Advertisement

Movies & TV

Eli Roth hearts himself

What do Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison and the guy who directed Hostel 2 have in common?

They both do their writing by hand. But only one of them fantasizes about drilling out the eyes of the person in line in front of them at Whole Foods.[briefbreak]

A penchant for grocery store violence and aversion to word processors were only two of the stunning personal revelations director-turned-actor Eli Roth shared at a Toronto sneak-peek screening of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds last night.

Some other juicy nuggets he revealed: he’s a really good actor, Quentin Tarantino really likes him, and generally, he’s just an all-around great guy.

Both Tarantino and Roth were on hand at the Scotiabank Theatre for the movie’s first Canadian screening, but unfortunately only Roth, who has a role in the film, stuck around afterwards for the Q & A.

Before the movie Tarantino came out to a standing ovation from the packed theatre and spoke briefly before hopping a plane.

As nerdy and fast talking as he is in his films and dressed in a Reservoir Dogs suit jacket, Tarantino talked about his love for Canada and proceeded to act as hype-man for his own movie. “Are you ready to see some Nazis get their asses kicked?!” he yelled in the voice of a boxing announcer, before adding somewhat cryptically “To the top of the A-list with the Inglourious Basterds!” and throwing down his mic.

Aside from a very brief cameo in Basterds, that was all the audience got to see of the legendary director. And after sitting through a two-and-a-half hour long movie, listening to Roth’s self-centered banter for 30 minutes was more painful than watching SS officers get scalped.

Roth plays Donny “the Bear Jew” Donowitz in the film, a member of an elite anti-Nazi guerrilla force who beats Germans to death with a baseball bat as gleefully as if he were hitting homeruns back home at Fenway Park.

It may come as no surprise that Roth, who made his name as the writer and director of so-called torture porn flicks Hostel and Hostel 2, has engaged in his fair share of violence. “I wish I could say that was the first time I used a bat in that manner,” he said. But he wants us to know that he’s much more than just a dim-witted brute. And so he told us again and again…and again.

He assured us that he and Quentin are very good friends, but that’s not why Roth landed the Donowitz role, easily his biggest to date.

“Everybody knows I’m a friend of Quentin’s,” he said “But he has a lot of friends and I know he cast me because he wanted a Jew from Boston and I was right for the part.”

He related how Quentin told him on set that his acting was “amazing”, and told how he apparently changed the momentum of a whole scene with a single gesture of his hand. Curious though that despite his supposed acting chops and ample screen time, Tarantino only saw fit to give him about three lines of dialogue.

Fans of Roth’s can catch him in his next role: playing a wet t-shirt contest emcee in Piranha 3-D. I’m not kidding.

Thankfully Roth, who also directed the faux Nazi propaganda film-within-a-film that Basterds revolves around, strayed to other topics besides himself. One non-Roth related fact: Tarantino kept the actor who plays an SS officer nicknamed “the Jew Hunter” sequestered from the rest of the cast at all times to make his scenes all the more terrifying, and it worked. Christopher Waltz clearly scared the shit out of the other actors and steals every scene he’s in.

Check back at NOW for the full review of Inglourious Basterds once the movie is officially released on August 21. But one thing should be made clear: if you’re going to see this movie, see it in the theatre. Not because it’s a brilliant, explosive war movie (although that too) but because the final act is set in a movie theatre, and Tarantino very cleverly makes monkeys out of those of us in the real audience. Nazi monkeys.[rssbreak]

Advertisement

Exclusive content and events straight to your inbox

Subscribe to our Newsletter

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

By signing up, I agree to receive emails from Now Toronto and to the Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.

Recently Posted