I went to my local Carmike Cinemas to see Quentin Tarentino’s latest opus, Inglourious Basterds, and I must say I was worried going in.  Reviews have been mixed, split right down the middle, but I was determined to see for myself what Tarentino was up to.  He’s easily one of my favorite filmmakers and any new offering from him is a welcome respite from the normal dreck I’m subjected to at the cinema.

Basterds is equal parts Dirty Dozen, Guns of Navarone and, perhaps The Young Lions as well as some French masterpiece about the love of cinema that I’ve never seen but am confident of its existence.   The film  is divided up into chapters that at times can seem disparate from each other, but all tie together nicely by the last couple of chapters of the movie.

The film is gory and fun, well-written and well-acted.  All in all this was a very, very solid entry into Tarentino’s filmography.

One particular aspect of the film that I loved more than most was how Tarentino seemed to pay homage to film projectionists, people who care about film, cinephiles and passionate people willing to battle the Nazi’s for what’s right.  There’s also a bit of a love-letter/history lesson about nitrate film and even the film itself is used in the plot to kill Hitler and his lieutenants.

Which is why it was so disappointing to me that I saw the film in a theatre that was projecting a 35mm print and the projectionists really didn’t seem to care.  From the get-go, the film was blurry at times, the print was scratched in a few key places, there were missplices at the reel changovers, there were missing frames, the credits burned out after 15 seconds and 3/4s of the film was slightly out of frame.  It was so frustrating to watch the film (which I enjoyed very much) run by a group of kids who obviously didn’t care enough about the film to play it properly.  But maybe that’s not fair, maybe Carmike Cinemas is to blame.  I worked as a projectionist for over 10 years and a lot of those were for Carmike Cinemas (I got laid off when they decided that four theatres in one building isn’t enough even though I think it’s two or three too man) and it’s a systemic problem they have.  They make the managers double as projectionists (which I did happily) but they give the management too many screens and things to take care of to truly make the projection top notch.

And as the credits started, the film began to burn, which is a shame, since I love watching credits and doubly so during Quentin Tarentino movies because the music is always so compelling.  (In fact the use of Ennio Morricone in this film made me very, very happy.) I went out in to the lobby to demand a refund for the poor projection and the breaking of the film, but, alas, I saw the last show of the night and the management was stretched so thin that there was literally no representative of the company there to even assuage my anger.

And so here I am, writing this.

If any representative of Carmike Cinemas manages to read this, I would be happy to accept a refund.  And I would also be happy to offer some suggestions to fix the problem.  Namely, hire dedicated projectionists that are cinephiles and actually care about film and make that their ONLY responsibility.  And don’t let them be in charge of more than 5 or 6 projectors at a time.  I know the company has a long history of tripping over dollars to pick up dimes (I saw it everyday as part of management there), but this is something that is too important to worry about the cost.

In the meantime, go find a digital projection version of Inglourious Basterds, or see it at an art house where the projectionists are far more likely to care that the film plays well.