Basterds makes Four

I'm happily surprised to say that there are now four good movies of this summer. And I'm not including Star Trek in May. I'm not even going back to The Hangover in June. I'm talking about July and August, the real months of summer. There's The Hurt Locker, 500 Days of Summer, District 9, and now Inglorious Basterds.

Tarantino's new movie has his signature all over it. There is a lot of pop playfulness that shows us that making the Kill Bill movies really did change him. He's now more about having fun than seriousness and so I don't expect him to ever make a movie as serious as Jackie Brown again. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, because Jackie Brown was pretty great, but so is this new Tarantino.

Basterds is loaded with flashy screen titles that burst onto the screeen with loud music, catchy dialogue, and funny characters. The movie is a pretty straight forward men on a mission story, and from what I understand, when Tarantino was first writing this, he ended up with a giant novel that wouldn't end. It probably had nothng to do with the mission at the theater. I'm glad he didn't make that.

The movie is two and a half hours, but it doesn't feel like it at all. It moves quickly and keeps our attention at all times. Whenever I see a new Tarantino movie, it takes me multiple viewings before I can really appreciate it. So I'm not surprised that I don't love this movie right now, but I certainly enjoyed it and look forward to loving it in the future after I see it again.