Kill Bill Killed QT!

[vesaker]

What i'm saying is that i'm sick of ppl saying there's too much conversation or not enough action in QT's movies since Kill Bill came out. The conversation's have always been the focal point of his style as far as i've seen (still haven't gotten to check out Jackie Brown or Death Proof as yet) and not tons of action and i blame any belief to the contrary on Kill Bill.

In a nut shell Kill Bill had the most action of any of his movies (even more so if you see it as 2 parts and not a whole work) and since it's been his best commercial success (i'm assuming anyways) that ppl have come to expect these semi action pack flicks from him since and i'm not sure why.

None of his other movies have had more then a scene or two of action and even then they aren't big set pieces that the movies/stories center around. There were several ppl who i saw walk out of a viewing of Inglorious Basterds this weekend and while they may have had legit complaints about it i can't help but think they left cause there wasn't enough action.

So i think that while Kill Bill is a great flick(s) i think it may have set the general pop's opinion on what is a good QT movie and what isn't. Perhaps it's the marketing these days since i can think of other movies that from the trailer were looking like action packed thrillers even though they weren't (Watchmen and District 9)

So damn you Kill Bill, damn you :D

[mutesaint]

I wholeheartedly approve of this message.

[Brendan M.]

I'm actually starting to think I enjoy Basterds more than Kill Bill. I need to see it again though before I make a final conclusion.

[LordSimen]

It's the curse of an artist. The one thing you are praised for one year will be the very same thing you're trashed for ten years down the line. It's inevitable. Look at that Tim Burton thread.

[Abbie Normal]

I don't understand why a director can't do all sorts of movies. Where is it written that QT can't do an action movie with less signature dialog?

[vesaker]

I don't understand why a director can't do all sorts of movies. Where is it written that QT can't do an action movie with less signature dialog?


Well that's the thing, no one really says he can't it's just now that he has that's all the general public wants from him and therefor complain anytime it's not.

[SpiralEye]

Oh please. Who cares what someone like that thinks. I wouldn't want to associate with a person who only likes Kill Bill.

[mutesaint]

What bugs me is that people seem to forget that while QT's violence has always been brutal and graphic, it has never been action packed. There were no shootouts in Pulp Fiction or Jackie Brown. I think it was some sort of backlash going from Kill Bill to Deathproof, his talkiest of talkys, that got everyone pissed.

[Frosty_86]

It's the curse of an artist. The one thing you are praised for one year will be the very same thing you're trashed for ten years down the line. It's inevitable. Look at that Tim Burton thread.


Agreed. I really liked Death Proof, it was not his best and actually I liked Kill Bill more but it's a Tarantino movie the dialogue is Qt's style of dialogue and there's a lot of build up to the action or the climax just like any of his other movies. Pulp Fiction and Reservior Dogs had an ass load of talking, Fiction didnt have any action and Dogs has a shoot off that lasts like one second but the build up to that was fantastic. Kill Bill was the exact same way there was a lot of build up and then the fight lasts like 5 seconds. Jackie Brown didnt have any action either. Tarantino's movies are dialogue and character driven, Basterds is too, he does not do action movies. He does movies that have action elements in them but really the most important thing about his movies are the characters and the dialogue. Personally as long as Tarantino keeps on making his stories and characters interesting and that same dialogue Im always going to pay to see his movies

[The Postmaster General]

That's an awesome point, vesaker. The dialogue is the number one thing that attracted me to Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and even True Romance to a different extent. I mean, Dogs starts off with a good stretch of dialogue. Doesn't that scene go on for like 5 minutes? Actually, Dogs is entirely dialogue driven considering how much we learn compared to how much we see happen on screen. I remember when Pulp Fiction came out, I wanted to go back and see it specifically to zone out and focus on the dialogue.

You also have people who say that with Death Proof he's trying too hard to have Tarantino dialogue, and I don't even know how that makes sense, given he's Tarantino the fact that any dialogue he writes will be Tarantino dialogue.

[adamjohnson]

If his dialogue wanst continually both atrocious and boring I wouldnt mind.

[Digifruitella]

It's funny to me you mention walkouts at your showing of Basterds because of one reason. When I went to see it at a midnight showing. My theater was packed with either high schoolers or people in their 20's and up - mostly young audience. And I didn't notice a SINGLE one of them walk out. I was very surprised. Either there were a lot of QT fans in there, or something else.

