Part I:
In a sentence, I would describe Away We Go as a study of American kids sans ambition who want to be responsible with their living, specifically in their family. The film lacks the cinene-scape of beautiful cross-country travel set to Aaron Copland, opting instead for episodic slices of cities across the land paired with Murdoch's mellow droning (Canada gets the strongest nod, strangely enough, though I bet if they'd visited in Winter it would have been a different story).
I think it gets the point across without indulging in that whole conversation of how the land is America and how America is the land and once we lose the wilderness we lose America and that's why we need to keep exploring outer space, etc (not bashing the environment, but the use of land as a character, a la westerns, On The Road, so forth). Instead of creating a visually beautiful film (think: Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, the Pacific Coast HWY), the story is just about the people that inhabit that land. Which I think is nice. They have really common issues that are simple and complex at the same time. So many movies try to plug into mythic/primal themes and become pretentious. This film does the opposite and somehow manages to tap into an authentic human element.
Krasinski and Rudolph are both believable, which I didn't expect. And the cameos are brilliant-! Also, I cackled a lot during this movie, which was really fun. Most movies where I want to be the main character involve violence, good chase sequences, sex with girls who probably would carry disease in real life, some intrigue, and a twist. This movie has none of that, and I still want to be Bert.
Part II:
Inglourious Basterds is a beautiful film. As you probably know, QT- as I shall call him for the sake of laziness- makes cool films with interesting and novel storielines. His dialog is always amazing and he tempts that part of us that wishes we were all as smooth in real life as we imagine ourselves. However, I wouldn't say that any of his movies are 'beautiful,' until this one. I have never seen a movie shot with such a gorgeous palette. You should go back and watch it again just for the purpose of noticing how pretty the skin tones are. Then, watch it another time and pay attention to all the other colors and how freaking amazing they look, how rich and saturated but not too poppy or electric. Then, go watch any other movie ever made and compare. This movie should win an Oscar for cinematography because it is so pleasing to look at but doesn't include any gratuitous shots of the Alps, or the Pyrenees, or the Riviera. Even Paris is tame/blowing up!
Also, as Jones said, Christopher Wentz should win an Oscar for rocking so hard. Brad Pitt is good as comic relief, and I'm sure he helped sell tickets, but there was some really fantastic acting in this movie and it didn't come from this side of the Atlantic. I should also mention, for the sake of talking about more than the film stock and the lighting, that this is a film about film. It wouldn't surprise me if every shot is a reference to another movie (QT has an unbelievable knowledge of film history). Also, he panders to the French who have always loved him; he indulges in auteur-ism; he has the film critic die in a basement after making a stupid mistake (unlike Jones I appreciated the explanation of why the whole scene went down the way it did. To leave that up to obsessive QT fans to discover is to alienate the average viewer at an important crux of the story. And I think this movie, like all great movies, must be accessible to the 'everyman'). Basically, as you well know if you've seen it, this movie is awesome and should be studied in film classes at least as much as Annie Hall. Actually, I think a comparison of Woody Allen as writer-director of Annie Hall with QT as writer-director of Inglourious Basterds would be a hell of a paper to read. Think about how similarly they both end, protagonist stepping back from the action-as-theater and speaking directly to the camera....
Part III:
Both these movies are beautiful, but for very different reasons. As I see it, since that's true, it's also true that the human experience is wide-ranging and diverse. Which is cool. And that's why movies are great.
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