What a collaboration! The muscular cinematic brauniness of Tony Scott, matched up with the idiosyncratic voice of Quentin Tarantino. Tony Scott masterfully pumps up Tarantino’s Godard-influenced lovers-turned-criminals road movie into a (pun not intended) breathless action picture full of wit, pathos and that bold Tony Scott panache.
Showing posts with label Quentin Tarantino. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quentin Tarantino. Show all posts
Friday, 22 November 2013
Monday, 7 October 2013
Jackie Brown
With immense expectations to meet or top his game-changer Pulp Fiction, back in 1997 QT delivered what now appears to be his most modest film to date, a rich experience in character and minus the cinematic razzle dazzle he’s injected into every film since then. Jackie Brown ages as well as any of his films including the lauded Pulp Fiction.
Monday, 31 December 2012
Django Unchained
Django Unchained is Tarantino at his most grisly, brutal, but also straightforward, a film made for instant satisfaction but little resonance. Tarantino’s pulp slavery-era Western is certainly in line with QT’s current fetish for grindhouse-worthy cult-cinema. While Django Unchained is more Inglourious Basterds than Death Proof, there’s a strange feeling of emptiness not present in both Kill Bill and Basterds. That said, I don’t think three hours have ever gone by faster for me in the cinema.
Thursday, 1 September 2011
Pulp Fiction
Starring: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Uman Thurman, Tim Roth, Ving Rhames, Amanda Plummer
****
By Alan Bacchus
We can’t underestimate the impact of this movie. The fact is, this film burst into the cinematic zeitgeist at large with a force comparable only to a few films in recent memory. It wasn’t a Jaws-like box office blockbuster, but it was a phenomenon just the same. From the extended opening dialogue scene full of inane ramblings from Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer, which flipped itself onto its head revealing the crazy lovebirds as free spirit criminals on a crime spree, to the opening credit sequence featuring an oddball mix of ‘50s surf music and ‘70s funk, Pulp Fiction was something fresh and new.
And yet, Pulp Fiction is really a collage of other movies delicately hidden beneath the recognizable Tarantino-isms. Many of us already knew and revered his bloody heist movie, Reservoir Dogs, a ‘60s Jean-Pierre Melville movie disguised as a clever ‘90s thriller. Some of the motifs transported into his second film included the retro-cool black and white suits with skinny black ties worn by the hitmen Jules and Vincent. There’s the hard-boiled attitude of his heavies, which is disarming based on his characters’ affable sense of humour and awareness of pop culture. There’s also Tarantino’s twisting narrative, which loops back and forth over itself like an Elmore Leonard novel, or in cinematic terms, Stanley Kubrick’s noir classic The Killing. Yet no one would ever refer to Pulp Fiction as an homage to Kubrick, Melville or Godard. Tarantino's whole is greater than the sum of its parts – a brand of cinematic deconstruction that is wholly his own.
This is also something we’ve lost from Tarantino over the years. While Kill Bill and Inglourious Basterds are terrific films, they rely on overt references to his influences. Pulp Fiction acts like a culmination of his pre-Hollywood storytelling, his Video Archives days, where he famously thought up the scenes and characters in True Romance, Reservoir Dogs, Natural Born Killers and Pulp Fiction, and to some degree From Dusk Till Dawn. All of these exist in their own Tarantino universe, like a self-contained quadrilogy/time capsule of Tarantino’s fantasies and desires as a filmmaker.
His later work, written after the success of Pulp Fiction, is clearly the work of a successful filmmaker, another phase of his career. But Tarantino has always been aware of his place in the pantheon of filmmakers. His characters feel the same way.
Many people resent the presence of QT in his movies. I disagree. In this respect, Tarantino is comparable to Alfred Hitchcock, as they are two filmmakers whose personalities are quintessential to the existence of their films. With Hitchcock we expected his appearance in his films. Taking an audience ‘out of a movie’, or becoming aware that we’re watching a movie, is usually cause for trouble. But we need to watch a Hitchcock movie in the context of his full body of work, his obsessions with voyeurism and blondes, and even his obsession with 'obsession' itself. This is the definition of the auteur, the director as the author of a film wherein he or she essentially (or thematically) remakes the same movie over and over again. Hitchcock did this. So does Tarantino.
With today’s eyes Pulp Fiction is as good now as it was then. Absolutely nothing is lost with age. It also seems impervious to overexposure. The individual moments that make up Tarantino’s meandering narrative add up to a hallucinatory loop comedy of errors of crime in Los Angeles.
Going from Vincent’s and Jules’ truncated journey starting in Jules’ car as he describes his experiences in Amsterdam and ‘little differences,’ to Vincent passing his test of loyalty, not without severe shock and trauma, and to his bitter end in front of Bruce Willis’s smoking gun is a magnificent journey. Bruce Willis's scheme to leave the shady boxing racket, which takes a very wild detour in the dungeon of the hillbilly S&M rapists, is one of the greatest 'left turns' in cinema history. And the climactic ending not only shows us what happens to the lovebird criminals from the beginning of the film, it also gives the steely-eyed Jules Winfield the film's greatest moment of change.
Pulp Fiction successfully survived the '90s, which can't be said of other lauded films of the era, thus rightfully earning its place in the cinematic pantheon.
