This feeling is perfectly agreeable to film critics, who accumulate this kind of arcane trivia (Jonathan Demme; soul tracks by Bobby Womack; 34 minutes) and so think of themselves as pretty smart.  But the average moviegoer (yes, we think of you as average) just wants to be entertained.

In his first three films, Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Jackie Brown (1997), everyone wins—theatrical, memorable (and excessively talkative) characters try to stay alive through increasingly hopeless scenarios while every available shot, location, throwaway line and hand prop provides inside references for aficionados of world cinema.

His next two endeavours—the double-volume pan-Asian homage Kill Bill (2003 and 2004) and the double-feature ode to 1970s American B-movies, Grindhouse (2007)—overindulged in intertextual density and underwhelmed the public.

Inglourious Basterds heralds Tarantino’s return to form.  Structured as a series of ‘chapters’ telling interconnected stories (like Pulp Fiction), the film defies easy summary.  However, here goes: during World War II in Nazi-occupied Paris, a German film premiere becomes the target of three offensives, by the French, the British and a group of American combatives known as The Basterds.

Every Tarantino picture is a post-modern pastiche, and Inglourious Basterds is no exception.  Civil-rights era American war movies like The Guns of Navarone (1961), The Great Escape (1963) and especially The Dirty Dozen (1967) featured eclectic bands of soldiers who overcome internal differences to battle a common—invariably German—enemy.

Inglourious Basterds, which takes its title from a 1978 Italian copycat of The Dirty Dozen, reproduces the dynamic with a group of mostly Jewish-American infantrymen cobbled together by a Southern lieutenant with alleged Amerindian heritage, Aldo Raine (deliciously overplayed by Brad Pitt).  Pitt’s character is brashly, brazenly all-American, in a loose inheritance of similar roles played by older hunks Gregory Peck and Steve McQueen.

As in his other work, Tarantino eschews an original score in favor of repurposed tracks from other, older films, including several musical selections by famed Italian composer Ennio Morricone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; Once Upon a Time in the West).

Though epic in scale, budget and execution, Inglourious Basterds retains Tarantino’s trademark rhythm—long stretches of dialogue that explode into moments of extreme violence.  Like any good filmmaker, he keeps making the same movie over and over without repeating himself.  Signature elements clock in regularly—the inclusion of a Mexican standoff (where three or more characters point guns at each other) and the dangerous thrill of a woman’s bare feet—without threatening the integrity of the story.

Tarantino’s relationship with cinema is that of someone towards their spouse of forty years, which is about how long he’s been watching movies.  He can’t help but adore it—wholeheartedly, unrepentingly, and forever—but also knows its shortcomings and shortcuts, its successes and failures.  He knows it, as a friend and as an enemy, exploring its boundaries and possibilities.  Inglourious Basterds is another labour of love (ten years in the making) from a man who wants all of us—even the average ones—to have that feeling.

Hasbro is a big American toy company—only rival Mattel is larger. Hasbro sells Monopoly, Scrabble, Pictionary, Clue, Trivial Pursuit and dozens of other household brands—Tonka, Tinkertoys, Nerf, Mr. Potato Head, Play-Doh, Transformers and so on. The people who run Hasbro are very, very rich.

In 1963, jealous of Mattel’s success with Barbie, Hasbro launched a line of 12-inch soldier dolls for boys—Action Soldier, Action Sailor, Action Pilot and Action Marine (hence action figure). The original G.I. Joes flew off the shelves until America flew into Laos and Cambodia—preventing both Hasbro and the White House from selling war for the next decade-and-a-half.

G.I. Joe redeployed in 1985 with smaller molds and smarter marketing (to be copied by George W. Bush after 9/11)—now they were an elite international force defending “human freedom against a ruthless terrorist organization.”  There were comic books and a TV show, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, which ran weekdays on the networks. (Washington prefers to demonize al-Qaida in prime-time.) Once again, Hasbro couldn’t stamp the plastic figurines fast enough.

A Real American Hero was everything the rest of the world (that’s us!) dislikes about Americans—loud, simplistic, disingenuous and culturally tone-deaf. For instance, the ethnic-cleansing names for some of the white characters—Cutter, Torch and Sgt. Slaughter—juxtaposed with the Native American Joe, code-named Spirit (what else?), who sported braids, epigrammatic English and a pet eagle, Freedom. The Joes were not scared high-school dropouts of all races from low-income towns (like the real American “heroes”), but fearless, steroid-pumped Aryan musclemen.

Of course, racist war propaganda will only entertain children for so long. The American Hero line was retired in 1994. Which brings us to Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Hasbro’s Hollywood honcho, the man responsible for the two Transformers movies just past, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra right now, and millions of toy sales in the future.

The Rise of Cobra can best be described as a wall of noise and sound for people who like to bang their heads into walls, transporting a team of Joes from a green-screen Sahara Desert to a green-screen underwater base to a green-screen North Pole to, well, it doesn’t even matter. Channing Tatum, who plays Duke, defends the movie’s awfulness this way: “It’s a huge, 170-million-dollar movie. It’s just a big, kid sort-of driven film.” Oh. Okay, then. Paramount, who made and promoted the movie, refused to even screen the film for American critics. It’s as if your husband said you didn’t look fat, and then traded the car for a forklift.

To answer the absurdity question, the movie is worse, even though in one episode of the TV show, a dog saves the Joes by using his paws to pump a handcar out of a mineshaft.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra centers around a swarm of nano-bug-things that can eat a city. Yes, you read that right. It doesn’t spoil anything to tell you they try to eat Paris. There are costumed freaks trying to spill the bugs—the Baroness, Storm Shadow, the Doctor—and costumed freaks trying to kill the bugs—Duke, Ripcord, Scarlett, Snake Eyes and Heavy Duty. They fight—in the air, on the ground, under the water. Nobody really wins, except Hasbro. Nobody really loses, except us.

All that’s left to say is: Go, Joe. Please go.