Mitul Mistry.com

SPOILER ALERT – read after you’ve seen the movie.

“Nazis ain’t got no humanity. They’re the foot soldiers of a Jew-hatin’, mass murderin’ maniac and they need to be dee-stroyed. That’s why any and every son of a bitch we find wearin’ a Nazi uniform, they’re gonna die.”



Quentin Tarantino is a man that knows his craft, knows his medium, and knows what guys want. I am no Tarantino scholar, and I haven’t seen the whole of his oeuvre, but I feel that one of his biggest weaknesses is overindulgence – in violence, in simplistically violent characters, and in his own quirky artistic flourishes. For example, both Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are exceptional films, but both have their problems. Reservoir Dogs is filled with interesting, but ultimately one-dimensional gangsters. In Pulp Fiction, the characters seem more fleshed out, but Tarantino indulges more in his own weirdness, sometimes with fabulous results, sometimes not. With Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino has attained a greater mastery and control of his own personality, and channeled it into a more sophisticated, refined and original film.

Tarantino describes the work as a spaghetti western with World War II iconography, and just watching the trailer, this is obvious. In a way, it’s not even about World War II at all, at least in comparison to a movie like Saving Private Ryan. It’s not about history; it’s about the emotions, values and ambitions that drove history, recontextualized. It’s an examination of cruelty, cowardice and the nasty things people do to one another not necessarily because of ideals and ideologies, but because of human nature. And it’s a lot of fun.

Why is it fun? Because of those magical things Tarantino does. Like introducing a WWII Nazi slaying character with a freeze frame and huge 70s style letters exclaiming: STIGLITZ. Or having a Mexican standoff in a cellar bar with men pointing pistols at each others’ testicles under the table (one of them being Stiglitz, of course). Or like having a David Bowie track in a WWII film. These are just things you would never find anywhere else, and the dosage is perfect, as well as the execution.

But beneath its entertainment values, Inglourious Basterds presents some interesting material to work with. This is a movie about murder, betrayal and brutality, but man does it have style! Everyone has ample reason to hate Nazis, so when they are slain by the Bastards in such artful, hideously delightful ways, you don’t have to even worry about feeling guilty; after all, the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi, right?



Perhaps one of the most powerful aspects of the film is the fact that the Bastards are presented as real badass Nazi-killers, and you end up rooting for them, yet their brutality, under other contexts, would probably be seen as downright evil. When the Bastards gun down men in a car, when they slice throats, when Stiglitz takes us through a sequence of bedtime murders, it’s okay. When the Bastards rescue Stilglitz from the prison, and the one Bastard blasts a groaning, half-dead Nazi on cue, it feels like an artful flourish rather than a murder – but then, it’s interesting to consider that these Jews are commiting atrocities themselves, are murdering, are scalping, are bashing someone’s head in with a baseball bat, watching, cheering, and so are you – for you, viewer, are rooting for a group of people who mirror Nazi behavior, who call themselves the Bastards, and what does that say about you?



“Say auf wiedersehen to your Nazi balls!” -Stiglitz

This idea of death, killing, murder – it inspires me to think about my own morality. Why is it that killing someone is generally wrong, but then there are times when we feel some people deserve it? What is it about empathy that makes us utilize it so selectively, where we can switch it on and off given the circumstances? Some people we will empathize with, while others, we won’t. And as peace-loving as you want to be, you cannot help but geel compelled by the warm gleam of justice and tranquility in the Bear Jew’s eyes as he mutilates Hitler with his sub-machine gun, and as he fires into the crowd randomly, you know that the Bear Jew is finally at peace, and you yourself feel no sympathy for the fallen Nazis. Whereas if a troubled young man goes into a mall and opens fire at the crowd below, it is utter atrocity.

