Movie Review Minority Report

Minority Report (2002) 

Directed by Steven Spielberg 

Written by Scott Frank, Jon Cohen

Starring Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Max Von Sydow 

Release Date June 21st, 2002 

Published June 20th, 2002 

I have never cared for science fiction. Most science fiction, to me, is gory trash referred to as sci-fi because no one knows what else to call it. The science in sci-fi films is usually somewhat suspect, lacking in any real possibility. Furthermore, the vision of the future is usually very bleak and depressing with a low opinion of us in the audience, often blaming us for the destruction of the fantasy future. Steven Spielberg's Minority Report is nothing like the recent trend of trash sci-fi. This film has a brain and a point and it also happens to be entertaining.

The film stars Tom Cruise as John Anderton, the head enforcer of Washington D.C's Precrime division. Precrime is designed to stop murders before they happen through the use of computers and genetically engineered humans called Precogs. The Precogs can see a murder before it happens and communicate the images to computers which are manipulated by the police to figure out who the murderer is and where the murder will take place.

As we enter the story there hasn't bee a murder in DC in six years. The system, in Anderton's opinion, is flawless. Colin Ferrell, as a cop for the justice department, is more pragmatic and investigates on the basis that nothing is foolproof. We soon find out there may be a flaw as Anderton is fingered as a future murderer of a man he's never met.

This leads to some spectacular chase scenes and awesome special effects that are surprisingly realistic. Spielberg employed real sets and stunts with special effects and CGI which helps Minority Report to feel more grounded and real than say George Lucas and his entirely CGI backgrounds or Sam Raimi's CGI Spiderman. The integration of the real sets and stunts with the CGI and effects is flawless and Janusz Kaminski's cinematography makes everything just that much more dynamic and real. Minority Report however is no mere technical achievement. The story is fascinating. It's based loosely on a Philip K. Dick story but punched up for a more modern, futuristic approach by Scott Frank.

Legendary science fiction writer Isaac Asimov once said, and I'm paraphrasing, that the best science fiction is a logical extension of existing technology. Minority Report has the feeling of eerie prescience. It's not prophetic but it seems like a logical extension of existing technology. Scenes of touch screen computers and holographic images are science already in sight. Also the idea of genetically engineered people is not the least bit far fetched with the recent controversy over cloning and the genome project. Of course engineering people who can see the future is unlikely, but it is just a movie.

If I had any trouble with the film it was the ending. Spielberg may still be feeling the effects of his downer ending in A.I. I don't want to give too much away but let's just say the false ending is slightly more satisfying than the one that follows it. Still, Minority Report worked for me. I was fascinated by its ideas, drawn in by its story and awed by its adventure. Let's hope Cruise and Spielberg work together again soon as they bring out the best in each other.

Movie Review Mirai

Mirai (2018) 

Directed by Mamoru Hosada 

Written by Mamoru Hosada 

Starring Rebecca Hall, Victoria Grace, John Cho, Daniel Dae Kim 

Release Date August 12th, 2018 

Published August 12th, 2018 

Mirai may be the best challenger to Ralph Breaks the Internet in the race for the Best Animated Feature Oscar. This minimalist, dreamy, family drama from director Mamoru Hosoda evokes the best works of Hayao Miyazaki and it’s not merely because they share Asian characteristics. Like the best of Miyazaki’s work, Hosada’s Mirai is a deeply humane and gorgeous work brimming with empathy, wonder and humor. 

Mirai tells the story of 4 year old Kun. Heretofore an only child, Kun appeared to be excited about having a sibling when mom and dad left for the hospital, leaving him with his grandmother. But, now that the baby, Mirai, is home and getting all of mom and dad’s attention, Kun is not happy. In fact, Kun openly states that he hates Mirai. Being that he is 4 years old his words don’t carry much weight but he appears to mean it as much as he is capable of understanding complex emotions. 

