For those who read my “Jew Dogs”/Inglourious Basterds review from two or three days ago, this quote from Quentin Tarantino, given to bfi.org, will strike a familiar chord:

“Now, where I bring in, to me, some resonance to the piece is… Look, I’m not changing what the Basterds are doing at all. But there’s my portrayal of the German sergeant. He’s not a cringing coward. He’s very brave. He’s actually heroic if you consider his point of view on the subject. So I’m not making it easy for you. And I never make it easy in this movie.

“You can enjoy what the Basterds are doing, and I set it up for you to enjoy it. But I don’t make it that easy. The Basterds don’t have any problem killing everybody in that theatre — the wives of the officers, the girlfriends. The Basterds’ view is, fuck those consorting-with-the-enemy bitches. That’s where they’re coming from. Maybe you don’t feel that way. Maybe you have a problem with it. The Basterds feel: Fuck ’em. How you feel about it is how you feel about it. But it is not easy.

“The same thing again with Fredrick Zoller. Under any criteria of heroic action in war, Zoller meets those criteria. If Audie Murphy is a hero, Fredrick Zoller is a hero.”

Don’t believe that “not making it easy” stuff. The movie makes it clear that Tarantino is down with the Basterds and their indiscriminate killings. He’s not trying to make it hard for anyone. It’s served up like fast food. He’s saying “this is cool, this is rad…can you dig it, chickie-poo?”