The dialogues are highlights in QT's films, and they're some of the best in film.

[The Postmaster General]

Yeah, but midnight movie goers are a bit more dedicated.

[Pentangeli]

For me, QT has made three good films: Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and Jackie Brown. In those three, I empathized with the characters, I cared about them. And also the uncertainty of their outcome, the unpredictable storyline, greatly contributes to this. Once you establish that relationship between character and audience, you can then build various essential components of a good crime film, particularly suspense and intrigue.

Some people may have empathized with the Bride, but for me she was suffocated beneath an insurmountable wave of over-stylized filmmaking and a predictable screenplay. Unlike in RD and PF -- where predicting the outcome was extremely difficult, due to the multiple protagonists and an uncertainty of who the goodies and badies were -- here in Kill Bill, we have one protagonist, and all the characters are clearly identified in terms of who's side they're on. We know the Bride will survive at the end, we know she will succeed, there was no other alternative. In this sense, the Bride becomes an Indiana Jones or Superman type character, we know she will win in the end. This somewhat invincibility special power is what makes Kill Bill lack suspense and intrigue, and all we have left is an exercise in discovering her methods of revenge.

Perhaps this is also a valid critique of the predictablity of most, if not all, action films.

[The Postmaster General]

I thought the ending of Kill Bill Vol. 1 made for great suspense. Perhaps this was lost overall because of the splitting of the movies.

Death Proof, I also thought flipped predictability around.

[vesaker]

For me, QT has made three good films: Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and Jackie Brown. In those three, I empathized with the characters, I cared about them. And also the uncertainty of their outcome, the unpredictable storyline, greatly contributes to this. Once you establish that relationship between character and audience, you can then build various essential components of a good crime film, particularly suspense and intrigue.

Some people may have empathized with the Bride, but for me she was suffocated beneath an insurmountable wave of over-stylized filmmaking and a predictable screenplay. Unlike in RD and PF -- where predicting the outcome was extremely difficult, due to the multiple protagonists and an uncertainty of who the goodies and badies were -- here in Kill Bill, we have one protagonist, and all the characters are clearly identified in terms of who's side they're on. We know the Bride will survive at the end, we know she will succeed, there was no other alternative. In this sense, the Bride becomes an Indiana Jones or Superman type character, we know she will win in the end. This somewhat invincibility special power is what makes Kill Bill lack suspense and intrigue, and all we have left is an exercise in discovering her methods of revenge.

Perhaps this is also a valid critique of the predictablity of most, if not all, action films.

Well i think in this sense then there are two distinct types of stories.

One is the unpredictable story where you are kept guessing and that is what creates the emotional journey that you go on. The second type is the one like you describe in Kill will with the Bride character where we know that she will win in the end so the emotional journey is seeing all she has to endure to get there in the end.

While one can be seen better then the other from person to person i think both have their merits. It seems that Kill Bill is the real stand out in his work as it's the first time he seems to really deviate from the first kind of story to the second.

[APzombie]

There are two basic arguments against QT films since Jackie Brown that i continuously hear.

1. It's never what they expect.

2. They can never take genre films as seriously as the "academy" friendly crime films.

In the case of the first, i can't fucking stand this argument. People don't like bastards because they wanted to see The Dirty Dozen, they can't stand Kill Bill volume 2 because she doesn't even kill Elle or Budd, and talks to Bill for 20 minutes before quickly dispatching him. To me this is why i hardly ever go to multiplexes every week. Everything is too fucking predictable and formulaic. Tarantino will say it's a man on a mission movie, give us one of the most suspenseful espionage war thrillers in memory, and it's not enough because it doesn't fit neatly in with audience expectations.

As for the second. Fuck em. I doubt Inglourious Basterds will be on the list of the ten best films of the year for the oscars because it's genre. Same goes for Kill Bill. Unless it's grandiose and epic like LotR, critics never take genre films seriously.

[Frosty_86]

That's why I like Tarantino's movies, its not what you expect

[QUENTIN]

I agree with the thread title, but not the content of the post.

Kill Bill killed Tarantino because now, at best, his movies are exceptionally well-directed and slick genre pictures, where once they used to be straight fucking masterpieces of cinema.

