The kids and I were watching Inglorious Basterds last night and I was reminded why I don't like Quentin Tarantino's movies. They are all talk and flash and no substance.
I only ordered Basterds from Netflix last week because I thought it might amuse my older brother to watch it while he was here. I had taken the kids to the movie one Saturday last year when I had nothing better to do and there were no decent movies out. I figured Bro hadn't seen it but I was wrong.
So when my brother got here I simply said "Have you seen Inglorious Basterds?" and I was unprepared for the resulting tirade. "Yes. Well, I went to the theater, and I walked out after half an hour, it was so bad. It had NOTHING to do with reality. What a bunch of crap. That is the WORST movie ever." [He actually said a lot more than that but my eyes glazed over after a minute]
I thought OK, well, I'm not going to suggest we watch it then...
I remember seeing Pulp Fiction years ago and hating it. I walked out of the theater thinking "I hope NOBODY else ever goes to that film. It's horrible. I think Tarantino had to have been using drugs when he wrote it because it's so inane and stupid."
I was in the family room one day a few years ago while Alesia watched Kill Bill on TV. There was such a complete lack of humanity in that, I remember thinking a good comic book would be more insightful. I can sum it up like this: a beautiful woman who looks sexy and is very violent. That's it.
Tarantino's movies are filled with meandering, meaningless dialogue.
His films are also filled with graphic violence. You almost wish for the violence after a while because it's at least something happening, as opposed to the idiotic dialogue which sounds like it was written by a stoned 12 year old.
His films are all about posing. In Basterds, there is a lot of dialogue about what one character thinks of another character. Reputation is everything.
The only good thing I can think of to say about Tarantino is that Pulp Fiction revived the career of John Travolta, and I like Travolta, despite the idiotic Scientology obsession.
Oh wait - there's one more good thing - he has no children. Let's hope that never happens because we don't need any little Tarantinos in the world.
I think the reason Basterds did so well at the box office is partly because there's a wonderful sense of psychic justice in seeing Jewish hit squads brutally killing Nazis. What a great marketing gimmick. What the movie fails to address is that by doing that, the Basterds are putting themselves on the same level as the Nazis, or maybe even lower - killing just for the sake of killing, not because of any particular philosophy or belief system, however warped.
I Googled Tarantino and spent some time reading about him. Apparently I am not the only one who cannot stand him. He is accused of ripping off other movies, and being racist. He publicly told Spike Lee to kiss his ass. Nice. What a role model.
If you look at the biographical information about Tarantino on imdb.com, which is a great movie resource site, you find a billion words describing him - it's the longest one I've ever read on there. It's like his press agent wrote it. What an egomaniac. What a poseur.
I am going to make a point to NEVER go see his movies again, and I will urge my kids not to watch them either.
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