MIT Lecture Series Committee

Rated R
153 minutes

view trailer

format: 35mm

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

In the first year of the German occupation of France, Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) witnesses the execution of her family at the hand of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Shosanna narrowly escapes and flees to Paris where she forges a new identity as the owner and operator of a cinema. Elsewhere in Europe, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) organizes a group of Jewish American soldiers to perform swift, shocking acts of retribution. Later known to their enemy as "the basterds," Raine's squad joins German actress and undercover agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) on a mission to take down the leaders of the Third Reich. Fates converge under a cinema marquis, where Shosanna is poised to carry out a revenge plan of her own. Employing pulp and propaganda in equal measure, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds weaves together the infamous, oppressed, real and larger-than-life stories of WWII. [www.inglouriousbasterds-movie.com]

I'm tempted to say Tarantino has done it again, but I doubt anyone has ever done anything like his dazzlingly original World War II movie, Inglourious Basterds.
      -- Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune. Read this review.