Monday, 28 February 2011
Reservoir Dogs
Starring: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi
***1/2
By Alan Bacchus
Reservoir Dogs seems like eons ago. At the time that movie was just about the coolest thing on earth for the 20 and 30 somethings. It’s almost 20 years later, and whether the film looks or feels dated or overexposed is moot, it's importance in the cultural zeitgeist assures it a sort of untouchable tenureship in cinema-history. Love him or hate him, the influence of Quentin Tarantino and this film in particular throughout the 90's and beyond was long reaching.
Reservoir Dogs premiered at Sundance 1992, played at TIFF in the Fall and was released later that year, but it wasn’t until it's video release did it catch fire. From the opening conversation Tarantino was announcing himself to the film world. We never heard a conversation like that – Mr. Brown’s graphic description of the meaning of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” as well as Mr. Pink’s rant about not-tipping. Then the music kicks in, a little known 70’s track by god-knows-who which sounded so cool. Cigarette smoking, sunglasses wearing bank robbers walking in slo-mo. Whatever it was this was a cool movie so far. Then we see two of the same characters we saw in the first scene Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) and Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) who just committed a heist driving in a car, except Orange is bleeding like a stuck pig all over the pristine white interior of their car. The film just got even more intriguing.
As White and Orange convene in their agreed-to abandoned warehouse to figure out exactly what went wrong, the film flashes back to retrace exactly how each character got put on the job. With everyone accusing everyone else of being the rat, Mr. White defends Mr. Orange to the end and in doing so develops a fraternal bond with him.
Scene after scene bristles with originality in the post-modern way. Tarantino culled some of his favorite scenes and lines from his favourite films and mashed them together with his instantly trademark dialogue creating the first “Tarantino-movie”. Somewhere in the film are pieces of: “The Killing”, “Taking of Pelham 1,2,3”, “The Professionals”, “Point Blank”, “Do the Right Thing” even obscure Italian genre films Django.
Even the truncated time-shifting was fresh and soon to be copied everywhere. There was nothing formula about this genre film. Tarantino wasn’t concerned with the heist, or whether they get away with the diamonds, but the relationship of Orange and White. Tarantino even reveals to the audience midway through the film that Mr. Orange is actually the undercover cop who sold out the crew. But the main reveal is when Orange confesses to White. This is more powerful because we know the emotional pain this takes on both Orange and White. It still is a remarkably dramatic moment.
Has Tarantino changed over the years? Yes and no. He’s certainly gotten egotistical with his dialogue. In both Kill Bill and Death Proof, Tarantino could have used an assertive editor to challenge him into trimming and shaping his meandering conversations. Yet, in Inglourious Basterds, though equally long-winded every line seemed just right. And his films seem to get more anachronistic and insular. Death Proof was his least accessible film by far. Even Kurt Russell fans have to be scratching their heads. But each film is an impassioned personal piece of work, whether it’s a hit or a miss, Tarantino will never sell out and make someone else’s film.
Thursday, 1 April 2010
The Vega Brothers aka "Double V Vega"
The Vega Brothers aka Double V Vega (2000) dir. by Quentin Tarantino
Starring: John Travolta, Michael Madsen, Adrienne Barbeau, Danny Trejo, Chow Yun-Fat and Patricia Arquette
**1/2
By Blair Stewart
One of cinema's great ungainly monsters from a director given carte blanche on par with Leone's pre-studio cut of "Once Upon a Time in America" and Cimino's contested "Heaven's Gate", the three-hour plus follow-up to "Pulp Fiction" still excites as much as it frustrates, yet never truly bores.
With a title card elusively dating the story as "This one time in the mid-80's...", the respective sibling stars of "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs", Vincent (Travolta) and Vic Vega (Madsen) team up to avenge the murder of Father Vega, sly Belgian pimp Valentine (Johnny Halladay's finest, briefest moment in the English language).
If only it were that simple. Criss-crossing Los Angeles and Texas backwaters (and time itself with a shitload of flashbacks and a familiar non-linear plot line) before the whacked-out final chapter in a seedy Mexican border town, Tarantino attempts to unite his cinematic crime universe with near-cosmic finiteness.
Opening with a non-sequitur prologue that's a short film unto itself, Winston Wolf (Harvey Keitel) brings his son Django (Lucas Haas) along to learn the old family trade of cleaning up other folks bloody messes. At the behest of Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames in a cameo) father & son assist a foul-mouthed Senator (Chevy Chase) who finds himself handcuffed to a very-dead hooker in a set-up that features some of the more darkly humorous lines to come from Tarantino's febrile mind.
After this detour we embark on the jumbled-up main story when the Vega bros. blood is inflamed by Pa Vega being gunned down by the mute Triad gunman Yusen Wu (Chow Yun-Fat) in a sustained masterclass of silent, nervy tension. Hitting the road to torture, shoot and seduce the truth out of all who cross their paths the brothers riff on some memorable pop-culture minutiae before a long-winded family dinner at stoned Ma Vega's (Adrienne Barbeau?!) trailerpark home that plays like an extension of the slack dialogue in "Death Proof".
