Quentin Tarantino's newest movie, Hostel WWII, premiered at Cannes today, and much like everything in this world--except for pizza which is unanimously loved--some people liked it, and some people did not like it.
Liked it:
TotalFilm: "Not only did I love every minute, if the French projectionist wanted to cue it up and roll it again from the start, I would have sat through the whole film again, with the biggest grin on my face."
Did not like it:
Guardian (who call it "an armour-plated turkey," the kind of cutesy, nonsensical shorthand that is the hallmark of a pretentious douche with no real insight):"Quentin Tarantino's cod-WW2 shlocker about a Jewish-American revenge squad intent on killing Nazis in German-occupied France is awful. It is achtung-achtung-ach-mein-Gott atrocious. It isn't funny; it isn't exciting; it isn't a realistic war movie, yet neither is it an entertaining genre spoof or a clever counterfactual wartime yarn. It isn't emotionally involving or deliciously ironic or a brilliant tissue of trash-pop references. Nothing like that. Brad Pitt gives the worst performance of his life, with a permanent smirk as if he's had the left side of his jaw injected with cement, and which he must uncomfortably maintain for long scenes on camera without dialogue."
Liked it:
Empire: "...rather brilliant. Every bit as idiosyncratic as the spelling of its title, it's a wonderfully-acted movie that subverts expectation at every turn. And it may represent the most confident, audacious writing and directing of QT's career."
Did not like it:
IFC: "The film's two hours and 40 minutes long, and could be shorn of an hour just by picking up the tempo ... But I wouldn't even call "Inglourious Basterds" minor Tarantino -- it's flat-out tiresome, and from a commercial perspective, incredibly dicey. If this is the pony the Weinstein Company has picked, well, bless 'em, because it's hard to see this one pulling in crowds once word gets around."
OK! So we know that it is definitely a movie! And almost all the critics have been very happy to talk about the run-time, which is almost three hours. No one is arguing that this movie is not almost three hours long. I didn't go to the Movie Critics Academy, but is it a bad sign for the main story to come out of a movie's premiere to be the run-length? I'll leave that for the pros. But I am going to say that as someone who has already made it very clear that he has LOW EXPECTATIONS (understatement) for this project, my pre-emptive opinion based on very little evidence and probably far more determined than the situation warrants remains UNCHANGED. This louks really bed, you guys. Really Reaoully bid.
(Quotes via FilmDrunk.)
