Inglorious movie

The 1967 film “Two for the Road,” directed by Stanley Donen, written by Frederic Raphael, starring Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn, is a glorious work of art. Stylish, witty, multifariously funny, it memorably takes up the theme of love and marriage. It is certainly one of the highlights of Raphael’s long and distinguished career as a writer.
Someone at Commentary — my guess is editor John Podhoretz, who is himself an outstanding film critic — has had the inspired idea of getting Raphael to write about movies for the magazine. in the October issue of Commentary Raphael brings his knowledge of film as well as his biting wit to bear on Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglorious Basterds.” Raphael’s essay on the film is “Inglorious movie.”
I thought that Tarantino’s film would more aptly have been titled “Stupid Bastards.” It struck me as something of a filmmaker’s inside joke about filmmaking. Raphael hilariously shows it is all that, and less.