After this lull in the script and several other over-indulgences (the drawn-out biker bar standoff, the still-infamous Achilles Heel scene scored to The Knack's "My Sharona", Samuel L. Jackson's piano man monologue that will tie into the forthcoming "Kill Bill" series) "The Vega Brothers" kicks back into top-gear after they pick up kindred hitchhiker Alabama (Patricia Arquette reprising her best role from "True Romance") for a ride south of the border to hunt down Wu and Mexicali warlord Luis Verde (Danny "Fucking" Trejo as the credits loudly announce him).
This section stands as some of Tarantino's most blatant cinema theft and overt loving homage to classic westerns with Yun-Fat doing a sizable impression of Jack Palance's Black Jack Wilson from "Shane" and Trejo sharing a hard-boiled, glass half-empty fate to that of the bandit Tuco in the graveyard at the end of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly".
While the film has its faults (the aforementioned dawdling family dinner, the tacked-on cutaway to Bruce Willis's Butch Coolidge from "Pulp" being introduced to Chris Penn's Nice Guy Eddie from "Dogs" for a chin-wag) that keeps it from being regarded on par with QT's previous successes, "Vega" has moments of greatness. Travolta and Madsen have an easy chemistry especially when crooning Kenny Rogers sublime classic "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town", Arquette deservedly earned her Best Supporting Actress nomination alone for her monologue at the coda and Tarantino's only collaboration with cinematographer Michael Ballhaus ("Goodfellas", "Broadcast News") is a marvel of sierra reds, burnt oranges and a pirate's booty of ace in-camera tricks. The soundtrack as always is shit-hot with Desmond Dekker's best singles and The Ventures's "Walk Don't Run" surf classic getting some air-play while Morricone provides an original piece for the overwrought climax.
A great, uneven script that lead to a great, uneven film both in need of a final trim, "The Vega Brothers" didn't totally deserve the critical backlash it received and is certainly worth a second look for its sheer bloody criminal immensity. Enjoy.
A new print of "The Vega Brothers" is playing as part of a Tarantino retrospective at the newly-restored Le Gamaar Cinema in Paris on April 1st. Contact Emmanuelle Mimieux for tickets.
Friday, 18 December 2009
Inglourious Basterds
Starring: Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Christophe Waltz, Eli Roth
****
By Alan Bacchus
I’m so incredible happy ‘Inglourious Basterds’ is getting some decent awards season buzz – a shock really since it's idiosyncratic genre cinema all the way. A film as highly regarded as ‘Kill Bill’ was years early, but somehow the zeitgeist movement of awards buzz shifted positively towards Basterds. I’m not complaining. It’s one of the best films of the year – a great cinematic experience and certainly Tarantino's most wholly satisfying picture since ‘Pulp Fiction.’
The DVD arrives in time to capitalize on this early buzz. Already it’s received some key Golden Globe nominations, whatever prestige that earns. But I respect even greater its award for Best Picture of the year from the Toronto Film Critics Association – a group not known for succumbing to mass buzz and hysteria (last year they chose ‘Wendy and Lucy’ as Best Picture and this year chose Nicolas Cage in Bad Lieutenant as Best Actor).
The DVD experience admittedly isn’t as glourious as watching the film on the big screen, but there’s special features will feed the appetite of rabid fans like myself. There’s no commentary or delete scenes. QT even admits there were scenes cut out, but seems to have had enough integrity for his final cut not to reveal anything else but what was on screen. I highly respect that.
The treasure of the DVD is Elvis Mitchell’s interview with QT and Brad Pitt for KCRW’s radio program, ‘The Treatment’. As usual with Mitchell it’s an intellectual discussion of the film, but it contains enough of cinegeekness not to alienate regular people. Tarantino in interviews can be annoying at times, but he’s also reverential to his cinematic legacy and penitent to the filmmakers who influenced him. He’s also sharp in his self-analysis and articulate about his own personal style of filmmaker. Pitt and Tarantino make a good pairing dissecting the film and the process enough without completely sanding away the allure of the film.
A fun featurette mockumentary about the making of the film within a film – ‘Nation’s Pride’ – features Eli Roth playing a hilariously pretentious German director, proving he’s probably a better performer than director (we’ve yet to see another film since the abysmal ‘Hostel II’).
An extensive interview with minor player Rod Taylor (who played Winston Churchill) reveals the respect he has for even the bit players in his film and that casting down to a single line has personal significance to him. Taylor describes with joy the attention he got from Tarantino and his crew for his great work with Alfred Hitchcock, George Stevens, John Ford and others.
‘Inglourious Basterds’ may not win any award this season but the fact he’s on the radar of critics during this concentrated period of Oscar-baiting entries such as ‘Invictus’, ‘Nine’, ‘Avatar’ is a triumph but for fluffy little war film.
‘Inglourious Basterds’ is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Alliance Films
This is not part of the DVD, but an indication of his continued and outspokenness on the films of his contemporaries, specifically Paul Thomas Anderson:
Monday, 2 November 2009
Natural Born Killers - Director's Cut
Starring; Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr. Tom Sizemore, Tommy Lee Jones
****
By Alan Bacchus
It's about time this disc arrived. In fact, why Warner decided to release the now irrelevant and obsolete theatrical version of this film on Blu-Ray last year remains a mystery; we all knew this director's cut edition wasn't far off.
