Inglourious Basterds and the director's form

Following film via director's pedigree can be fraught - but ultimately very rewarding.  Few people can be pitch perfect all the time, and those who succeed well can also fail big.

Take Terry Gilliam.  Aside from the Monty Python films (which are largely turkey shoots), his first major critical success was the acclaimed Brazil.  His imagination shines glorious, in both the writing and direction.  Yet he perennially suffers from an ambition far greater than a capacity to realise, so he has crashed spectacularly.  Persistence was rewarded with the wonderful 12 Monkeys, but his record remains understandably patchy... but he's still worth watching for the times he pulls it off.

Jim Jarmusch, similarly uneven.  Early winner with Stranger Than Paradise, persistence richly rewarded with Dead Man. (But how could he come up with Ghost Dog?)

Christopher Nolan.  More consistent, in that his failures are only relative to his stunning successes.  See Memento and be a fan for life; The Prestige is another payoff.  Dark Knight, for all its violence, is obviously the product of a very skilled filmmaker.

Tarentino.  Pulp Fiction: top notch writing, top notch directing.  Some of his later films such as Kill Bill were little more than stylised ultra-violence.  But Inglourious Basterds (US, 2009) is Tarantino at top of form.  Again with more violence than necessary, but so well crafted, so well written.

You can come to a film by accident, or you can follow form assiduously.  Don't expect a payout every time, but it's worth the wait for the jackpot.

Public Enemy (US, 2009): a must-miss film

Urk! I just found out the director of this film is the same Michael Mann who did Collateral, a 2004 film with Tom Cruise as an assassin.

What links those two films, apart from my desire to walk out on both?

Well, they're both full of gratuitous violence, both have dual protagonists who elicit no sympathy in the viewer... and both were shot in HD format rather than true film stock - yuck!

All factors add up to an appalling film. While my regard for Cruise is not high, I do have respect for Johnny Depp, particularly through his work on Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man. But he contributes little of interest to this film.

Plot? Not much. Dillinger robs banks and eventually dies. You already know the ending: he gets shot down by feds outside a cinema. So most of the film is spent waiting for him to make his appointment for that destiny. And it takes far too long.