Film: Inglourious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino really freaks me out. Not his films (necessarily), the guy himself just unnerves me whenever I see him in interviews. I can't really explain it, but this slightly negative association meant that the first Tarantino film I saw - Kill Bill - I thought was utterly shite. Sorry, many many internet people who love it, but I thought it was just boring and much more style over substance. So I was only really watching Inglourious Basterds to say I had, but in the end I actually did enjoy it. IMDb and TV Tropes, for you.

That said, it was still obnoxiously self-indulgent - every single scene was a goodly five or ten minutes longer than it needed to be, and tension-building became a sort of watch-tapping, get-on-with-it. I also am no massive fan of the inevitable Tarantino violence-orgy, though was quite pleased that he'd restrained himself a bit more - there was a surprising amount of quiet, dramatic scenes in comparison to scalping/clubbing-to-death/shoot-'em-up scenes. I also couldn't help a bit of an eye-roll (SPOILER) at the fact the only significant character out of a huge ensemble left standing at the end of the movie is the takes-no-shit American.

That said, I was surprised to find that I liked plenty of other things about the film and its story.  I found it inexplicably brilliant that historical accuracy was entirely abandoned for a magnificent moment of canon subversion - I well and truly Did Not See That Coming. There were a lot of pretty decent one-liners, and I'm not sure if it was the writing of Colonel Landa or Christoph Waltz's portrayal of him that made that character so evilly brilliant, but he was. I was also surprised that at no point during the film was I entirely sure whether the whole thing was being played for laughs, or if it was serious - there's a cleverness in confusing people like that.

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In short, Inglourious Basterds has made up for the damage done by Kill Bill. (Though I still think Tarantino is creepy).

Film: The Amazing Spider-Man

It's going to be really hard to talk about The Amazing Spider-Man without comparing it to the Sam Raimi trilogy (of which I think 1 is fine, 2 is better and 3 is just one big fat raspberry), but from my perspective, I don't think that's really going to do the new film much harm. Also, for a proper comparison, this blog does a brilliant breakdown that I almost entirely agree with. Superhero movies are, by nature, treading a dangerous line of cliches, and it's usually very easy to pick the best (Avengers Assemble) from the worst (Hulk). For information: IMDb, for hilarious perceptiveness: TV Tropes.

Before I get into the story aspects, I've got to put it out there that Andrew Garfield - due partly to being just an excellent specimen of human being - is twice the Spider-Man Tobey Maguire was. I think Maguire is a good actor, but he just wasn't right for my idea of Spider-Man; too wet, too dopey and without any sex appeal to speak of (and the guy's wearing a spandex body suit).

But, to the point. I really liked the extra element of humour in the new Spider-Man - I never read the comics, but I used to watch the animated TV show as a kid, and Spider-Man's quippy one-liners were sadly lacking in previous efforts.

Now I've tried for a good ten minutes to think of a word other than 'realistic' to describe what I thought of the plot, but I got nothing. When I say it's 'more realistic' than other superhero movies, I'm trying to explain that I thought the characters were more perceptive, Peter Parker was more flawed and the details of character and story were all surprisingly three-dimensional for a story so not-rooted in realism.

I also have to spare a thought for Emma Stone. I've expressed my love for her before, but seriously guys, Emma Stone is wicked. In terms of her character, I (and my eardrums) seriously appreciated that she took the character of Gwen Stacey beyond the Kirsten Dunst school of 'Be Thrown Around And Scream A Lot'. I tell you what though, I'd really like to see a superhero film in which the girl was the superhero, and boy was the stay-at-homer. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a single girls-superhero film in which the boys weren't also superheroes - can you? (That's not rhetorical - seriously, can you?)

That said, it wasn't perfect. I didn't like the not-infrequent cases of Protagonist Does Something Profoundly Dense To Move The Plot Along - the scene in which Peter gets bitten by the spider was shouting-at-the-screen levels of idiotic.

There were also some classic superhero/action movie cliches, the most eye-rolling example being the 'Before I Die Speech'. That 'Here Are Lots Of Deep And Heartwarming Moments And Now That I've Said Everything Important In A Not-Very-Subtle Poorly-Voice Please Excuse Me While I Die' which gets very:

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