This passivity to murder is reiterated throughout the movie. For example, there is the awkward, gawky Frederick Zoller, who has killed like three hundred people, and uses it as a pickup line on Shoshanna. It’s a clever allusion to men such as, perhaps, Audie Murphy, the real life American who slew some two hundred forty people during WWII, and was one of the most highly decorated soldiers of the war.  And yet when this Nazi asshole Zoller kills our beautiful Shoshanna, there is such severe pathos in her death; it’s heart-breaking, to see her murdered so spitefully, by someone who holds human life with such little value. It’s a very Tarantino-esque death, an aesthetic, even beautiful depiciton of murder, and probably one of the most meaningful, striking, haunting deaths he has ever written. Why? Because finally, we have a death of someone who really just didn’t deserve it. But then, well, wait…



Beyond this notion of violence and murder, there is the idea of cinema running throughout the story. It presents me with a question: can a fictional narrative change history? Well, not literally, but consider how the film within the film about Frederick Zoller, The Nation’s Pride, and art in a broader cultural, political context can influence perception and the beliefs that people consequently come to hold. The nitrate film prints used as explosives – film itself, burning the hell out of everything; it brings to light the temporal nature of history, how past atrocities can be “erased” from memory or distorted by its documenters. There’s great power here, and Tarantino uses it in a way that others might consider blasphemous, but it’s still within his power nonetheless, and within yours as well. Oh, and it’s also interesting to note that Audie Murphy also made a movie about his career, just like Frederick Zoller. I haven’t watched it. And I don’t intend to.



In the end, Aldo the Apache, after carving a swastika in the Jew Hunter’s forehead, says that this might be his masterpiece, and one can hear Tarantino speaking to the viewer wryly through the voice of his character. While Inglourious Basterds may not be a masterpiece, it’s something with a fair degree of sophistication, something I could write a twenty page paper on, and certainly something worth watching and treating seriously.

In conclusion, it’s brutal, unsympathetic, entertaining, original, and pretty awesome (not to mention the spot on soundtrack). A strong step in the right direction for Tarantino. And no gangsters! Huzzah!

“If marijuana is not legal in five years, I have no faith left in humanity, period. Everyone likes smoking weed… It makes everything better. It makes food taste better, it makes music better… It makes shitty movies better, you know?”

I’ve never been stoned before, but I imagine Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg had to be high out of their minds writing Pineapple Express. This is a film with a corrupt female police officer named Sergeant Brazier. This is a film with a main character that gets shot “like seven times,” and for no apparent reason is still eating cottage cheese at the end of the movie. This is a film with an exploding barn that reconstitutes itself a few shots later. And indeed, this is a film where one has to be under the influence in order to appreciate it.

The plot is aimless and convoluted.  The dialogue is meandering, circular, and often outright arbitrary. There are some interesting characters, such as the sensitive yet ruthless henchmen, Matheson and Budlofsky, the latter who just wants to have a meal with his wife. Yet most of the characters are flat and one-dimensional. Seth Rogen, as Dale Denton, is nothing more than a rambling Seth Rogen. The problem with this is that real actors are supposed to take on the identities of other characters, not just play a caricature of themselves, over and over again, no matter how profitable it may be. James Franco proves this point well. He actually acts, and plays the part of the endearing drug dealer Saul with legitimate skill and craft; his performance is easily the high point of the film.

Looking deeper, one can see an evident contrast between the violence and anger that overwhelms so many of the characters, and the mollifying power of weed. The sober characters are angry, resentful and wrathful, and someone usually ends up getting shot as a result. The characters who are stoned are often happier, more at ease and less suseptible to bouts of shooting, yet this is far from consistent, and even if it was, how much value does this sentiment even have? Maybe the random Asian people with guns wouldn’t be so mad if they just smoked a joint or four?

As a “buddy” movie, there is a contrast between two duos worthy of note. There is the Dale/Saul pair and the Matheson/Budlofsky pair. The contrast is interesting. End of note.

Ultimately, though, this is a film that would be better taken as a tale literally told by one that is stoned, a narration rather than a film taken at face value. In fact, at the end, when the characters are reminscing about their adventures over breakfast, I was half expecting it to be revealed that the entire story was simply something they made up because they were so high. Heavy handed, maybe, but at least then it would make sense. Because as it stands now, it makes absolutely none.

To me, this film brings up the much larger issue of modern media. This is a film with a budget of $25 million, which made over $100 million in gross revenue. Fundamentally, Pineapple Express is a stupid movie that epitomizes the idea of bread and circuses with half-hearted pretenses of characterization, and the people making these movies think that this is exactly what the people want, and, in doing so, declare that you, the viewer, are stupid. And the question is: are you? Or perhaps you’re simply stoned. Either way, Columbia Pictures made a hell of a lot of money while audiences tried to figure this very question out for themselves in theaters.

In conclusion, I liked Harold and Kumar better. At least in that movie Bobby Lee didn’t get shot.