Inglourious Basterds is a war film and revenge picture, but writer-director Quentin Tarantino's muse is what it's always been—the movies. Not just a handful of classics and obscure pictures that only a lifelong film geek like Tarantino would love, but the entire world of cinema—glamorous movie stars, the grand movie palaces of yesterday, star-studded movie premieres, even the film stock.
In Tarantino's mind, movies are all that matter—even history is tossed aside if it doesn't suit his needs. Only he could make a film about a group of Jewish-American soldiers scalping Nazis behind enemy lines and turn it into a love letter to the movies. The pure, unadulterated joy that permeates all of his films and a continued knack for creating memorable characters and cracking dialogue make Inglourious Basterds one of his best.
