OLR: Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Great characters, multilingual dialogue and plot; Tarantino completely redeems himself for the Death Proof misfire. (8/10)

d. Quentin Tarantino

OLR: Death Proof (2007)

The theme music, Stuntman Mike, the car stunts and the girls kicking ass at the end were properly grindhousey, but the endless yapping in the in-between parts dragged the whole movie away from that intended theme. (7/10)

d. Quentin Tarantino

[Also watched the trailers for Werewolf Women of the SS, Don't and Thanksgiving, plus the ad for the Acuña Boys restaurant. For reasons no one can fathom, these are missing from the American DVD and BD releases. I had to rip them from the expensive, 6-disc Japanese DVD set so that I could have a proper Grindhouse double-feature tonight. While Nicolas Cage is inspired casting for Fu Manchu in WWotSS, the spot-on slasher trailer Thanksgiving is the winner in this batch.]

[That makes an even 222 movies for the year 2008.]

Tarantino (2005)

2005 - CSI: "Grave Danger" - As with E.R., this is another show that I hate but watched a lot due to the wife turning it on. A decade after his last TV effort, Tarantino puts a deeper stamp into this show than he did prior. Tarantino writing the story in addition to directing probably helped in this regard.

What did he accomplish? He buried -- The Bride-style -- one of the leads and got him to cry like a baby. He hired the always-great B-actor John Saxton… then blew him into little bits. He used Tony Curtis and Frank Gorshin as colorful background characters in a casino scene. He refrained from any close-ups of feet. In short, it was much more entertaining than a typical episode of this series.

This definitely fits between Kill Bill and Grindhouse. (7/10)

Tarantino (2004-2005)

2004 - Kill Bill: Vol. 2 - This is the half where the meat of the story was inserted, I see. A jilted lover seeks revenge. The jilting lover seeks revenge for that revenge. Because they're both professional killers, mass-slaughters ensue. Lesson: never have anything to do with professional killers.

Unlike the carnage she wrought in the first film, The Bride only kills one person this time out. It's not nearly as exciting a flick to watch. This could barely be called a martial arts film, though it does contain the training sequence the first film lacked. After her super-human rampage in the prior movie, it's terribly disappointing to see The Bride almost immediately taken down by a strip club bouncer living in a trailer in the desert. I suppose this is Tarantino's way of preparing us for the final half of the film; it's a reminder that The Bride is human. To be sure, she gets out of her impossible scrape by employing another super-human feat and has a brief marital arts battle with Elle, but the tone of the series is different.

My interest in the film only perked up when The Bride finally found Bill. She discovers him with their daughter, who she thought was lost. I couldn't wait to see how this played out. She came to kill Bill, but how can she kill the only parent her daughter's ever known? She can, but it isn't easy.

Speaking as a huge fan of the character, I see Superman a bit differently than Bill. Bill argued that, unlike other superheroes, Superman's true disguise was his Clark Kent suit and tie. Superman wakes up as Superman, he claimed, and has to put on his idea of a human identity in order to walk among us unnoticed. I disagree. This view of the character ignores an important part of his background: Superman was raised by human parents. His American, mid-western values are as a part of the character's make-up as his alien biology. Superman is culturally a human, just as a Russian raised from infancy by Americans in America would be culturally American. My point, however, is that Superman is almost always disguised in a secret identity. Wearing the red, blue and yellow, he's a public servant and the world's greatest hero. Wearing a suit and tie and accidentally knocking into things like a clumsy oaf, he's undercover in the big city, looking and listening for wrongs that need Superman's attention. Neither of these are his true identities. He's only truly himself when he's at home with his folks. There, he can relax as the simple, though gifted, farmboy that he is. But, Bill's/Quentin's argument worked well in the context of the film.

