Funny / Inglourious Basterds

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

• Shortly before the Basterds attempt to meet their double agent in the bar:
  Aldo: Fighting in a basement presents several difficulties, the first of which being, you're fighting in a basement.
• While strategizing their entry into the theater:
  Aldo: I speak the most Eye-talian here, so I'll be the escort. Donnie here speaks second most Eye-talian, so he'll be your cameraman. Omar, over there, speaks third most Eye-talian—
  Omar: I don't speak Italian.
  Aldo: Like I said, third best. Just keep your fuckin' mouth shut. Fact, why don't you start practicin'?
• "Bon-jern-oh!"
  • Mar-ga-riiiii-tiiii!
• Landa speaking perfect Italian, serving as an Oh, Crap! moment for the Basterds.
  • Aldo realizes early that their plan is a horrible idea, and his face for the entire scene is a hilariously contorted grimace.
    • Even funnier is Aldo's contrast with Omar, who's almost reactionless, and Donnie, who's just making this nervous shit-eating grin.
    • Landa plays it cool not to make it too obvious he's onto Aldo and company, but when Bridget tells the blatant lie that she hurt her foot from mountain climbing, Landa can't help but completely crack up.
    • While Landa is laughing his ass off, Aldo and Donnie briefly glance towards each other in silent agreement that this was not a good idea.
    • Ironically, Omar (the guy who speaks no Italian) comes off with the most believable accent. Hans, who can clearly already tell they're all Americans from Aldo and Donny, simply goes "Bravo! Bravo!" as if legitimately complimenting him on the performance.
  • Bridget's reaction to this is somewhere between a Face Palm and Oh, Crap! as soon as she hears Aldo opening his mouth.
• When Donny discovers where Hitler is staying and goes back into the theater to get Omar, Omar's initial reaction is first unwilling, as he's watching and apparently enjoying the propaganda film that's about a German sniper killing dozens of American soldiers.
  • Eventually he gets up and has to squeeze past everyone else in the row, apologizing in Italian.
  • Made even funnier considering the fact that Eli Roth (Donny) was the director of said Film Within a Film.
• The old-fashioned X-ray vision showing the bombs tied to the ankles of Omar and Donny in the theater.
• Donny offering 'champagne', which is clearly water, to Hitler's guards. "Cham-pan-yuh?"
• Two words, or rather, seven words: "NEIN! NEIN! NEIN! NEIN! NEIN! NEIN! NEIN!"
  • Immediately followed by five more in the trailer: "Oh yes yes yes yes."
• There is also something hilarious about Hitler politely thanking his secretary for reminding that Private Butz has arrived... in the exact same angry tone he had before.
  • "Who or what is a 'Private Butz'?"
• Aldo's response to Landa's furious outrage upon his driver being shot.
  Landa: You'll be shot for this!
  Aldo: Nah, I don't think so. More like chewed out. I've been chewed out before.
• And shortly before that, the painter of Hitler's HUMONGOUS PORTRAIT giving the Fuhrer a thumbs-up.
  • Fridge Brilliance. Artists use thumbs as a way of maintaining perspective on their subjects.
• Oooooooh! That's a BINGO!
  • "Is that how they say it? 'That's a bingo'?" The way he drops the humour and Affably Evil for confusion sells it.
• "The Germans' nickname for me is 'the Little Man?'"
  • "To be honest, I'm surprised by how tall you actually are."
  • The best part is the look on Aldo's face during that exchange. He doesn't say a word about it, but you can see "Man, I was hoping he wouldn't find out about that," written right on his face, and he hastily changes the subject a moment later.
• A little black humor in here. While rescuing Hugo, the Basterds kill his captors in the most over the top and bloody ways. After that, while talking to him, one of the soldiers appear to be alive, and one of the Basterds answers him with a shot. Without changing expression, or looking to him. Without camera movements.
  • Not to mention that when they come in, guns blazing, Stiglitz doesn't even twitch.
• Landa inspecting Stiglitz's body.
  Landa: Ah, Hugo. You've moved up in the world! Look at you, 'Lieutenant First Class', and with your record of insubordination. Truly remarkable.
• Aldo's speech when recruiting the Basterds certainly qualifies:
