Reply #9: Like you, I don't "get" Tarantino

[Bucky]

I liked the Kill Bill movies, but it seems like most of his movies are just wanking on violence without letting it move a story forward. I've heard people praise his dialogue, but I really don't find his writing all that compelling. He's got natural sounding dialogue, but it never really seems to get to a point or make challenging observations, which is the meter stick I use for "great dialogue" rather than just how interesting it is. His dialogue doesn't seem to build character.

I haven't seen this movie, but then I don't want to. If you're going to muck with history, you need to have a point to doing so--rather than Tarantino's standard reason for his artistic choices: "Wouldn't it be awesome if...?" which in this case is "... if there was this all Jewish unit of commandos running around Nazi Europe murdering Nazis?"

Yes, Quinten, it'd be totally neat-o. Unfortunately, nothing like that ever happened. The US Army never formed an all Jewish unit. The US Army didn't form murder squads (and didn't even train them until Vietnam came along). Artistically, there's no point in this movie other than Tarantino's by-the-numbers nihilism. He might as well have made it "ninjas vs samurais" or "Giant Mecha Robots vs the Bolsheviks" or "Vulcans vs Tatooinees."

Personally I'm still waiting for a James Brothers vs the James Brothers movie.