This series will work better edited into one film. Split in half, it's inevitable that the two will be compared against each other, even though neither tell the whole tale. Still, though there was some tasty story in this volume, it wasn't quite enough to fill the whole two hours as the action sequences did in the previous film. (8/10)


2005 - Sin City: The Big Fat Kill: "Designated Driver" - Tarantino's turn as "Guest Director" on Sin City refers to the scene in which Dwight imagines the corpse of Jackie Boy is talking to him as he drives to the tar pits. It was mostly just Tarantino's way of trying out Rodriguez's beloved HD camera. Outside of that, it's just a standard car conversation scene. It's shot through the windows. There are lights passing over the occupants' faces to simulate motion. Nothing particularly Tarantino-esque here. (5/10)

Tarantino (2003)

2003 - Kill Bill: Vol. 1 - I've been waiting to see this movie for years. At first, I refused to buy the DVDs due to some honest, though infuriating, remarks from a Miramax exec. After giving in and buying the "non-special" editions, it was too late: I had to wait for this 'thon to get going. Was it worth the 4-year wait? Yes, I think it was. This flick is a ball of concentrated ass-kicking. I had a blast watching it.

This has got to be the best martial arts film ever directed by a white guy. I'm sure getting the bad-ass Sonny Chiba to be your fight choreographer helps significantly. As I remarked to C after the first fight between The Bride and Vernita Green, the action sequences are the "real deal." They're super-fast and super-violent, with just a touch of Tarantino charm (as when we see the school bus arrive and drop Green's daughter off amid the fury of a knife fight). They're as fun and exciting to watch as an authentic Asian martial arts movie. I was reminded a bit of my favorite, Duel to the Death.

I loved the soundtrack, which is always one of Tarantino's strong points. This time, he cleverly assembles song selections taken from other movies and TV shows. Uma was excellent in the lead role. She conveyed the proper amount of strength and icy resolve to sell the part. The cinematography was beautiful, capturing the carnage in well-framed shots. I dug the story: I'm always a fan of a good revenge flick.

My one complaint: I think the anime sequence should've been cut. I like anime just fine, but it felt a little incongruous stuffed into the middle of this film. It also takes the focus away from The Bride's story for the first and only time, which I felt was a mistake. I don't really care about O-Ren's past; I just want to see her kick her ass kicked by The Bride. I would've made this a part of a series of backstory animes, to be released separately like The Animatrix.

To Quentin: for the love of Pete, just get it out of your system. Film a full-on foot fetish movie, sell it to Vivid or some other adult company, and be done with it. During "The Bride Conquers Atrophy" scene -- not having the miss-wired brain to appreciate the sexual aspects of it -- all I could think was: "Man, shoes really do mess up feet." (second thought: "Buck was painting her toenails?")

Though never reaching the level of greatness of Pulp Fiction, this is still quite a tasty burger. (9/10)

Tarantino (1997)

1997 - Jackie Brown - Technically, I can't really think of anything wrong with this film, save it being, perhaps, a bit overlong. Tarantino stages his scenes to please the eye. The casting is spot on. De Niro, as always, disappears into his role. The resurrection of grindhouse vets Pam Grier and Robert Forster into a big-budget modern film worked surprisingly well. Unsurprisingly, Tarantino's soundtrack choices were beyond criticism. The script, adapted from Elmore Leonard's novel Rum Punch, ran smoothly from start to finish. Still, the film doesn't really do anything for me.

Perhaps one reason is that the movie is essentially about a lady of "advancing age" who figures out a good way to retire to Europe. If you're casting '70s mainstays into the lead roles, the subject of aging is going to have to come up. I'm just not sure this is what me -- or the audiences at the time -- were looking for in a follow-up to Pulp Fiction. Tarantino's previous two -- successful -- films were about "gangsters doing gangster shit," non-chronological story weaving, revelations and growth of character. Here we have a couple of lonely people past their prime doing the standard "double-double cross" crime fiction jig. Personally, gimme The Big Lebowski if you're going to dance to that tune.

