My Best Friend's Birthday

Tarantino is the man! The movie is watchable (surprising for how old it is), obviously its lacking the polish (both script and video) of his later movies but who cares. This movie probably cost him the price of a six pack and it shows. Whats great about it, is that it shows this generations greatest director in his youth giving this whole "movie" thing a shot. In that respect this movie really succeeds. It's one of those things that you watch and then say "Hey I could do that... why arn't I doing that?". Really cool to know that this guy started with this... offbeat... film and then went on to direct the Pulpiest of Fiction (hands down, best film ever). The best part of this movie is not the script, directing or acting. The BEST part of this movie is that it has inspired me to get going on a film of my own.

Thanks QT No time like the present.

It is Mickey's birthday, and his girlfriend has just left him, so his friend Clarence has a surprise for him.

'My Best Friend's Birthday' is an unknown Tarantino movie for the mainstream audience. There is a legend circling that most of the footage got destroyed by the lab fire. The cinematographer Roger Avery, on the other hand, has said, that the filming was never completed, and the surviving 36 minutes are all the 36 minutes the young filmmakers managed to complete before running out of steam. I guess the legends around this movie will never stop.

What can I say about this incomplete movie? The first thing, perhaps, would be about the obvious talent of Quentin Tarantino (and some other people from the crew) that is obvious. Although the film seems like random scenes edited together, thus giving it fragmented and disjointed feel, the story is still quite clear. At least it is possible to understand where the filmmakers wanted to reach with the story. There is no point of nitpicking about continuity errors, wooden acting or lack of style, as this was Tarantino's self-made film school, and for most of the people involved it was their first film project (including the famous auteur himself). Yet, somehow, the amateurish look and low production values doesn't seem to diminish the artistic and entertainment value of the movie. Its lack of style is almost stylish and feels intentional in the way of 'no-wave' cinema experiments from that era. Even the ridiculously out of place and amateurishly choreographed fight scene between our main hero Mickey and a pimp (who looks like Jules Winfield's dad). There are some other near brilliant moments in the movie, and the dialogue is interesting in most parts (especially for those who love to hear Quentin Tarantino talk about Elvis). It is quite possible that 'My Best Friend's Birthday' is Tarantino's most personal film.

It is very hard to give this film classical numeral rating thanks to its incompleteness, but here I have to say, 'My Best Friend's Birthday' is a must-see film not only for Tarantino fans/completionists but also for the admirer's of 'no-wave' and indie movies of likes Amos Poe or Jim Jarmusch. Besides, it is always interesting to see where the acclaimed filmmakers are coming from.

(32%) A curiosity piece that's for Tarantino fans only as about half of it is 100% missing forever, and what's left is largely a mixed bag. Quentin himself is about the best thing here and gives a good dose of effort and comic timing to his performance. The writing is somewhat decent at times; although like a lot of things here it's clearly the product of the inexperienced, and many will claim that it's nothing more than typical Tarantino movie name dropping, which really is only partly true. For a very low budget first attempt this isn't too bad, and it does at least show some future potential of what was yet to come.

I mean no disrespect to any of the other commentators of this movie, but I never would have expected to hear someone say this is, would have, or could have been QT's best. In fact, I think Tarantino himself would have a good laugh at that notion. He might even take offense to it.

If you've ever seen the time Tarantino was on Charlie Rose, he talks a bit about this movie (without ever mentioning the title) and I can see and completely agree with everything he said about it. It's really an awful movie - largely due to the horrendous acting... but what are you gonna do; it's essentially a student film for a man who was never a film student.

In case you haven't seen the interview I mentioned, here's basically what he said: He admitted that the movie was really bad, but if you watched it, you could tell that he did it (very true). He also said this movie, while a complete failure, was his film school. He learned about film-making during the process of making this film; it really amounted to an experiment. In another interview he mentioned that, when he was in negotiations for Reservoir Dogs, when asked by a studio exec if they could see his previous work, he said no.

There are a few moments that are very much Tarantino, and a couple of them show up in evolved forms in his later movies. This is the reason referred to in the summary line of this review. QT is, without a shadow of a doubt, my all-time favorite filmmaker, so it's an interesting look back in time to see what a completely inexperienced, unprepared Tarantino with no budget whatsoever could do.

I realize I haven't quite specified what was so bad about this movie, but it's pretty much everything. It's not well thought out, it's disjointed, the sound and picture are horrible (don't worry, I'm not really counting against it for that - it's to be expected for such a low budget film), the dialogue is not up to par, and I reiterate that the acting is truly awful (with the exception of QT himself).

However, it is undeniably a Tarantino movie, and for that reason and that reason alone I can see fit to give it 5/10 stars. I can guarantee, though, that most of these people rating it at 10 stars would not give this movie the time of day if it were from a no-name director. I'm no different, but I admit it openly, and I'm not afraid to critique the man despite my near-idolization of him. I think it was actually a nice twist of fate that this movie was destroyed, making Reservoir dogs his first official film credit instead.

QT's "first" film is a glimpse of what was to come from a very talented writer/director; rich banter with an entertaining and skewed look at life. Shot in black and white, on a very small budget, the film has many shortcomings compared to the director's other films. However, it is still part of Tarantino's body of work.

In the mid 80's there were not many ways a filmmaker could get a film made - short of getting a film camera and making one with their buddies - and a quick look at the production credits for "My Best Friend's Birthday" suggest this to be the case.

I heard this film was unwatchable, but it is actually quite instructional for all hard-core Tarantino fans. Many have stated that this film was QT's film school; so be it. Cream rises because it is less dense than the milk it is found within and eventually makes its way to the top.

However, until someone takes a spoon and scoops the cream off the milk, it's stuck there. The Reservoir Dogs producer (Lawrence Bender) skimmed QT from the vat and we are the happy recipients of some rich delicious ice cream due to such.