Review of Inglourious Basterds (2009) by Michael S — 28 Feb 2014

As the screen went black tonight and I shared that usual post-Tarantino rush that I've shared before with my fellow audience members, I realized that I've enjoyed every film Tarantino has made that I've seen out at a theatre more than the ones I saw at home. I will always admire him and remember the experience of his cinema as sharing it in public with strangers, gasping and laughing together. He has a magic touch, to know how to play an audience like a fiddle. I imagine Hitchock had this same talent. So in a way, any review of a Tarantino movie I'll be able to give (as long as he keeps doing what he's doing) will be affected by the way he seduced me and my fellow audience members in the dark. I had one hell of a night at the movies. My complaints feel shallow and maddeningly nit-picky: 1) After such a long, slow burn of a build-up, the payoff felt truncated, 2) My favorite character's death was utterly lame and I felt he'd betrayed the character and left her underwritten, 3) The film felt more of a labor of love than an inspired flight of imagination.

P.S. - There were also a few brief times when I felt perhaps uncomfortable with its non-chalant attitude towards such troubling material and the human need for violent retribution...but I'd rather not dissect such things when it comes to a film of such crazed genius.