What is so great about Quentin Tarantino?

[Kevin Lockard]

(Accidently hit the reply button too quick, wait for next post.) :D

[Kevin Lockard]

Anyhow, may I ask what is so great about Quentin Tarantino? No, I am not a Tarantino basher or "hater", I am just wondering why the guy is so frequently called "one of the best ever" or even moreso, "THE best director of all time." And yes, I am merely talking about his directing career, not anything to do with what he has acted in or anything like that. It really irritates me to death that the guy is held in such high regard and quite frankly, I can't see any reason why. I think that there are even film fesitivals of his films or whatever. Can I ask why? Because quite frankly, he's a good director but he doesn't seem that much about your usual average good director out there. Not counting the tv shows he's done (a CSI finale or something like that), purely talking his FILMS, let's take a look at his filmography ("Quentin Tarantino presents": :rolleyes:)


Reservoir Dogs
Okay, this is my favorite Quentin movie. I don't find anything wrong with it and, well, you've seen the movie (hopefully) then you know the story. Next!

Pulp Fiction
I used to think this was a great movie, but now it just seems average. And I'm not just saying that to get someone's attention, I just don't get why this movie is held in such high regard. Sure, it was great that a guy like Quentin could make only his second full length major feature and then release a film like Pulp Fiction but that has no bearing on the film individually. After a few viewings, it just becomes another movie that has a few parts that you wanna skip to and watch. (I personally like the part where utch and Wallace meet up again until it gets to the "Deliverence" rape the most.) However, if I ever spread a list of my favorite movies to people on forums, they'll always ask "Where's Pulp Fiction on that list?" and quite frankly, it gets really annoying rather quickly. This movie seems like alot of hype to me.

Jackie Brown
Anybody could have done this movie. This just seemed like an ordinary movie to me. Umm....yeah. That's about it. Nothing whatsoever special about it at all.

Kill Bill: Volume 1/2
What do people see in these movies? I liked Volume 2 better than 1 (or should I say I didn't think it was as much of a joke) but the whole "mixing genres" thing didn't appeal to me. I'd go on but if you've seen the movie, you already know what there is to talk about, whether you liked it or you didn't it.

Sin City
This isn't a Quentin movie, he was like a guest director I believe, I honestly don't know because quite frankly (just thought I'd add this) I just wanna say that this movie is one of the overrated movies I've ever seen. And on another note, Robert Rodrigeuz (sp?) is overrated like a sumbitch as well.:D



Now, with that kind of filmography, what makes him so godly to so many people? I mean, I'm all for Quality over Quantity but the fact is, these movies all in all aren't all that and they just don't add up to him being so great as so many claim him to be. Or perhaps try this: If he wasn't such a pop culture figure, would you hail him as much as you do? Because I'm just not getting it.

And to anyone who responds, don't go off on me or anything simply because I don't ride Quentin's dick. I was actually planning on being a bit more harsh than this (I don't think I was that harsh afterall) but this guy doesn't deserve half the praise he gets if you ask me. And if you wanna bring up the greatest directors of all time, Tarantino belongs nowhere near the top 20. If there's ever a movie that seems like it's bad or not as good as it could have been or whatever (you know all the variations), at least one person will always ask (at least most of the time): "What if Quentin Tarantino had done it?" Please, where does that come from? Plus, the guy said negative things about Stanley Kubrick. Big NO NO.


Just be glad I didn't pull out the "He's so original" card.:cool:

[Kevin Lockard]

Actually, that was supposed to be "He's so unoriginal" at the end of that post, but whatever. Triple post.:D

[chasingbanky]

If you hit the edit button, this could've all been one post. Future consideration.

[Kevin Lockard]

Good idea......for future consideration, that is.:D

[jeo4]

I thought Kill Bill 1 & 2 kicked all kinds of ass. Everything else on his resume' : meh.

[AceD]

I'm not a big fan at all, but his influence is undeniable, as PULP FICTION was the first modern and mainstream film to do a lot of the things it did. He certainly has influenced a ton of directors.