The term "director's cut" is not what it used to be. What was once a badge of honour for filmmakers, a rare triumph of their creative vision over the tinkering hands of studio execs, has become an overused marketing tool. Despite the diluted power of the term, the fact is this version of Natural Born Killers is one of the best-ever director's cuts out there. The Blu-Ray disc essentially repackages the same collection of extras from the mid-'90s laserdisc and double VHS set ― audio commentary from Oliver Stone, featurettes, some truly awesome deleted scenes, a Charlie Rose interview and an alternate ending. A couple of mediocre new additions in high definition include an introduction from Stone reflecting on the relevance of his film 15 years later and a silly featurette postulating what kind of celebrity Mickey and Mallory might have achieved in the age of the internet.
The real treasures are the 150-plus reinstated cuts and shaved frames Stone needed to make to achieve a theatrical R-rating. Though the two cuts differ only by three minutes, these small edits skyrocket what was an enjoyable, thought-provoking, violent romp into the stratosphere of cinematic chaos. The restored scenes include more throat-slashing, body mutilation, blood splattering and, towards the end, the sight of Tommy Lee Jones's head on a stick waved around by the rioting prison mob ― moments perhaps too quick to notice but that add up to an even greater sense of nihilistic mayhem.
Watching it again, it’s hard to believe the script started off as a Quentin Tarantino film. Though the visual style and statement-making satirical tone is wholly Oliver Stone, some of the Tarantino hallmarks remain. The murderous duo, Mickey and Mallory, on the road and on the run, contain many of the humorous dialogue interaction and genre-reverence as Tarantino’s scripts for “True Romance”, “From Dusk till Dawn”. But in the hands of Stone, and his co-writers it became a beast through he could make his type of grand statements. Since it's a satire the extreme flourishes are necessary and make the statement stronger.
None of the freneticness would work if the film wasn't entertaining. Harrelson and Lewis make a wonderful fun loving couple of psychotics. If anything Juliette Lewis’ character treads too much on the performances from her other films (ie. “Kalifornia”), but Harrelson who is cast against type has the screen presence and confidence to pull off his conflicted character.
Around every corner is a number of wonderful scene stealer supporting performances. Tom Sizemore’s extreme ‘bad cop’ Jack Scagnetti and Tommy Lee Jones’ prison warden Jack McClusky are even more repulsive than Mickey and Mallory. But it’s Robert Downey Jr.’s Aussie TV talk show host Wayne Gale who shines. It's one of Downey's best characters. Although Gale is manic, absurd and goes over the edge his TV interview with Mickey brings out a sharp intelligence to his character.
The amount of media coverage the ridiculous "balloon boy" story recently garnered clearly renders Natural Born Killers as relevant today as yesterday. But even those turned off by Stone's sledgehammer statement making should still marvel at the quality of his technical experimentation in mainstream storytelling. It's one of the last films in a remarkably productive ten-year run of filmmaking for Stone, which saw him hone and perfect his bold and innovative multi-format, multi-media techniques. Natural Born Killers achieves a state of nirvana for this style; it's a monumental achievement to create coherence from the almost random cornucopia of imagery and sound mashed together. In fact, in the DVD audio commentary, Stone ends his discussion by giving extra special thanks to his negative cutter, who had the hardest job on the production, assembling the final film from over 3,000 edits from multiple format sources.
This review first appeared on Exclaim.ca
Wednesday, 9 September 2009
From Dusk Til Dawn
Starring: Goerge Clooney, Harvey Keitel, Juliette Lewis, Quentin Tarantino
***
Most people are divided into two camps with 'From Dusk Til Dawn' - people who like the two act structure, and those who don’t. And most people who don’t like the split seem to prefer the first act hostage road movie to the vampire gore fest of the second half. I think I’m in rare group that prefers the extreme Rodriguez action to the Tarantino gabfest.
We all know the story. Seth and Richie are a brotherly duo of thieves and killers on the run from the cops. They’re in the desert trying to make their way into Mexico and meet up with their money laundering colleagues on the other side. Seth as played by then ER hunk George Clooney, in his feature debut, is the charismatic but ruthless anti-hero leader. Richie (QT) is the loose cannon rapist who annoys Seth at every turn.
Early on the serial killer tough guy bantering with pop cultural references feel forced and recycled from 'Pulp Fiction', 'True Romance', 'Natural Born Killers' et al. And in particular, Tarantino’s ugly presence standing alongside the dashing and handsome George Clooney is just too strange and out of place not to notice. The film gets a quick jumpstart with the appearance of Harvey Keitel as Jacob, the defrocked preacher who’s lost his faith and his two kids Kate (Juliette Lewis) and Scott (Ernest Liu) along for the ride.
When the new entourage of kidnappers and kidnap-ees reach the Titty Twister bar in Mexico Robert Rodriguez takes over. Even before the rampage of vampire action starts a we’re treated to some wonderful dialogue between Keitel and Clooney discussing Jacob’s lost faith, over a fun drinking contest. Tarantino might have a penchant for overly loquacious dialogue, but as evidenced in ‘Inglourious Basterds’, most of everything we hear is by design and pays off later. And with the eyes of a new millennium genre-savvy audience the transition from talky road movie to bloody carnage doesn't seem all that shocking.
