Inglourious Basterds (5 Stars)

Netflix Thursday #14

I warned you that I'd be watching Netflix more often while I'm on holiday. That includes films like "Inglourious Basterds", which I have on Blu-ray at home.

In a recent interview Quentin Tarantino named six films which he considers to be perfect. The films, in the order he named them, are:

• "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1974)
• "Jaws" (1975)
• "The Exorcist" (1973)
• "Annie Hall" (1977)
• "Young Frankenstein" (1974)
• "Back to the Future" (1985)

That's an interesting list. I've seen all the films except for "Annie Hall", but I've only reviewed "Jaws" and "Young Frankenstein" in my blog. I ought to watch all of the films in a row to see what he means. He claims the films are technically perfect, regardless of a person's personal tastes. That's difficult for me. My reviews are subjective, and I don't think I'm able to make an objective decision whether a film is perfect. I'll do my best.

Quentin should have added one more film to the list: "Inglourious Basterds". Maybe he was too modest to name one of his own films. The film's chapters are a series of vignettes, each of which can be judged on its own merits. Each vignette is perfect. If anything is imperfect, I'd like to hear Quentin himself tell me what's wrong with it.

Success Rate:  + 2.6

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Inglourious Basterds (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #24

This film should be called "How the War should have been won". It's the first film in which Quentin Tarantino rewrote history. It's a fictional film, but it features authentic historical characters, such as Adolf Hitler. The film shows Hitler dying in France in 1944, a year before his real world death. Tarantino's most recent film, "Once upon a time in Hollywood", also rewrites history by showing Sharon Tate survive the attack by the Manson Family.

So who kills Hitler? It's a joint effort. There are two plots running in parallel. One is the fighting group called the Bastards, eight Jewish soldiers led by Aldo the Apache (Brad Pitt). It's Aldo's right hand man Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth) who fires the bullets that kill Hitler. When you look at his face it seems like he isn't just acting, he's really enjoying killing Hitler. But Hitler wouldn't have survived anyway. He's locked in a cinema that's being burnt down by Emmanuelle Mimieux, the cinema's owner who's secretly Jewish. Aldo's Bastards and Emmanuelle don't meet, and they aren't even aware of one another's existence.

As I've mentioned many times before, I consider the opening scene in a French farmhouse to be the best scene ever filmed. It's perfect. It's slow and intense with seemingly harmless conversation between the French dairy farmer and the SS officer Hans Landa. In fact, the whole film moves slowly, and there are only occasional short bursts of action.

This is a film I can watch again and again and never get bored. The same is true of all of Quentin Tarantino's films. If you haven't watched it yet, what are you waiting for? Please don't shy away from it with excuses like "I don't like war films". This isn't a normal war film, which should be obvious as soon as the background music begins. The music sounds like it comes directly from a spaghetti western.

Success Rate:  + 2.6

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Atomic Blonde (4½ Stars)

As I've stated in the past, this is an almost perfect film. The only reason I haven't given it five stars is because of the excessive smoking. I don't like smoking. It was cigarettes that killed my father when he was only 53. If you think I'm wrong to penalise the film for one trivial detail like this, so what? This is my blog, and I'll do what I like with it. If you don't like it, write your own blog.

One of the things that makes the film so good is the director David Leitch's selection of 1980's songs, which perfectly give the feeling of Berlin in 1989.

• Queen: Under Pressure (1981)
• After the Fire: Der Kommissar (1982)
• A Flock of Seagulls: I ran so far away (1982)
• David Bowie: Cat People (1982)
• Nena: 99 Luftballons (1983)
• Peter Schilling: Major Tom (1983)
• Re-Flex: The Politics of Dancing (1983)
• Siouxsie & the Banshees: Cities in Dust (1985)
• Til Tuesday: Voices Carry (1985)
• Depeche Mode: Behind the Wheel (1987)
• George Michael: Father Figure (1987)
• New Order: Blue Monday (1988)
• Public Enemy: Fight the Power (1989)

There's also "London Calling" by the Clash. That's actually a 1979 song, but I'll forgive the director for adding it, because it's very appropriate when it's used in the film.

