Jim Gooch on Santa Clause

Dear Pittman,

No, I do not believe in Santa Clause. But if he did exist, I'd fuck him up.
He works too hard. I'm not a fan of hard work. I avoid it whenever possible. Easy to do in prison.
The very idea of Santa Clause stresses me out. Spend all year supervising a factory full of fucking elves. Screwing some old lady. Delivering tens of millions of packages in one night. Sliding his fat ass in and out of chimneys. Breaking into fucking houses. Shit. I don't even want to hear a made-up story about somebody working that hard.

Jim

Christmas with Jim Gooch

Dear Pittman,

Thank you for sharing your fondest Christmas memories with me.
When I think of my boyhood Christmases growing up in Sherwood, two things generally come to mind. I think of my mother, Dorothy Gooch. Of the time when I was eleven and we hit a deer with our car. Standing in the snow watching mother kneeling over the wounded whimpering fawn. The muscles in her arms tested by the weight of the axe as she brings it to rest with a cleaving squish in the neck of the baby deer.
So Christmas always reminds me of the time my mother decapitated a baby deer...
And it also reminds me of anal sex.

Sincerely,
Jim Gooch

The Cat People Are Coming

Josh,

I downloaded "Cat People" immediately after I read your post and have been listening to it almost non-stop. It took me two downloads on itunes to get the same version they use in the movie. I fear this is going to lead to an Bowie buying spree. Yes, that scene was basically a music video, butit did set a perfect tone for the final act. You're right, Tarantino has quite a talent for putting together a soundtrack. I wouldn't even call them soundtracks, he's just scoring his movies with popular music. Speaking of "cat people" did you see the trailer for Avatar that was attached to Bastards. Is this really the movie that James Cameron has been holed up making since Titanic?? Blue cat aliens? Are they aliens? The movie looks beautiful but I'm confused about what its all about.

I still haven't seen The Hurt Locker yet. It's one that I had meant to see but put on the back burner. I'm make sure to see it before it leaves town. As far as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen I didn't dislike it quite as much as you. But yeah, it wasn't anything to write home about. And the plot was basically a recycled version of the first movie. At least the Decepticons spoke English in this one.

So, I actually just came back from seeing Inglourious Bastards for a second time. My roommate was going to see it down the street so I figured I'd tag along. After a second a viewing I'm ready to agree with you that it's not quite as good as Pulp Fiction. But if Pulp Fiction is Michael Jordan like you said, Bastards is Kobe Bryant. And what's up with you using MJ as your go to guy anyway, haven't you always said you would take The Black Mamba over Jordan any day?

The plural of Nazi is Nazis. As far as them being evil in a way only they can be, what did you mean exactly. I'll admit Nazi have a bit of, for lack of a better word, goofiness to their evil. I'll never get over watching a video of Hitler giving a speech, taking in his somewhat fay style of delivery, and then being told by my teacher that he was considered a sex symbol.

I also sat down and watched the Grindhouse movies this week. I hadn't seen them yet, and they we're available to instant streaming on Netflix. I enjoyed them both, still not sure which one I liked better, but I really think I missed something by not seeing them in the theaters. In fact, I know I enjoy just about any movie bettter when I see it in a theater. And if I don't like the movie, then it must being a real stinker. Like Lions for Lamb which was so bad that I took a break in the middle, walked out, and had a 30 minute conversation with my parents before I walked back in. How important is it for you to actually see movies in a theater? Some people say that the reason Crash one Best Picture was that it was the first year screeners were sent out on DVD, and because it was shot in a way that lends itself to the small screen it undercut the area of cinematography being a factor in the Best Picture category. If seeing movies in theaters becomes less and less important, won't good cinematography be the first thing to suffer.

By the way, I thought Crash was a piece of shit. Feel free to rebuke me.

