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There is no question that writer-director Quentin Tarantino is a brilliant film-maker. But there is some question about whether he has yet made a brilliant film. No one takes a more visceral pleasure in movies than he does but there is always a chilly irony and a look-at-me distance. Movies are more Tarantino's mirror than his window.

This film takes its title from a little-seen Italian movie made in 1978, but starting with the intentional misspelling, it has little in common with the original except for a WWII setting and a Tarantino's characteristic pulpish sensibility. It shares even less in common with history. About the only thing it gets accurately is that the Nazis spoke German and the Americans spoke English.

Tarantino calls the movie a revenge fantasy. Brad Pitt plays Lieutenant Aldo Raine, who assembles a squadron of Jewish soldiers with one goal, to kill as many Nazis as possible, in as horrifying a manner as possible. "We will be cruel to the Germans and through our cruelty they will know who we are," he tells them. One of his men is a former German soldier they rescued from prison after he killed his superior officers. Another is nicknamed "The Jew Bear" (played by horror director Eli Roth), and he kills Nazis with a baseball bat.

Meanwhile, a Jewish woman named Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) owns a movie theater in Paris. She escaped from the Nazis and has a new identity. A handsome German war hero who is interested in getting to know her better arranges for the premiere of the new movie about his triumph in battle to take place at her theater, putting her in danger, but giving her the opportunity to put the Nazi dignitaries who will be attending in danger as well. Tarantino's almost fetishistic fascination with movies, from the fine points of the auteur theory down to the combustibility of the film stock, gives this section of the film an extra charge.

Tarantino's opening scene is brilliantly staged, as a German officer (Austrian actor Christoph Waltz) visits a French dairy farmer in search of Jews who may have escaped his predecessor. Waltz, winner of the Cannes prize for acting, instantly joins Hannibal Lecter, Darth Vader, and the Wicked Witch of the West as one of the all-time great movie villains with a mesmerizing performance that shows off his fluency in English, German, French, Italian...and evil. Like Lecter, his venom is even more disturbing because of his urbanity and courtliness. Other scenes are also masterfully shot, especially an extended scene in a bar, when a critical meeting of Allied forces working undercover find themselves among a drunken party of German soldiers celebrating a new baby. Others, like the viscious killing of a group of what Raine calls Nah-sies, suffer from Tarantino's tendency to go for showmanship over substance.

And that is the problem at the core of the film. If the misspelling of the words in the title was a signal of some kind, like the backwards letter intended as a warning and a small sign of protest in the sign over the gate at Auschwitz, then we could look for meaning in the reworking of historical events and the actions taken by real people. But Tarantino does not care about that. He is still about sensation, not sense. He appropriates the signifiers of WWII because they are easy, and because they are both scary and safe. His Nah-sies are like dinosaurs, unquestionably dangerous and unquestionably vanquished. Tarantino is a film savant. He knows and understands and loves the language of film. He just doesn't have much to say.

Happy Independence Day!

This rousing musical about the Declaration of Independence makes the Founding Fathers vivid, human, and interesting characters, and is so involving that you almost forget that you already know how it all turned out. William Daniels is the "obnoxious and disliked" John Adams, Ken Howard is Thomas Jefferson, who would rather be with his wife than work on the Declaration, and Howard da Silva is a wry and witty Benjamin Franklin. As they debate independence, we see the courage that went into the birth of the United States, and as they compromise with the South to permit slavery in the brand-new country we see the tragedy. Outstanding family entertainment.

Cowriter-director Edward Zwick, who also made "Glory," the story of an all-black Union regiment in the Civil War, spoke to me about why it was important to tell the story of the Bielski brothers, who kept 1200 Jews hidden from the Russians and the Nazis during WWII.

There is a perverse irony in commemoration of the dead in the Holocaust with little attention to the survivors and the resistance, especially the Jewish resistance. Its immensity can't be underestimated and it is a story that needs to be told. We all know these iconic images of Jews in the Holocaust and those are important but we have come to accept them as the only images and that needs revision.

