(Note: I watched the theatrical cut)

For the life of me, I can't understand why this film has such a bad reputation. Visually, it's stunning. The set design is incredibly detailed, with every square inch oozing or rusting or crawling with lice. The atmosphere it creates is powerful, and fits in nicely with the rest of the universe. It's shot well, with occasional quick cuts maintaining a sense of tension, and there's good attention to color.

The performances are all…

CW: Nazis, racism, white confession/soul-searching

Watch it here

I am white. I live in the United States. I am 28 years old. I do not like to think of myself as a racist.

For a long time, I believed that racism was a fairly limited problem. A thin smattering of loony individuals hidden among the fringes of a few (exclusively southern) states. There might be faux-pas or hot-headed remarks from otherwise decent white people but bonafide racism, I thought, was…

To call this movie problematic would be an understatement. Its gender politics are beyond the pale... Except that it says something somewhat interesting about trauma and (potentially) redemption. Held next to another film I watched this week, I guess there is one narrow way in which it didn't max out the misogyny.

So, that sucks. I still managed to have some fun though. Robert Rodriguez has a knack for bringing together unlikely ensamble casts. Consider that Machete (2010) starred Steven…