Kun’s journey will be about learning to accept the world as it is and not as he wants it to be and that journey is filled with wonder and imagination. Having had a fight with his mother, Kun retreats to his backyard which finds overtaken by a bizarre fantasy world. Here, Kun meets his dog Yuko, but in human form. Yuko tells Kun that he felt the same way about Kun when he came along and replaced Yuko as the center of the parent’s world. 

Yuko, being the soul of a dog, doesn’t have much insight beyond what I just mentioned but he’s mostly a way of introducing these remarkable fantasy sequences. The standouts of the fantasy sequences come when Kun meets Mirai from the future, as a teenage girl. Mirai needs Kun’s help because she can’t be seen by their dad. The consequences are unseen on screen but the sense of the dangers of time travel are brushed over in a lovely, writerly way. 

Kun has two more huge encounters that will help him to shape who he will become but I won’t reveal those here, you need to see the movie. These formative daydreams have an urgency and vitality that is missing from many of modern Hollywood’s animated creations, outside of Pixar, of course. The dreamy animation and the loosely flowing story that floats in time and, in one beautiful scene, floats in space spreading a sort of euphoria over the audience as it goes. 

The animation of Mirai is first rate and the English language cast is first rate. John Cho voices Kun’s father and Rebecca Hall is the voice of Kun’s mother. Hall’s ability to communicate warmth and tenderness and be almost comically cruel can be a tad jarring but there is a reason for her unique portrayal that comes out in another fantasy sequence, equally a must see as the others I have alluded to. 

Mirai is showing as a limited engagement in the Quad Cities this weekend and will be made available for on-demand streaming in a few weeks.

Movie Review Please Give

Please Give (2010) 

Directed by Nicole Holofcener 

Written by Nicole Holofcener 

Starring Rebecca Hall, Catherine Keener, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt 

Release Date April 30th, 2010 

Published August 12th, 2010 

Writer-Director Nicole Holofcener “Please Give” is one of the best movies of 2010. This wonderfully warm, human drama/comedy about people struggling to better themselves and connect with others, striving and failing and striving again is so relatable and revealing of not just its characters but its audience it should be taught in humanities classes.

Katherine Keener, star of all of Me. Holofcener's movies, stars in “Please Give” as Cathy, the proprietor of a furniture store that specializes in buying the furniture of dead people from grieving families who don't realize the value of what they are selling. Naturally, there is a little bit of guilt attached to this ghoulish profession, guilt that is compounded by another ghoulish enterprise in her life.

Cathy and her husband Alex have purchased the apartment next door to their own, an apartment that is currently inhabited by Andra (Ann Guilbert) a 90 something year old woman in not so great health. Cathy and Alex are essentially waiting for the old woman to kick off so they can knock down a wall and expand their space. Cathy feels horrible about this and her guilt is again compounded by Andra's doting granddaughter Rebecca (Rebecca Hall) who in her standoffishness tacitly calls out Cathy's ghoulishness.

Cathy attempts to alleviate her guilt by becoming a volunteer. She tries helping out at a retirement home and is overcome by the sadness of people waiting to die. She tries helping out kids with autism and again she is overwhelmed. In a powerful scene that defies description of its emotional power Keener breaks your heart, hiding in a bathroom stall. It's one of a number of small moments that make Please Give so remarkable.

Parallel to Cathy's story is Rebecca's story. Lonely and sad, Rebecca waits on her unappreciative granny and watches the world go by. Rebecca's sister Mary (Amanda Peet) is far less circumspect in relation to grandma, dismissing the old woman and callously waits for the old woman to croak so that she can be done with the whole thing.

Peet has a masterfully awkward scene when she, Rebecca and grandma are invited over to Cathy and Alex's apartment for dinner. Peet's indelicate questions about just what renovations will happen in the apartment once grandma is gone, right in front of grandma, make for dark humor and set Peet up for scenes later in the film that will resonate deeper. You can assume that she will be humiliated and redeemed but you must see these scenes to truly get the impact.