The change to me is obvious. Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown are about human beings, they're based around characters we can believe in involving and suspenseful stories that don't go as we expect. There are homages and references to other movies in them, but they're about characters we care about and their stories.

Since the first Kill Bill, which is an expertly crafted movie about nothing, his movies have not dealt with human characters and are no longer about their stories but are instead about other movies. Kill Bill is QT's mashup of other revenge pictures, westerns, and samurai/yakuza films. Death Proof is QT's mashup of cheap, awful exploitation films with car chase movies like Black Mama, White Mama and Vanishing Point. Inglourious Basterds is QT's mashup of The Dirty Dozen, and a dozen other WWII movies. The characters are no longer the point, so they're just flimsy writer's construct caricatures rather than having any semblance of flesh and blood or the faintest notion of realism, subsequently they're not involving. Their stories don't engage me because it is so readily apparent that they're not in control of their stories, Tarantino is, and the story doesn't matter anyway, it's just another way to fit in more obscure references to stuff Tarantino likes into an environment where it doesn't fit. So four hot young girls sit around talking about movies they'd never have seen for half an hour because they're not actually four hot young girl characters who have their own lives, wants, needs, etc, they're instead four hot actresses playing one version or another of Tarantino himself. Tarantino hasn't made a movie about people since Jackie Brown, a masterpiece and the high water mark of his maturity and talent for dialogue and performance.

That's not to say his movies are all bad since then. He's an incredible visual stylist who thinks in images and is brilliant at realizing them. He may be the most innately talented visual filmmaker since Scorsese. I love the Kill Bill movies because their style is so expertly crafted and exciting. But that's all they, or his next two projects, are -- exercises in style. Empty, hollow, soulless, because they're only about how neat other movies are rather than anything resembling a relatable story with humans we care about. His movies can still be enormously entertaining, but that's the limit of their value. He's essentially gone from a unique and vibrant artist to a talented but lazy artisan, a craftsman in the film medium making more than competent pictures that have nothing to say. It's like The Beatles in reverse, it's all good music because they're very naturally talented, but the latter day stuff is actually incredible while the earlier stuff is just fun pop fluff. QT's resigned himself to making fluff pictures.

I'd like to see him return to form, and just create a character I believe lives in a real world and behaves like a real person (Budd in KB:V2 and the new father in IB were small examples of that and anchored the best scenes of the respective films). In the mean time, I'll still go to see his pictures because they're generally a good time at the movies, but as long as he's doing nothing but riffing on other people's work and creating silly caricatures, they don't even have the potential to be great.

Kill Bill was the start of that and he's only declined since, so it's what seems to have killed him. That, the ego, and no one to reign him in and tell him just because he thinks something might be cool doesn't mean it's actually good. He's gone from the most promising talent of the 1990s to one of the biggest disappointments of the 2000s.

[LordSimen]

'Eh, all his movies are about characters. The heck you smokin', QUENTIN?

[adamjohnson]

That's why I like Tarantino's movies, its not what you expect

Yeah you expect it to be good and it turns out to be a piece of shit.

[QUENTIN]

'Eh, all his movies are about characters. The heck you smokin', QUENTIN?

No, I don't think so.

O-Ren Ishii, Vernita Green, Elle Driver, Gogo Yubari, Hatori Hanzo, Pai Mei, etc. are none of them characters. They're caricatures, the types of outsized and ridiculous writer's constructs you'd find in comic books and superhero stories. There's no flesh and blood, no believability in the slightest to them. They don't behave anything like human beings. I'd argue Budd, Esteban Vihaio, and Beatrix in some scenes but not most, are the only genuine characters in that movie. The only ones who resemble anything relatable or believable.

Death Proof had zero such characters and was his worst movie as a result.

Inglourious Basterds had only the recent father German soldier, the French dairy farmer hiding Jews, and, maybe, Archie Hicox. The rest of the cast is of caricature archetypes with humorously absurd and outsized dialogue and actions, with the kind of mythologies built around them usually found in fantasy or children's stories.