The film’s self-awareness and acknowledgement of both cinema history and the filmmakers’ own previous films in hindsight, makes the switch a natural transition. After all, if the first half is QT’s film, then the second has to be Rodriguez’s film. The duo would essentially do the same thing with their ‘Grindhouse’ pictures years later, except with Rodriguez’s zombie-fare first and QT’s talkfest last.
Though we’re told the monsters are vampires, arguably it’s a Romero-influenced zombie film. And looking back, if we accept Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later” as the film that revitalized the zombie genre in 2002, for 1996, when “From Dusk Til Dawn” was made, puts Rodriguez and Tarantino way ahead of the curve. Enjoy.
Monday, 24 August 2009
Inglourious Basterds
Starring: Brat Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Michael Fassbender, Melanie Laurent, Eli Roth
****
Quentin Tarantino has made his best and most all-together entertaining film since “Pulp Fiction” – a film which curiously received tepid response at Cannes – yet stateside seems to have won over audiences and the majority of critics. The disconnect between what people saw overseas and what people see know perhaps has something to do with hot, late summer disposable cinema we want to see from an August event film. At Cannes, the overly critical search for masterpieces from the gluttony of social realism films would easily render this film a quick glance without pause.
Tarantino’s stamp is on the film from the opening credits – his trademark yellow font, and the anachronistic and obscure Ennio Morricone-type music cue which sets up Chapter One, ‘Once Upon a Time… in Nazi-occupied Germany’. A lengthy dialogue scene occurs between a sly German SS Col, Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz) and an innocent French farmer. Landa is looking for a missing family of Jews and suspects the farmer as the abetter. The lengthy dialogue scene pays off demonstrating Landa’s sadistic pursuit of his prey and Tarantino’s skills with words.
The scene must go on for 15mins of unbroken dialogue, and indeed it’s an imposing length which might indicate another wordsmith masturbation film for Tarantino, but no, Tarantino manages to weave a clever and tightly-plotted war film with all the dark humour, sudden violence and cinema zeal we expect from the man.
Although its chronological Tarantino plays with the traditional movie narrative by structurally condensing his two and a half hour film into a dozen or so individual scenes. Each scene could act as it’s own film, complete with its own ebb and flow, beat changes and twists. We track a number of Nazi-fighters looking to covertly take down the Third Reich from within. As the title suggests there’s the Brad Pitt-led Dirty Dozen/Kelly's Heroes of Jewish-American soldiers who travel the countryside literally scalping as many Nazis as they can. There’s the British contingent, led by Lt. Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender), a staid upper-class scotch-drinking Brit sent to connect with the Basterds and plot the assassintion of Josef Goebbels. And then there’s the lovely Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) the beautiful survivor of the massacre from the first scene who now runs a French movie theatre and finds her method of revenge through a young German soldier smitten with her beauty and love of cinema.
Each of these stories converges like a Hitchcock thriller in a cinema and the premiere of a hilarious Nazi-propaganda film-within-a-film. We've seen in previous Tarantino films his frustrating penchant for self-stroking his own personal cinematic agenda often in substitute for audience’s desires. With Besterds, Tarantino couldn’t have written a more energetic and satisfactory conclusion, paying off every subtle character embellishment from the previous two and a half hours.
For good and bad, Tarantino still seems to be in his grindhouse/spaghetti western phase from 'Kill Bill'/'Death Proof'. A number of Morricone music pieces are used in addition a roll call of idiosyncratic musical choices – one of which I recognized from the great Eastwood war film “Kelly’s Heroes”. Other than the music cinematic style is less intrusive than in Kill Bill or Death Proof and there’s actually very few foot fetish close-ups.
Tarantino’s eye for casting is as sharp as ever, discovering two great new talents in Christoph Waltz who brings to life Tarantino's dialogue as good as anyone of his usual players, and the alluring Melanie Laurent who plays Tarantino’s new vengeful female character Shosanna Dreyfus. There’s enough characters that Brad Pitt doesn’t need to carry the picture and so his depiction of Lt. Aldo Raine as a hillbilly version of George C. Scott’s Patton is more than tolerable. Tarantino also makes good use of Michael “Hunger” Fassbender and non-actor Eli Roth who makes the most of his demented Jew Bear character.
A refreshing delight in general is the respect Tarantino shows for the languages in the picture. Dialogue is equal parts French and German and English - as well as a hilarious moment or two in Italian. Other than Mike Myers' anomalous but playful casting as a pompous British general, all actors play their own nationality, Germans as Germans, French as French, Americans as Americans etc. And in a couple of scenes when actors don't speak the language they're supposed it becomes a tool for Tarantino to ratchet up the tension of the film.
The increasing idiosyncratic nature of his films post-Pulp Fiction had me acquiescing that we’d probably never see a film equal to his sophomore masterpiece, which makes the altogether entertaining experience of “Inglourious Basterds” that much more glourious. Enjoy.