Much of “Please Give” defies a basic description. The acting is so wonderfully subtle and un-dramatic. The shifts in tone come in glances and nods and not in emotional breakdowns and obvious speeches. There is nothing wrong with a good monologue, mind you, but the material in “Please Give” doesn't call for it, even when you might be expecting it. Nicole Holofcener's amazing talent in “Please Give” is recognizing exactly what each scene needs on a basic dramatic level and allowing the actors space to give the perfunctory something beyond the words. With a cast this brilliant it makes Holofcener's gift seem minimal but it's more that it just doesn't play as obvious.

Catherine Keener and Rebecca Hall deliver Oscar quality performances in “Please Give.” In her longing to be a better person, her faults and her failures, Keener finds a place she's never been before on screen. Rebecca Hall stuns in “Please Give” with her remarkable vulnerability. The notes that Hall plays in “Please Give” are delicate and graceful and far more intricate than I can describe. So much of “Please Give” is subtle and minimalist and should be left to you as a viewer to discover. I will merely say again that “Please Give” is one of the best movies of 2010 and urge you to seek it out.

Movie Review: Babel

Babel (2006) 

Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Written by Guillermo Arriaga

Starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael Garcia Bernal, Rinko Kikuchi 

Release Date October 27th, 2006 

Published November 24th, 2006 

Writer Guillermo Arriaga and director Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu are the masters of oppressive atmospherics. Their films have an enveloping sadness that makes early German expressionism seem downright giddy in comparison. Amores Perros and 28 Grams are both exceptionally well made and involving films but neither is an experience that most film goers can take more than once.

The same could be said of their latest, and allegedly final, teaming the towering drama Babel. This multi-arc drama about the fabric of life woven across borders is an overwhelmingly sad experience. Ostensibly the travels of one weapon and the lives it destroys, Babel follows the path of violence, racism and loneliness around the globe in one fascinating and wearying film.

This review contains spoiler information. I recommend you see Babel before reading this review.

In Morocco an American couple, Richard (Brad Pitt) and Susan (Cate Blanchett) are on a vacation with a lot of subtext. Susan doesn't want to be here, Richard can't imagine being anywhere else because anywhere else would remind him of the pain back home. The two lost a child and blame each other for it. The pettiness that followed the child's death has driven what would seem to be an insurmountable wedge between them.

In one fell swoop however all of Richard and Susan's problems become meaningless. Traveling on a bus in the midst of the desert; a bullet pierces the window next to Susan striking her in the shoulder. Bleeding heavily and with the only hospital four hours away on this creaky old bus, Richard and the traveling interpreter Anwar (Mohammed Akhzam) make the rash decision to head to a tiny Moroccan village, Anwar's home, where a veterinarian is the only available doctor. They will wait there as international intrigue and red tape hold up a rescue by the American embassy.

Back in Richard and Susan's home, their two remaining children are being cared for by their nanny, Amelia (Adriana Barraza). Her son is getting married and she has plans to be there but with Susan being shot, mom and dad will not make it home any time soon. In a rash decision, after exhausting all other possibilities, Amelia decides to take the children with her to Mexico for the wedding. A fateful decision given her hotheaded nephew Santiago (Gael Garcia Bernal) and his penchant for trouble.

Just watching the way Santiago carries himself on the drive to the wedding, and at the wedding, you can sense trouble coming and as they wait to cross the border back to America, Santiago, slightly inebriated and carrying a weapon he doesn't want found, you can see the trouble coming and it leads to a drawn out series of heart rending scenes that find Amelia and two young children wandering in the desert before sunrise in search of the border.

The connections between those stories are clear as are the consequences. The third of the stories told in Babel has only a tenuous connection to the rest. Rinko Kikuchi plays Chieko a deaf mute teenager in Japan whose mother has died, an apparent suicide, and her father Yasujiro (Koji Yakusho) is absent. Chieko is obsessed with sex and is  adventurous in the ways only an inexperienced teenager can be.

