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Knowing the kinds of films Quentin Tarantino makes, it still shocks and stuns me on a few levels that the masses adore Inglourious Basterds. Watching it again, I have to say that this is the WWII fantasy film that every Jew in Hollywood has wanted to make since the war ended. Because while we may have defeated Hitler in the actual war, but there is nothing as cathartic as eviscerating him and the entire Nazi regime in fiction.

What I really love about the directing of Inglourious Basterds is that there are no lost performances. When I watch the film, every character that makes it on screen is memorable, rounded and worth paying attention to – with an ensemble cast as big as this, and numerous notable cameos that’s quite a feat for Tarantino to pull off. However, right down to Samuel L. Jackson’s voice over, there is nothing throwaway in this film.

I wish I could rave, rant and write about my favorite things in this film, but as I love this film enough that I want to keep the readers that haven’t seen it in the dark I won’t. Instead I will keep this short and say one thing: Inglourious Basterds is a film that you need to experience for yourself, so please, go experience it.

Lt. Aldo Raine: You didn't say the goddamn rendezvous was in a fuckin' basement.
Lt. Archie Hicox: I didn't know.
Lt. Aldo Raine: You said it was in a tavern.
Lt. Archie Hicox: It is a tavern.
Lt. Aldo Raine: Yeah, in a basement. You know, fightin' in a basement offers a lot of difficulties. Number one being, you're fightin' in a basement!

I don’t recall ever having as fun a time at a war movie as I just had at Inglourious Basterds. Inglourious Basterds is a wonderful contradiction as a film. It is set in a historical event, but does not follow history. It is an action film, but it delivers consistent laughs. It has great characters, but they are far too exaggerated to be real. It is fully restrained, but fully Tarantino.

As I’ve waited and prepared to watch Tarantino’s latest work I began to hope that Tarantino would have fun with World War II – not that I don’t respect the people that fought for our freedom, but Tarantino is not the director that would make Flags of Our Fathers. The tagline of this film was “once upon a time in Nazi occupied France” and I hoped it would be just what that promised – a WWII fairy tale. It was.

Tarantino makes no pretensions about being historically accurate. He made the kind of movie about Nazi’s and the allies he wanted to see – Tarantino made a spaghetti western about the Nazi occupation of France. He even had music by Ennio Morricone. Tarantino managed to still capture beautiful performances, strong characters, moving moments and wonderfully exaggerated action. All of these things are Tarantino, and yet this film was somehow more polished and cultivated than anything he’s done before.

Now that Tarantino has landed on the linear story line I hope he stays there. I appreciate all of the ways Tarantino tells his stories, but I have to admit that I used to think Tarantino couldn’t tell a cohesive story and that was why he felt the need to disjoint them. I am so glad to say that now that I have seen two linear films by Tarantino I was wrong. No matter how Tarantino tells his stories he tells them brilliantly and makes them incredibly entertaining.

Inglourious Basterds is wonderful, but part of that wonderful aura is Brad Pitt as The Apache. Oh dear goodness I wanted more of the Tennessee Nazi scalper. From the moment he appears on screen he steals the show and is just the best character you could imagine. He is tough, hard, whimsical and a fantastic Nazi killer. He deserves his scalps.

I am going to see Inglourious Basterds again. I know I am. If nothing else because I am fascinated that finally, finally Tarantino made a film so reflexive that the third act actually takes place in a cinema…

DirectoR & Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Lt. Aldo Raine: Brad Pitt
Shosanna: Melanie Laurent
Col. Landa: Christoph Waltz
Sgt. Donowitz: Eli Roth
Lt. Hicox: Michael Fassbender
Bridget von Hammersmark: Diane Kruger
Frederick Zoller: Daniel Bruhl
Hugo Stiglitz: Til Schweiger

Lt. Aldo Raine: You probably heard we ain't in the prisoner-takin' business; we in the killin' Nazi business. And cousin, Business is a-boomin'.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is an epic sized tale about the life of Benjamin Button, a man that was born an old baby and aged backwards. That’s seriously all I can say about the plot of Benjamin Button, not because I didn’t like it or because I’ll spoil something but because there is really not a lot else to say about the film. Benjamin Button lives his life just like everyone else, except that he ages in reverse; he doesn’t do anything different than any film character you’ve seen before do except age in reverse of the natural order.

