"Inglourious Basterds" (my 0-10 rating: 9)
Genre: War-adventure-drama (in mostly subtitled German and French but some English)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Martin Wuttke, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender, Mike Myers, Cloris Leachman, Samuel L. Jackson.
Time: 2 hrs., 33 min.
Rating: R (strong graphic violence, vulgarity and brief sexuality)

This is Quentin Tarantino-plus, then plus again, and boiled over.

He's finally come of age, his "Inglourious Basterds" being a matured grasp of some of the most dramatic of modern devices, strategies and tactics of the cinematic arts. Its European feel in some parts, blessed with a full Hollywood budget and greatly sophisticated Tarantino technique and style expand rapidly and organically, indeed inexorably, into a treatment of spellbinding suspense at many levels. His choice of allowing each character to speak in his and her own language, thus preserving the special emphases and cultural feel, was superb.

This is World War II fairy tale stuff, of course. Nothing of the plot's events regarding the plot to kill the Nazi top figures ever happened.

This is also Tarantino going through his scalping period. The compulsive graphic, detailed depictions of men being scalped are quite startling, surely a great satisfaction for ardent Tarantino fans who love his worship of torture and gore killing.

The European flair mentioned above comes in a remarkably self-sustaining extended sequence in a Parisian cafe basement as Nazi officers, Nazi-posing Britishers and an extraordinarily performed female double-agent play cat-and-mouse games with each other in their ploys and counter-ploys. With little beyond words and inflections, largely subtitled French and German, the verbal encounters create a mega-charged, dry-mouthed suspense of the first magnitude.

Tarantino's triumph explodes on many fronts. His use of grandiose, operatic music themes, steeped in accentuation and irony, is brilliant. His directing of demanding nuances in the constant confrontations between devious personalities in which lethal repercussions will follow a mistaken interpretation between characters, is amazingly precise and flawlessly timed. The acting award goes to Christoph Waltz, a good-looking 43-year-old actor who speaks effortlessly in four languages. Applause also to Diane Kruger whose delivery, second-by-second, is a studied masterpiece. And Martin Wuttke's rendition of the then 55-year-old Adolf Hitler is the best I can recollect in film, down to his finest mannerisms.

For amusing cameo roles, check out Rod Taylor as Winston Churchill.

"Basterds" comes at you in five "chapters," the first being "Once upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France" (1940). Uglifying the screen is notorious Nazi "Jew Hunter" Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) who intrudes into a farmhouse looking for a hidden Jewish family. And then and there Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) watches helplessly as her family is massacred. Shosanna herself narrowly escapes, managing to find her way to Paris. Resourceful, by 1944 in that occupied city she has become the owner and operator of a movie theater.

In another part of Europe, lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) organizes a group of Jewish-American soldiers who need little convincing to assault Nazis with lightning, brutal revenge. They become known to the Germans as "the basterds." Raine's squad conspires with German actress and undercover agent Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) on a mission to terminate the leaders of the Third Reich. The main characters will all eventually be drawn together under Shoshanna's cinema marquis, where once again we meet her, now ready to carry her bizarre and spectacular revenge plot.

But Shosanna has, for the moment, had to bear up under the unwelcome advances of Nazi war hero Frederick Zoller (Daniel Bruhl), who calls himself "the German Sgt. York" for his feat in killing dozens of Allied soldiers singlehandedly. Also, shortly, she'll have to manage to be hospitable to the infamous propaganda minister Dr. Josef Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) as well as Col. Landa, who informs her that the Nazis will now take over her theater for purposes of showing the film in which Zoller stars. In attendance will be the Nazi elite including Hitler himself, his long-time confidante Martin Bormann and Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering.

At last, here's the chance she's been so long awaiting to strike back at the man who slaughtered her family, and now other Nazis as well. The gala premiere is to be held that very evening.

In the next chapter, "Operation Kino," a British commando leader (and former film critic), Lt. Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender), is advised by a general (Mike Myers) of that same film premiere in the previous chapter. It'll be in three days.

So now, independent of the Shoshanna plot, these Brits, in cooperation with the Basterds, plot to infiltrate the premiere in a set-up by Bridget von Hammersmark, their secret agent. The potential for disaster in major. Key to the plot is Col. Landa, the heinous officer who had supervised the slaughter of Shoshanna's family. Now, four years later with the Nazi regime facing its doom on all combat fronts after D-Day and the crushing Soviet offense on a 600-mile front, Landa schemes, as did many German officers at that time, his own escape across the ocean.

