A. Hitler: Brad’s part in his downfall

aka Inglorious Basterds, is Quentin Tarantino’s latest outing. It’s a rumbustuous but finely engineered send-up, not of World War Two, but World War Two movies with their ludicrous pig-dogs, dirty dozens, and Gestapo dentists. Everybody in the film parodies his or her character all the time, pretty superbly. Young Brad Pitt maintains an Alamo toughguy chipmunk sneer throughout — a considerable achievement.

The film includes historical personages, but, history, Ranke’s “wie es eigentlich gewesen” (“What actually happened”) is merely the sandbox in which Tarantino plays. His chosen idiom is crude Spaghetti Western, with a ton of wry filmic homage thrown in, and playfulness with the film plane as well as the actors.
The rabbit that works the controls in Tarantino’s brain is one sick bunny, but functioning at the height of his game.

By way of health warning, If you find Tarantino unwatchable, this will not disappoint you — ditto if you find his films unmissable. Should you have ever have been tempted to write to the BBC complaining that last night's Sergeant Musgrave of the Buffs was portrayed with eight buttons on his tunic whereas any fool knows the Buffs wore nine buttons on their tunics during the peninsilar war, every second of this movie will really annoy you — Not one for military history buffs, then.

The violence is nasty and brutish, but mercifully short for Tarantino, whose Spaghetti Western spends more time building up tension than shooting it out. After years of believing the Americans won the war single handed, it turns out to have been the Jews. There’s a lot of play on languages — subtitles used or not to draw you into lead characters’ awareness of what‘s going on. If you speak French, German and Italian, you will really be in the know, but even if not there are plenty of subtitles. Anyway, a pistol shot in the cujones is pretty much the same in any language.

Sorry to mention the war, but what might Germans think of this movie? Could breaking the mould of WW2 movies be rather refreshing, in fact? Everyone in this movie is equally nasty and amoral, and I imagine many Germans will be up there cheering along the final reel’s magnificently silly carnivalistic Götterdämmerung, along with everyone else still left in the Cinema. Characteristically for Tarantino, Five out of five Stars — or Zero. Additional proof that there’s no such thing as typical Tarantino...

The Compleat (Secret) Dick

After the dark psychotic loonery of No Country for Old Men, the Coen Bros Get Smart in Burn after Reading:

OK, here’s the skinny. The Busted Baldy is John Malkovich. The Blithering Bastard is George Clooney. The Bewildered Bimbo is Frances McDormand. The Bitch is Tilda Swinton, alongside Brad Pitt, the Butch. Playing at the top of their games, in this movie everyone plays the complete bloody fool. The dense fog of secret war surrounds the lot, and all you can make out through the Coen brothers’ stylish and spicy farrago of idiocy are ignorant armies clashing by night, but in broad daylight, like drunken fairground bumper car drivers who wouldn’t stop just because the sun had come up.

This is both a terrrible and a brilliant film. It's a complete and total mess, but somehow the Bros pull it off, and Catherine, Tim and I were vastly entertained. I think we learnt something, too. Although there are laughs aplenty to be had, the most powerful well-equipped outfit in the world is as incapable of working out what the hell’s going on as the rest of us. This is the stuff whereof crises are made, friends. Sleep tight tonight.