Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Mayhem and murder, definitely not for the faint of heart. Hundreds of dead, gallons of blood, revolting close-ups of gore (those who know me or have read babetteflix since the beginning are aware of my practice of covering the middle of the screen with my hand until the torture subsides, as in Body of Lies). This is to be expected from writer/director Quentin Tarantino. But it all fits and advances the story, that of a ragtag group of soldiers in World War II France who kill Nazis. My one other negative: at 2:32, it's too long. We got it--there are periods of suspenseful silence, seemingly in real time, to underscore the fear of the characters. Both Jack & I agreed that if a minute or two had been trimmed from various scenes, a half hour's shortening would have improved the final product.

That being said, this is damn fine filmmaking. Say what you will about Tarantino, he loves the movies. He references other work in his work, yet he is a complete original (although this is based loosely on a 1978 Italian B-movie with the words spelled correctly, Inglorious Bastards). That director, Enzo Castellari, had a cameo as a Nazi general in both movies. Lead actor Brad Pitt (I liked Twelve Monkeys and Se7en in 1995, Babel (2006), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and he was very funny in Burn After Reading) is really growing as an actor, especially his comic timing. I know, it's hard to believe that this one would be humorous, but lots of parts are, interspersed with the tension and noisy killings. Christoph Waltz (a long list of credits in German TV and movies) is incredible here, and the voters at Cannes agreed, giving him the Best Actor Award for his role as the smart, smarmy, multi-lingual Nazi Colonel Hans Landa AKA "the Jew Hunter." I don't know the work of horror movie writer/director Eli Roth, but he plays Donny Donowitz, one of the Basterds. I recognized two other Basterds from TV, B.J. Novak (The Office) and Samm Levine (Freaks and Geeks), but Novak has about five lines, and if Levine has one, I missed it. Mike Myers (I liked Wayne's World and the sequel (1992-93) and the Austin Powers movies (1997, 1999, 2002), and really need to see the Shrek movies) has a cameo, playing it straight for a change, as General Ed Fenech (here's a tidbit about the name). Mélanie Laurent (many French movies, some of which I noticed, none of which I saw, and she won some film awards in France) as the cinema owner, plays her grace-under-pressure quite well. Taking a cue from Tarantino's encyclopedic references, I'm certain that Laurent's character's pseudonym, Emmanuelle Mimieux, is taken from the Emmanuelle movies and the French actress Yvette Mimieux, who starred as "Melanie" in Where the Boys Are (1960). Harvey Keitel and Sam Jackson, frequent Tarantino collaborators, have voice-over cameos. German ex-model Diane Kruger, as the actress Bridget von Hammersmark, is good as well. And I must mention that Tarantino named an autograph-seeker Babette, after me. Just kidding. I haven't personally met him, although once, right around Pulp Fiction's release, I gave up my table at a chic Hollywood restaurant so that he, comedian Margaret Cho (his squeeze at the time), John Travolta, and a big group could sit together (we had already finished our dinner and the maître-d thanked us and gave us desserts at another table).

Oh! I almost forgot to give high school dropout Tarantino's own history. I had read that his debut feature, Reservoir Dogs (1992), had a gruesome scene of torture in real time. So when the character was tied up and the music got eerie, I simply left the theatre and waited outside until that music subsided (this was before I began putting up my hand). Pulp Fiction (1994, which won him, among others, the Oscar, Golden Globe, and Independent Spirit Award for Original Screenplay, and the Independent Spirit Award and Cannes Palme d'Or for directing) is always credited with reviving Travolta's career. Both features changed the face of movies, in my humble opinion. Jackie Brown (1997), which re-started Pam Grier's career, was great, too. I thought Kill Bill 1 and 2 (2003-04) were really good, though some disagree, and I can't give an opinion on the Death Proof part of Grindhouse (2007) because Jack & I didn't go when it was released as half of a 191 minute double feature with Robert Rodriguez' Planet Terror. Tarantino occasionally produces and writes for other directors, such as coming up with the story for Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers the same year as Pulp Fiction.

The imdb bio has some interesting factoids without spoilers. Then, after you see it, check out additional trivia and listen to Terry Gross interviewing Tarantino on NPR's Fresh Air.