Well, perhaps I'm missing something, because the film was and is quite popular, even though I couldn't stand it. I understand that it is 100% fictional, but the difference is most films, even Tarantino films, work within a framework of reality. You set up a premise, (ie Star Wars--we are in the future and have developed space flight and discovered other life; the Matrix--every day life is really a dream for most people; even something as crazy as Kill Bill-most of the characters have incredible fighting skills and can perform some extreme and unrealistic fighting moves) and we accept that part of the fiction, but the rest of the movie follows basic plot rules. Bill was predictably well protected from attack. Han Solo's spaceship can break down. When you are out of the matrix you are vulnerable.
But with Basterds, scene after scene was so incredibly unrealistic. I think I would have enjoyed the movie if it didn't include the historical backdrop about Nazis and Hitler. If it was just a story about group A sent out to kill group B. Because the Nazis didn't behave like Nazis. This could have easily been a Pulp Fiction like film where all the characters were just new characters and not pretending to be any historical event, and it would have been entertaining. I saw this movie at the theater, and have forgotton many of my complaints, but to name a few, the shootout (including machine guns and grenades) of a room full of Nazis and Americans behind enemy lines in the basement club that didnt bring other troops even 10 minutes after the gunfire was over, the lack of any guards placed outside the movie theater when the Fuhrer and all top leadership was present, the complete ease with which the Basterds operated behind enemy lines without any fear or hardship, and other unrealism that just didn't jibe with WW2 really irked me. That and the fact that the Americans and Nazis were both awful and there was no "good guy" at all in the film. Now Valkyrie I did enjoy, and had some "good Nazis" or a guess good German military figures.
You raise a good point about the guards at the theater. I noticed that right off, and it irked me too.
The rest, not really so much. The basement shootout, plausible. Troops were spread pretty thin in occupied France. Its fiction, I didn't mind some creative license with the travels and placement of a guerrilla troop. Fact is, thats kinda how a guerrilla troop would work. Clandestine, and pretty fuckin' ornery.
It was a purposeful piece of the plot that there were no good guys. Theres a pretty big statement, and the meaning of the title. Dont'cha think its about time someone put that message on the screen? Whats the one thing they always say about war? The winner gets to write the history books, and paints itself as the good side. War isn't glamorous or anything like that, its brutal. Its a bunch of people killing each other.
That was the reason for the movie within the movie, shown from the other side. To show how sick and fucked up the opposite nation is when it roots for its side, cheering like a bunch of ugly retards at propagandized hero-worship shlock directed by Joseph Goebbels. Quentin (I think) was saying "heres what you
expected to be watching" but instead, the villains were watching it, and we watched the villains watching it. Kinda fucked up. And in Quentins movie, there was really no war at all. There was gunfights, but no mechanized Private Ryan bombs-falling foxhole war. Which to be honest, surprised me a little, until I saw where he was going with it.
I don't mind saying, I'm not super-deep when it comes to movies. I miss a LOT of shit, and I'm not what you'd call a film buff. I know pretty much nothing about cinematography. I'm a fan of certain
people. Tarantino is one of them, because he's quirky and he rubs my antenna the right way. It just so happens, he makes movies. And when he makes one, I try real hard to understand his message, because he's got some real interesting things to say.
Another reason is the homage he pays to other films and directors, which seems to piss off the critics. I like it, because its like an easter egg hunt, and it points me in some interesting directions to investigate films I'd never think of checking into. He uses cool cameos, recycles actors from one film to the next. Its just cool, to me, how shit pops up in his stuff. Like in Hostel, which I think he executive produced (not directed) Pulp Fiction was playing on a television in the lobby when the tourists were checking in. And in this Basterds, Harvey Keitel was the voice of the general on the radio, and Sam Jackson was the narrator. With Quentin, there is
always an asterisk in the corner of the frame.
I feel compelled to mention, I just finished watching Jackie Brown, cause I'm on a kick now.... I couldn't stop watching DeNiro. Totally underrated performance by him in that. He'd been in some of the most critically acclaimed performances of all time, by that stage of his career, and he stole every scene by frowning and nodding. He was like a b-list shlub. It was fuckin awesome.