On Quentin

The back of my hand itches to meet Eli Roth's face at high velocity, which is one of several caveats I have about Quentin Tarantino's long-gestating World War II flick Inglorious Basterds, now in the process of releasing stills to the salivating fanboys.

Another is the dumbassed misspelled title, indicative of Tarantino's notoriously slapdash grammar. It's not clever or meta; it's just dumb, and he gets away with it because Cahiers du Cinema will fellate him for anything that happens after "action."

A third is the simple fact that Tarantino is long past the point of relevancy and can be depended upon only to toss every crappy B-movie he's ever seen into a blender, and film the blender. There was a brief, wonderful moment, when Jackie Brown came out, where it seemed like he might stretch; only with that film has he ever dropped the cool-cat posturing and casual sadism for something richer, deeper and more empathetic.

Tarantino is terrific with actors, and his films are entertaining, but well-made schlock is still schlock, no many how in-jokes and air-quotes you pepper it with. He's a little kid forever unwilling to let the real world into his sandbox.