The Berlin Wall shortly before reunification in 1989. A lot of people don't realise how close the Wall was built to the houses on either side.

This is a film that establishes Charlize Theron as an action heroine. She looks incredible even when she's just been fighting KGB agents to the death. A sequel has been promised, but like so many other films, it's been delayed by the Coronavirus.

Success Rate:  + 1.3

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What to do in case of fire (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #87

This is a German film made in 2001 with the original title "Was tun, wenn's brennt?" The English title is a literal translation, but it sounds better in German.

The film is a powerful drama, although I suspect it can barely be understood by non-Germans. The 1980's were a time of revolt in Germany, especially in West Berlin. It was a time of anarchy, closely connected with punk music. When punk rock emerged in England, it was apolitical. English punk wasn't about changing society to make a better world, it had the nihilistic message of "No future". German punk was different. It was strongly political, allying itself with left wing anarchy. German punk wanted to overthrow society, although it made no statement about what the replacement would be. The centre of the revolts against society was in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg, an exciting place where I also used to live.

In 1987 six friends occupied a house in Kreuzberg. As radical punks they made bombs, but unlike similar groups they filmed themselves to teach others how to make bombs. Shouldn't they just have written leaflets? They were creating material to incriminate themselves, but they were young and foolish and never thought that far. The police stormed the house and evicted them, but in the action one of them, Hotte, was run over by a water cannon and lost his legs. Ironically, this gave him the right to remain in the house for the rest of his life. German laws are like that. One of his friends, Timmy, remained with him to look after him. The other four went different ways, and they never spoke to one another again.

There was one problem. Shortly before they were evicted they planted a bomb in a luxury villa in Berlin-Grunewald. The timer was faulty, so the bomb didn't explode. The villa stood empty for years, because nobody knew who it belonged to. In 1990 Germany was reunited. A diplomat from Bonn came to Berlin to look at the villa. The bomb exploded, badly injuring him and the real estate agent.

The police raid the houses of all known radicals from the 1980's. Hotte and Timmy realise that the police will eventually identify them as the perpetrators, so they call together their four friends. Maybe time has stood still for Hotte and Timmy, but not for the others. Maik runs a successful advertising agency. Robert has become a lawyer. Nele is a single mother of two children. Flo has become part of Berlin's high society and is about to marry a rich businessman. Can they return to their former ways of terrorism to cover their tracks?

The friends come back together to build a bomb to attack the police station where the evidence is being kept. Five of them, anyway. At first the lawyer refuses to help them, but eventually he changes his mind.

The main characters in the film may be terrorists, but it's impossible not to like them. They're people in their early middle ages who are finding their way back to the ideals of their youth. They used to fight society, but now they're swimming with the stream. They're being forced back into their old ways, but is it just a one-off action? Are they realising that their old ways were better? I've never been a terrorist, but the film still asks me questions. Are the ideals of my youth better than the way I lived as I got older? I never wanted to conform, but I conformed anyway, bribed by high wages when I left university.

I'm happy to say that the film is available on DVD in English. Please buy it. If there's anything you don't understand, leave your questions in the comment box below, and I'll explain everything to you.

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Tomb Raider 2 (2003) (4 Stars)

That's a terrific film poster. Angelina Jolie's pose, the upward angle, the dramatic text in the background. Everything is perfect. If I were ever bored enough to put together a list of the best film posters, this would be in the top 10.

I should have watched the two Tomb Raider films back to back, so that I could judge which one is better. After a two year gap I can't be 100% certain. I vaguely remember that the first film had more action, but the second film is visually more attractive. I'm sure I'll watch them again, eventually.