Jackie Brown, Ordell Robie, Louis Gara, Max Cherry, Vincent Vega, Butch Coolidge, Jules Winnfield, Mr. Orange, Mr. Pink, Mr. White, Nice Guy Eddie. These are all human beings. Tarantino may spice things up by having an outsized caricature in a film, like The Wolf or Mr. Blonde, but even they are invested with a strong sense of believability and Keitel and Madsen are restrained, playing them as a normal guy who's really good at a messy job and a pretty amoral criminal whose an opportunist but not a supervillain, not THE WOLF and MR. BLONDE (with lightning shooting off their names and porno sound effects) with all the mythology and ridiculousness that could entail. Pulp Fiction wouldn't and couldn't be a masterpiece if it was populated solely with characters like The Wolf, nor Reservoir Dogs with only Mr. Blondes. But even those characters were more believable and human than anything in the Kill Bills, Death Proof, or Basterds. If the movies and people in them aren't grounded in any way, it's all just an empty genre exercise, not a compelling story about people.



Pot

[LordSimen]

Sorry, but the characters in your first list are ten times better and more interesting characters than half the ones in your second list if you ask me.

[QUENTIN]

Sorry, but the characters in your first list are ten times better and more interesting characters than half the ones in your second list if you ask me.

"Better" is an entirely subjective matter of taste and personal preference. Some people can get involved in 300 and think it's awesome because it's so cool looking, I can't because there aren't any people in the movie and I'm not engaged by movies about fantastical, over the top caricatures I can in no way relate to doing shit I don't buy for a second. Our tastes and preferences are very different, so this point is kinda moot.

Do you agree or disagree that they are less remotely human and realistic, behaving anything like human beings behave in a way that doesn't stretch and strain credibility from a "could this person exist, would they act like that" perspective?

[LordSimen]

I'd actually argue that Tarantino is the master of making seemingly outlandish characters who are entirely believable and do feel as if they could exist within a real setting. I find it weird, though, that you claim Death Proof has the weakest and most unrealistic characters within it. I'd say that movie probably has his most realistic, most real characters in it's girls than any of his other movies.

[APzombie]

No, I don't think so.

O-Ren Ishii, Vernita Green, Elle Driver, Gogo Yubari, Hatori Hanzo, Pai Mei, etc. are none of them characters. They're caricatures, the types of outsized and ridiculous writer's constructs you'd find in comic books and superhero stories. There's no flesh and blood, no believability in the slightest to them. They don't behave anything like human beings. I'd argue Budd, Esteban Vihaio, and Beatrix in some scenes but not most, are the only genuine characters in that movie. The only ones who resemble anything relatable or believable.

Death Proof had zero such characters and was his worst movie as a result.

Inglourious Basterds had only the recent father German soldier, the French dairy farmer hiding Jews, and, maybe, Archie Hicox. The rest of the cast is of caricature archetypes with humorously absurd and outsized dialogue and actions, with the kind of mythologies built around them usually found in fantasy or children's stories.

Jackie Brown, Ordell Robie, Louis Gara, Max Cherry, Vincent Vega, Butch Coolidge, Jules Winnfield, Mr. Orange, Mr. Pink, Mr. White, Nice Guy Eddie. These are all human beings. Tarantino may spice things up by having an outsized caricature in a film, like The Wolf or Mr. Blonde, but even they are invested with a strong sense of believability and Keitel and Madsen are restrained, playing them as a normal guy who's really good at a messy job and a pretty amoral criminal whose an opportunist but not a supervillain, not THE WOLF and MR. BLONDE (with lightning shooting off their names and porno sound effects) with all the mythology and ridiculousness that could entail. Pulp Fiction wouldn't and couldn't be a masterpiece if it was populated solely with characters like The Wolf, nor Reservoir Dogs with only Mr. Blondes. But even those characters were more believable and human than anything in the Kill Bills, Death Proof, or Basterds. If the movies and people in them aren't grounded in any way, it's all just an empty genre exercise, not a compelling story about people.



Pot

I respectfully disagree. I think Volume One was, like you say, excellent storytelling without a story, as Ebert said in his review, when he reviewed Volume Two, he said "now we are given characters to live up to the storytelling". I actually got pretty emotional when Bill said "how do I look?" in volume 2, and i've never in the slightest bit felt emotionally invested in any QT character before. True, the characters in QT's crime films are more believable because they are in modern day crime films, not necessarily because they were written or preformed better. I think you are able to get just as much from his 2k films (excluding Death Proof, which i am only fond of on a technical level) the same way you'd feel for a Pixar character. Yes, they embody a fantastical world, but they are fully fleshed and more importantly, well acted.

