Well, it's obviously been quite a while since I saw this film, and in the meantime I have been pleased to see an entire eloquent and vital web discussion spring up around the film. Strong arguments have been made on all sides, and while I happen to think the film is a masterpiece I can definitely see the points of view of those who disagree in whole or in part with that opinion.
The film itself is almost secondary to the controversies at this point, but this is not a "controversist" blog, so I will attempt to confine myself to the strengths of the film as I see them and only bring in other sources when necessary. The film is a revisionist World War II fantasy filtered through the lens of spaghetti westerns, Nazi exploitation films, and (of all things) The Wizard of Oz. The titular Basterds are a group of American soldiers who make a point of scalping and defacing Nazis wherever they may find them. In a parallel storyline, Shoshanna Dreyfus, the lone survivor of a Nazi massacre of her family, plans to murder all of the top Nazi officials during a premiere of a Nazi film in her theatre in occupied France.
I didn't realize until seeing "Basterds" how much Tarantino influenced the way I read films. I take his manner of reference as a default. When watching something by, for example, the Dardenne brothers, it is much harder for me to spot references because I am so accustomed to the way they are made in Tarantino. But the "Sunset Boulevard" and "Wizard of Oz" references in the theater inferno scene stood out to me instantly. Perhaps this is because Tarantino possesses all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. But I like to think that it is because seeing "Pulp Fiction" at a pivotal and formative age prepared me to read his films naturally and that I have to work harder to understand a style too different from his.
But the question remains: Will you like this film as much as I did? Bizarrely, I believe the best litmus test for this would be your feelings about Bertolucci's "The Dreamers" (not coincidentally my second-favorite film of all time). If you feel that subjugating plot to a general atmosphere of love for the cinema is unfair and boring, perhaps you should skip it. If on the other hand you enjoy the feeling that you are catching Emil Jannings references before the rest of the crowd, and that the filmmaker has secretly planted these Easter eggs for you, the true cinephile, then you will be just as rapt as I was for the movie's perfectly paced running time. If the general idea of the film's alternate history offends you (this has been one of the main "controversies" to which I referred), obviously your time would be better spent elsewhere. For my money, this is one of the best films of the year, even including that Eli Roth..."performance". See it, love it, hate it, but I guarantee you'll have something to talk to your companions about afterward.
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