The film's premise is so infeasible that a good deal of suspension of disbelief is necessary, but once you've managed that step, the film is well written and ably performed by all the cast members. After an underwater earthquake, Lara Croft finds the sunken Luna Temple, which contained the greatest treasures of Alexander the Great. In the middle of the usual collection of of gold, silver and precious gems there's a glowing orb. This is snatched from her hands by Chinese bandits.

Back in England, MI6 agents tell her what the orb is about. It's a map with which to find the legendary Pandora's box. The box contains a deadly virus, for which there's no cure. A rogue scientist called Jonathan Reiss wants to unleash the virus on the world, after creating a vaccine that he'll only give to himself and a few dozen of those he considers worthy to survive. It'll be the start of a new world, with himself as the ruler. The box is hidden in a place called the Cradle of Life, where humanity was first created by the Gods.

It seems to me that the film is closely based on one of the Tomb Raider video games. It has the typical game strategy of having to solve one problem to advance to the next.

Lara Croft, played once more by Angelina Jolie, teams up with a former lover, Terry Sheridan (Gerard Butler). Their journey leads them across China, from Shanghai to Hong Kong, and then to the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. There's even a gratuitous scene of the Great Wall of China. It's too short. It should have been extended. I've always been fascinated by the Great Wall of China.

An important feature of the film is Angelina Jolie herself. In the videogames Lara Croft was the archetypal busty videogame character. Thousands of teenage computer game nerds got off by playing with her.

This is what Lara Croft looked like on the box. Not too bad.

This is what she looked like on the computer screen. Ugh! Nerds got off on that?

Computer graphics have come a long way since 1995, but Angelina Jolie is what the nerds had been waiting for. A beautiful face, swollen lips and large breasts. I never played the computer game, so I don't have the same nerdy attachment to the character of Lara Croft, but I still find her attractive.

This is a good film, despite being savaged by critics. 

Success Rate:  - 0.3

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Atomic Blonde (4½ Stars)

After watching this film in the cinema three years ago I'm finally returning to it. I don't know why I waited so long. It's an almost perfect film. I would have given it five stars, but I deducted half a star because the smoking in the film is excessive. If smoking doesn't bother you, there's no reason not to watch it.

Charlize Theron plays the MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton, who's on a mission in Berlin in the final week of the Berlin Wall, from 2nd November to 10th November 1989. Well, the demolition of the Wall didn't actually begin until 13th June 1990, so the images of people hitting the Wall with hammers are incorrect. What actually happened is that the border checkpoints opened on 9th November, allowing people to pass through without showing their passports. The film "Bornholmer Straße" tells this story. In my review of "Goodbye Lenin" I've listed the dates of the most important occurrences.

When Lorraine arrives in Berlin on 2nd November, Western intelligence services already assume that the opening of the Wall is inevitable, but there's something more dangerous. There's a list of all the spies in Berlin, western and eastern, that's been hidden on microfilm inside a watch. It's expected that whichever government receives this list will assassinate all the other spies and secret agents. Initially it's in the hands of a Russian spy, but instead of delivering it to his country he's attempting to sell it to the highest bidder.

Lorraine's has to work with David Percival (James McAvoy), the head of MI6 operations in West Berlin. He's an efficient agent, but very eccentric. Following the mission's guideline, "Don't trust anyone", he tells Lorraine as much as she needs to know, but lies about everything else. He warns her about an infamous double agent codenamed Satchel, who will do anything to stop the list being made public.

Bill Skarsgard plays a young man called Merkel. He's active in organising demonstrations in East Berlin, but he also assists the CIA if necessary. I hardly recognise him without his face paint.

This is a film that has everything: action, suspense, espionage and nail-biting intrigue. It's a shame about the smoking. Is that supposed to make the film more realistic? If there had been no smoking at all, nobody would have complained.

Rumours have been floated that a crossover between "Atomic Blonde" and the John Wick franchise is planned. That's interesting, but how would it work? "Atomic Blonde" took place in the 1980's, whereas the John Wick films take place today. Or do they? They have very old-fashioned technology, so it's difficult to date them. Lorraine Broughton couldn't possibly be a member of John Wick's organisation, because it stands above international politics. Or maybe she could join later after leaving MI6. She would be an excellent recruit. There are so many questions open, but in principle it's a good idea.