Your opinions are always one of the most respected to me QUENTIN, and most of the time i fully agree with you (Pulp Fiction is still my favorite 90's films and my favorite QT film) but i think you are a part of that second group i was talking about, the kind of film goer that can't possibly rank an excellent action movie or an amazing genre film in the same level as an accessible captivating drama, or crime drama. Many people think genre is beneath a so-called "masterpiece" mantra. Coming from a filmmaker who thinks The Matrix, Speed, Audition, Supercop and Shaun of the Dead were amongst the very best film of the last decade, i think QT believes he's at the top of his game.

And to be perfectly honest, as much as i love genre films, i don't think i'd have many in my top ten of the decade either.

[Kevin Smith fan]

I think its Jackie Brown that killed QT.

After Pulp Fiction was such a massive success critically and financially, the anticipation for Jackie Brown was through the roof.

Needless to say, Jackie Brown underperformed at the box office and received mostly mixed reviews by fans expecting more of the ultra violent shoot outs we saw in Fiction and Reservoir Dogs.

So in response to the backlash of not enough action in Jackie Brown, Tarantino went out and shot the four hour bloodbath we know as Kill Bill.

When QT fans ate up the genre premise, he shot Grindhouse.

And then looking to redeem himself after the fairly dismal performance of Death Proof, he finally shot the war epic he's been promising us for a decade now.

And while Tarantino's directorial skills remain top notch, his writing has plummeted. Simply put, Tarantino has become a slave to his fans. Rather than making the films that he wants to make, he makes the films he thinks his fans want him to make.

The rejection of Jackie Brown has made him afraid to venture onto anything his fanbase wont aprove of.

[Frosty_86]

Yeah you expect it to be good and it turns out to be a piece of shit.

No I like his movies because they never end the way expect them to end

[bigred760]

I don't think any of QT's movies "killed" QT. Tarantino has always been about style, his personal style. Whether it's been the heavy dialogue, the eccentric characters, the bouncing back-and-forth storyline, whatever . . . it's been his stylized movie.

As far as the action portion of his movies are concerned, he has action is his movies but they are very short-lived and they are quite violent, brutal, and/or graphic. That's been the case in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill: Vol. I and Inglourious Basterds.

And the complaints about his movies being too dialogue heavy. That's also been the case in every single one of his movies. Only difference is there really hasn't been any memorable or classic dialogue scenes since Pulp Fiction - like the "Royale w/ cheese," "foot massage," "Ezekiel 25:17," Walken's story about "the watch," "Robbing places," etc. Hell, even the tip discussion and Roth's story about almost getting busted in the bathroom in Reservoir Dogs have been mentioned here and there. But nothing from Jackie Brown on have been as memorable or quotable. Those movies have been known for other things.

[Potter82]

What bugs me is that people seem to forget that while QT's violence has always been brutal and graphic, it has never been action packed. There were no shootouts in Pulp Fiction or Jackie Brown. I think it was some sort of backlash going from Kill Bill to Deathproof, his talkiest of talkys, that got everyone pissed.

I must admit, after Kill Bill (which I liked at the time but less so as time passed) and Death Proof (which I loathed immediately), I was worried that Tarantino was becoming too self-conscious, yet campy, that he was trying too hard. I loathed Death Proof, not because it had extended dialogue scenes, it's just that the dialogue in that film went nowhere for the most part, tried way, way too hard to be cool and edgy, and the characters were unlikable and annoying. I was immensely bored during that film and actually found the most exciting part of it to be without dialogue (the head-on collision)

He really won me back with Basterds though, I think it's his best since Pulp Fiction.

By the way, something else Tarantino is great at besides dialogue - creating and sustaining suspense. He could make a kick-ass thriller if he wanted to.

[LordSimen]

Bleh. I'll never understand the world's love affair with Tarantino's weakest film. All his other's are better, why must everyone obsess with Pulp Fiction? Whatever. I guess I'll never get it.

[vesaker]

Bleh. I'll never understand the world's love affair with Tarantino's weakest film. All his other's are better, why must everyone obsess with Pulp Fiction? Whatever. I guess I'll never get it.

It's a great flick and i think a lot of ppls introduction to QT in general as i know it was mine.