I am not trying to be harsh on the film, but I went in expecting something new and brilliant and got Big Fish only an hour longer and without the fantastical aspects. I am disappointed because where I enjoyed seeing Tim Burton break out of his box, there was nothing stale with David Fincher’s style that made him breaking out of his box refreshing. I also feel that the trailers and the actual movie make you feel like there is some large purpose or point behind The Curious Case of Benjamin Button but in the end there was a lot of build up but no pay off, no greater lesson the character learned and wanted to impart on you. I feel like this was the dramatic equivalent of a summer movie – while all the story was nice, and the performances wonderful people really just wanted to see the special effects. I do suppose that’s a valid reason to see it simply because the effects and visuals of the film are stunning, Fincher really does know how to compose a dynamic shot and make a gorgeous movie.

One of the things I didn’t like about the digital effects was the aging of Cate Blanchett, and oddly enough I am not complaining about the effects to make her look older but the ones to make her look younger. When they make her look in her 20’s to me she looks so digitally touched she is practically glowing. This may have been what Fincher was going for but personally I found it distracting.

I was going to mention how much I enjoyed Brad Pitt playing Benjamin at so many ages, but I just checked IMDB and about 5 people played Benjamin before Brad Pitt comes into the film so I must applaud the special effects there (because I couldn’t tell) and yet now I feel I can’t give Brad Pitt the kudos I thought he deserved.

I also think that some of my problems with the film might have been eliminated if they took one more pass in the editing room – I honestly think everything in the present time line could have been dropped and done with voiceovers and made the film’s story pack more of a punch, but I do understand Fincher’s desire to keep what he shot. However, every time the film cut back to the present I did feel that the flashbacks lost a little of their dramatic punch and this could have led to me thinking that the film built up a lot of expectations that it didn’t fulfill.

I don’t mean to come down too harshly on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I did like the movie, think it was well made, and find the story adorable. I merely think that there is an air of pretension behind the film that it would be better without.

Director: David Fincher
Writer: Eric Roth
Daisy: Cate Blanchett
Benjamin Button: Brad Pitt
Thomas Button: Jason Flemyng
Queenie: Taraji P. Henson
Captain Mike: Jared Harris
Elizabeth Abbott: Tilda Swinton

Benjamin Button: I was thinking how nothing last, and what a shame that is.
Daisy: Some things last.

I am a fan of Guy Ritchie. Snatch is one of my personal favorite movies and I think Mickey is just one of the best characters committed to celluloid in the past few decades. I have been in a Guy Ritchie funk since Snatch came out; sure he did Swept Away and Revolver but neither one of those films got much love…and Swept Away was just ripped apart by everyone. In short, Madonna killed Guy’s career. Those of us that have had that opinion about the Madonna/Guy marriage of course find it funny that Rocknrolla has come out at roughly the same time as the announcement of Guy and Madonna’s split. We’ve all been hoping that this split signals the return of Guy Ritchie to the cinema he does so well.

Rocknrolla is vaguely similar in concept to some of Guy Ritchie’s other films. It takes an odd assortment of characters all somehow involved in the criminal underground in Britain and their paths interconnect and try to pull them all down a ugly and dangerous spiral that will end in their deaths. In this outing One Two, Mumbles and Handsome Bob are the Wild Bunch a trio of moderately successful thugs. Stella is creative accountant to Uri who gives work to One Two under the nose of Uri who is trying to use Stella’s skills to get money to Lenny. Lenny is a blue-collar thug if you will who makes his dime off real estate scams and doesn’t see his way of doing things as old. Archie is Lenny’s enforcer who is trying to track down Lenny’s step son Johnny, a supposedly dead junkie/rocker managed by Mickey and Roman. There is really no way to truly sum up this film’s plot. But if you’ve seen a Ritchie film you can put the pieces together and figure out at least the style that the story will be told in.

