Summertime for Quentin and Germany

'Inglourious Basterds' a hit in Germany

Quentin Tarantino gives Germany a present with a card that reads, here's to dealing with the past via a baseball bat, a hunting knife and a highly flammable movie theater and not an overly sensitive, borderline insulting "important" movie. (He sent a fruit basket too).

But "Inglourious Basterds" is an important movie. A masterpiece. And better yet, Germans love it.

According to the Global Post:

"In Germany, World War II and Holocaust films are meticulously combed over by small armies of critics, historians and public intellectuals. The historical accuracy and ethical messages of 'Schindler's List' and 'The Reader,' for example, were debated for months on end. The liberties that Tom Cruise's 'Valkyrie' took with historical reality made German experts shake with indignation. 'Life is Beautiful' was panned for its use of comedy in connection with an issue so somber — and it dived at the box office, too.

"And now there’s Quentin Tarantino’s Nazi-era splatter film 'Inglourious Basterds,' which — to my great surprise — has rocketed to the top of the German charts and even charmed the country’s most discerning film critics. When I showed up at my neighborhood theater in Berlin, the ticket line reached out to the curb. Once inside the jam-packed theater, I found myself as intrigued by the reaction of the German cinema-goers as I was by the film. It was plain from the bursts of laughter and applause that they thoroughly relished all two-and-a-half hours of it, even though the graphic, blood-soaked farce would appear to break every German's rule for political correctness."