Chieko's father provides the link to the other stories, his own trip to Morocco and to leave as a gift for his guide, a Winchester rifle, is the catalyst of the whole story. The rifle falls into the hands of a pair of very young goat herders Yussef (Boubker Ait El Caid) and his brother Ahmed (Said Tarchani) and as they childishly test the weapons power and distance; they touch off an international wave that soon consumes them and everyone else.

The multi-layered stories told in Babel are filled with sadness, heartbreak, redemption and humanity. Gonzalez-Inirritu and Arriaga craft a story that while it is extraordinarily well told, it is also oppressive in its sadness and human tragedy. Yes, the sadness and tragedy reveal truths about humanity and love but the journey is arduous and not one you will likely want to take again.

Of the performances, the bravest is young Rinko Kikuchi's who reveals so much of herself, emotionally and physically, that her presence becomes unnerving with every appearance. Though her connection to the plot is tenuous her overall disconnection in her life, through her impairment and her emotional state, she becomes a metaphorical conduit for the the disconnectedness of the other characters in the film.

While Cate Blanchett's role is limited by her character's injury, Brad Pitt as her husband has a number of meaty moments and nails each one of them. Pitt has always been a star but in Babel Pitt shows a maturity that is more than just his newly graying temples. Stripped of his charm, his model perfect features masked by an ugly salt and pepper beard, Pitt is a real human being in Babel rather than the movie god of the past. It's a transformative performance and a potential academy award nominee.

Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inirritu is so observant of his characters and so delicate in telling their stories that his films can kind of sneak up on you emotionally and devastate you more with unexpectedness than most other films. His gentle observation is given an edge by a propellant story by Guillermo Arriaga that moves inexorably towards tragedy. Every step of the way feels inevitable even as we silently call out to these characters to make different choices, the choices that are made are fated and that much more powerful in demonstrating the characters powerlessness.

Babel is a movie of such profound, claustrophobic, sadness that  to assign popcorn entertainment aspects to it seems a futile, almost disrespectful thing. The most appealing thing about the film, the reason to see the film, is for the performances. This exceptionally talented cast will be a big part of the Oscar telecast in February.

I have already praised Rinko Kikiuchi's brave and revealing performance. Her main competition in the Best Supporting Actress race is likely to be co-star Adriana Barraza whose Amelia makes wrong decisions from the first moment but still manages to win your sympathy. No matter the circumstance, son's wedding or no, there is no way to justify her taking those two very young children to Mexico, and yet Barraza makes us understand this decision and easily holds our sympathy as things spin tragically out of control.

If I have one issue with Babel it is the Jobian sadness heaped on Pitt and Blanchett's characters. They are a married couple who are on vacation recovering from the loss of a child when Blanchett is shot. As she is in surgery in Morocco, her remaining children are facing grave danger in the desert border between Mexico and America. Are we to believe that such tragedy could be heaped on one family in such a short time? It's a minor quibble and the drama and storytelling being as strong as they are make it easy to forgive.

Babel is oppressively sad and not a movie you will likely experience more than once. As an experience however, it is more than worth having once. Well acted, written and directed, Babel is an almost certain Oscar contender so if you are a fan of Hollywood's biggest night you will want to have seen the movie that will likely over-populate the acting categories. Babel is an extraordinary film for fans of great drama and great filmmaking. If an experience of near un-ending tragedy and heart wrenching sadness is not the kind of moviegoing experience you want, then I would not recommend Babel.

Movie Review: Ad Astra

Ad Astra (2019)

Directed by James Grey

Written by James Grey, Ethan Gross

Starring Brad Pitt, Donald Sutherland, Ruth Negga, Tommy Lee Jones, Liv Tyler 

Release Date September 20th, 2019 

Published September 19th, 2019

Ad Astra stars Brad Pitt as astronaut Roy McBride. We meet Roy as he is working on what appears to be the International Space Station or some approximation of such. The station is just above the atmosphere of the Earth, something that becomes urgently important when the station is struck by some sort of energy surge. As the station begins to explode, Roy is sent hurtling back to the Earth. 

