The climactic burning of a French cinema posed the most daring vfx challenge, involving the appropriate fire and projected screen image. All images courtesy of Francois Duhamel/ The Weinstein Co.

Check out clips and the trailer from Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds at AWNtv!

For Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds represents the culmination of his love of World War II buddy films, the French New Wave and spaghetti westerns. This is old-school moviemaking, to be sure, about revenge set in an alternate history, in which Jews band together to assassinate Hitler, structured in a very formalistic fashion. And to design the visual effects, he appropriately called on an old master: John Dykstra (Hancock, Spider-Man, Stuart Little, Star Wars). In this exclusive interview, Dykstra describes what it was like collaborating with Tarantino and CIS Hollywood.

Bill Desowitz: I had a blast watching Inglourious Basterds; it must've been a blast making it. What was it like working with Tarantino for the first time?

John Dykstra: Oh, yeah. It was fun -- we had a good time. The thing I like about working with Quentin Tarantino is that he has a fresh approach to filmmaking and is unlike any of the other directors I've worked with.

BD: How so?

JD: It's just that he's passionate about the making of his film, and, as you can see, he makes it in a structure that suits him. And the thing that's great about it is, whether you agree with the structure or not, it's consistent. Now I happen to like this film, but I can see how others might not: it's broken up into pieces -- small vignettes. But the thing that's interesting to me is that he's got the courage of his convictions and he makes his scenes that are long with the tension building up over a long period of time as opposed to keeping things moving at a really fast clip, which is a courageous thing to do.

BD: He's very much a classicist. But the way he often goes over the top can be frustrating.

JD: The trick is this: I think you also become aware of the fantasy aspect of the film as you move on. He's always been about telling his story his way, and it's a fictional piece, an alternate history.