The Best Mantan Moreland Movies I've Ever Seen on a Sunday Afternoon

Thanks to the day from Hell at work, I'm running extremely late with no clear idea as to what I'm going to post about today. So, I thought that I'd ramble on a bit about some of the things I watched over the weekend. In between catching up with hours of TV programmes I'd recorded, I also wound up watching several Mantan Moreland films. Now, if you don't know who Mantan Moreland was - look him up. I have to say that, despite the fact that the movies in question dated back to the 1940s, they were amongst the most enjoyable things I watched. Having established who Mantan Moreland was with a quick Google check, (as I'm sure you've just done), you are probably wondering why I was watching several of his films. Well, the answer, I hope, will become clear in the next Sleazecast, (for which I actually managed to record about two minutes of audio yesterday).

But on to other things I watched, most notably a Quentin Tarantino film. Now, if not exactly a fan, I have enjoyed most of the Tarantino films I've seen, so I was mildly surprised to find that, when I finally got round to watching it yesterday, I didn't really like Inglorious Basterds. It wasn't that it was badly made, or anything. I just found it unengaging and, well, dull. I think that pert of the problem was that Tarantino's style just didn't suit the subject matter. Like all of his films, it was dialogue-heavy, with lengthy scenes of characters just talking, (which I don't have problem with as he generally writes engaging dialogue), which are severely hampered by the fact that too many of them are conducted in subtitles. Whilst I have nothing against subtitled films (I own quite a few), the fact is that Tarantino's dialogue just doesn't sparkle when rendered in a couple of lines of text at the bottom of the screen. Consequently, these sequences simply drag. Add to that the fact that the film has no real sense of time or place, (both of which are crucial for movies with historical settings, in order to encourage the audience to suspend their disbelief) - it all seems to take place in some kind of vaguely 1940s limbo - and you have two and a half plus hours of a few good scenes punctuated by long stretches of stuff that can't hold my attention. Which is a pity, because I was quite looking forward to watching it. To be honest, I found my umpteenth viewing of Kelly's Heroes the previous weekend more entertaining!