Success Rate:  + 1.3

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Inglourious Basterds (5 Stars)

The world according to Quentin Tarantino is better than the real world. In Tarantino's world the last thing Hitler saw was the face of a laughing Jewish woman. In the real world he died in or just outside a cold bunker. Tarantino gave him a sexier death. I'd like the last thing I see to be a laughing woman, Jewish or not.

It's a fairy tale, not meant to represent the truth. It opens with the words "Once upon a time in Nazi-occupied France". Fairy tales have happy endings. The big bad monster dies, and they don't come bigger or badder than Adolf Hitler.

The film shows two unconnected plots to kill Hitler. The one is a big operation ordered by Winston Churchill, carried out by the Jewish American squadron called the Basterds. The other is a solo effort by a Jewess who wants revenge for the death of her family. I know that Hitler killed six million Jews, but that's just a number. A number on a piece of paper is abstract, it means nothing. What makes it personal is if Hitler and his followers kill just one person that you know, a family member or a friend. That's what spurs revenge. That's what makes Shosanna Dreyfus aka Emanuelle Mimieux laugh.

Hitler's death takes place in a cinema. This is no coincidence. For Quentin Tarantino films are important, and cinemas are important as the place where films are shown. He loves films, and he openly displays his nostalgia for old films.

This was the film that helped Daniel Brühl make his breakthrough into Hollywood. He'd already been a successful German actor for ten years, but this is the film that made him well known internationally.

Martin Wuttke was primarily a stage actor in Germany, but since appearing as Adolf Hitler in "Inglourious Basterds" he's been cast in a string of American films.

Brad Pitt is the film's anti-hero. He's one of the good guys, but he's so mean in carrying out justice that he makes the audience shudder. His aim isn't primarily to win the war, it's to kill Nazis. For him, anybody wearing a German uniform isn't a human being, he's a Nazi, and he has to die. Obviously, this attitude is completely wrong. The vast majority of the German soldiers didn't put on uniforms because they were Nazis, they put on uniforms because they were conscripted. But it's just a film. The characters aren't meant to be perfect.

Christoph Waltz won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor, but anyone who's seen the film knows that he was really the Leading Actor. Despite having less screen time, Brad Pitt was named as the Leading Actor for two reasons:

1. He's more famous than Christoph Waltz.

2. Bad guys aren't usually the Leading Actor.

But look... isn't that a foot rising up Christoph Waltz's jacket towards his medals?

Yes, it's Diane Kruger's foot. I promised you that I would point out the bare feet in Quentin Tarantino's films.

Christoph Waltz gets to put a shoe on Diane Kruger's foot. Most actors work for 50 years and never get a chance like that.

Here are both of her feet, one of them in a plaster cast.

Before anyone accuses me of having a foot fetish, no, it isn't true. All I'm doing is acknowledging Quentin Tarantino's foot fetish. I have many fetishes, too many to list, but a foot fetish isn't one of them. I would rather look at Diane Kruger's face than her feet. She's beautiful, isn't she?

I definitely have a Sitting-In-The-Cinema-Watching-A-Laughing-Woman-Telling-Me-I'm-Going-To-Die fetish. That's a good idea for my blog. I should have a Fetish Of The Day feature. All year long!

This is probably Quentin Tarantino's best film. It's difficult to say. Every time I watch it I'm stunned, like I'm watching it for the first time. My definition of a good film is that I want to watch it at least three times. Today I watched "Inglourious Basterds" for the seventh time, and I still want to watch it again. That makes it better than good.

Success Rate:  + 2.6

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Not My Day (4½ Stars)

This is a film I can relate to. I can see myself in the main character, Till Reiners. It's as if the film were made about me. I'm not saying that the details of his story fit my life, but he acts and reacts the same way I would under similar circumstances.

