Inglorious Basterds and Crime and Punishment

Yay! I finished Crime and Punishment! It's took soooo long! That's right. 4 "o"s. It must be long.

: )

(that's what she said?)

All sexual innuendos aside, it's a great book. Just a little slow. I had a few trepidations about undertaking this book. I've heard a lot of good things about Dostoyevsky, but not one of them were for the ease of reading and comprehension. While I certainly did not grasp all of the intricacies in the book, it was still moving, enlightening, fascinating and entertaining. It's about Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, a poor destitute college dropout during the 19th Century who kills an old pawnbroker and her sister. And the rest is about how he struggles with himself and others. It's very interesting. In one scene, while I was riding the bus, I started crying. I typically don't cry while reading, so this must be a good book. Highly Recommended.

Today I also watched the Quentin Tarantino movie Inglorious Basterds. It was really really good. If this film had been done by any other director, it would have been highly disturbing and unpleasant for me to watch. however, Tarantino has a way with the gore and violence that most directors cannot pull off, and couldn't even if they tried. It's a very historically incorrect WWII movie, in which Brad Pitt leads a team of Jewish American soldiers deep into occupied France to scalp Nazis and generally terrorize the German army. Ends pretty epically. Normally, I abhor historical incorrectness, but it's Quentin Tarantino and it's really damn obvious that it's incorrect (rather than the typical "let's tweak history and pass it off as fact" that a lot of movies have) so I forgive him easily. Good, entertaining movie. I don't think there were any characters I would choose to emulate in my life, but none of the characters are presented as role models, so that's okay too. They're just presented as awesome and bad-ass. They're shown as the war heroes who no one in their right mind wants to be. If you're Mom, don't see it. You wouldn't like it.