Inglourious Basterds

          As part of Mr. Tarantino's birthday week, I watched Inglourious Basterds last night. It takes place in Nazi-occupied France, where two different plans to extinguish WWII are prepared and set into motion. On the one hand are the "basterds," the American team comprised of Nazi-hating Jews from the South and from Europe. The other team is made up of a French (and secretly Jewish) cinema owner and her employee. Some parts of this film are painfully real, and other parts are painfully hilarious -- especially every scene with Brad Pitt in it, which is truthfully not that much of the movie. The cinematography (which happens to be by Robert Richardson -- my fave -- although I had not remembered that until I saw his name in the end credits) is flawless, a perfectly dark yet welcoming shade of greenish gray. I love Pitt's ridiculous accent, which provides for some comic relief just before things get dry. Christoph Waltz is cunning and threatening as a highly-ranked Nazi. He compares Jews to rats, which, as you will see in the movie, helps us understand the motives of the Nazis a bit better thanks to Quentin's genius writing. I love this masterpiece of a movie and finally understand why everyone else sees it as such.