While I enjoyed Rocknrolla it is by no means a typical Guy Ritchie film. All the elements are there, and you enjoy watching all the pieces get put in place and whacked back out of order. However, the prevailing feeling that I got out of this film is that Guy is stretching; it’s been eight years since Snatch came out and it feels like Guy is a little unsure of himself. This is not a bad thing however, the film is enjoyable, well done and something that no one except Guy Ritchie could do. It put me in a mood where I enjoyed the film and I know going out of it that Guy is coming back and his next movie is going to be even more like the Guy Ritchie I know and love.

One of the things I do love about Guy Ritchie’s films is that he takes at least one actor in every film that I love and makes them play a character that I couldn’t picture them in. In Snatch that is Brad Pitt and Mickey. In Rocknrolla that is Gerard Butler. I adore Butler and while One Two isn’t as out there of a character as Mickey I just didn’t quite see Butler as a fit in Ritchie’s world – I was wrong. Butler is fabulous.

Go support Guy Ritchie. He doesn’t really need the money, but I want him to keep making gangster movies because that is his genre.

Director & Writer: Guy Ritchie
One Two: Gerard Butler
Mumbles: Idris Elba
Handsome Bob: Tom Hardy
Johnny Quid: Toby Kebbell
Roman: Ludacris/Chris Bridges
Uri: Karel Roden
Councilor: Jimi Mistry
Stella: Thandie Newton
Mickey: Jeremy Piven
Archie: Mark Stong
Lenny: Tom Wilkinson

Archie: People ask the question... what's a RocknRolla? And I tell 'em - it's not about drugs, drums, and hospital drips, oh no. There's more there than that, my friend. We all like a bit of the good life - some the money, some the drugs, other the sex game, the glamour, or the fame. But a RocknRolla, oh, he's different. Why? Because a real RocknRolla wants the f---ing lot.

Burn After Reading is the latest in the long line or quirky and original films made by the Coen brothers, and hot off their Oscar win for No Country for Old Men. To call Burn After Reading a spy movie does not properly define it, but to call the film simply a comedy undersells it. Like most of the Coen brothers movies there is no simple way to categorize Burn After Reading.

The film begins with Osbourne, a CIA analyst who is told he is being demoted and therefore quits, his wife Katie reacts adversely to this news and chalks up another reason for divorce. Meanwhile, Harry is a ladies’ man who hides his many girlfriends from his wife, and is a paranoid US Marshall who thinks he is being watched. In another section of Washington D.C. Linda and Chad work at Hard Bodies gym; Linda is obsessed with changing her life by getting plastic surgery to change her body, and Chad is blissfully Chad. At the gym one day Chad & Linda stumble on a CD of Osbourne’s memoirs and financial info and make the mistaken assumption that it is “secret intelligence shit” and decide to offer it up to Osbourne thinking that they will get a good Samaritan reward. However, this backfires and they instead try blackmailing Osbourne which is where the plot gets even more complex than it already was.

Hands down the best thing about this movie is Chad played by Brad Pitt. He steals the show. Chad is just so blissfully Chad that is almost beyond description, he exists in his own world. I really can’t describe him to justice – just go see the movie.

However, some of the best lines in the film are given to a more minor character, the CIA supervisor played by JK Simmons. At at least two points in the movie Osbourne’s former boss must go to the supervisor to report on the oddities they’ve noticed since Osbourne quit – namely that Linda and Chad contacted Osbourne and then went to the Russian embassy. No one at the CIA can figure out what is going on or how this random group of people is involved and JK is the voice of that confusion.

If some of the Coen’s audience is new and jumped into their movies at No Country for Old Men they will be surprised by Burn After Reading, this movie is the old school, traditional Coen’s where the Oscar winning film is the mature side of the Coen’s. However, no matter how different their films may be they are all worth watching.

Director’s & Writer’s: Joel & Ethan Coen
Harry: George Clooney
Linda: Frances McDormand
Chad: Brad Pitt
Osbourne: John Malkovitch
Katie: Tilda Swinton
CIA Supervisor: JK Simmons

CIA Superior: What did we learn?
CIA Officer: Uh...
CIA Superior: Not to do it again. I don't know what the fuck it is we *did*, but...