Rather than the double-crossing and money smuggling, I was mostly interested in Cherry's crush on Jackie. I do admire the decidedly non-Hollywood ending this subplot generates: Cherry's just too straight and narrow to let go of his life to cavort in Europe with a girl and some stolen money. The shot of Cherry sobbing, blurred, in the back of the frame was nice. But, it felt as though it was too little and too late. So much of the movie was spent elsewhere, outside of Jackie and Cherry's relationship, that this last grasp for some emotional resonance seemed slightly cheap. (7/10)

Tarantino & Rodriguez (addendum)

1995 - Four Rooms
"The Missing Ingredient" (directed by Allison Anders) - I enjoyed this one more than I used to (something I can also say for the entire movie). While a coven of female witches questing for sperm doesn't exactly ring true, it's all in good fun. Cartoony magic, a pretty topless girl with cherries in her hair and a resurrected goddess make for an entertaining into to the anthology. And, remember when Madonna was a kitschy actress who'd show up in random movies? Good times.

"The Wrong Man" (directed by Alexandre Rockwell) - For some reason, this segment's my favorite. Goofy noir. I particularly like Ted's speech about how he hates the name Theodore ("Pretty soon Theodore becomes 'Theo the Thumper'..."). His excuse, delivered perfectly by Tim Roth, for sitting on Angela's lap is also priceless: "I was just trying to help her breathe a little."

"The Misbehavers" (directed by Robert Rodriguez)

"The Man from Hollywood" (directed by Quentin Tarantino)

(7/10)

Tarantino (1995)

1995 - ER: "Motherhood" - C: "My girlfriend used to make me watch this all the time." Me: "My wife used to watch this all the time." Both: "I hated this show!" So, we weren't exactly fans going into this. I do understand why Tarantino wanted to direct an episode of this show. It's fast-paced and full of activity. There are wounded people being wheeled every-which-way through the hallways in every scene. There are a million characters to juggle. It's a never-ending barrage of goings-on and it would be a challenge for any director to manage it all.

There isn't really much here that is clearly Tarantino's, though. As is typical with episodic television, the director really isn't that important. He's the taskmaster that brings the writer's story to life while conforming to the producer's vision of the show. About the only thing that stood out to me as pure Tarantino were a couple of extended shots of women's bare feet.

If anything, this episode explains one reason George Clooney shows up in From Dusk Till Dawn. (6/10)


1995 - Four Rooms: "The Man from Hollywood" - What would happen if you got drunk and decided to imitate the bet from that Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode called "Man from the South"? Well, this is pretty much it. To complete the Hitchcock homage, this segment is shot with Rope-style long takes. The long takes aren't particularly impressive, but they do give the scene a more immediate, theater-ish feeling.

What I always liked about this segment was the ending. The lighter fails immediately. There isn't any faux-suspense bullshit: cut to close-up of a sweaty Norman focusing on his lucky lighter. Cut to close-up of lighter. Cut to close-up of Ted holding the hatchet. Cut to close-up of lighter lighting once. Twice. Three times. Cut to Norman looking nervous. Etc., etc. Nope. The lighter fails, the hatchet falls and the finger gets for-real cut off. Just like what would really happen to a bunch of drunks making this bet. (7/10)

Tarantino (1994)

1994 - Pulp Fiction - One of the most quotable movies of all time. By the time I made it to college in 1995, the VHS of this flick was in heavy rotation in the dorms. Every other sentence out of my schoolmate's mouths back then was a line from this movie. Jules' dialogue, naturally, was the favorite. The soundtrack was often played in people's CD players. A group of us even caught it replaying at a local theater. If anything, this movie offers me a lot of nostalgic comfort.

Luckily, it offers a lot more than that. It's a confident movie. It feels like Tarantino accomplished exactly what he set out to do with it. It sports vividly realized characters spouting endlessly entertaining dialogue, a masterfully assembled soundtrack, and a story arranged non-chronologically not just for the novelty. Pop culture references abound, but, unlike some things, they aren't necessary to enjoy the film. The movie works if you don't catch any of them and is even more fun if you do.