[SkyNet]

he's awesome

[neo15_01]

I don't have anything to say about this really. You either dig his style and get what he's doing or you don't. Personally I like some of his movies, and I don't like some of them. This doesn't have anything to do with him but he's kinda goofy lookin

[CletusHorniblow]

I'm a HUGE Tarantino fan and I could go on and on about how much I love his work; but I'll only name off a few things that most people love about him.

He started off as one of us, nothing more than a movie geek with a dream. He pays high respects (some may say too high) to his influences and that gives him a unique style all to his own. His movies define cool with their over-the-top style, violence and witty dialogue. When you watch a Tarantino flick...you know it's a Tarantino flick.

~ CletusHorniblow: Tarantino Fanboy

[HanzoSword]

I'll have to say yes to the above posts. I would put Tarantino in my top 10 directors of all time - Pulp Fiction just redefined what movies could be. The way the storyline looped just blew my mind the first time I saw it. Kill Bill? Yep that's just about always in my 10 best list, even though I revise it often....

[Criminal Rock]

He's the master of making interesting things out of the cliche... there’s no one else like him.

[adamjohnson]

Nothing.

[Tuukka]

Originally posted by Tai Mai Jew
He's the master of making interesting things out of the cliche... there’s no one else like him.

I think you're into something here.If I expand:

Tarantino takes elements and influences from bad movies that geeks love despite admitting that they are bad movies, and turns them into genuine quality movies.

That's very much his niche.

Sure he has other talents, too: He tends to draw career-best performances from actors, writes crackling dialogue, is an intelligent storyteller with a good sense of use of picture and audio, and like I said, he can turn cliche into something original - It's much harder to do than what you might think.

But there are many directors who can do those things - Tarantino has a big fanbase because he knows how to turn bad things we love into good things we can love.

[The Heart Collector]

Tarantino is like a dj. He takes a bunch of old shit, samples it, and makes something new with it. Generally in brilliant ways.

Because it IS brilliant.

Pulp Fiction is one of the best movies I've ever seen. It's just superbly made. Here's a movie that mixes the characters, situations, and scenarios of pulpy novels and flicks, but has a completely different sensibility, a more art-house, 'people talking endlessly' kinda movie.

That's one of the reasons I think Tarantino is brilliant. It isn't just that he's taking crap and turning it into a good film, it's that he's taking elements from crappy movies and mixing them with elements of more sophisticated fare and creating movies that appeal equally to people looking for 'cool' and people looking for 'well-made art'.

Kill Bill isn't as good as Pulp Fiction, mostly because of the fact that it's cut as two movies. It's very entertaining and all, but as separate movies they're not as artistically interesting as a single whole.

Tarantino makes movies that are about the movies, his characters seem (in the case of Clarence, ARE) like they base their lives on mimicking movies, etc. His movies are very much informed by the history of film. This is more noticeable in Kill Bill since you can tell that he was focusing a lot on the style and that his influences weren't talky day-in-the-life movies.

I've said it here before that my problem with Tarantino is that he's getting a bit too obsessed with style and a little too uninterested in content. If you see Kill Bill as a whole, there's content there and there's some attempt at doing something like what Pulp Fiction was doing (one type of movie masquerading as another), but in a lot of moments it was just a collection of random tributes to film. They were still well done, though. I mean, one of the things I like about Kill Bill is that it doesn't have a unifying style. You have the scenes set in Asia which are heavily inspired by asian film, you have the scenes set in Texas (i think) which are heavily inspired by Sergio Leone movies, etc, all of the aspects of the globethrotting plot seemingly reflected on the style choices.

The problem, I think, is that now he just seems like he's doing it without the "serious movie" part. I remember a few months ago he had shown interest in doing an entire movie that was replicating old asian martial arts film, with dubbed dialogue and whatnot. While I have no doubt the final result would be very entertaining, it would ultimately just be some martial arts movie. I get the feeling it wouldn't be Tarantino mixing the martial arts / asian action movie genre with something deeper. Same with this new thing he's making with Robert Rodriguez. It's a nice exercise in style, and I'm sure the movie will be badass to the bone, but it almost feels like Tarantino's career is going backwards, like he should have started with stylish movies that were just trying to replicate his idols, but then as time went on he learned how to mix that up with more serious influences and achieve some lofty heights.

