'Inglorious Basterds' was AWESOME!!!

Sunday, I was privileged enough to have the free time to have a date with Matt. We don't get too many of those opportunities, so we decided to go see the new Quentin Tarantino film 'Inglorious Basterds'. I'm going to do my best to not give away major plot points, so if I seem cryptic, go see this film. Actually, you should see it anyway.

The trailers have been pretty open about one of the bisecting plots: there's a unit of Jewish American soldiers out to have their revenge on the Nazis. They are called (shock of shocks) the Inglorious Basterds, and their leader is Lt. Aldo Raines (Brad Pitt). I want to say right here and now that I don't care much for Brad Pitt as an actor, but holy crap was he ever perfect for this movie. I can't think of anyone else capable of playing that part, aside from Bruce Willis about 15 to 20 years ago. Pitt puts on a thick southern accent and it plays wonderfully. And when you hear the Pitt character say in the trailer "each one of you men owes me 100 Nazi scalps", don't think he's kidding or that they won't show it being done at some point.

The other plot involved is that of a French woman whose entire family was executed while they were being hidden from the Nazis. Her name is Shoshanna, but we see her later in the film being called Emmanuelle because she has successfully evaded Nazi capture and is now running a movie theater under an assumed identity. A German soldier becomes smitten with her and persuades the propaganda minister to hold a film's premiere at her small theater instead of at a much larger venue.

At some point, it becomes obvious to the audience that these plots will intersect, but the people in the separate plots don't figure it out in a way that's ever acknowledged.

One of the really truly great things about this movie is that the French people actually speak FRENCH, the German people actually speak GERMAN, and the Brits and Americans all speak English, instead of everyone speaking English and pretending it's something else. Which means for American audiences, about half of it is subtitled.

Also, this being a Tarantino film, you expect a lot of vulgar language and a lot of blood (especially in a war movie), but this is almost suspiciously tame by his standards. Not that there isn't some swearing and not that there isn't some bloody action, but none of it really seems gratuitous like in some of his earlier films.

Sadly, anything else I say is going to give a lot of stuff away, and I don't want to spoil it for anyone that hasn't seen it yet, but I do want to say that the Pitt character speaking Italian is probably the funniest bit in the whole movie. I hope this gets some serious awards recognition because it deserves some.