lindsay's young brother Sam and his two friends played by Samm Levine and additional Apatow veteran Martin Starr are the geeks, who have less trouble with grades but have to worry about bullies and getting girls to notice them.

The cast is rounded out by Busy Philipps as Franco's girlfriend and the Weir siblings' parents, both of whom I don't recall seeing elsewhere but add a lot to the show, especially Joe Flaherty as the stern but lovable father, who might actually be my favorite character despite the good work by the more famous cast members. There's also a ton of easily recognizable actors in supporting and guest roles, such as David Krumholtz as Levine's older brother, Jason Schwartzman as a guy who can get fake IDs, Shia LaBeouf as the former school mascot, Joel from Mystery Science Theater 3000 as a guy who won't let disco go, and Biff from Back to the Future as a somewhat misguided but well-meaning gym teacher.

The show takes place in the early 80s, but it has a more timeless feel thanks to the nature of the storylines, which probably won't be going away for a while. Lindsay is tired of being an ace student and wants to have new experiences, frequently butting heads with her parents' wishes. And Sam and his friends try to deal with getting embarrassed in class and wondering if they'll ever find a way to get more friends, or at least stop getting picked on. I saw a lot of the show when it was on air, but I've been meaning to go back and watch the whole thing for a while. Once I did, it was like I had never stopped watching. Some of the moments they go for are a bit cheesy or forced, but for the most part it's one of the most realistic takes on the high school experience you'll ever see in the media, especially from the outcast's point of view. It struck a chord with me being pretty similar to the geeks especially, as they ask for video games for their birthdays and play Dungeons & Dragons instead of going to parties.

Sam and Lindsay get the most screen time, but pretty much every main character has a real chance to shine despite only 18 episodes being made, like Starr's mother dating a teacher and Levine discovering his father's secret in one of the greatest ever TV moments. Among the students, Franco and Segel give the best overall performances, and Segel's troubling emotional and domestic issues in particular are well handled. I don't know what the plan was if the show got a chance to really grow, but what there is here is just a unique experience, pretty much perfect for what it tries to be. I can't imagine many people not seeing at least one sympathetic character they can relate to. Seeing it get canceled was possibly my first experience with that kind of heartbreak, and watching it ten years later it still tugs on those strings.

Inglourious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino's last couple films, the Kill Bill series and Death Proof, were a bit different than his first few. They feel similar in a lot of ways, but they're ultimately genre films whereas his others were not, although they did pay homage to certain periods and styles. Based on advertisements, I thought Basterds might follow suit, as a sort of road/war movie featuring a band of hardened killers. And parts of the movie are exactly that. But only parts - the basterds are but one aspect of the two and a half hour film, one that I enjoyed immensely and just might have taken Pulp Fiction's place as my favorite by the eccentric director.

Tarantino has previously called Basterds a spaghetti western in WWII, and "Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France" was once a considered title for the movie, and ended up as the name for the first chapter. Yeah, he's back to the chapters thing, and the film is a story in five parts. The first two are twenty minute vignettes that could work as shorts on their own, and basically establish the major players. There's Hans Landa, AKA "The Jew Hunter", the primary antagonist and quite possibly Tarantino's best character ever. Christoph Waltz turns in a completely stunning performance that got him an award at Cannes and should earn him some nominations next Spring. Shosanna Dreyfus is a French Jew who escaped death and runs a cinema. Lt. Aldo Raine is played to great humorous effect by Brad Pitt and leads the basterds, a unit of American Jews, to disrupt the Nazi war effort inside France. After these introductions, the next three chapters introduce, develop, and resolve the main plot - a new propaganda film (directed in real life by Eli Roth, creator of the Hostel series and starring as the enjoyably menacing and slightly crazy basterd known as "The Bear Jew" by the Germans) is being premiered in Paris, and a plan is concocted to burn it to the ground while a bunch of important Nazis are still inside. As you might guess with a Tarantino movie, there are multiple forces at work and things don't go quite as planned at any point.

As is his trademark, the movie features lots of long, leisurely conversations. The entire first chapter is a single scene where we learn to absolutely fear Landa, and all he does is drink some milk, smoke from an absurd pipe, and talk to a French farmer. There's a moment where they switch from French to English in a slightly clunky way, and you might think it's just the film excusing having foreign characters speak what the audience can understand. But it's just a clever subversion, as there's a specific reason the switch is made and the rest of the movie sees the majority of its dialogue be spoken by French people speaking French, German people speaking German, or whatever is appropriate. There's some humor in the subtitles too, as occasionally an obvious word will remain in its original language, such as "merci" appearing instead of "thank you". I was a bit surprised at the amount of foreign dialogue, but I appreciated it. The movie sure as hell ain't historically accurate, but it does feel fairly authentic, and the use of language goes a long way. Whereas Tarantino used dialogue in other films to mostly entertain the viewer and establish character, here it's all about building tension. A quite lengthy sequence in a German bar might have been interminable in less able hands, but I loved every minute as it slowly goes from funny, to uncomfortable, to downright dangerous. You can tell where it's going, but every step there can be excruciating.

I've seen a couple people praise the acting but dismiss Tarantino's direction, which seems foolish to me. You're not going to get a lot of good performances out of actors if you don't know how to direct them, unless they're seasoned thespians or something. When it's this universally good throughout the movie, maybe the guy behind it all deserves some credit. I mean, look at Diane Kruger. She's been in her share of movies, both in Hollywood and Germany, and she's never impressed anyone to my knowledge with anything but her looks. And here she is in Basterds, perfectly capturing the 40's movie star persona in one scene and completely desperate and disheveled in the next. She was seriously great, and she's just one of many, many actors you can say that about. The movie is shot pretty beautifully and traditionally by Tarantino, although it also has several touches of flair like the brief cutaway sequences narrated by Samuel L. Jackson and anachronistic music because while it doesn't make sense, damn it, this is his movie and he'll do what he wants. The soundtrack is mostly (entirely?) made up of songs taken from other movies, primarily those westerns, and it works pretty damn beautifully with the mood he creates. One scene in particular with Melanie Laurent, who's alternately charmingly sympathetic and frighteningly vengeful as Shosanna, as she prepares for something while a David Bowie song plays in the background is a great encapsulation of this. The brief gun fights are fairly normal if enjoyably chaotic and rapid, but it does tend to linger on some other violent moments, usually to brutal, darkly humorous effect. The climax is wonderfully explosive and hellish. The final scene, with Pitt in the same form he's been in the whole time and BJ Novak (most recognizable from The Office) as his calm companion, is a perfect ending to a film I seriously loved and can't wait to see again.