Movie Week – Inglourious Basterds

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After watching Cabin in the Woods, I decided that I wanted to check out another film that I’d heard a lot of good things about; Inglourious Basterds.  (Incidentally, that’s probably going to be the last time I refer to it by it’s name because the intentional misspelling pushes me towards OCD.)

While I don’t necessarily love his work, I have a great deal of respect for Quentin as a filmmaker and I do love his taste in music.  Combine that with hype around the movie and I had some lofty expectations. 

Going back to Quentin for a minute, only to explain that I won’t really be delving into my opinion of him.  I won’t because it’s complex and is deserving of it’s own post (which will likely never happen.)  Like I said; I respect him as a filmmaker. 

Up to this point I’d seen all of Quentin’s films with the exception of his contribution to Grindhouse and I.B. And of those I’d seen, the only one I hadn’t seen on the big screen was Reservoir Dogs.  So you can say that I’m versed in things Tarantino. 

I really do wish I’d seen I.B, in the theater or at least before I’d seen Django Unchained because I feel like I missed a part of Quentin’s evolution as a filmmaker.  Yeah, his last three movies have been revenge flicks, but I.B. and Django also deal with darker moments in relatively recently history.  He’s teetering on maturity. 

That said, I wasn’t really the biggest fan of I.B. Yeah, Christoph Waltz was dope in the films, but now that I’ve seen it, to me at least, his performance in Django felt derivative.  Personally, I think he should give back the Oscar he won for Django. 

I.B. felt a tad too disjointed for my tastes and it seemed like Quentin at his worst.  It felt long and bloated.  And yet there were also characters (most of the Basterds) who feel painfully underdeveloped.  It’s a very weird dichotomy. 

The Basterds scenes feel like classic Quentin and the Shosanna storyline feels like a separate movie altogether.  It’s jarring and it almost comes close to working.  But for me it didn’t quite click.  I really wanted it do, but it didn’t. 

I did like the story that the film told.  Shosanna’s story was so well put together.  I’d almost like seeing her storyline excised and put out as it’s own story.  I think it’d be a cool dvd feature. 

I.B was really just ok as a film.  I don’t really know if I’d sit down and watch it again.  I honestly don’t even know if I could recommend it to anyone.