New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Waltz's portrayal of a cunning, multilingual SS officer known as The Jew Hunter continues the Tarantino legacy of mortifyingly hysterical and yet somehow appealing bad-asses that tend to elevate the tension and hilarity of every one of their scenes. In a testament to how well written this character is, Michael Fassbender (the German-speaking but still too-British officer Lt. Archie Hicox) campaigned hard for this role but had to settle for Hicox. Waltz is more than up to the challenge and relishes the opportunity to breathe life into this perfectly vicious officer of the Waffen-SS who may or may not have his own hidden motives. Script aside, his performance is the showcase of the film and it's no wonder Waltz' work in IB is being bandied about as a possible Oscar contender. In shades of Travolta in Pulp Fiction and Robert Forster in Jackie Brown, Tarantino has pulled another actor off the scrap heap and supplied that actor with an opportunity to reawaken and reinvigorate his career.

The list of admirable performances goes on. Diane Kruger, thoroughly unremarkable in Troy and those two dumb National Treasure movies, is winning as the German movie actress Bridget von Hammersmark, a vivacious yet determined double agent. Swoony Fassbender cuts a dashing figure while trying to launch Operation Kino, and Til Schweiger doesn't have nearly enough screen time as my favorite Basterd Hugo Stiglitz.

One problem I had with the movie is that Tarantino throws in so many shout-outs, anachronisms and film culture references it becomes a bit difficult to simply let the movie unfold before your eyes in just one viewing. In this respect, Tarantino may be perceived as either being a clever businessman, tricksy or just annoying. Whatever he is, I do feel the need to see this movie again and I think I'll get more and more from it each time I watch it. Just as I do with Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and especially Kill Bill Volumes I and II. I don't know if he is a big fan of the 1960 film version of The Time Machine or not, but for some reason Rod Taylor plays Winston Churchill with an alarming makeup job featuring an enormous gin blossom. When Shoshanna reinvents herself after her escape she renames herself Emmanuelle Mimieux – not to be confused with Yvette Mimieux (Weena in The Time Machine) – just reminded. There's a moment in the third act where Shoshanna contemplates her revenge. She has set the stage and is on a well-deserved cigarette break. All of a sudden David Bowie's "Putting Out Fire" from the 1982 version of Cat People begins playing. I understood the imagery well enough; Shoshanna's smoke leading to a blazing fire she wants to set, her heart and mind burning with the idea and hope of revenge blah, blah...but that particular song was just too jarring and felt entirely out of place. It got me to thinking about Cat People, which got me to thinking about people turning into cats after having sex. Then I started briefly thinking about Nastassia Kinski and how later in her career she changed the spelling of her first name to Nastassja because that of course, would get the casting agents calling. That led to me thinking about her dad Klaus Kinski, which made me think about Nosferatu, True Blood, Twilight and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Continued:       1       2       3