By some miracle, Roy survives and upon his rather brief recuperation, he is brought into a secretive meeting of military brass. The men in this meeting inform Roy about a secret mission involving Roy’s father, Dr Clifford McBride, that sent him to what was believed to be his death on a space station near Neptune, the farthest that man has ever travelled in space. Roy was told that his father had died but here, he is told that his father may be alive and his survival is related to these energy surges that now endanger all of mankind. 

The military men want Roy to leave everything behind and travel to Mars where he will, via an American-Martian outpost, be able to send his father a message that they hope will help to stop these energy surges. It’s a lengthy journey and there are many things about his father and his mission that Roy is not yet aware of. One man who does know is Col Thomas Pruitt (Donald Sutherland). Despite his advanced age, Pruitt is to escort Roy on his mission and carry with him a secretive agenda. 

To say much more about the plot of Ad Astra would be to give away too much of this exceptional story. Directed and co-written by James Gray, the underrated auteur behind the brilliant Lost City of Z and The Immigrant, Ad Astra continues a remarkable hot streak for the director. Gray is a director who chooses challenging subjects and attacks them from unique angles. It’s been a hallmark of his work and it continues with the unusual journey of Ad Astra. 

Ad Astra carries influences as varied and fascinating as Apocalypse Now and 2001 A Space Odyssey. Ad Astra lacks the bold un-commerciality of 2001, but for being more straight-forward than 2001, it retains some of the artistic touches of Kubrick’s legendary adventure including a colorful visual palette, a deliberate pace, and a deep respect for space travel. I know that making such a comparison is big but aside from being a good deal more mainstream in ambition, the 2001 comparison is reasonable in terms of the remarkable artistry and care on display. 

The Apocalypse Now comparison is far more typical as Marlon Brando delivered the definitive crazed man of authority in that Francis Ford Coppola masterwork. Tommy Lee Jones in Ad Astra however, earns that comparison. Jones is electric in the role of Brad Pitt’s father, a driven and desperate man on a mission. Jones has been great in any number of roles but I dare say this role exceeds even his greatest work in No Country for Old Men and his Academy Award winning performance in The Fugitive. 

Yes, you can infer that issues of fathers and sons permeate the story of Ad Astra. The issues of loyalty, duty, love and resentment are sewn into this story. These issues underline the action throughout and bring depth and a compelling emotionality to a movie that from time to time can feel as remote as the space wherein it exists. Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones have a tremendous chemistry but it’s the ways in which writer-director James Gray weaves them together when they aren’t on screen together that make Ad Astra so remarkably compelling. 

Ad Astra is one of my favorite movies of 2019. The film ranks next to another ingenious and brilliantly artistic Brad Pitt movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as one of the best in an underrated 2019 at the movies. Brad Pitt went away for a little while, if you follow the tabloids you know he had some issues to overcome, and the time away from the spotlight has sharpened his gifts and helped to hone his eye for movies with great moments. 

Ad Astra is filled with incredible moments that culminate in a final act that is one of my favorites of the year. The final act of Ad Astra is exciting, unexpected and filled with dramatic energy. It’s a perfect ending for a strange often off-kilter movie with a very unique energy and suspense. I adore the third act of Ad Astra and would put it up against the third act of any movie of the last decade or indeed the movies I have compared it to already in this review. 

I am perhaps heaping too much praise on Ad Astra. I am risking hyping the movie to a degree that it may not be able to achieve for you, those who’ve not yet seen it. So be it, I think Ad Astra is deserving of my over-praise. The movie is exceptional and a must-see.

Movie Review: Troy

Troy (2004) 

Directed by Wolfgang Peterson

Written by David Benioff

Starring Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Diane Kruger, Brian Cox, Sean Bean, Peter O'Toole

Release Date May 14th, 2004

Published May 13th, 2004 

In this day and age, when you say Homer everyone thinks Simpson. It wasn't always that way. Years ago, colleges turned out erudite intellectuals who quoted the great poet Homer from "The Iliad" or "The Odyssey.” Maybe those people still exist but today more people can quote Homer Simpson than Homer the poet and the new Wolfgang Peterson epic Troy is not likely to change that. This bombastic, outsized blockbuster has the appeal of Brad Pitt and the scope of an age old epic but it lacks the soul of the poet who's work it attempts to revive.

