Last night, the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS, the primary higher educational institution of the Conservative Movement) hosted a screening and panel on Inglourious Basterds. ( To catch up on how the candler blog feels about the film, you can check Sunrise Tippeconnie’s essay, Once Upon a Time in Violence Occupied Cinema, which was written for the film’s theatrical release.) Though an appearance by Quentin Tarantino was promised, the auteur was a no show claiming a sore throat (he gets the benefit of the doubt from me). Luckily, the producer of the film, Lawrence Bender, one of QT’s hebraic guides on the project, was in attendance to discuss the topic of “Jewish Persecution and the Fantasy of Revenge” alongside Dr. Amy Kalmanofsky, a bible and horror film scholar, and Rabbi Jack Moline, a pulpit Rabbi in Virginia whose Kol Nidre sermon about Inglourious Basterds sparked the institution’s interest in hosting such an event. Also, leading the panel was the school’s Chancellor, Arnold M. Eisen. Phew, now you have all the details, so how was it?

This was my third public screening of the film, though the first one on video. I have to say, if you missed this movie on film, you pretty much missed it. But that’s neither here nor there. This was an academic event so I gave some leeway on projected quality, though I will say I’ve seen much worse in other college auditoriums. Unsurprisingly, watching the film in a room full of mostly Jews, mind you months after the film had been unleashed on the masses, was barely different from watching the film in a room full of gentiles. Duh. A great fry cook once said “peoples is peoples”, of course, these are the chosen people watching their greatest enemies slaughtered on screen with great flair. There must be something different. Read on…