This is not the story of Jews trying to stay alive in concentration camps. This is the story of Jews who were lucky enough to have the chance to fight back. Tuvia Bielski does not just have a gun -- he is played by James Bond himself, Daniel Craig.

When the Bielski parents are killed by the Nazis, the three brothers hide out in the woods. In addition to Tuvia there is Zus (Liev Schreiber) and the youngest, Asael (Jamie Bell of "Billy Elliot"). Over time, other escapees ask for their protection and they are faced with the wrenching choice between turning away those who are old or ill or putting the entire group at risk by taking on people who were not strong enough to help them or quick enough to keep out of sight. They have to make other choices, too. The Russian army will give them some minimal protection but only if they will join forces and devote their energy to fighting the Nazis, just just hiding from them. Zus joins them but Tuvia stays on to take care of the people who are not capable of fighting.

The natural world of the forest is for the escapees a sort of Arden where many things are turned upside down. Back in the village, social status depended on class, profession, education, devotion to religious study and ritual. The Bielskis had none of these. In the forest, status depends on the ability to survive in the forest, including the ability to find a balance between asking and telling everyone what to do. Tuvia falls somewhere between achieving greatness and having it thrust upon him. He never wanted to be a leader; he certainly never wanted everyone to depend on him. And most of all, he never wanted to make the tragic choices he must make, to have to find out that he is a person capable of killing and of moral compromise.

Brad Pitt is a very fine actor (see "Twelve Monkeys" and "True Romance") but in this epic fantasy his diligent and thoughtful performance contributes less to the film than his appearance, about two-thirds of the way through. I mean appearance in the broadest sense. It is not until that point that we feel that the Pitt we have been waiting for shows up on screen. And it is at that moment that Pitt's appearance, meaning his golden movie star beauty, provides the essential jolt that propels the story forward into its final, heart-wrenching conclusion.

It takes its title from a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man who lives his life backwards, born as an old man and getting younger every day. The movie begins with both of its main characters very, very old. One is Daisy (Cate Blanchett), dying in a hospital, with her daughter standing vigil. Daisy asks her daughter to read aloud from an old diary and we go back to the Armistice, the end of World War I. A baby is born and his mother dies in childbirth. The father is horrified by the child and leaves him on the doorstep of a home for the elderly where he is adopted by Queenie (the marvelous Taraji P. Henson), who works at the home. At first he seems like an exceptionally ugly baby. And then as he gets older he seems to be disabled. A nursing home is a perfect environment for young Benjamin Button. He's just another person who needs help. He is raised in an atmosphere of unconditional love and acceptance and grows up to have a gentle and observant nature.

One day a little girl comes to visit her grandmother. It is Daisy. Benjamin looks like a very old man but he is really a little boy and he wants to play with her. As she grows up, he gets younger, but there are still decades between them. Benjamin leaves the nursing home to work on a ship and writes to Daisy from around the world.

The digital effects are very well done and by this time Pitt starts to become more recognizable, so almost-familiar that we almost believe that this is the way he looks now, that he's getting a little older like the rest of us. And then, all of a sudden, there he is, the wind brushing his hair, a burnished glow on, around, and coming from him, the very personification of youth and promise and every possible kind of yes. Our hearts ache with the bittersweet longing for what he has that no one ever will, the look and energy of youth with the wisdom and experience of age. And then they ache again with what he shares with us and every human, the awareness of how brief it all really is and the need for connection to transcend life's limits.

This is a film with the scope and reach of almost a century but its power comes from the smallest gestures and the simplest moments. And its ultimate conclusion is one of the most powerful and moving of the year.

Reposting for Easter -- Have a blessed celebration, everyone!

Ben-Hur is the traditional Easter classic, but there are some other films that beautifully illuminate the themes of this holy season. I like The Gospel of John, a very reverent re-telling of the story of Jesus. The rock musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell can be very inspiring. But I have a special fondness for The Gospel According to St. Matthew, the understated, intimate re-telling of the story filmed by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

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