Brad Pitt stars as Achilles, the greatest warrior in history. Though Achilles claims to have no allegiances, he fights for the money of King Agamemnon (Brian Cox). With Achilles’ sword, Agamemnon has conquered several kingdoms and his reach dominates the Greek kingdoms surrounding the Aegean Sea. Save for that of King Priam of Sparta (Peter O'Toole).

It seems that Sparta is unattainable even for someone as powerful as Agamemnon. Even the great king's brother Menelaus (Brendon Gleeson) has acceded that Sparta can't be taken, even going so far as to broker peace with King Priam's sons Hector (Eric Bana) and Paris (Orlando Bloom). The peace accord however is short lived when Paris takes a liking to Menelaus' wife Helen (Diane Kruger) and spirits her away to Sparta.

This development finally gives Agamemnon all the reason he needed to sack the last kingdom that stands in the way of his dominance. However, to take Sparta, a grand feat given Sparta's legendary impregnable walls, Agamemnon must once again call on Achilles to lead his armies. Achilles does not want to fight for Agamemnon no matter what the offer but does finally agree after a visit from his good friend Odysseus (Sean Bean) who promises something more valuable than riches, eternal glory.

That is the setup for massive CGI battles and a great deal of melodramatic speechifying. In all of the film’s nearly three-hour length there are pieces of three different full length movies edited together into Troy and only one of them would be any good. That is the story of Achilles who in the person of Brad Pitt is a charismatic and dangerous presence. Pitt's Achilles is powerful but conflicted and that makes him inherently dramatic. A film about Achilles would be terrific.

The story of Helen and Paris also has the potential as a stand-alone story. The story has love, passion and a great deal of drama. Cut up as it is here to make room for two other parallel stories, it loses impact. Helen is the reason that Sparta is about to be overrun in the greatest war of all time, therefore her importance to Paris needs more time to develop. Why would Paris risk his family and in fact an entire kingdom for her? We never really know. As it is in Troy, the love story comes off as the selfish petulance of a childish boy and his desperate crush.

The final story is the most poorly developed and that is the story of Eric Bana's Hector. It's not the fault of Bana who is a strong presence, nearly the equal of Pitt. Nearly. Hector's story is far more dramatic than what we see here. His conflicts with his father King Priam are given short shrift and Hector's only character traits are heroism. Hector is hardly ever conflicted, he has no great story arc. He begins as a hero and continues through the film as a hero beyond reproach.

In adapting Homer's epic poem, screenwriter David Benioff had to make a number of dramatic sacrifices including some I already mentioned and one that may be the most troublesome sacrifice of the film. In The Iliad, the Gods of Mount Olympus gave the conflict it's context, they provided motivation beyond the grandiose, nation chest-bumping that Agamemnon uses as motivation here. The meddling God's protected Achilles and gave his dramatic ending a bigger payoff.

There are two reasons for the excising of the God's from Troy. First, there just wasn't enough time to fit them in. The film is just too long to add any more characters, especially characters as outsized as the Gods. Secondly, and don't underestimate this one because this may be the real reason, the bad memories of Sir Laurence Olivier's screen chewing menace in Clash Of The Titans. Love or hate Clash, there is no denying the cheeseball nature of all of the scenes involving the Gods.

Director Wolfgang Peterson is a technician as a director. As his budgets have grown his love of technological filmmaking has overcome his sense of story and character. I say that as a criticism but I must also state that as a technician he is a terrific director. Technology however is not what is most appealing about a film. As George Lucas has shown, you can have all of the technology in the world and still not make a movie that engages. Dazzle the eye all day but if you can't reach the heart or mind, you have no movie. Brad Pitt engages both with his tremendous performance but little else in Troy rises to his level. 

