Glorious Inglorious Basterds
Just back from getting blasted by Inglorious Basterds, a movie I can heartily recommend. Strong soundtrack as expected (had hoped to post Bowie’s dynamite new version of Cat People, but alas, all I could find was this soundtrack medley, with Bowie barely present…the song goes beautifully with Mélanie Laurent’s dramatic, campy, sexy, shiny red-lipsticked, fuck-me dress sequence). Superb use of lighting (reminds me of Welles), rivetting usage of ultra close-ups -- audio and visual -- (watch for cream atop the strudel; listen to the movement of leather SS jackets), disturbing, memorable violence…all the things you love and expect from Tarantino. Hitler fried in a theatre-oven then machine gunned in the face…and Brad Pitt, though entertaining, looking way too much like Robert Redford in The Sting to be anything other than distracting. Great film none the less. Christoph Waltz is magnetic as the sophisticated Jew hunter Hans Landa, especially in the splendid opening chapter.