When he was a young man, Till Reiners played in a rock band. It was one of the thousands of amateur bands that never make the big time, but if you're a hardcore rock fan it doesn't matter. It's all about the music, not the money. Then Till fell in love with a rock chick. They got married. That's when the real world set in. Very few people can live from rock music, so Till quit the band and got a job as a bank clerk. He cut his hair short, put on a suit and became respectable. He did what he had to do to put food on the table for his wife and his three-year-old son. Rock music and the lifestyle that came with it was in the past.

Maybe Till no longer looked like a rocker, but it still slumbered within him, waiting to be released. This happened when a man who called himself Nappo robbed his bank and took him as a hostage. Till was scared, but at the same time he admired the man pointing a gun at him. Nappo had the wild attitude that Till had given up. While Nappo is in hiding they sit together, they eat and drink together, they sing rock songs together. Till doesn't want to go back to his respectable life. He wants to be a rock'n'roll outlaw, so he calls himself Till Tiger and becomes Nappo's partner in crime.

After having suppressed his urges for years, Till goes too far. He becomes so wild and reckless that he scares Nappo. However much Nappo tries to hold Till back, it doesn't work. Till is a madman.

This is an excellent film. Maybe it's intended to be comical, but for me it hit too close to home to be funny. The film's about me. I could go just as crazy if my inner tiger were unleashed.

I'm sorry to say the film is only available in German, without English subtitles. If you can speak German, it's worth watching.

Hotdog (4 Stars)

When I moved to Germany 18 months ago I thought I would be watching a lot of German films in the cinema. Even though I'm watching more than I did while I was in England it's not as many as I expected. More than 100 films are made in Germany every year, of which most are shown in the cinemas, so I could theoretically watch 50 to 70 German films every year. As it was, I watched exactly 12 German films in the cinema last year. I suppose one a month isn't bad.

"Hotdog" is my third German film this year, so let's see if I can keep up the pace. It's a comedy starring the two top German actors Til Schweiger and Matthias Schweighöfer, with Heino Ferch in a smaller role. German comedies are always a hit or miss affair, but this is a well made film that kept the audience in stitches.

Luke and Theo both work for a fictional elite German police squad in Berlin. Luke (Til Schweiger) is a determined hard cop who never fails in a mission, however many bad guys he has to shoot in the process. Theo (Matthias Schweighöfer) is a nerd with a photographic memory who joined the police to impress his father, but he has none of the skills needed to be a uniformed offer, so he's kept indoors in charge of the station's weapons.

Luke is disciplined after he saves hostages from a museum, but clumsily destroys millions of Euros worth of artefacts in the process. He's put on guard duty at the Bellevue Palace, the home of the German President. Theo has been begging for outside duty for months, so he's also stationed as a guard. It's a boring job, because nothing ever happens. At least, nothing usually happens. On their first day the President of Moldavia is visiting with his family, and a terrorist group kidnaps his daughter. Luke and Theo are suspended because of their failure to stop the terrorists.

Being suspended doesn't stop a determined cop like Luke from doing what's right. He sees it as his moral duty to find the president's daughter, and Theo teams up with him. With the assistance of a computer hacker they go into action.

The situation comedy is hilarious. Most of the humour is in the clash of the two buddy cops. Luke considers Theo inexperienced and incompetent, while Theo considers Luke to be a reckless rule breaker. They're both right.

German critics have slammed this film for being "too American". Why is that a problem? That's probably the reason why it's so funny. I can verify that the cinema audience loved it.

Inglourious Basterds (5 Stars)

Yesterday I went to see "Loving Vincent" in the cinema with the Stuttgart Cinema Meetup. I asked one of the other members what his favourite film was, and he answered "Inglourious Basterds" without hesitation. I'm always glad when someone has an answer ready for that question. It shows that they've sat down and seriously thought about films. I know it's not an easy question to answer. I've changed my mind a few times in the last 20 years, but however often I might change my mind I can always tell you with certainty what my favourite film is today.

