netflixed

Fairly typical Quentin Tarantino--occasionally entertaining, but mostly annoying. This is an hommage to really bad WW2 caper films I loved as a kid, like Where Eagles Dare and Kelly's Heroes (I'm pretty sure the music of the former was referenced in a key scene in Inglorious Basterds, but since Where Eagles Dare is unwatchable to anyone over the age of 12, I won't essay to verify this).

Yes, both Where Eagles Dare and Kelly's Heroes were Clint Eastwood vehicles, and there are other references to Clint Eastwood scattered throughout. The opening scene is right out of Unforgiven, and the music is of course spaghetti western Morricone. Despite the distractions of pointless pastiche, the opening is effective, until the requisite Tarantino dialogue about rodents turns it totally absurd. Every time he does this it pulls me out of his films and makes me think "here we go with the not-so-clever 'clever' dialogue." Ugh. So right away, I was thinking it was a mistake to get the movie.

It was. I didn't enjoy the alternate history. I didn't enjoy Brad Pitt's 'performance,' (though many of the other actors were excellent in several languages). I didn't even enjoy the cartoonish violence, which is often the best part of Tarantino's flicks. So, whatever. I'm too bored with it to even pan Inglorious Basterds. Where's Werner Klemperer when you need him? Or Schulz?