the buzz log

The buzz around "Inglourious Basterds" isn't just around the sprawling wonder, but also the return to glory for director Quentin Tarantino.

The WWII film starring Brad Pitt is a remake (of sorts) of a 1978 Italian spy movie, except with the director's hallmarks of dense dialogue and irreverent humor jutting out of bloody moments. After the crash-and-burn of "Grindhouse," Tarantino once more is proving himself the ultimate mash-up artist.

Mash or Rehash?
Perhaps more clearly than any current director around, the former video-clerk geek's love of movies transcends genre. His vision has sometimes been carried out more like fan fiction: what-if scenarios of familiar characters and plot twists.

Not that the global movie industry doesn't have its own long, revered history of cinematic sharing, like spaghetti Westerns, classics such as "The Seven Samurai" and "The Magnificent Seven," or early Jackie Chan kung fu comedies borrowing from American silent stars Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.

But his high-octane level of unabashed riffing has gotten Tarantino accused of being a plagiarist. The Star-Ledger points out his "fusion cuisine" style of filmmaking has also been called derivative or even outright stealing—accusations that have been with Tarantino since his first breakthrough directorial effort, "Reservoir Dogs." (The reputation has even earned him a less-than-stellar entry in the Urban Dictionary.)

Everyone's a Homage Artist
The timing of "Inglourious Basterds" hasn't come just in time to revive a dinged reputation. Seventeen years since Tarantino first hit the theaters, video mash-ups, fan fiction, and music sampling have become the standard in entertainment. And blogging and retweeting have reinforced a more freewheeling notion of shared creative efforts and ideas. In other words, technology and the Web have made everyone capable of being a Tarantino. 

So in re-evaluating the legacy, is it "scene-stealing" (as Wired once called it in detailed scene-by-scene comparisons), using movie shorthand, or simply mini-remakes of great moments? From a Tarantino filmography, here are some movies that inspired his films.

THE TARANTINO FILMS AND THEIR INSPIRATIONS
• "Reservoir Dogs" (1992). Among the many influences such as "Le Doulos" and "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three," the most controversial was "City on Fire," as critics felt Tarantino had not mentioned the Hong Kong film during early interviews.
• "Pulp Fiction" (1994). Entertainment Weekly sussed out celluloid "antecedents" including "A Woman is a Woman" (1961), "Something Wild" (1986), "Out of the Past (1947)," "The Set-Up" (1949), and "Kiss Me Deadly" (1955). Web critics also point to "Drugstore Cowboy" (1989).
• "Jackie Brown" (1997). Adapted from an Elmore Leonard novel, inspired by 1970s blacksploitation.
• "Kill Bill" (2003, 2004) — London's Institute of Contemporary Arts did a showing of inspirations "Female Convict Scorpion" (1972), "Lady Snowblood" (1973), "A Cruel Picture" (1974), and "The Doll Squad" (1973). Of course, as clearly shown with the casting of Gordon Liu ("Master of the 36th Chamber"), a debt of gratitude is owed to 1970s Hong Kong kung fu cinema. (A 2003 Entertainment News Wire article reported Tarantino was on a daily kung fu movie diet while writing the film)
• "Grindhouse" (2007). The entire B-movie subculture, although a wiki at Tarantino.info says his muse may have come from posters for "Drag Strip Girl" and "Rock All Night." Critics decimated the film, and wondered if the Wonder Boy had lost his touch.
• "Inglourious Basterds" (2009). Except for some deliberately manic misspelling, the title is the same as the original 1978 spy film, "Inglorious Bastards." The Italian flick just came out on DVD and includes a 40-minute back-and-forth with Tarantino and his "hero," Italian director Enzo Castellari.