This was the reason why I decided to watch "Inglourious Basterds" again this evening. I sat watching it while asking myself "Is this the world's best film?" After the film came to an end I didn't think it was quite good enough to knock my current favourite off the number one spot, but I do have to say that it's technically one of the best films ever made. I already consider the film's first scene, the farmhouse scene, to be the best scene ever filmed. These 20 minutes are perfection. I can't think of any other scene that comes close. However, several other scenes in the film are also of incredibly high merit. They're all scenes in which Christoph Waltz appears. That's probably not a coincidence.

Today I watched the film with my son Benjamin. It was his first time seeing the film. He was shocked to see that Adolf Hitler was killed. That was also my reaction the first time I saw the film in the cinema in 2009. It's something I didn't expect to happen. What I mean is, there have been dozens, maybe even hundreds of films about Hitler, and he never dies, unless it's in his bunker in 1945. After the initial shock I laughed about it and said "Why not?" If a film is a piece of fiction there's no need for it to agree with historical facts. Quentin Tarantino, who both wrote and directed the film, decided to rewrite history. For that I thank him. Tarantino's version of history is better than what really happened.

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Atomic Blonde (4½ Stars)

This is one of the best films of the summer, despite a few small complaints I have about it. Every time I saw the trailer in the last few weeks I grew more excited. I've long considered Charlize Theron to be one of the most beautiful actresses alive today, and seeing her as a kicking, punching, shooting action heroine blew me away. When I found out that the director is David Leitch, who also made "John Wick", I was even more excited. I knew I could expect a feast of over-the-top action.

I'll say straight away that there's less action than in "John Wick", if you count the total minutes, but the action that does take place is just as spectacular. John Wick relies mostly on his guns, but Lorraine Broughton, the heroine of "Atomic Blonde", spends more time fighting with her bare hands. It's a joy to watch her in action. Sitting in the cinema this evening I gasped on more than one occasion. I hope that didn't disturb the man sitting next to me.

Lorraine (Charlize Theron) is an English spy who's sent to Berlin in November 1989 to retrieve a stolen microfilm that contains the names of every double agent operating in Berlin. The city is in a state of chaos, because protesters are demanding that the Berlin Wall be torn down, which does actually happen at the end of the film. Lorraine's contact person is David Percival (James McAvoy), who has been working undercover in the city for 10 years. The action takes place on both sides of the Wall.

David considers himself to be a ladies' man, but he has no success with Lorraine. The only person she's attracted to is Delphine Lasalle, a young, inexperienced French spy.

The film's music is excellent. It's a well-picked selection of 1980's hits. I was tapping my feet when my favourite songs began to play.

Rather than just be a clone of "John Wick" there are elements of mystery interwoven with the action. The plot twists are skilfully built in, and were totally unexpected when they came.

Now to my criticism, which I admit is just a personal issue for me. Everyone is smoking cigarettes. In other films there might be an occasional scene where a character is smoking, but in "Atomic Blonde" the first thing the characters do when there's no fight going on is light up. Every time. As a life-long non-smoker this disturbs me. It surely wasn't necessary to exaggerate the smoking so much. If nobody had smoked at all the audience wouldn't have noticed.

One smaller problem for me is the film's structure: it begins with a debriefing when Lorraine is back in England, in which she tells her superiors what she did in Berlin. For me this takes the edge off the suspense. I can't be afraid that Lorraine will die, because the film has already told me she will return home.

Critics have highly praised this film. This time they've got it right.

The Red Baron (4½ Stars)

A few days ago I watched "Wonder Woman", in which the German army in World War One was portrayed as being made up of evil monsters. That was appropriate for the film, since the war was shown as being inspired by Ares, the God of War. "The Red Baron" shows another side. The fighter pilots were the gentlemen of the air. They shot one another's planes down, but they made no attempt to kill one another. The men were instructed, "Stop firing when your enemy is falling. We are sportsmen, not butchers". The pilots on opposite sides of the war respected one another's skills and thought of one another as friends.

