Inglourious Basterds

Tarantino has been playing it safe. You shield yourself from criticism when you set out to make a purposely bad movie like Death Proof. After the failure of that endeavor, it was time to shift gears a little bit. An adaptation this time, with loads of subtitles and a largely European cast. As expected, lots of references to other movies: The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah) Men In War (Anthony Mann) Sabotage (Hitchcock) and lots of cartoon violence. I liked this. The music score, with spaghetti western cues and eighties pop songs was distracting at first, but I got into it. Even the presence of hack director Eli Roth didn't bother me, although he does manage to mangle most of the roughly six lines of dialogue he's given. Mike Myers however, sticks out like a sore thumb. Much of this plays like Jewish porn, and I couldn't help wondering if the bloody climax would've been even more exhilarating if I were Jewish. I think this is probably going to be a turning point for Tarantino. Up to this point, he's made mostly adolescent movies, albeit graceful and highly entertaining ones. His most "adult" movie, Jackie Brown, left a lot of his fans scratching their heads. Now, in middle age, perhaps he'll start tackling more "grown-up" movies. We'll see. The lingering question is, do we need men like this to win a war? Does war do this to people, or is this already there inside of us and the army just flips the switch? After watching Aldo Raines (Brad Pitt) carve a swastika into someone's forehead, I started daydreaming about his civilian life after the war, working in some filling station or what not. A terrifying prospect. I happen to be writing this on Memorial Day.