25 Best Movies Of The Decade: 19

"Now, I don't know about y'all, but I sure as hell didn't come down from the goddamn Smoky Mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half of Sicily and then jump out of a fuckin' air-o-plane to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity. Nazi ain't got no humanity. They're the foot soldiers of a Jew-hatin', mass murderin' maniac and they need to be destroyed."

19. Inglourious Basterds(2009)

After the dismal performance of the Grindhouse double feature(which is a shame because I fucking loved Grindhouse. Both films and all the trailers), it easily could have been thought that Quentin Tarantino was bound for another long dry spell between movies. Then all of a sudden, came the Basterds.

A World War II fantasy piece, Basterds explores a Spaghetti Western in the middle of Nazi-occupied France. In 1941, Col. Hans Landa, "The Jew Hunter" kills a family of refugee French Jews, leaving only Shoshanna Dreyfuss to run free. Flash-forward three years to American's involvement of the war and we meet the titular squad: a fierce Jewish fighting force led by Lt. Aldo Raine and including former Nazi Hugo Stiglitz and Donny Donowitz, whose vicious attacks with a baseball bat has led the Germans to dub him "The Bear Jew."

While most Tarantino works rely on more modern styles of cinematography, his direction in this one keeps it more related to the old war films of yesteryear. Scenes are held for absurdly long times to escalate moments to amazing tenseness. The writing as well shows a difference in style for Tarantino, as the characters are less verbose(especially Brad Pitt's Lt. Raine, who keeps things to a minimum, vocabulary-wise).

The acting especially shines. Both Pitt's portrayal of Aldo "The Apache" and Eli Roth's Sgt. Donowitz are hilariously over-the-top as every other word out of their mouths either instill fear or laughter. But for all the brilliance of the Basterds, the non-Americans seem to shine the most.

Shosanna, played by Mélanie Laurent, is absolutely amazing as she lives under an alias in Paris as a cinema operator, slowly working out her plan for revenge on the Nazis that killed her family. Laurent's performance masterfully blends the fear and anger that many Jews in hiding possibly could have felt. Then, there's Hans Landa. Cristoph Waltz exudes intensity as the slimy over-the-top Colonel and when he finally comes face-to-face with Aldo Raine in his captivity, he's able to balance the drama of the scene and Tarantino's ever-present use of comedy.

Inglourious Basterds is the greatest film with a misspelled film title I've ever seen.