Really?
Genre's inherently fascinating to me and I'm particularly interested by works that resist genre. All routinised consumption is inherently generic in some respects, but conventions of form and content mean the generic qualities are contained within the works themselves, which makes them more transferable.
(As opposed to, say, a generic mode of consumption - for example the critic who gets off not on the qualities of the work, but the repetitious, routinised analysis of the diverse characteristics of various works.)
Genre means repeatability, which means production and consumption, which means an established audience and therefore an increased opportunity for cultural impact. Repetitious conventions mean strong expectations, which means a powerful surprise value for works which partially resist genre.
A lot of the most culturally significant and effective work will therefore always be made at the boundaries of genre.
I'm not saying Tarantino is hugely significant and effective, but since the Kill Bill films he's been making works with a richer political dimension, which has made him more interesting to me.
To me Inglourious Basterds is a worthwhile film because it uses playful genre overlays to change the prevailing affective dimension of films about WWII and the Holocaust - with reference to earlier more flippant Nazi-hunting works of course, among other things.
Yes, there's a nerdy vacuousness to the process (which critics abet by playing "spot the reference") but there's also an effect which can't be achieved by a solemn, self-serious, formally mainstream work like Downfall (Nazis) or The Pianist (the Holocaust).
I would love to see someone with a subtler mind than Tarantino's do a number on the genius biopic genre.
