Enfant terrible movie director Quentin Tarantino bored me so much that I found myself thinking about the Platter Wine Guide halfway through his new movie. Called Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino’s war flick tells of a bunch of American Nazi hunters scalping Germans in occupied France, a plotline certain winemakers are apparently preparing to launch on unsuspecting wine writers one of these days.
In any event, the movie was a no go. Lots of long scenes with senseless, contrived dialogue culminating in the ubiquitous blood fest. The only scene worth watching is the one where crumpet warrior, Melanie Laurant, herself an assassin of Nazis, prepares for battle by dressing up in red to the tune of David Bowie’s “Putting out the Fire”. Very hot.
Then I thought of all the reviews that had greeted the release of Tarantino’s latest. As usual the film critics were wetting themselves with awe at Tarantino’s alternative genius, his contemporary brilliance, his redefining style, cinematic superiority, his originality, etc, etc.
And I thought to myself, what would these self-same critics have said had they not known that Inglourious Basterds was a Tarantino product? Okay, the smouldering,Laurent scene was vintage Tarantino, but the rest of the flabby movie could have been made and written by just about anybody who wanted to prove a point, but did not know what that point was.
Rating a movie blind or unsighted may be somewhat of a contradiction in terms. But I bet critics would have panned this movie if it did not come with the Tarantino tag. But seeing that it did, their preconceived opinions got the better of themselves.
Are we thus saying that movie critics are a bunch of wankers? Having been one myself, I’ll hold judgement for a while. But like wine critics and judges, movie, art and theatre scribes are only mere mortals. Mere, mortals who find it ?+¦-+???+¦-ú?-¦?+¦-ú?+¦+¦ understandably ?+¦-+???+¦-ú?-¦?+¦-ú?+¦+¦ difficult to look objectively at and a subject whose source and identity carries a five star reputation.
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