This was far removed from the normal foot soldier with a rifle in his hand, where the motto was "Kill or be killed". If a German and a British pilot were shot down close to one another they would sit and chat and share a cigarette. If necessary, they would help one another if one of them was trapped in his plane. Then they would shake hands, promise to visit one another after the war, and then walk off in opposite directions. After a few days they would be sitting in their planes firing at one another again.

If the war had been decided in the air alone, Germany would have won. The German fighter pilots were the world's best. In aerial battles they were outnumbered by at least four to one, but they were always victorious. Manfred von Richthofen, nicknamed the Red Baron, was the best of the best. According to official figures he shot down 80 planes, but he claimed to have shot down more than 20 other planes, which couldn't be confirmed because they fell behind enemy lines.

Manfred was given his nickname because he painted his plane red. In France he was given the nickname "Le Diable Rouge", which I find more appropriate. The colour red was intended to strike fear into the heart of the enemy. It was also to identify himself in the German squadron, to encourage the best British pilots to engage him in battle. It was sport, not war.

The film takes place from 1917 to 1918, when the Germans were already the underdogs. The successes in the air are in stark contrast to the losses on the ground. Manfred's victories are used as propaganda to encourage the foot soldiers to fight harder, sending them to their deaths.

In the end Manfred was shot down by Roy Brown, a Canadian pilot who had volunteered to fly for the British Royal Air Force. Ironically, this was a man that Manfred had assisted after shooting him down a year earlier. Manfred used his scarf to bind Roy's wound, and Roy returned the scarf a few months later. It was all so civilised. Roy laid a wreath on Manfred's grave.

This is a spectacular film that includes dazzling air battles. It's a German film, but it was filmed in English to make it accessible to the international market. In Germany itself the film was a flop, but it was a box office success abroad. The Germans consider it to be bad taste to celebrate their war heroes. The film has also been criticised for highlighting Manfred's romance with the nurse Käte Otersdorf, because in real they were probably nothing more than friends. As a nobleman he wouldn't have embarked on a serious relationship with a commoner. This isn't a problem for me. I understand cinema. In order to make a good film it's necessary to include elements such as romance to balance out the action, so I consider it acceptable to embellish a story by adding details that might have happened.

I find it strange that the film ends without showing Manfred's final battle. After having seen his successes in the air I would have liked to see his death. Maybe it's because there's lack of clarity about what happened. Manfred was shot down during an air battle with Roy Brown, and Roy was officially given the credit, but it's possible that the killing shot was fired by someone on the ground. That's very probable. Roy would have tried to avoid killing Manfred by aiming at the plane, not the man.

Manfred von Richthofen
2 May 1892 – 21 April 1918

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Inglourious Basterds (5 Stars)

I'm beginning to think I picked the wrong Quentin Tarantino film to include in my 30 films to watch before you die. "Inglourious Basterds" is a masterpiece that only gets better with repeated viewing. What amazes me most is the first scene in the French farmhouse. This gets my vote for the best filmed scene ever. Watch it carefully to see what I mean. The quiet and the calm barely conceals the slowly developing threat. This scene is Quentin Tarantino at his best, the crowning pinnacle of his achievements as a director. It also underlines Christoph Waltz's skill as an actor. He deserved his Oscar.

As everyone who has seen the film already knows, Christoph Waltz is the film's real star, not Brad Pitt. He's a veteran actor who had been making films in Germany and Austria for 30 years, but "Inglourious Basterds" was his Hollywood breakthrough. It was long overdue.

Here's an example of Christoph Waltz's charm with the ladies. Nobody can resist him, not even Diane Kruger.

This is a newspaper shown in the film with a report about Hugo Stiglitz betraying the fatherland by murdering 13 German officers. It might not be obvious to people who don't understand German, but the text in the left column is repeated in the right column. Click on the photo to enlarge it and compare the first line of the new paragraph to see what I mean. Sloppy.