My review of Inglourious Basterds, which will undoubtedly be my film of the year:
I remember the last time I walked away from a film so exhilarated, so blown away by a film-maker's audacity and skill of execution: it was Kill Bill Part I.
To think I didn't have high expectations for this... shame on me. Tarantino has again proven he is a master of spectacle second to none. This film is one glorious set piece after another, as Tarantino pulls out every trick in his seemingly bottomless bag to wring every ounce of suspense, humour and shock out of each scene. I relive them in my mind: the unbearably tense opening scene as Col Landa interrogates a farmer in his house, with a Jewish family hiding under the floorboards; the brilliant gun-to-the-balls standoff in the Nazi bar; the French Jew forced to endure in good humour eating dessert with the man who killed her family.
And then there's the ending. A lesser director would opt for the obligatory tragic ending (we all know how the war ends), but Tarantino shows no respect for tradition as he blithely rewrites history to suit his story. The performances are fantastic too, particularly Christoph Waltz as Col Landa who masters four languages in perfect pronunciation and steals every scene he's in. Brad Pitt is as reliable as ever and brings a wonderfully dry sense of humour to proceedings: "I'll probly jus' get chewed out. I been chewed out before".
As always, Tarantino reminds us what it is to be enthralled and enraptured with cinema. He infects us with his love for it. He brings out our childhood days of emerging from the cinema buzzing from the spectacle. It becomes harder and harder to do as time passes, and I bow my head to him.