Tuesday, 16 September 2008
KILL BILL
Kill Bill Vol 1 & 2 (2003, 2004) dir. Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Michael Madsen, Lucy Liu, Darryl Hannah, Julie Dreyfus
**** and ***
Both “Kill Bill” films have been recently released on Blu-Ray. Unfortunately it’s the same North American version with that especially bloody section of the Vol 1 finale diluted to black and white. Fans will know that audiences in other more liberal markets got to see that wonderful sequence in bold and beautiful full bloody colour. Apart from this omission, the films are a glorious addition to the growing Blu-Ray library and showcases brilliantly Robert Richardson’s sumptuous cinematography.
With today’s eyes it’s hard to imagine the two "Kill Bill" films as one. During production Tarantino intended the film to be watched as a whole, but during post-production it was reported that Harvey Weinstein suggested breaking it into two films. Though I find it hard to accept that Miramax would bank roll a single 4+ hour film for mainstream release in the first place, this is the official story.
Years later, “Kill Bill” is still a thoroughly enjoyable experience, a return to the wild idiosyncratic cinematic exuberance which Tarantino enchanted us with in “Pulp Fiction”. While “Reservoir Dogs”, “Pulp Fiction” and “Jackie Brown” were all influenced by numerous films and genres-favourites of his youth, Tarantino showed off his influences most proudly and undisguised in “Kill Bill”.
Vol 1 opens with the classic 1960’s “Shawscope” logo announces to us that this will be his “Kung-Fu” movie. But “Kill Bill” is many other things – a 70’s revenge exploitation film, a Spaghetti Western, an Italian horror film, and for one sequence even a Brian de Palma thriller homage.
Debate will rage on forever which film is better, but for me, Vol 1 is a more satisfying experience.
Each chapter in Vol 1 seems to trump the one previous. Let’s go through the order: Chapter 1 contains the knife-fight scene, a well-choreographed and humourous battle between Vivica Fox’s Vernita Green and Uma Thurman’s The Bride. Chapter 2 contains the marvelous hospital sequence including Tarantino’s split-screen homage to De Palma’s “Dressed to Kill”, which precedes the hospital escape sequence. Tarantino is at his cockiest when he cuts to his anime flashback scene establishing O-Ren’s backstory (book ended by Uma’s wiggling toe). Chapter 4 slows down the pace but also warms up the tone. The Bride’s conversation with Hattori Hanzo cleverly builds up to the reveal of his famous Samurai swords – a key plot point in Vol 2. And of course the film ends with a series of escalating fight sequences in the House of Blue Leaves.
Vol 2. takes the pace and exuberance down a few notches after the rambunctious finale in Vol 1. Vol 2. is constructed like a spaghetti western. Most of the action takes place in the desert, either at Budd’s trailer, or Bill’s rural compound and is paced with the same calm, quietness as the great Sergio Leone classics. The highlight of Vol 2. is the Bride’s flashback to her kung-fu training in China bookended by her dramatic escape from her buried coffin. We also see for the first time the title character, Bill. He’s played by David Carradine, famous for his role in TV’s “Kung-Fu”, but also a number of great 70’s films which also influenced Tarantino to cast him. Tarantino characterizes Bill as a soft-spoken humble man. I can understand why Tarantino plays Bill with this zen-like cool, but we never get to see the ‘sadistic’ Bill Tarantino hypes up for us. Arguably this results in the film’s dialogue-heavy anti-climax at the end of the second film.
Both volumes of "Kill Bill" couldn’t exist without the other, while Vol 2. doesn’t reach the melodramatic grandeur of Vol 1., the second film is a more serious character-driven film. What we learn about The Bride, Budd and Bill himself rounds out all the playfulness of the first film and deepens Tarantino’s masterpiece beyond the superficiality of an homage film. Enjoy.
“Kill Bill Vol 1 & Vol 2” are available on Blu-Ray from Miramax Home Entertainment
Here's the full colour 'House of Blue Leaves' sequence:
Tuesday, 18 September 2007
DEATH PROOF (EXTENDED & UNCUT)
Death Proof - Extended and Uncut (2007) dir. Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Zoe Bell
**1/2
Out on DVD this week is the extended cut of Quentin Tarantino’s “Death Proof”. Following the tough act of Robert Rodriguez’ fun-filled “Planet Terror”, as the second half of “The Grindhouse” Quentin’s contribution was a let down. Since my first viewing in April, the film has grown on me, not because of the added scenes but because it works better as a stand-alone film – a Quentin Tarantino film, not a Grindhouse film. It’s still ego-stroking, esoteric and mostly boring with little joy in the dialogue, but the fresh face of Vanessa Ferlito, the fantastic car action and the attitude and performance of Kurt Russell make the film enjoyable if you’re in the right mood.
I was too young to know the real “Grindhouse” experience that Tarantino grew up with. My theatre-going youth was the shoebox-cinema experience of the 1980’s (which isn’t great nostalgia). But I still have fond memories of discovering these exploitation films on the bottom rows of the videoracks in strip-mall video stores. And instead of scratchy prints for me it was worn out VHS tapes with bad contrast, tracking problems and bleeding colours.
