4/10

Folks, thanks to another one of Peter’s magic DVDs I managed to watch Inglorious Basterds last night. I hardly knew anything about the movie, all the reviews I’ve seen were rather vague and ambiguous, so I was rather curious to see Tarantino’s latest mental burp.

Summary: Too Long and too self-indulgent

I don’t mind long movies, so long as the time is used productively to tell an important and cohesive story, or to take you on a journey, but Tarantino seems to be suffering from verbal diarrhoea lately, and delusions of self importance. The tedious pseudo-cool dialogue of Death Proof was a sign that he was losing focus and wasting celluloid. I reckon Death Proof would have made a good 20 minute long Twilight Zone episode. I reckon Kill Bill would have been one good movie.

Inglorious is listed as 152 minutes long, and I reckon he could have cut at least 30 minutes out of it and made the movie far more exciting and coherent. I think I fast forwarded through about 30 minutes. Chapter 1 with the dialogue in the dairy farmhouse was absurdly long, and apparently it was just to tell us that that Landa was evil and Shosanna was a victim, something that a skilled filmmaker could have done in a few minutes. Chapters 2 and 3 were tolerable, but stretched out. Chapter 4 which culminates with the very exciting Mexican standoff and shootout in the bar was also absurdly overlong. Chapter 5 was going quite well and was a jolly good romp until almost every important character suddenly dies, the baddie changes his mind and the movie ends. Did Tarantino suddenly realise his movie was due on Monday morning and just stopped filming? Even Tarantino’s trademark incongruous "hip effects", groovy music and genre cross-references are getting lame and unimaginative.

Tarantino is becoming less and less disciplined with each new movie, and as a result they’re getting more jumbled and self-indulgent. I’m getting fed-up with Tarantino for the same reason I am with the Coen Brothers (and my mate Spielberg) ... they just keep throwing the same old ingredients into the blender and churning out the same meal, over and over. Except, each time the meal becomes a little less satisfying.

I’m glad I didn’t pay to see Inglorious Basterds and that I had a fast forward button.

Cheers,
Greg

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