After the movie, we watched You're Still Not Fooling Anybody, Mike White's follow-up to his Who Do You Think You're Fooling?. Instead of comparing PF to another film with a similar plot, this short merely shows where some of the pop culture references in PF came from. The Ezekiel quote is from the opening scroll to Karate Kiba, the "pair of pliers and a blowtorch" line came from Charley Varrick, Butch encountering Marcellus at a crosswalk is like that scene in Psycho, etc. It's a weak effort to pin Tarantino with the charge of plagiarism and smells more like sour grapes.

Pulp Fiction: unless Kill Bill blows me away, this is Tarantino's best. It's also one of my favorite films of the 1990s. (9/10)

Tarantino (addendum)

1993 - True Romance (directed by Tony Scott) - I think it's probably lucky for Tarantino that he didn't get to direct this one. Billed as "Tarantino's follow-up to last year's smash Reservoir Dogs," it would've been nothing more than a disappointment. It's a decent enough crime flick, but -- outside of the infamous meeting between screen psychos Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper -- nothing too special. Tarantino rescues the character of Clarence and a lot of his dialogue from his unfinished first film. It's interesting to see the difference in delivery between Slater's Clarence and Tarantino's Clarence when they give the same speech about Elvis. I think I prefer Tarantino's acting; he was more passionate and believable talking about the King. (7/10)


1994 - Natural Born Killers (directed by Oliver Stone) - I think it's probably lucky for viewers that Tarantino didn't get to direct this one. Supposedly, the script started life as the second half of True Romance. It's hard to see how Clarence and 'Bama turned into Mickey and Mallory. Tarantino apparently felt the same way and disowned the film. Thirteen years later, it's still a spot-on parody of our media culture. How appropriate that I watched it on the day CNN shameful spent hours covering Paris' return to jail. Unsubtle as all get-out, but -- beginning with the Roadrunner beeps in the very first scene at the diner -- never meant to be anything else. (8/10)

Tarantino (1987-1991)

1987 - My Best Friend's Birthday - Due to a fire, only half of this film survives. Though it doesn't have any titles or credits, the extant portion seems to be the first half of the film. It's a comedy in which the main character -- played by an Elvis-pompadour-sporting Tarantino -- keeps trying to do nice things for his best friend on his birthday and those things end up backfiring on him.

Even if you didn't know this was a Tarantino movie -- and somehow didn't recognize his distinctive mug in the form of Clarence, a disc jockey at K-Billy -- you'd notice his influence in the film right away. Fresh out of the gate, he's already peppering his movies with watchable characters, good songs from prior decades and lengthy conversations about pop culture. The dialogue in this movie is just as entertaining (or annoying, depending on your view) as it will be in his future, more successful films. There are deep conversations about Eddie Cochran's tragic death, Elvis' acting ability and De Palma's Dressed to Kill. Clarence's inexperienced negotiations with a prostitute -- sorry, a call girl -- as a gift for his friend was nicely done. Clarence's line "I AM IN HELL!" after accidentally snorting some itching powder was one of the funniest things I've seen in a while.

Outside of the writing, the filmmaking isn't quite there. The camera was largely stationary. When it decided to move, it appeared to be just to play around. One shot slowly rotated around two characters talking, but a pool table lamp obscured their conversing faces for most of the time. The editing is pretty sloppy, too. I noticed a few instances where it appears that they stitched two takes from one shot directly together without cutting to something else to cover for the transition. But, that's just the type of thing you're forced to do when making a cheap movie.

Amateur, half-movie though it is, it's still a lot of fun. C and I were laughing up a storm. It's worth tracking down if you're a fan. (7/10)


1991 - Reservoir Dogs - It was one of the films that helped bring independent cinema to the mainstream's attention. It helped propel both Tim Roth and Michael Madsen's acting careers. It spawned a spate of hipster, ultra-violent crime flicks over the following decade. Not too bad for a kid who's first film got half-destroyed in a fire after working on it for three years.

