I wrote a terrible piece on this film a while ago, which is one of the few terrible pieces I have penned that made me gag so much I had to subsequently erase it from the internet. I think my problem was trying to overthink it too much (haha, what's new?). The thing is, many bloggers I follow slavishly encouraged me to do so. But hey, really guys! This one is all too simple, no? I mean, it's all in Soshanna's cackling projected ghost crying THIS IS THE REVENGE OF THE JEWS!!! Tarantino could not BE more in-your-face! Cinema, by portraying the Nazis as bloodthirsty, amoral robots who all get tortured, shot to pieces and burnt to a crisp, is fighting back for all the genocide they committed. Is such revenge fantasy a mature reaction to the horrors of the holocaust? Ummm.... no. But Quentin's never really been one for maturity or complex ideas. No. Really, guys, he hasn't.
The thing with Basterds is though. For a film this moronic, it ain't half bloody long! Yes, we get the slow-build tension-tension western pastiches, but did we really need all that stuff in the beginning, or all that stuff with the British? Couldn't you have cut to the chase a bit? It's not like there are any jokes here that top the banter of the 90s output. Keep the Landa stuff sure. I'm agreed with everyone on this -- Landa is great. But the rest could have done with some serious chopping.
The problem with Tarantino is that he thinks he's a genius and everyone seems to want to encourage that belief. Well, we should stop, because he's getting self-indulgent. The films are getting bigger and the same old tricks are bringing diminishing returns. Smarten up, son. Or eventually you'll make a film so bloated and stupid that everyone's gonna realize the pulp cinema emperor has lost his clothes. Just some friendly advice. Hopefully, it won't make me gag two months down the line.
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