Inglourious Basterds (2009)

"I'm French. We respect directors in our country."

Meh. Quentin Tarantino doesn't exactly make bad films- this is still well shot, and remains fun to watch in spite of everything- but I enjoyed Inglourious Basterds significantly less than any other Tarantino film I've seen, and I've seen most. In fact, I'd go as far as to say this film is merely good rather than great, and for a filmmaker like Tarantino that is criticism indeed.

So what doesn't quite work? Structurally and aesthetically it's as clever as ever, with a non-linear yet easy to follow chapter structure and loads of fun set pieces. I love the chutzpah in the cheerful deliberate ignoring of history by having Hitler and all the senior Nazis die in June 1944. The long dialogue scenes are there, too. But this time they fail to sing without the pop culture references. Christoph Waltz puts in an outstanding performance as the main SS baddie, but he's much better in a less cliched role in Django Unchained.

I think, perhaps, it's an unevenness of tone; little touches like Mike Myers' exaggerated plummy accent and, yes, Brad Pitt's entire misjudged performance take you out of the events.Tarantino has shown a mastery of humour and fourth wall-breaking in the past, but always with an assuredness that is missing here. Perhaps it's simply that Quentin Tarantino, master of so many genres, simply doesn't have quite the same sureness of touch when it comes to the Second World War film. Still, I'd like to see him try again someday.

Django Unchained (2012)

"Kill white people and get paid for it? What's not to like?"

This is, to date, the only film by Quentin Tarantino that I've seen since Kill Bill. It is, like all his films since then, removed from his particular strong point of witty, pop culture-peppered dialogue by being set in the past. It's as though Tarantino likes to challenge himself, but then that's what he does. He's doing a Western this time- well, a Southern- complete with classic style opening and Ennio Morricone opening tune.

He may deny himself the indulgence of cool dialogue here, but he delivers a hugely entertaining, gory and beautifully shot film as he always does, giving us the full graphic detail of slavery in the antebellum south. This is a refreshing antidote, brutal though it can be to watch, to the whitewashed Gone with the Wind version of the south. Before 1865 the place was backwards, feudal, pre-capitalist, savage. And it wasn't even that long ago.

Jamie Foxx is great as Django, a freed slave with a mission to save his wife who grows throughout the film from enslaved beginnings to the assertive badass hero he was destined to be. Leonardo Di Caprio is superb as the slaveowning baddie, the kind of part he should play more often. Samuel L. Jackson is deeply disturbing as the collaborator, Stephen. But it is Christoph Waltz, as Dr Schultz, the educated, witty German bounty hunter and the only civilised white person in the film, who steals the show, oozing coolness at all times.

Tarantino seems incapable of anything short of brilliance. This film is so good we can even forgive his brave attempt at an Aussie accent...