The conspiracy plot is all Tarantino fiction, of course. In reality, Hitler and the Nazi top-four hierarchy of Goebbels, Goering and Heinrich Himmler (the latter not in the film) all committed suicide at the end of the war in the spring of 1945. Hitler took cynanide with his newly wed wife Eva Braunn, then shot himself before it took effect; Goebbels took cyanide with his wife and six beautiful children, Goering was slipped a cyanide pill by his wife while awaiting sentencing at the Nuremberg Trials and Himmler took the pill after being captured by the British, trying to escape dressed as a woman.

I'll call the film at just short of perfect 10 because of Tarantino's unjustifiable overuse of gory scalping scenes and a not entirely credible ending.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marty_Meltz

As you are aware we already have ABC1, SBS One, Seven, Nine, and Ten which have been broadcasting in digital spectrum since January 1, 2001. When digital television launched on 1 January 2001, the majority of households did not know of or were unable to buy a set top box in order to receive the signal. Households not already using digital televisions will need to purchase a set-top box (stb) in order to continue receiving a television signal. We also have ABC2, SBS Two and the sports channel One. Recently we started to receive Nine's new entertainment channel Go!

If you are purchasing a new digital television or set top box, the Australian government has developed a scheme where labels are attached to digital equipment for sale in retail outlets. People who have not yet invested in a freeview television or set-top box, or signed up to a cable or satellite service, have until 2013 to ensure they can receive digital television signals and new digital channels coming up. Channel Seven has a yet an unnamed extra channel which is due to air later this year and the ABC will follow on December the 4th with ABC3 a channel dedicated to children's TV. This will bring the total to 11 free-to-air channels.

The six free-to-air licensees Seven, Nine, Ten, WIN, Prime, Southern Cross and the two public broadcasters, ABC and SBS, introduced a common marketing platform, Freeview, last November, hoping to drive viewers to digital television before the analog signals are switched off in 2013.

To receive the best possible viewing experience delivered by high definition television programming, you will need either: a high definition set-top-box coupled with a high definition display device such as a television, monitor or projector, or a high definition integrated digital television. Once you purchase either a digital television set top box or integrated digital television there is nothing more to pay. So far, only 45 percent of the population has switched over, either by connecting a digital set top box to the existing television or buying a new TV. Because the new channels are in the digital format, viewers that are not digital ready will not be able to receive them on their analogue TV.

While some of the content on the new digital channels is duplicated from the main channels to which they are tethered, there is a significant amount of new content, including critically acclaimed programs Beautiful People, Boy meets girl and The Wire on ABC2 and Vampire diaries, Curb Your Enthusiasm, New episodes of Survivor and Weeds on Go!

Ten has invested in a portfolio of sport on One, including AFL, swimming's FINA world championships, motor sport, golf, baseball and triathlon, while SBS Two has shown the 2009 Tour de France and Ashes Series and will follow with the 2009-10 season UEFA champions League matches.

The government may give vouchers to television viewers who have not moved to digital television by the time the analogue broadcasting network is switched off in a few years, to help defray the cost of buying a digital set-top box. The switch to digital television has led thousands of people to throw out their tvs, in spite of the fact that older televisions can still receive a digital signal by adding a set-top box.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chris_Spink

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy 10th birthday Big Brother....well Big Brother is 10 years old and it is still a very popular television program. Big Brother has had its fair share of ups and downs over the last 10 years but it is a survivor. One of the most eagerly awaited elements each year when it is being unveiled is the actual house itself. The house is definitely a star and most viewers are keen to see how it will be dressed.

The Big Brother house serves many purposes it is a place of incarceration, but not quite a prison and it is also the scene of many celebrations and joyful occasions. This year the house has a very funky design, the house seems smaller but it is beautiful decorated and furnished.

The Big Brother house does not have very much in terms of soft furnishings and the beds are practical rather than luxurious but the other main living spaces are beautifully designed. The theme in this year's house is very much that of durability, none of the sofas and chairs look uncomfortable but neither do they look like you would want to spend too much time on a particular seat or sofa.

As much effort is expended in designing the garden area and because of the small inside space and the large number of housemates the garden is basically another "living" room. The designated smoking area is very clever, with is bus stop theme. There are numerous seating items outside and many of the housemates, smoking and non-smoking spend quite a large amount of time in the garden when the weather allows. The sofa in the house are brightly colored and beautifully designed, lots of lovely curves and not too many harsh lines, the comfort is in the upholstery rather than in soft furnishings.




Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kirsty_Mcallister