It was one of the first films that i saw that played with things like the time line and how it's shown (my fav film for that is Memento), how shots can still be interesting even without the center of attention being the center of attention (think the foot massage convo where its the long shot with them at the end of the hall talking cause they are early) and the idea of the multiple story threads with no real focus through out the whole film.

It was just a new film experience that i don't think i would have gotten with Res Dogs for some reason.

[LordSimen]

Kill Bill and Reservoir Dogs were my introductions to Tarantino.

[vesaker]

Kill Bill and Reservoir Dogs were my introductions to Tarantino.

in that order?

[LordSimen]

in that order?

Yessum. Saw Kill Bill Vol 1. in theaters and it was my first exposure to Tarantino. Shortly afterward I saw Reservoir Dogs- I didn't know it was by the same guy, but I loved it too. It wasn't until around the time Volume 2 came out that I got familiar with the rest of his filmography.

[vesaker]

ah i see, interesting

[DaMovieMan]

Probably why you and your tiny minority rank PF as his weakest since most people got introduced to Tarantino when he started making films in the early nineties. Pulp Fiction shook the world, and as a new award the man will recieve soon suggests, changed direction of American cinema as we know it. It will always be his masterpiece and the movie that will never put him out of business.

There is a definite difference between his film in the 90s and his 2000s. Inglourious Basterds has some of his best and funniest dialogue and though i plan to re-watch all his films I have a feeling that it ranks third best after PF and Jackie Brown for me. Because even though what QUENTIN here suggests is mostly true and the film is full of characters that can only exist in the Tarantino universe of movies, the film is full of interesting themes and ideas and interesting human traits exemplified by those exagerated characters, traits that are noticable in real life.

Anyway, Tarantino alluded to the possibilty of coming back to the crime genre in his Charlie Rose interview, and I would love to see that happen just so we could compare what a QT crime film would look like now. He definitely changed and I can completely understand both sides of the argument: the one saying he needs to go back and deal with more grounded stories that felt more complete and the others saying he's on a role with the entertaining/action packed cartoony stuff.

One could argue that Pulp Fiction killed QT as well, since it was that film that filled his head with the idea that he's one of the greatest living film makers alive and anything he touches is gold....but then he wouldn't be QT would he?

[Bourne101]

Bleh. I'll never understand the world's love affair with Tarantino's weakest film. All his other's are better, why must everyone obsess with Pulp Fiction? Whatever. I guess I'll never get it.

I must ask (and I am not trying to be an ass) how many times have you seen Pulp Fiction? No bullshit, no exaggeration, just give me the legit number. Again, I'm not trying to tell you that you are wrong and I'm not trying to be an ass, I just want to know how many times you have seen it.

The reason why I ask is because when I first saw Pulp Fiction, I thought it was overrated. I thought it was a great film, but not all it was hyped up to be. I saw it again, and basically felt the same way. Then I saw it a third time and while it was a little better, I still felt it was overrated. But once I got to the fourth, fifth, sixth, etc. viewings, it just seemed to get better every time, I started noticing different things, picking up on subtleties, REALLY listening to the dialogue and discovering new meanings to certain things that happened in the film. It went from being one of the most overrated films I had ever seen to being my second favorite film of all time.

Maybe you've seen it dozens of times and still think it's Tarantino's weakest, that's cool, but maybe you haven't and are feeling the way I did after only two or three viewings.

[LordSimen]

I must ask (and I am not trying to be an ass) how many times have you seen Pulp Fiction? No bullshit, no exaggeration, just give me the legit number. Again, I'm not trying to tell you that you are wrong and I'm not trying to be an ass, I just want to know how many times you have seen it.


Counting the times I've caught it on television, around 13-15. Just counting the times I've watched it on DVD, 7-8 times.

[Bourne101]

Counting the times I've caught it on television, around 13-15. Just counting the times I've watched it on DVD, 7-8 times.

:cool:

Just like you'll never understand why most consider Pulp Fiction to be Tarantino's best film, I'll never understand why you think it's his weakest. I guess there could be discussions that go back and fourth for pages and pages and pages, but in this case we'll simply have to say different strokes for different folks and agree to disagree. ;)

[echo_bravo]

By the way, something else Tarantino is great at besides dialogue - creating and sustaining suspense. He could make a kick-ass thriller if he wanted to.

Agreed! You really dont hear too much praise regarding his ability to create tension/suspense.

