Tag Archives: Quentin Tarantino

Inglourious Basterds

MV5BMTk3NDA0NTI3Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTUwODQzMg@@._V1__SX1859_SY893_The problem I think with a Quentin Tarantino movie is that it defies categorization. He’s not exactly his own filmmaking genre, not really, but it’s a close thing. And it’s not even that Inglourious Basterds is a multi-genre hodgepodge like Kill Bill was; it’s on the whole a straightforward World War II action movie. All the same, it’s tricky to explain. But here goes: a band of Nazi-killing Jews led by Appalachian Brad Pitt, a Jew-hunting SS officer, and a young Jewish theater owner cross paths in 1944 occupied Paris over an Allied plot to take out the Nazi high command in one fell swoop. …yeah, that looks right.

There’s plenty of stylized violence, over-the-top yet finely-drawn characters, and episodic storytelling; all straight out of the Tarantino playbook. I guess he maybe does have his own genre. But it’s a good genre! Aside from my appreciation for the tropes and for this particular plot and character combination, the most interesting aspect of the film was, for me, dissecting its trajectory. More bluntly: a plan to kill Goebbels and Hitler and etc. is pretty much doomed to failure in mid-1944. I have pretty explicit historical knowledge backing me up on that point. So there I sat, watching and wondering, is this a comedy of errors? A tragedy? An ironic masterpiece in which any of several plans might have succeeded without the interference of competing plans toward the same end? What movie is Tarantino actually making? Obviously I can’t tell you what he made, because, well, that’s the whole movie. But I can say that lens really worked for me.

Sin City

After the fact, and thinking over the body of work that each of them has produced, I’ve decided that Robert Rodriguez is being unfairly eclipsed by Quentin Tarantino. They both have the style thing down cold, but it seems like Quentin has few other true strengths, whereas I’ve seen Robert hit several other notes, and all of them well done.

Be that as it may, Sin City only hits the style notes. That’s okay, though, because sometimes a dark and stylish bloodfest is exactly what you want. There’s morality, but no moral lessons that would really apply to any other world than that one. There’s good and evil, but much more often there’s necessity and expedience. (Plus bullets, booze, and boobies.) You wouldn’t want to live there, but it’s definitely fun to watch the people who do.

If I ever grab the graphic novels, I bet I’d say the same thing. I know everyone says that it matches a few of the storylines, but it could have been completely fresh material in the same world and I’d still make that bet. Never have I seen anything on the screen that looks so much like a comic book. Ultimately, I hope it’s too expensive to catch on, though, because kids need comics to encourage their reading muscle. That is my only complaint, and it’s as minor as it sounds.