Basterds Blog

Pittman,

Yes, I do really like alliteration.
Well.... We've finally arrived. We are part of something infinately bigger than ourselves. The mighty blogosphere. Now, we blog.
To begin with, I agree that this summer has been a decent summer for movies. I enjoyed Star Trek. I loved The Hurt Locker, which is by far the best I've seen this year. But I was disappointed by Public Enemies. And I rather suck a dick than watch Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen again.
As for the subject at hand, I get the feeling I liked Inglourious Basterds a little less than you. As with all Tarantino movies, there were wonderful, unforgettable scenes that will be referenced by pop culture for years to come, like the scene where we first meet the Bear Jew or the anachronistic red dress scene that is basically a David Bowie music video. Great song by the way; it's called "Cat People." I'm listening to it right now. Tarantino's soundtracks never disappoint.
However, this movie is no Pulp Fiction. When it comes to Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction is Michael Jordan: there will never be anything that good again.
That being said, I'm going to take Roger Ebert's advice and see this movie again before I hand down my final verdict. Ebert gave the film four stars by the way. And it got a solid 69 on Metacritic.
As for the Nazi soldiers, I agree that Tarantino portrayed the average German soldier very fairly, and probably very realistically. But it was the Jew Hunter Han Landa that stole the movie, and he was pretty fucking evil, in a way that only works for Nazi. "That's a biiiingo!!!"
By the way, what is the plural for Nazi? Nazii?
Critics have criticized (go figure) Tarantino for making a movie that amounts to little more than an adolescent boy's revenge fantasy with no, and I hate this next phrase, "moral accountability." Bullshit. War isn't supposed to be about moral accountability; it's about being in the shit. And in a Tarantino movie, the good guys also commit atrocities. And i dig that.

So....Let's Talk About Nazis

Josh,

I'm looking forward to this little project of ours. How long ago was it that we decided to do this anyway? May? New Years? I'm glad we've finally got the ball rolling. I know there's still a lot up in the air about what we want to do with this "blog between friends" but I think it's best for us to at least go ahead and get the ball running and see what this thing develops into.

So I wanted to get this started by talking about the movie we both saw this weekend, Inglourious Bastards. We talked some via text message about this last night. I said it might be as good as Pulp Fiction, which you disagreed with, but do you think that Tarantino will ever be able to make a movie that the majority of people will think is better than Pulp Fiction? The film has a near mythic perception among moviegoers. And what is that movie about anyway? Non-linear storytelling? Maybe existence of Providence in our lives? I love Pulp Fiction and it was definitely a better movie than Forrest Gump, but was it as good as Shawshank Redemption, story wise?

For me Bastard was the best storytelling that Tarantino has done sense Reservoir Dogs. But what I really wanted to ask you about was this. It seemed to me that the Nazi soldiers in the film were portrayed in a somewhat sympathetic light. Not in a, "makes us understand where they're coming from," but they just seeming as ordinary guys for the most part. Granted I'm talking about the foot soldiers, not the officers, with the exception of the heroically brave Sergeant that's battered to death by the "Bear Jew." For the most part these guys just seemed like ordinary Joe's without an ounce of cruelty in them. I don't remember hearing even one of these characters speaking a single demeaning sentence about Jews. Yet I still never felt any real pity for them when they met their end at the hands of The Bastard, except maybe for the "new Nazi dad" and that only lasted for a couple of seconds. Even the insufferable Fredrick Zoller was only well... insufferable.

So was this on purpose? Did Tarantino actually want us to see the average Nazi as an everyman just taking orders? Does that make Aldo's forehead swastika that much more powerful? Or did he want to make their deaths somewhat comical, and thus they needed to be more trivial in nature?

With that said, which character did you find to be more badass, 'The Bear Jew" or Hugo Stiglitz? I loved "The Bear Jew," but Hugo had his own theme music.

Seeing Bastards pretty much wraps up my summer movie season. It was the last movie on my "Summer Must See" list. I'll probably see District 9 due to all the good buzz and I might go see Public Enemies if I have some time to kill and it's still in the theatres here for the next two weeks. What about you? Are there anymore movies that you're still excited about seeing this summer or is that it for you too? Overall I think it's been a pretty strong summer for movies this year. Drag Me to Hell is probably still my favorite but Bastards and Star Trek are right behind. What about you?

Well, I'm off to order some nachos for dinner. Do they deliver nachos in Little Rock?

Peace out,

Pittman