I haven't seen Jackie Brown in about 5 years, and I was too dumb when I saw it. I'm going to rewatch it again because it's probably a little more interesting than I remember, but keep in mind that he's 'reigned in' with that movie because he isn't trying to mix in a bunch of film influences, he's trying to take Elmore Leonard novels (by choosing one) and adapting them to film with some film influences (the blaxploitation theme).

Now, I don't care much for GRIND HOUSE since it just seems like some fun shit that he and Rodriguez decided to do because they're pals, rather than Tarantino's actual next project. I mean I'm not going to accuse Tarantino of starting to lose it because of GRIND HOUSE, but if his next REAL movie is some 'funny shit' he probably thought about doing while high, then I'ma have to smack the shit out of him.


Tarantino is basically an indiscriminate film fan. The man has a billion influences, and his most known influences are the ones that are shitty movies, because they stand out in a community of filmmakers where everyone is always rambling about "The Bicycle Thief" or some bullshit. But the man also likes serious film and you can see that his movies, underneath all the style and conventions of 'crappy' movies, have a backbone made of art.

[cocksmokinclerk]

Originally posted by SkyNet
he's awesome

i can add nothing more to this

[JackassFan]

He's my fave director. He's great.

[jaw2929]

The man is VERY intelligent.... He knows what fans want, because he IS one... He's the most popular of all the "fanboys" if you will.... And he goes, and takes these very cool concepts, and creates new ones that appeal to more than just the said "fanboys" that he's a part of....

I think that's why I like him... He's got great style, great fuckin' vision, brilliant dialogue, and all of these elements combined result in some fucking phenomenal flicks :)

[inglourious basterd]

Heart Collector and Tuukka are dead on.

I didn't like Jackie Brown, From Dusk Till Dawn, and Kill Bill volume 2 a whole lot, but I love his body of work so far.

Reservoir dogs and Pulp Fiction are movies that people typically praise him for. But I feel that Kill Bill 1 is his masterpiece. I was raised on kung fu flicks and that movie had me smiling from ear to ear throughout. What makes Kill Bill volume one so great is how accurately he references the qualities that made kung fu films so popular in the seventies. But, in addition to all of those things, he was able to infuse his own unique, dark humor to make something that is distinctly his.

His movies are skillfully organized, they are densely packed with intricate and authentic details, and the bottom line is that his films are often entertaining. I don't claim that he is the best director that has ever lived, but I do feel that he is a damn skilled director and he knows what he is doing.

[Shockwave]

His movies are skillfully organized, they are densely packed with intricate and authentic details, and the bottom line is that his films are often entertaining. I don't claim that he is the best director that has ever lived, but I do feel that he is a damn skilled director and he knows what he is doing.

Yep, that about says it all for me.

Nearly every movie he has done would find its way into my top 100. Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill would be in the top 10.

[Speermint]

For me, anyway, it's all about the script. Just the black humour and witty dialogue, the improbable scenes and the characters, it starts with the script and they turn into competent and fascinating films.

Especially Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, it's indie filmmaking at it's most raw and influential.

Man, i'd be hapy with half his success and talent.

[sAtAn666]

Yeah, I think most movie fans go through "the QT Worship Phase" at least once. I'm not as obsessed about him as I once was, but I still like his stuff. I just wish he'd make a movie like Reservoir Dogs again, instead of a film filled with nothing but endless intertextuality to shitty movies, which is what Grindhouse is looking like. Yeah, there were homages in his earlier films, but never this self-indulgent or blatant.

Still, I like him for his witty screenplays. He's an all right director I suppose, but Pulp Fiction is a bit overrated. It loses its power with repeated viewings, some of the pacing is really off (The Gold Watch stuff) and the lighting is kinda crappy.

[The Heart Collector]

The lightning is meant to be like that, you know.