[QUENTIN]

For me, QT has made three good films: Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and Jackie Brown. In those three, I empathized with the characters, I cared about them. And also the uncertainty of their outcome, the unpredictable storyline, greatly contributes to this. Once you establish that relationship between character and audience, you can then build various essential components of a good crime film, particularly suspense and intrigue.

Some people may have empathized with the Bride, but for me she was suffocated beneath an insurmountable wave of over-stylized filmmaking and a predictable screenplay. Unlike in RD and PF -- where predicting the outcome was extremely difficult, due to the multiple protagonists and an uncertainty of who the goodies and badies were -- here in Kill Bill, we have one protagonist, and all the characters are clearly identified in terms of who's side they're on. We know the Bride will survive at the end, we know she will succeed, there was no other alternative. In this sense, the Bride becomes an Indiana Jones or Superman type character, we know she will win in the end. This somewhat invincibility special power is what makes Kill Bill lack suspense and intrigue, and all we have left is an exercise in discovering her methods of revenge.

Perhaps this is also a valid critique of the predictablity of most, if not all, action films.

I don't know how I missed this the first time around. I could have saved myself some time, just quoted you and said I agreed. You said much of what I went on to say, but earlier and more succinctly.


Your opinions are always one of the most respected to me QUENTIN, and most of the time i fully agree with you (Pulp Fiction is still my favorite 90's films and my favorite QT film) but i think you are a part of that second group i was talking about, the kind of film goer that can't possibly rank an excellent action movie or an amazing genre film in the same level as an accessible captivating drama, or crime drama. Many people think genre is beneath a so-called "masterpiece" mantra. Coming from a filmmaker who thinks The Matrix, Speed, Audition, Supercop and Shaun of the Dead were amongst the very best film of the last decade, i think QT believes he's at the top of his game.


Perhaps this is true to an extent, but I look at it from a different perspective. Rather than like a personal failing "can't possibly rank...", I think it's that my taste runs to movies where I can relate to and therefore care more about the characters. The movies I love most, for the most part, are the compelling stories of character's I believe and am invested in. I tend not to like fantasy, blockbuster action movies, horror, etc because in these genres the characters are usually either secondary to plot machinations, genre expectations, or are so larger-than-life and absurdly conceived that I never buy that they're human beings, so I don't give a shit what happens to them. I do think dramas, in one form or another, provide the greatest possibility to be effective and excellent because they're by nature built around characters and their conflicts and stories. On the flip side, zombie films for instance, no matter how good they are as zombie movies (and Romero's Dawn is about perfect as far as I'm concerned), can't achieve the level of greatness that a movie less constrained by genre expectations can. The characters by necessity aren't going to get as much play, and it's a requisite that there will be lots of scenes of faceless zombies eating people. Working within the confines of a genre, particularly lesser genres (like exploitation movies Tarantino's been wallowing in) stunts creativity, amplifies superficiality, and is naturally less engaging to me.

That's a good point about what Tarantino likes though. For someone who thinks Shaun of The Dead, The Matrix, Speed and Supercop (all of them good for what they are in my estimation) were the best movies of the last 25 years, I'm sure he considers himself on top of his game. He's making truly excellent versions of such movies, they just aren't movies that interest me nearly as much as stuff like Jackie Brown and Pulp Fiction. Knowing what he's capable of, it's impossible for me not to have very high expectations and hold him to a high standard, subsequently feeling let down when he decides to make another genre exercise about other movies he likes rather than something as fresh and original as he's capable of about fascinating people I care about.

That said, as disappointing as his movies have been in the 2000s ranked against what he can do, both Kill Bills made my year-end top ten list and I hold them in high esteem. Just as movies I greatly enjoy that occasionally transcend their genre limitations, rather than full fledged masterpieces. In part, Tarantino (like Scorsese, Lee, Stone, the Coens, and many others) suffers from the expectations he's given us with his best work, so when he's merely good and still better than most, it nonetheless pales in comparison to his finest achievements.

[DaMovieMan]

Counting the times I've caught it on television, around 13-15. Just counting the times I've watched it on DVD, 7-8 times.

You've seen a film you don't really like over 20 times?

[LordSimen]

You've seen a film you don't really like over 20 times?

Where did I say I did not like the movie? Also, where did I say I've seen it over 20 times?

