Quentin Tarantino's controversial Nazi flick hit theaters to surprise box-office success-and sharply divided reviews. From the critics to the worshipers, The Daily Beast dissects the explosive response Inglourious Basterds has generated.Photo: Weinstein Company / Everett Collection
Tarantino's Hollow Violence
Lee Siegel has written about culture and politics and is the author of three books: Falling Upwards: Essays in Defense of the Imagination; Not Remotely Controlled: Notes on Television; and, most recently, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. In 2002, he received a National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism.
Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction exposed the absurdity of Hollywood violence, says Lee Siegel. But Quentin Tarantino's latest is everything he once tried to parody. So why is everyone still taking him seriously?
Heil, Tarantino!
Caryn James is a cultural critic for The Daily Beast. She also contributes to Marie Claire and The New York Times Book Review. She was a film critic, chief television critic and critic-at-large for The New York Times, and an editor at the Times Book Review. She is the author of the novels Glorie and What Caroline Knew. As a film commentator, she has been a guest on Charlie Rose, Today, CBS Sunday Morning and MSNBC.
Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino's Nazi kill fest, is his best movie since Pulp Fiction, says The Daily Beast's Caryn James.
The Yes List
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
Each week, The Daily Beast scours the cultural landscape to choose three top picks. This week, "the next great American director" creates a bond between two unlikely men in Goodbye, Solo.
Tarantino's Star Also a Critic
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Christoph Waltz-the terrifying yet perversely likable Nazi colonel in Inglourious Basterds-doesn't love all of his director's films and is annoyed by questions about how the movie will be received in Germany. Lloyd Grove gets the details.
Tarantino's Glorious Nazi
Paul Cullum is a freelance writer living in Los Angeles. He has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, L.A. Weekly, Variety, Details, Radar, Vanity Fair and hundreds of tiny magazines that pay comically little.
As a charismatic SS officer in Inglourious Basterds, little-known Austrian character actor Christoph Waltz steals the movie from Brad Pitt and is an early Oscar favorite. By Paul Cullum
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
The Daily Beast is dedicated to news and commentary, culture, and entertainment. We carefully curate the web’s most essential stories and bring you original must-reads from our talented contributors.
Peter Beinart, senior political writer for The Daily Beast, is a professor of journalism and political science at City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.
Jeffrey Koterba is an acclaimed syndicated political cartoonist. Since joining the Omaha World-Herald in 1989, he has been a finalist for Editorial Cartoonist of the Year from the National Cartoonists Society and has placed second in the National Headliner Awards. His work is distributed through King Features Syndicate to 400 newspapers nationwide, and has appeared in such publications as the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Washington Post, among others.
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