The opening credits of “Death Proof” fill the screen in front of a speeding car on an open highway. It’s like the opening “Mad Max” - grainy, scratchy, raw and dirty. We are then introduced to a foursome of supple young soon-to-be-victims. Tarantino directs their car ride conversation like his own “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction”. Watch the framing on Jordan Ladd, which is the same shot as Samuel L. Jackson’s close-up in “Pulp Fiction” and look at Sydney Tamiia Poitier’s posture in the backseat, which resembles Tim Roth bleeding to death in the back of Harvey Keitel’s car in “Reservoir Dogs”. The girls spend the night partying with a bunch of horny guys in a seedy bar. There’s lot of banal dialogue about going to a cottage, and their decision to bring boys or not. Then Kurt Russell enters the picture playing Stuntman Mike, a sleazy former Hollywood stuntman. With his smooth talk and rugged good looks he charms Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito) into a lap dance. The dark side of Stuntman Mike is that he’s actually a murderous psychotic who stalks and kills young women with his big fat black Chevy Nova muscle car. All the girls in the bar fall victim to Mike, and each die a horribly brutal death before the end of the night.
At the halfway mark the film cuts to 14 months later in another city. It’s a virtual carbon copy of the first half, except arguably with less attractive actors (sorry Rosario Dawson fans, it’s not her best look). Mike is stalking another set of girls - this time a more formidable bunch, four stuntwomen, who are joyriding in a vintage 1971 Dodge Challenger. Zoe (real stuntwoman Zoe Bell) performs a dangerous stunt called the “Ship’s Mast” by riding on the hood of the car using two belt straps to hold onto. In the middle of the ride Mike’s car crashes the party. And so begins a long 18 min car chase between Mike and the girls. When the girls get the upper hand and turn the tables it’s funny to watch Mike turn into a pathetic crying bitch. This ending caps off a great Kurt Russell performance, but a sub par Tarantino film.
Tarantino is known for his dialogue, but as a director he shoots the film with a terrific eye. His bold close-us, framing and lighting are a joy to look at. Each scene is crafted with one exciting composition after another and he always keeps the look fresh and energetic. His circular dolly around the table of girls in the second half is a neat recreation of his opening “Like a Virgin” shot in “Reservoir Dogs”.
The car action, which is fantastic, resembles the high energy 70’s car chases of George Miller and H.B. Halicki. Tarantino smashes his cars up real good and uses pure driving speed and force to create fear and suspense. Tarantino shoots Stuntman Mike’s Chevy Nova like a character. I specifically loved the sound of its deep guttural chest-pounding rumble. But aside from the look and action, the dialogue runs on and on, and stalls the film before it even gets going.
There seems to be a lot of cuts of the film around. The new extended DVD version runs 113 mins, the “Grindhouse” version ran 88mins and the Cannes version ran 127. The added value in the extended version is the Vanessa Ferlito lap dance. And although performed fully clothed and in flip-flops it’s still sexy as hell. In fact, every frame in which Ferlito is in is worth watching. Unfortunately, these interesting moments are too few and far between to make the film stand up to Tarantino’s other classics.
Buy it here: Grindhouse Presents, Death Proof - Extended and Unrated (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Here’s the lap dance scene, which was the ‘missing reel’ from the “Grindhouse” version:
Wednesday, 25 April 2007
RESERVOIR DOGS
Reservoir Dogs (1992) dir. Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn
***1/2
"Reservoir Dogs" seems like eons ago. At the time that movie was just about the coolest thing on earth for the 20 and 30 somethings. University dorm-rooms were saturated with its posters, and the iconic imagery the film produced. It’s 15 years later, and I wonder how much Tarantino has changed.
“Reservoir Dogs” premiered at Sundance 1992, played at TIFF in the Fall and was released later that year, but it wasn’t until it's video release did it catch fire. From the opening conversation Tarantino was announcing himself to the film world. We never heard a conversation like that – Mr. Brown’s graphic description of the meaning of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” as well as Mr. Pink’s rant about not-tipping. Then the music kicks in, a little known 70’s track by god-knows-who which sounded so cool. Cigarette smoking, sunglasses wearing bank robbers walking in slo-mo. Whatever it was this was a cool movie so far. Then we see two of the same characters we saw in the first scene Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) and Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) who just committed a heist driving in a car, except Orange is bleeding like a stuck pig all over the pristine white interior of their car. The film just got even more intriguing.
As White and Orange convene in their agreed-to abandoned warehouse to figure out exactly what went wrong, the film flashes back to retrace exactly how each character got put on the job. With everyone accusing everyone else of being the rat, Mr. White defends Mr. Orange to the end and in doing so develops a fraternal bond with him.
Scene after scene bristles with originality in the post-modern way. Tarantino culled some of his favorite scenes and lines from his favourite films and mashed them together with his instantly trademark dialogue creating the first “Tarantino-movie”. Somewhere in the film are pieces of: “Django”, “The Killing”, “Taking of Pelham 1,2,3”, “The Professionals”, “Point Blank”, “Do the Right Thing” and many more.
Even the truncated time-shifting was fresh and soon to be copied everywhere. There was nothing formula about this genre film. Tarantino wasn’t concerned with the heist, or whether they get away with the diamonds, but the relationship of Orange and White. Tarantino even reveals to the audience midway through the film that Mr. Orange is actually the undercover cop who sold out the crew. But the main reveal is when Orange confesses to White. This is more powerful because we know the emotional pain this takes on both Orange and White. It still is a remarkably dramatic moment.
