REBOUND

Here's the text of an email I just sent to my friend re: Inglorious Basterds...I'll have a proper response in next week's summer movie round-up:

"so...i liked it...didn't love it...it's much better and more involving than death proof but it's still a far, far cry from the trifecta that is dogs-pulp-jackie. and it's not anywhere near as good as kb vol 1 or 2. the best parts, for me, were all of the french movie theater stuff and the stuff with soshanna and her plight. pitt's barely in it, but when he's on screen, he's funny as hell and he rules. eli roth cannot act and QT should have known better -- really -- he's just a terrible actor. he ruined the few scenes he was in with his overacting shtick. the dialogue is mostly interesting, very funny at times, very dark. the movie is stolen by this guy Waltz playing the vile lead Nazi. he's just incredible. there are about three or four brilliant sequences wrapped around a lot of decent stuff. it felt its length but i was never actively bored. i don't really know what he could have cut to be honest. it's funny...QT's movies are always about people and the way that they talk and the precise words they use and patterns they talk in -- it just seems that what he's saying as a filmmaker isn't interesting to me as much as it used to be. and the other BIG thing, at least for me, was the historical aspect to the story. it was one thing to combine noir, the western, and the samurai genres for Kill Bill 1 and 2 (which keep getting better the more I think about them) -- the way he did that was pretty ingenious. But here, because he's using real history, real people, real facts, and twisting them into his little QT-world imagination -- well, I just couldn't help but feel that he was triviliazing the Holocaust in some strange way. The movie is a very unique beast, very textured, very tense, very twisted. The girl who played Soshanna (name escapes me...) is not only gorgeous but a damn fine actress -- I was really into that whole section. And I haven't even mentioned the violence, which, as per usual with QT, is wild, over the top, macabre, and extremely entertaining to watch. at times. in some spots, the level of outright sadism (granted, it's sadism directed at nazi scum) was downright sinister. and then the movie would go back to some cartoon-esque moment of violence or action. It's a mess but a fun mess. I am on the fence with the movie in some respects, still not sure how I feel overall. at the moment I'd say it's a B or a B+. I liked it a helluva lot more than Death Proof, that's for sure.

VERY curious to hear your thoughts..."