[Monotreme]

This is an interesting subject, and one I share many sentiments with. On the one hand, as seen in Reservoir Dogs and especially Pulp Fiction, which is undeniably the most important movie of the past 20 years and a landmark in cinematic history, besides being brilliant and entertaining and memorable; Quentin Tarantino comes across as a master of the crime genre, of the film medium and specifically of manipulation of both. That said, I agree that Jackie Brown was lackluster in its mediocrity, and I have extreme problems with Kill Bill vol. 1, despite the fact that I appreciate its style and visual assets to no end. I simply found the lack of substance somewhat distressing, and especially considering the loads of content, character development and other storytelling elements present in Dogs and Fiction, I found it extremely unfortunate that Tarantino turned to the "all style no substance" solution. I saw Kill Bill vol. 2 as somewhat of a return to form for Tarantino, as it was an extremely skillfully made and ingeniously well-written and developed film, that put the focus back on the characters and away from the style.

I have ranted about this before and I'll rant about it again; Grind House coudn't look LESS interesting to me. It is extremely disappointing to me that all Tarantino seems to care about today is the style - and if anyone is actually half expecting to see some substance in the gorefest, I highly doubt it.

That said, Sin City (although not a Tarantino flick) was brilliant in its storytelling techniques. I'm not going to go around saying that it's a pinnacle of character development, but the transfixion of the comic book genre and the film medium is fresh, original, incomparable and extremely wonderful to watch.

Bottom line is this: Tarantino has three great films out of five, and the other two aren't bad per se, just lacking in certain elements that Tarantino is clearly capable of creating, as he had done in the other three. As a visual director he's a genius, and considering the unbelievable goodness of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, you've got to cut the guy some slack. Despite this, I sincerely hope he'll get this whole genre throwback thing out of his mind and direct a project like Inglorious Bastards, which sounds like a dream come true to me.

[AaronisMe]

He is a movie store employee that made it big. And that's something to aspire to and gives hope. Plus, I admire the fact that he had the balls to admit that he hates the Goonies in front of rabid movie fans. It's like saying you despise CHicago in front of a musical theatre crowd.

[Mr. Gray]

I didn't think QT had this much support. I was certain this was gonna be 50 + posts calling him an overrated loser, but touche....

[fooknasty]

I think , lately, he has become highly overated, kinda like our other rant about Dane Cook. Too much exposure, which in return, affects your work and your originality.

Reservoir Dogs is amasterpiece, his best work by far. Pulp Fiction is good, but not even close to RD. After that, Jackie Brown sucked hard, and both Kill Bill's were vastly overstylized.

Now, he goes around plastering his name on everything from Japanese imports to shitty ass horror movies (Hostel).

The man needs to stop fucking around with Rodriguez, and begin getting back to his roots of great dialogue and great character development, i.e. RD.

But no way in hell has this guy merited any kind of work to be in the top 10 greatest directors of all time. NO WAY IN HELL!!!

[chinton]

I don't worship him but Pulp Fiction is brilliant.

[The FamilyJulas]

I have my problems with Tarantino, but at the end of the day, he can make a great entertaining movie that you can sit your ass down and have a good time with. I guess when push comes to shove and you're not taking about the technicality of it all, that's enough to give the man some props.


But the douchebags who say he's the greatest film maker of all time need to shut the fuck up. http://joblo.com/forums/images/icons/icon10.gif

[echo_bravo]

I cant believe the hate for Jackie Brown. That movie flat out ruled!

[LedZeppelin1114]

There are a number of reasons that Tarantino is so great. First of all, there is the simple answer: he makes movies for people who love movies. Those cult-classic film genres that only select people enjoy but those select few adore, he takes those genres, and makes actual art films from these genres, such as the heist film (Reservoir Dogs), the martial arts film (Kill Bill), and the blaxploitation film (Jackie Brown). Also, he knows how to move a camera brilliantly, his dialogue is fantastic, and he can get a great performance out of actors many people would have given up on.

[Shockwave]

I cant believe the hate for Jackie Brown. That movie flat out ruled!

Its funny, when i was in high school i hated the film, now i love it. I think its probably his most mature work.

echo_Bravo, i really dont think alot of people hate the film, just that his others are so good. It took me time to warm up to it just because it wasnt what i was expecting from him.

[cloneofkelso]

Tarantino is the greatest director/writer of cinema ever to live there is anyone who even comes close in my opinion. Maybe the ultra violent thing doesnt really get you where you need to go but if u dont like that at least love him for the great stories and colorful characters amazing dialogue and brilliant camera shots enough compliments cannot be made about tarantino in a lifetime,this is the rant section right? lol:D