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Movie: Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds is another revenge film by Quentin Tarantino. Unlike the Kill Bill films though, the message of this movie is much more nuanced.

In Kill Bill, no matter how graphic the violence became, I think we all knew who the hero was. Even if we didn’t agree with her decided path, we knew whom we wanted to win in the fights.

For Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino has a band of Jewish-American soldiers and the lone survivor of a massacred Jewish family separately going up against Nazis. The heroes should be clear no?

But the revenge fantasy is not so simple. The Americans are not that admirable. Their guerilla, or terrorist, tactics involve the graphic violence we’ve come to expect from Taratino, but the visuals are somewhat more unsettling here.

They hit more like the Michael Madsen ear scene from Reservoir Dogs. I almost couldn’t help but censor the “heroes” and sympathize with the “villains” during them.

It may be because the Basterds is essentially a unit made up of that Madsen character.

Interestingly, Taratino has the revenge seekers use methods and tactics that we, good film goers, have already condemned as seen in other recent movies because there, the brutality was exacted upon Americans, American soldiers, or another sympathetic surrogates.

As the Nazis continue to get their comeuppance in this movie, I couldn’t help but be put off while not completely being able to disagree with the actions of the Allies.

The pen is mightier than the sword. Or, since we don’t read and write as much as we used to, perhaps movies are mightier than the sword.

Perhaps Quentin Taratino is showing that fiction (stories) and history (the storytelling of actual events) are the most powerful mechanisms of revenge. By setting this revenge fantasy within historical contexts, we can really evaluate the worth of revenge and brutality. That which sound great in our minds will be disastrous if we ever let them lose upon reality.

History and art are going to tell our stories. The heroes and villains among us may do well to consider that.

If I Picked the Oscars (in order of my vote)

Best Picture:

Directing:

Tags: Movies by Ms. SP
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Nerd, Geek, Dork

The boyfriend and I call each other the above terms pretty regularly. Come to think of it, I seem to be involved pretty regularly with people who use—and situations that involve—one or more of the words nerd, geek, and dork.

Thanks to the Nerd? Geek? and Dork? Test, I can now definitely calculate out the mix of my being.

I know there are various ways to differentiate the three, but in the generalist of terms, here are my understandings:

  • nerd—loves the book learning and the being a smarty at large
  • geek—really, really good at and into something that’s on the fringe of everyone else’s consciousness
  • dork—clumsily unable to act according to the rules set by society

So what am I?

Modern, Cool Nerd
83% Nerd, 70% Geek, 35% Dork

Why thanks, Test! I couldn’t have hoped for a better result.

The write-up:

Nerds didn’t use to be cool, but in the 90′s that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn’t quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and “geek is chic.” The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgeable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!

A’yup, that’s pretty much me. :) What are you?

Tags: Life by Ms. SP
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Recommended Articles for the Week of March 22

Here are my favorite reads for the week:

Tags: Recommendations by Ms. SP
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