Movin’ Pictures: Inglourious Basterds

(I really hate the title’s incorrect spelling, which is weird because if it weren’t for spell check, this whole blog would make me look like a stroke victim)

I’m going to sound like a dick. Sorry. As I sit here trying to think of things to say, going over a few points over and over in my mind, it all starts to make me sound, to myself at least, like a huge, effin’ dick. But honestly, I like the movie. A lot.

It’s just that I thought the movie would fucking blow my mind. Instead, it was merely awesome. Tarantino shot for a Pulp Fiction but wound up with a Kill Bill vol. 1.

By now you’ve probably heard about how this was supposed to be his glorious Cowboy Western epic, that it took 10 years to write, and that he left on the editing room floor enough of his WWII fairy tale to make a fucking WWI prequel. Not bad for a 2 and a half hour long slog fest.

The film has two main story lines that culminate together at the end. One follows the events of Shosanna (Laurent), a French Jew who loses her family in a raid and winds up as the manager of a little cinema theater. You better like this chick because this is basically her film and her story. I was a little disappointed because I thought the second story line, the one following Lieutenant Aldo “The Apache” Raine (Pitt), would be focused on more. This is the shit that was really cut out. All the back story with The Basterds, shots of them tearing ass through Nazi occupied France, the pithy dialogue, almost all cut out. You can tell you’re watching a watered down version; an incredible revelation because god damn those guys are funny and brutal.

You’ll like every single character. I was surprised that I liked Eli Roth’s character, Sgt. Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz, because I personally don’t really like Eli Roth and his stupid snuff movie porn shit. I guess it makes sense that an annoying, sadistic Jewish American would be cherry picked to play one. Good job, Eli.

The movie is extremely dialogue heavy, which is a good thing if you find agonizing tension just as enjoyable as agonizing slaughter. You can thank “The Jew Hunter” Hans Landa (Waltz) for that. Tarantino and Waltz created the perfect movie villain; a romantic, and sinister genius who serves as the only real bridge between the two protagonists. It feels really weird liking a Nazi this much.

Tarantino does a great job with the directing, using all the artsy fartsy camera/lighting/setting techniques I’ve completely forgotten from the cinematography course I barely passed. The film definitely deserves to be watched more than once; keeping track of all this stuff AND the plot AND the great acting AND the constant sensation of being gob smacked, you also have to keep track of all the moderately obscure movie tributes Tarantino makes because Tarantino is a huge fucking movie dork (not necessarily a bad thing)

Inglourious Basterds gets 9/10 corgis. It should be seen.