Space is Cold

I recently struggled a bit with a few movies. I struggled in the sense of “Did I like them?”, “Are they good movies?”, and “How does one decide?” I saw them for free on recent long airplane rides. The first was “Thor,” the second was “Inglourious Basterds,” and the third was “Gran Torino.”

Now the first item might have been my mood. That could have affected my ultimate judgement of each. Harder to judge.

The second is it could be based on expectation. For Thor, I generally enjoyed it as a movie without much thinking involved. I knew it would be an action movie based on a comic book and all the expectations for those. I knew it was generally well received but not great. It did the job of entertaining me, but I would neither have sought it out nor will I choose to watch it again. It was entertaining and had its moments but ultimately followed a formula and is forgettable.

Inglourious Basterds was a bit different. I heard it was good and knew it was Tarantino, so I had some expectation. The separate elements of the story were very well done and entertaining, but overall I felt that the approach was not the right one for the material (WWII, Nazis, and the Holocaust tangentially). The material was more important and was mis-handled for the tone and theme. Maybe I’m just being overly sensitive and prudish. I realize it’s a cartoon and should not be taken seriously. But I guess I’m afraid its cowboy approach will infect the minds of the youth who will think of WWII and the Nazis in this way – too simplistically and the celebration of moral ambiguity (rather than its recognition). That the allies committed acts that are immoral and likely against the Geneva Conventions is likely true (so the killing of unarmed, captured Nazis is wrong but to the audience, emotionally satisfying that evil gets its due, damn the niceties of the legal world). I don’t doubt that tough moral choices had to be made. But to show the celebration of it is just cruelty and torture. Did this happen on the allied side? I don’t doubt it. But to show it in a light, comical, no consequence world doesn’t work for me. I guess it’s all right to kill people in this manner because they are pre-supposed to be evil. It’s tough to do the right thing and treating prisoners humanely, regardless of how the adversary does, so why bother. In addition, the Nazis are shown to be cartoonish, except the SS Colonel (who ultimately is a bit cartoonish himself). Should I defend Nazis? No. Should they be portrayed more realistically? I guess my answer is yes. This is not a total comedy but attempts to have some serious elements of moral choices. Making it a cartoon cheapens it. But did I like the movie? In many ways yes. Tarantino has absorbing scenes, dialogue and situations. The set pieces are entertaining (the farm house, the beer garden, etc). But the material of WWII and Nazis and the Holocaust is not the venue given his approach. I’m sure I sound like an old fuddy duddy for putting these topics on a pedestal and saying they need to be treated differently. So be it. So I had a hard time. In most ways this is a better movie than Thor – more engaging and entertaining and crafted. Yet the approach to the material left a bad taste in my mouth which makes me question whether I liked it.

The third movie in this recent series, Gran Torino, fits the same category. I was absorbed into the movie and found it entertaining. But the story was fairly well predictable (ok, maybe not the ending per se, but I could guess the three ways it could go). We knew he was a grumpy Gus who would eventually have his heart melt (while maintaining a tough exterior) and “do the right thing.” The one positive, from a storyline perspective, was the protagonist’s strained relationship with his real family that was not resolved in a Hollywood ending of reconciliation. The bad part was the cartoonish way it was portrayed along the way – the gold digging granddaughter with her simplistic reactions, for example. Also, he may be a racist, but his implication that everyone talks the way he does was just silly – most especially the interaction he has with his barber and his former co-worker. I don’t doubt people of a certain age think and speak in terms of derogatory ways about other ethnic and racial groups, but having been around some of these people, it is not the only way they talk or address each other, even in jest among friends. Unrealistic. But again the movie entertained me even if it was generally predictable and the characters’ changes were generally unrealistic in the timeframe shown. So is it better than Thor? It was and yet, I judge it more harshly.

So are reviews based on the movie itself and its relationship to artistic standards or is it relative to expectations of genre? I guess the proof is that I would not watch Thor again, not watch Gran Torino again, but might watch Inglourious Basterds again (but not likely a third time).