Watching the movie again this time -- and maybe it was because I cranked the volume to appreciate the new DTS mix found on the 15th anniversary DVD -- I really noticed the music. Here's what I like about Tarantino's taste in music: it's not the same old shit. It's oldies music, but he rarely ever uses songs that you'd hear on your local oldies channel. In fact, looking over the artists who wrote the songs featured in the movie, I don't recognize a single one. Though he may be choosing the tunes partially for their nostalgic value, I get to listen to a variety of quirky, never- or seldom-heard songs like the fantastic "Little Green Bag" in the title sequence.

Casting is another of Tarantino's strengths that shines in this film. Tim Roth's performance as the undercover policeman is fantastic. His is the yardstick with which to measure anyone's portrayal of bleeding to death from a belly wound. Michael Madsen is just a good as the psychotic, cool-as-a-cucumber Mr. Blonde. Lawrence Tierney, Steve Buscemi, Chris Penn, Harvey Keitel: there ain't a dud in the group. Tarantino also wisely kills off the weakest actor early: Mr. Brown departs shortly after his "Like a Virgin" monologue.

After the movie, we watched Who Do You Think You're Fooling?, the infamous short showing the similarities between RD and the Hong Kong action flick City on Fire. I'll reserve judgment until CoF arrives from Netflix, but I suspect accusations of plagiarism are far too severe. I tend to think of Tarantino as a bebop musician of film, riffing on a variety of cool stuff he's seen others do, while mixing in his own style of story structure, tone, humor and dialogue.

Useless trivia: years ago, Robert Kurtzman came to my college to talk to a handful of film students and he brought The Ear with him as a show-and-tell item. It was a piece of latex.

C says: "I still think this is Tarantino's best movie." I think that honor belongs to the next one, but we'll see. (8/10)

Tarantino & Rodriguez (opening thoughts)

Free from my year on the SOL and my melted brain having recovered from writing 227 individual posts on that particular subject, I think I'm ready to tackle a "normal" chronocinethon. Or two. It makes sense to do both Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's films simultaneously. They work together so often and influence each other's work so much, they're essentially cinematic brothers.

Maybe my choice of directors is a bit strange at this time. They both just came out of a high-profile flop a couple of months ago, sending their "stock" in Hollywood to an all-time low. Instead of plowing ahead into the much anticipated Sin City sequel, Rodriguez is now working on a remake that I have next-to-no interest in. Tarantino is seemingly getting nowhere with his next film, which he's been working on for years.

Eh, whatever. I like their films and my amigo C agreed they'd be fun to get into right now. Our next ten or more weekends will be filled with Mexican vampires, botched jewel heists, underage spies and women wielding both swords and witty banter.

OLR: Sin City (2005)

Marv is a modern saint. (9/10)

d. Frank Miller & Robert Rodriguez & Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino (1963 -)

1. 1987 - My Best Friend's Birthday
1. 1991 - Reservoir Dogs
2. 1994 - Pulp Fiction
2. 1995 - ER: "Motherhood"
3. 1995 - Four Rooms: "The Man from Hollywood"
3. 1997 - Jackie Brown
4. 2003 - Kill Bill: Vol. 1
5. 2004 - Kill Bill: Vol. 2
4. 2005 - Sin City: The Big Fat Kill: "Designated Driver"
5. 2005 - CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: "Grave Danger: Volume 1"
6. 2005 - CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: "Grave Danger: Volume 2"
6. 2007 - Grindhouse: "Death Proof"

The Quentin Tarantino Chronocinethon
2 Jun 2007 - 4 Sep 2007

opening thoughts
1987-1991 - My Best Friend's Birthday, Reservoir Dogs
addendum - True Romance (Tony Scott), Natural Born Killers (Oliver Stone)
1994 - Pulp Fiction
1995 - Motherhood, The Man from Hollywood
addendum - The Missing Ingredient (Allison Anders), The Wrong Man (Alexandre Rockwell)
addendum - From Dusk Till Dawn (Robert Rodriguez)
1997 - Jackie Brown
2003 - Kill Bill: Vol. 1
2004-2005 - Kill Bill: Vol. 2, Designated Driver
2005 - Grave Danger

Prev: David Fincher
Next: Terry Gilliam (Non-Python)