Let It Bleed.

Rating: 8/10 (16 June 2015)

In my humble opinion, Quentin Tarantino has only made three really good films (although I have yet to see "Death Proof"): "Pulp Fiction", "Jackie Brown", and now "Inglorious Basterds". While indisputably a strong film, this film gets dropped a notch or two relative to other two, because, although it's exceptionally slick and well-made, it's likewise simple-minded and undemanding.
We all know that Tarantino likes violence a lot and will find any excuse to depict it. He'll always claim artistic pretensions, but actually he just really, really likes to see people suffer and bleed. While he won't be honest about it, the rest of us can be.
"Pulp Fiction" had some heavy violence, but wasn't too harsh, and "Jackie Brown" was nearly devoid of violence by Tarantino standards; on the other hand, I found some of the violence in "Inglorious Basterds" to be somewhat disturbing, although, admittedly, it would be quite unexceptional for a modern horror movie.
More disturbing to me is that I found it only somewhat disturbing. If this movie had come out in the 1970s, it would no doubt have gotten an X rating for violence, but our culture has gotten utterly inured to this kind of thing, which might not be totally healthy (just saying).
If you can get past the violence (likely not hard for most people nowadays), this movie is totally captivating and never flags from beginning to end. It's never dull, and you can't believe that 2 1/2 hours have passed when it's over.
Lacking spoilers, a brief summary is that it's an alternative fictional history of WWII, which plays like a live action adult graphic novel with the expected minimal depth, subtlety, ambiguity, or moral or intellectual complexity.
It's a flawless homage to classic B-movie, ultra-violent, grindhouse fare. At the same time, it's also like one of those restored cars that are way nicer than they ever were when they originally left the factory. They don't make them like they used too, at least not in this case, they do a much better job.