Has Tarantino changed over the years? Yes and no. He’s certainly gotten egotistical with his dialogue. In both “Kill Bill” and “Death Proof”, Tarantino could have used an assertive editor to challenge him into trimming and shaping his meandering conversations. And his films seem to get more anachronistic and insular. “Death Proof” was his least accessible film by far. Even Kurt Russell fans have to be scratching their heads. But each film is an impassioned personal piece of work, whether it’s a hit or a miss, Tarantino will never sell out and make someone else’s film. Enjoy.
Buy it here: Reservoir Dogs
Here’s the original trailer:
Monday, 9 April 2007
GRINDHOUSE
The Grindhouse (2007) dir. Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez
Starring: Rose McGowan, Kurt Russell, Freddy Rodriguez
****
Two exploitation films back-to-back with fake trailers before and in between each film. The film was created to be part of ‘an experience’ of watching bad horror/action films of the 70’s in crappy theatres with bad sound systems, smelly seats and scratchy prints. For the most part the film lives up to its hype, minus one flaw – but more on that later.
The first film is Robert Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror”. The plot of course is secondary but here goes, a group of scientists headed by “Lost” star Naveen Andrews has produced a lethal gas which turns people into man-eating zombies. Bruce Willis has formed a rebel faction of the military and kills the scientists and steals the gas for himself. Meanwhile we meet members of the townsfolk from outside the base: A former stripper, Cherry Darling played by Rose McGowan, the comely doctor Dakota Block (Marley Shelton) and her lesbian lover, Stacey Ferguson, Josh Bolin as Dakota’s husband, a local diner owner played by Jeff Fahey, an ornery sheriff played by Michael Biehn and a drifter, El Wray (Freddy Rodriguez). The film is well cast with semi-popular character actors from various action movies of the 1980’s. Though I have to ask, where was Michael Paré? The set up leads into a blood splatter extravaganza that brings all the characters together to fight off the evil zombies. Rodriguez throws in everything but the kitchen sink to keep our attention locked to the screen and every bit of it works.
“Planet Terror” is so f-ing good. Rodriguez amazingly juggles half a dozen characters and actually makes us care for each of them. The forced emotional moments add to the cheesy hilarity including Freddy Rodriguez’s attempts to win back his former flame, Dr. Dakota’s rescue from certain death by her resurrected father, and the Aliens-inspired suicidal death scene of Michael Biehn and Jeff Fahey. Freddy Rodriguez, though the shortest actor in front the camera, has the chutzpah of a young Kurt Russell and actually holds the film together as an action hero/leading man.
Speaking of Kurt Russell, Tarantino’s segment changes gears (pun not intended) and slows the pace down to add some dialogue into the mix. Quentin’s film is “Death Proof”, a send up of redneck road movies like “Vanishing Point” and “Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry”. A highway vigilante, Stuntman Mike, played by Kurt Russell combs the roads of Texas looking for groups of attractive girls to murder. His weapon is his ‘death proof’ car which allows him to inflict as much damage as humanly possible with his car yet miraculous protecting him from harm.
The major flaw of Grindhouse is in fact Tarantino’s film, which unfortunately doesn’t come anywhere near the humour or excitement of “Planet Terror”. Tarantino’s masturbatory dialogue runs on and on to the point of tedium. Ironically, despite his posturing about his love for Grindhouse cinema and throwing back to his days of watching B-action, kung fu and road movies, Tarantino didn’t make one of those films. He has made a Tarantino film – and a lesser one at that. I can’t imagine Tarantino ever heard such long stretches of banal unfunny dialogue in “Vanishing Point”. The actresses reading his branded dialogue unfortunately can’t sing it, and there’s definitely some poor casting here. And as far as hotness factor goes, he’s lost out as well. The girls in the first half of his film who are unfortunately killed off are far more attractive than the heroes that live at the end (sorry, Rosario Dawson, you’ve looked better). But enough quibbles. Tarantino’s film isn’t all that bad. Vanessa Ferlito sears every frame she’s in, Kurt Russell’s car kicks major ass and the death scenes are bloody lovely.
The trailers which come before and during the film are absolutely gutbusting, especially Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving” and Edgar Wright’s “Don’t”. You will cry with laughter. Canadians will get an extra treat. Sandwiched between the ‘real’ trailers “Fracture” and “Live Free or Die Hard” is the contest winner for the best fan-produced Grindhouse trailer, the hilariously idiotic “Hobo with a Shotgun” (the title alone makes me grin). You can catch all these on youtube, but you’ll laugh harder in the theatre.
The added imperfections of the film - the intentional scratches, missing reels, faded colour and awesome porn music introductions work like magic and put you in the smelly Grindhouse environment just as the filmmakers wanted. It ALL works. Grindhouse will likely satisfy more of the ironic film loser type (like me) who can appreciate the joy of bad films. As for the others, I guarantee you will at least enjoy the trailers. Enjoy.
PS. I also suggest getting Combo #1 at the concession stand – large popcorn, large coke and the bonus pack of nibs – so fucking good!
Here’s the trailer:
And here’s some real Grindhouse trailers from the 70’s (watch for the cougar attack at the 3 min mark!).
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