“Beginners” is a love story that refuses to follow any of the cinematic rules regarding romance.

Writer/director Mike Mills’ film, available Nov. 15 on Blu-ray and DVD, tracks the bond between a sad-eyed cartoonist (Ewan McGregor) and a flighty actress (Melanie Laurent). It’s the story nestled in between that makes the difference, a father-son bond complicated by the former’s coming out at the ripe old age of 75.

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Mills tells his story with a blend of movie tricks, from bursts of narration to a Jack Russell terrier whose thoughts are printed on the screen. It’s both raw and frustrating, for as much as the film romance formula demands to be broken, “Beginners” isn’t constructed well enough to fully commit to its atypical storytelling.

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Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” has all the trappings of a Tarantino film – from the rich cinematography and soundtrack to the unpredictable action and character development. Tarantino has directed and written another effort that, as usual, is in a class of its own. 

“Basterds,” misspelled the way Brad Pitt’s moonshining Lt. Aldo Raine character carved it into his rifle, takes place in German-occupied France from 1941 to 1944.  Tarantino makes a point of specifying “Nazi-occupied France,” justifying to the film watcher the extreme measures needed to deal with this particular type of human evil.  That National Socialist German Workers’ Party membership never numbered more than about 20 percent of the adult German population is beside the point; the Nazi Party in the guise of Hitler (played by Martin Wuttke) controlled the Wehrmacht from the top.  

“Basterds” follows three characters.  ”Chapter 1″ introduces Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) a young Frenchwoman whose dairy farmer family is wiped out in 1941 by the Germans and Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), who directs the killing.  Landa is a member of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the intelligence service of the SS and the Nazi Party, who considers himself a detective asked by his government to find every last Jewish person in France.  In “Chapter 2″ we meet U.S. Army Lt. Aldo Raine. Raine’s crossed arrows insignia on his collar identifies him as a member of the First Special Service Force, a U.S.-Canadian commando force called the Devil’s Brigade.  Lt. Raine leads a small band of soldiers, all of whom happen to be Jewish, on a mission of retribution, mayhem and terror behind enemy lines, the goal: take 100 “Nazi scalps” each.  (more…)

Remember the children’s magazine, Highlights? Its motto is “fun with a purpose.” The motto for Quentin Tarantino’s latest flick, “Inglourious Basterds,” should be “violent with a purpose.”

It’s 1944 in Nazi-occupied France. Joseph Goebbels’ (Sylvester Groth) latest film triumph starring Germany’s latest hero, Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), is set to premiere for the top brass of the Third Reich – including the big cheese himself, Adolf Hitler – and their guests. Funnily enough, the premiere is to be held in a cinema owned by Shoshanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), a Jewish refugee with her own obvious reasons for hating the Nazis. Naturally, she plans her revenge for the fateful night.

Meanwhile the Basterds, a crack group of Jewish-American soldiers under the leadership of Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), is undercover in France and “in the business of killing Nazis, and business is booming.” Those Nazis who manage to escape death are given meaningful souvenirs of their time with the Basterds. The paths of these two groups cross in a way that only Tarantino, master of gory coincidence, could imagine.

A good ol’ boy and Jews brutally mowing down Nazis. What’s not to like? It’s probably one of the few times you’ll see a redneck positively portrayed in Hollywood. (more…)