Inglorious Basterds (R)

Tarantino has done it again and with such a sick but satisfying humor that you can't help but walk away delightfully offended. His trademark setup of using conversation and dialogue to create the tension that would otherwise be overdone special effects in an action movie, has been taken to a new level. The dialogue is clever, often with philosophical underpinnings, but mostly brash, adding that necessary comedic element so indicative of his scripts.
If you're not used to his style, you may be rather confused at the hype since it seems to move along randomly, without any indication how it might all come together, and seems to twist and blatantly alter history. Just as Abrams went his own way with an alternate reality of Star Trek (minus the annoying hollywood abuse of Uhura as the tamed woman turned nurturer for our big hero), the story is a filmmaker's conception of how WWII might have gone; a sort of bizarre fairytale telling about various efforts coming together to put Hitler and his Nazi's in their place, a place where they are blindfolded, stripped naked, and piled together for any person who ever secretly dreamed of revenge to point and laugh at them (the terrorism reference should be familiar).
I appreciated the non-sugarcoated violence. Tarantino has no qualms about showing dismemberment or lingering on a shot of tearing flesh while portraying total indifference in the characters as though to mock our rolling stomachs. Ah the subtleties.
The movie itself is a wonderful experience for an American to hear such a mix of language in a way that appeals to our short attention spans. It is mostly subtitled, showing a rich diversity of French, German, English, American, and even Italian. And he left some room for humor in his subtitles as well, if you know to watch for it. Perhaps, almost equally delightful as the script was Christoph Waltz's performance as the villain Colonel Hans Landa, which he has already won an award for at the Cannes Film Festival in France. His character is a cunning, psychotic villain, a true hunter, capable of noticing minute details and steering his prey into a trap with finesse and delight. He is quite the similar in many respects to Brad Pitt's character, a deceptively stupid American in charge of the Basterds who speaks bluntly and without any attempt at fancy talk, but together they provide a balanced humor by contrasting one another's style.
I highly recommend this movie to anyone who appreciates a good film and dark humor. Just be prepared to go "WTF?"