My understanding is that Inglourious Basterds takes place in his Realer Than Real universe, whereas Kill Bill takes place in his Movie Movie universe, as the sort of movie that a Realer Than Real character might watch.

I guess it’s been so long since I saw TGTB&TU that I didn’t pick up the similarity.

Tex says “I’m the Devil and I’m here to do the Devil’s work”. One of the other cultists yells at Tex to shoot Cliff and he cocks his revolver pointed at him right before Cliff sics Brandy on him. That’s about as justified as it gets.

It’s a little weak, but the switch isn’t just because they recognized him but also because he disrupted their earlier plan by coming out and ordering them to leave. He basically did all he could to mark himself as representative of what they hate.

I liked it, partly because I’d never seen any of Tate’s actual work and really only knew of her in the context of her murder. This film is (partly) about Tate living, so he wanted to show us the real Tate. Editing Rick into the Great Escape when his character didn’t even get to do that within the universe of the film…

I think that is part of some people’s problem. Bruce is like one of Rick Dalton’s heavies on a tv episode, there to get shown up and demonstrate how tough the hero is. They want to continue thinking of Bruce as the hero, not some jerk who got deservedly thrown into a car after needlessly picking a fight on a tv set.

After Jackie Brown he’s largely made schlock, but the bulk of this film indicates that he doesn’t have to.

I thought it was implied, although the film doesn’t come out and state it so people can consider it ambiguous. I will acknowledge that his refusal of Pussycat’s offer does paint him as someone who won’t violate certain rules (particularly towards women), although on the other hand his personal feelings toward his wife…

It would have been funny if the guy passed out partway through fixing the tire, so then Cliff had to do most of it himself.

They ask Cliff if anyone else in the house, and when he replies “In the back, sleeping”, Tex says “Go get him”, assuming it’s Rick instead of Francesca.

Shortly before seeing the film I listened to the Battleship Pretension podcast where they discussed this (and other movies they saw recently). I had already heard that Tate survived, but they mentioned Rick using a “blowtorch”, which is the sort of thing a civilian might actually have in their shed. I thought it might…

Shock-jock Tarantino definitely doesn’t have delicacy (at least not since Jackie Brown), but this particular film depends on the Manson stuff. I’d like for him to try making a 100% comedy, but this film has those Manson murders as its cornerstone.

Some things can be sliding scales rather than binaries.

I thought I independently came up with that Wahlberg comparison, and now I’m not feeling so clever.

I may not believe in any objective morality, but those murders would seem to match up with any definition of pure evil in common parlance.

I like much of your comment, but the wealthy moving away from the city is more a feature of the Great Sixties Freakout crimewave. After crime started declining in the mid-90s, we got gentrification with the wealthy moving back into downtowns. I know you mentioned gentrification, but like I said that’s more typical of…

“Juvenile” is right. My reaction to Inglourious Basterds was to compare it to when I gatling-gunned mecha-Hitler into a puddle of blood in Wolfenstein 3D. Mark Wahlberg talking about how he would have prevented 9/11 if he were on the plane is another comparable fantasy.

All violence against those hippies is “deserving”!

Agreed, and I’m surprised you’re the only person I’ve read point that out. Tarantino could have written a simple beatdown (which Cliff delivers later), but instead it’s an unfinished fight where they’re technically tied but now prepared for what the other can throw at them.

I don’t think Tarantino is a Christian, though he is a gentile (and not of the sort targeted by Nazis).