Taking aim at the best and worst of movies and television.
Inglorious Basterds is triumph of Tarantino-esque filmmaking.
Leading up to this year's Academy Awards on March 7, critic Christopher Kelly discusses who he thinks deserves to take Oscar gold in the major categories.
Today: Best Director
The nominees: Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), James Cameron (Avatar), Lee Daniels (Precious), Jason Reitman (Up in the Air), Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds)
If Chris chose the winner: Quentin Tarantino
You know it’s been a strong year at the movies when the five nominated directors all clearly earned a place on the roster, and yet you still feel as if two films’ creators got robbed. (I’m referring specifically to Joel and Ethan Coen for A Serious Man and Michael Haneke for The White Ribbon, whom I would likely vote for before any of the five nominees.)
That said, we have to play by the rules, and the choice isn’t especially difficult. Just watch the opening 15 minutes of Inglourious Basterds, a long, languid conversation between a sheep farmer harboring Jews in his basement and a Nazi who has come to investigate. The screws tighten. The dialogue carries on and on. Just when the audience lets down its guard, the violence explodes. (Watch out, too, for the astonishing moment when the camera drops below the floorboards to reveal where the Jews are hiding — pure technical bravura that sent giddy shivers up my spine when I first saw it.)
All due respect to Bigelow, who created some truly hair-raising sequences in The Hurt Locker, and Cameron, who put forth a stunningly believable alternative universe in Avatar, but what Tarantino does here, mixing technique and emotion and playing the audience like a cheap fiddle, is the quintessence of great direction.
Who will win: Kathryn Bigelow. The allure of rewarding the first Oscar to a female director will be hard for most voters to resist.
Coming up:
Thursday: Best Actor
Friday: Best Actress
Saturday: Best Picture