  Aldo: Now, I don't know about y'all, but I sure as hell didn't come down from the goddamn Smoky Mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half of Sicily and jump out of a fuckin' air-o-plane to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity.
• Landa has Aldo cuffed and his head in a black bag. Landa makes a threatening speech how he has Aldo right where he wants...and proceeds to gently poke him in the eye, adding "Caught you flinching!" afterwards. Aldo headbutts him.
  "Touch me again, Kraut-burger!"
• Shosanna's Imagine Spot where she pictures Goebbels boning his translator Francesca Mondino doggy-style.
  • The shot makes more sense when you read the script, where when this bit occurs, there's narration:
  Narrator: Francesca Mondino is much more then Goebbels' French interpreter. She's also Goebbels' favorite French actress to appear in his films...
  [cue image of Francesca acting in the propaganda film "Sentimental Combat"]
  Narrator: ...and Goebbels' favorite French mistress, to act in his bed.
• Landa's slight facial twitch when Aldo asks him if he plans to take his uniform off when he gets to Nantucket.
• In the opening scene, Pierre LaPadite asks Landa if he can smoke, and pulls out a corncob pipe. Landa asks if he may smoke as well, and is told to make himself at home, whereupon... watch for yourself.
• The Bear Jew's pre-Big Entrance:
  Aldo: "That's Sergeant Donny Donowitz. You might know him better by his nickname: the Beaaaaaar Jeeeew. Now if you heard of Aldo the Apache, then you gotta heard about the Beaaaaar Jew."
• "Dammit, Hirschberg." It's not so much what Aldo says, more the way he says it, like Hirschberg's a young child who just broke something expensive rather than a grown man who just shot someone in the back of the head.
• While negotiating with Aldo's OSS General over the conditions of his surrender, Landa goes over the details of the report of his participation of "Operation Kino", including placing Aldo Raine's dynamite in Hitler's balcony seat — and stops to brightly point out that last part is actually true.
• Aldo and Utivich casually discussing Landa's surrender, while Utivich has his knife halfway through a Nazi's scalp.
• Despite the shooting, death, and chaos in the basement tavern, all Stiglitz cares about is stabbing the shit out of Major Hellstrom over and over again.
• Goebbels throwing a hissy fit when Shosanna mentions Lillian Harvey. Presumably because it's still painful for him to recall how Harvey had an acrimonious relationship with the Nazi party and allegedly helped Jewish filmmakers escape Germany.
  • If you watch closely, the moment Shosanna mentions her, Landa turns toward her as if to warn her not to say it. Clearly this isn't the first time he's seen Goebbels blow up about it.
• Bridget's wonderfully snarky response to Aldo asking if she can get him into the premiere.
  "Is your German any better than your friend's? No. Have I been shot? Yes! I don't see me tripping the light fantastique up a red carpet anytime soon."
• And a little macabre just a scant few seconds later.
  "I'm probably going to end up losing this leg. Bye-bye, acting career! Fun while it lasted! How do you expect me to walk the red carpet?!"
• The scene where Shosanna personally hijacks the Nazis' film as they're watching it, tells them that they're about to die directly to their face with Hitler himself in attendance, and then proceeds to have Marcel burn the entire damn theater down in a spectacular inferno, killing everybody inside! Nothing short of sweet, poetic catharsis.
• Both of the Hilarious Outtakes
  • The Hi Sallys where at the end or before a take, the actors or Tarantino say hello to editor Sally Menke.
  Til Schweiger [whispering]: Hi, Sally. I'm not really dead, I'm just pretending. I'm gonna go after him and I'm gonna kick his fucking Nazi balls, okay?
  • This compilation of clapperboard scenes featuring Tarantino's 'Camera Angel' ^note Geraldine Brezca, 2nd Assistant Camera who created some creative, expletive, or otherwise amusing phonetic names for the scenes. Highlights include her large ham calls, Christoph Waltz doing a double-take at her profanities, and a shout out to Tarantino's affixation with feet. Even the cinematographer^note Robert Richardson, ASC joins in on the fun.

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