So I watched Inglorious Basterds again. Even better the second time.
***Spoiler warning***
This was actually Quentin Tarantino's most mature movie the more I think about it. For the first time, he began creating a movie with multiple layers. In fact, the final scene was like something Kubrick would do. The theater scene...brilliant on so many levels...on the surface, it's wonderful...we get to see the Nazis die in a spectacular fashion...a crazy plan goes off to plan...it's how we wish WWII would have ended...but dig deeper into what we are seeing...we are watching the Germans cheer the death of their mortal enemies on our screen...then the plan of the young Jewish lass and the Basterds goes into play...I was laughing and in joy at the sight of the madness going down...then I realized...Hitler was sitting there laughing joyously at the sight of Americans dying...and here I am...sitting there laughing at the sight of Nazis dying. Wait...this is Tarantino...he isn't supposed to be this smart...is he?
Kinda like when I realized that the monolith in Kubrick's 2001 was really a representation of the movie screen itself...really, we were watching ourselves on screen...we are all little Hitlers...but thanks to the black vs white world of nationalism...we just don't notice the obvious allegory we are seeing in front of us...and that's just it...it's woven in such a paradoxically overt way that somehow remains subtle...masterfully done, really...when you really think about it...it's a powerful statement about the power of human cruelty.
Damn, son...if he can keep writing like this...I wonder what Tarantino is capable of if he keeps maturing as a writer/director...