Movie Review Inglorious Basterds

Inglorious Basterds (2009) 

Directed by Quentin Tarentino 

Written by Quentin Tarentino 

Starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Til Schweiger, Diane Kruger, Melanie Laurent, Michael Fassbender

Release Date August 21st, 2009 

Published August 20th, 2009 

Quentin Tarentino is now 5 for 5 in making masterpieces. The writer-director has nailed it out of the park with each movie he has made and his latest, Inglorious Basterds, is arguably his best work yet. Wildly violent, irreverent and strangely humorous, Inglorious Basterds reimagines World War 2 history with the kind of blood and guts guile that only Tarentino could muster.

Inglourious Basterds tells a story on two tracks. In one story a Jewish woman, Shoshanna (Melanie Laurent), escapes the murder of her family and seeks vengeance on the Nazis. In the other story a group of American Jewish soldiers are dropped behind enemy lines in Nazi controlled Paris under orders to kill and maim as many Nazi soldiers as they can. Boy, do they ever.

The Basterds, as they call themselves, are a bloodthirsty lot. Led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) the Basterds seek scalps, literally they scalp Nazis. Raine came to be known as 'the apache'. Another member of the Bastards becomes the fearful 'Bear Jew'. He's played by horror director Eli Roth who brings the same vicious streak demonstrated in his Hostel film series to a role that has him beating Nazis to death with a baseball bat. I have always suspected that Roth enjoyed his brutality, Inglorious Basterds provides the visual evidence.

Another of the Bastards is too brutal for a nickname. He is Stiglitz (Til Schweiger) a former German soldier who, despite not even being Jewish, began beheading Nazis for fun. Stiglitz is such a badass that the movie pauses to pay tribute to him with a montage narrated by Samuel L. Jackson.

The two stories of Inglorious Basterds collide when Shoshanna, now living in Paris under an assumed name and running a movie theater, gets her opportunity for vengeance with, of all things, the premiere of a German propaganda film at her theater. She plans to burn the place down with all of the Nazis inside. Meanwhile, the Basterds also plan on being at the movie premiere, especially after hearing that the Fuhrer himself will be attending.

The plot of Inglorious Basterds also makes room for a British Film Critic turned soldier (Michael Fassbender), and a German movie star (Diane Kruger) turned spy who help the Bastards get into the movie premiere. Trust me when I tell you that you will be surprised at the fates of each of these exceptionally well drawn characters.

Of course, a Quentin Tarentino movie is as much about a strong plot as it is about style and Inglorious Basterds is no different. Though the tone is a muddled mix of dark violence and darker comedy, Inglorious Basterds is, in classic Tarentino style, also a talky, literate, cinematic homage to all the movies QT loves. Stylish in the strangest ways, there are moments in Inglorious Basterds that approach elegance, especially scenes set in that gorgeous Parisian movie theater.

Brad Pitt is the headliner of one knockout cast. In one of the least glamorous roles since his redneck debut in Thelma & Louise, Pitt shows the ease and charm of a huge movie star and the grit of a classically Tarentino hero. Combining a dark sense of humor with the witty candor of Tarentino, Pitt surprises at every turn and is the glue of the movie.

But, Brad Pitt is far from the only standout. Christoph Waltz is Oscar Worthy as the Nazi known as the Jew Hunter. Daniel Bruhl also strikes all the right notes as a humble Nazi war hero turned propaganda movie star, and newcomer Melanie Laurent is a real scene stealer as Shoshanna whose revenge on the Nazis is a real cinematic treat.

Quentin Tarentino tames a wildly irreverent story by directing the violence, dark humor and endless talk as one giant symphony. His graceful movements from violence to verbiage are almost elegant in their ease and flow. Where some would argue that Tarentino's chapter to chapter style in Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill movies could be choppy and disjointed, that same style rolls effortlessly in Inglorious Basterds. Wildly violent and yet smooth in its way, Inglourious Basterds is Quentin Tarentino at his auteurist best. Few directors have a style all their own, Tarentino is one the few and arguably the best working today.