Inglourious Basterds

A lot of muscular Jews slaughter Hitler & Friends. Some women try to help out – and get killed.

Nominated for:
Best Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz
Cinematography - Robert Richardson
Directing - Quentin Tarantino
Best Original Writing - Quentin Tarantino
Best Picture

Also nominated for:
Sound Editing
Sound Mixing
Film Editing

There are many enjoyable parts to this movie. Most sequences are well crafted, choc-full of nail-biting suspense and Tarantino’s trademark dialog. A feast for the eyes. A pioneer in the revenge genre. Christophe Waltz is a stellar psychopath. And you gotta give props to a movie that plots out Hitler’s fictional murder.

Here’s the problem. I’m all for a slow-burn storyline, but Tarantino has this nasty habit of blathering on about nothing relevant to his story just for the sake of proving how cool and clever and super non-dweeby he is. Which is bad. Which means he doesn’t know how to tun to someone and say “Gee, have I gone too far with this bit here?” Maybe he’s surrounded himself with too many Yes men, Speilberg-style. Regardless, there are way too many irrelevant sidebars in this movie, and that's all on Tarantino's giant ego.

Case-in-point – let’s take a look at the scene with “Winston Churchill” and Mike Meyers. The majority of this segment has nothing to do with the plot, and any relevant information that is revealed could have been relayed in about 10 other ways without affecting the story line, except to shorten this movie’s ghastly length by about 10 minutes. The only reason to keep such pointless frivolities is because the filmmaker thinks they are "wicked-cool" and "awesome", which annoys me.

Another case-in-point – the sequence towards the beginning of the movie in which we are introduced to The Bear Jew and his war-weary baseball bat. Why are we forced to spend so much time setting up this awful baseball bat business only to NEVER SEE IT AGAIN throughout the rest of the movie?! The sequence itself was extremely well constructed, which frustrates me more then anything. When all these beautiful, disturbing parts just vanish within the film, I have to ask myself, what was the point of putting that whole bit together if it was only going to be thrown away? And "because its wicked cool and awesome" is not an answer to that question.

So does this geeky little Basterds deserve an award for Best Picture? Absolutely not. Cinematography? ‘Tis nomination worthy. Best Original Writing? No. Best Supporting Actor? Possibly, but the actress Melanie Laurent was miles better. Best Picture? Over my dead body.

Tarantino, partner up with someone who can reign in that ridiculous imagination of yours with some proper storytelling skills, then we’ll talk.

Also, in case you are under any delusions (and I’m sure you are), you aren’t black, or a hip hop artist. Put down that goddamned popped collar and take off your sunglasses.

Eli