A terrible movie on almost every level : Inglourious Basterds

It's tempting to say of "Inglourious Basterds" : unwatchable, and leave it at that. In a way it deserves nothing more, a terrible movie on almost every level. But it's probably worth explaining why it's so awful. Unbelievably, it was among the bloated list of 10 best pix Oscar nominees, possibly to counterbalance the hideous A Serious Man, which made Jews into weaklings and grotesques in a way that Hitler might have admired. So to offset it - see, we're not self-hating Jews! - the academy nominates Inglourious, in which that great Jew Brad Pitt leads a team of superhero, anti-Nazi vigilantes. Where to begin? A movie about a Jewish platoon that takes on a special mission in wartime Europe sounds like a good idea - and I think it was done years ago in the properly spelled version of this film. Here, it's preposterous from the get-go: who are these guys, why are they so special and powerful, how can they possibly roam through wartime Germany (or occupied France?) and attack German soldiers at will and with impunity? Word spreads up to the Fuhrer, who launches into a one of the already cliched screaming fits - done so well in Downfall and so poorly here. There's a long setup scene in which we see how horrible the Nazis are - gee, I never knew! - which I guess is meant to help us sympathize with Jews who'd beat Nazi soldiers to death with baseball bats. Yes, let's get everyone down to the same bestial level - no, that's an insult to animals - the same level, that's a great moral compass, isn't it? All the wit and charm that Tarantino once upon a time brought to his violent pictures - even the cartoonish and too-long Kill Bill was kind of fun - has in this one, degenerated into a delight in cruelty and torture and a loss of touch with anything that's human.