[The Postmaster General]

I think Quentin is saying the characters beyond Jackie Brown are not as easy to relate to. Even with people being drug dealers and hitmen in PF, they still did goofy stuff that you'd expect anyone to do and talked about stuff like what kind of drinks they serve at McDonalds. It's like they are faulted in a human way. Whereas, at least in Kill Bill, the characters are in much ways larger than life. Their weaknesses aren't as much human conditions as they are traits that would fit on a bio card. I think for me, that's why the ending to Volume 1 brings so much emotional weight to the story. It's in those closing moments when I think, "Shit just got real!"


I don't think any of QT's movies "killed" QT. Tarantino has always been about style, his personal style. Whether it's been the heavy dialogue, the eccentric characters, the bouncing back-and-forth storyline, whatever . . . it's been his stylized movie.



Yes, I think it would be more fair to say over exposure and unrealistic expectations killed mass audience appreciation for his films.

[Tweek]

Where did I say I did not like the movie? Also, where did I say I've seen it over 20 times?

He added the number of times you said that you've watched it on tv and dvd.

[LordSimen]

He added the number of times you said that you've watched it on tv and dvd.

But I said "counting" the times I watched it on television, meaning that first number is my DVD viewings AND my television viewings. :p

[The Postmaster General]

It's good that you cleared that up LordSimen. The fact that you've seen it about 13 times and not about 20 times is a pivotal point. This may help to gain more insight into where you are coming from in your statements. You keep explaining these things, and we'll try. *puts on tux and lights a cigarette* Oh lord we'll try, to carry on. A gathering, of angels, appeared... Above my head! They sang, to me! ...this song of hope, and THIS is what they said. They said, "Come sail away... come sail away... come sail away, with me."

[vesaker]

You keep explaining these things, and we'll try. *puts on tux and lights a cigarette* Oh lord we'll try, to carry on. A gathering, of angels, appeared... Above my head! They sang, to me! ...this song of hope, and THIS is what they said. They said, "Come sail away... come sail away... come sail away, with me."


ahahahaha, classic.

But in his defense he was just defending himself from a claim by someone who miss read what he said to being with.

[Ayestrain]

No, I don't think so.

O-Ren Ishii, Vernita Green, Elle Driver, Gogo Yubari, Hatori Hanzo, Pai Mei, etc. are none of them characters. They're caricatures, the types of outsized and ridiculous writer's constructs you'd find in comic books and superhero stories. There's no flesh and blood, no believability in the slightest to them. They don't behave anything like human beings. I'd argue Budd, Esteban Vihaio, and Beatrix in some scenes but not most, are the only genuine characters in that movie. The only ones who resemble anything relatable or believable.

Death Proof had zero such characters and was his worst movie as a result.

Inglourious Basterds had only the recent father German soldier, the French dairy farmer hiding Jews, and, maybe, Archie Hicox. The rest of the cast is of caricature archetypes with humorously absurd and outsized dialogue and actions, with the kind of mythologies built around them usually found in fantasy or children's stories.

Jackie Brown, Ordell Robie, Louis Gara, Max Cherry, Vincent Vega, Butch Coolidge, Jules Winnfield, Mr. Orange, Mr. Pink, Mr. White, Nice Guy Eddie. These are all human beings. Tarantino may spice things up by having an outsized caricature in a film, like The Wolf or Mr. Blonde, but even they are invested with a strong sense of believability and Keitel and Madsen are restrained, playing them as a normal guy who's really good at a messy job and a pretty amoral criminal whose an opportunist but not a supervillain, not THE WOLF and MR. BLONDE (with lightning shooting off their names and porno sound effects) with all the mythology and ridiculousness that could entail. Pulp Fiction wouldn't and couldn't be a masterpiece if it was populated solely with characters like The Wolf, nor Reservoir Dogs with only Mr. Blondes. But even those characters were more believable and human than anything in the Kill Bills, Death Proof, or Basterds. If the movies and people in them aren't grounded in any way, it's all just an empty genre exercise, not a compelling story about people.



Pot

While I agree in part, and you make a good case, you're neglecting to mention one of QT's best character creations in years, Basterds' "Jew Hunter" Col. Hans Landa. He never came off as a caricature to me.

I don't get the contrarian fascination with Jackie Brown--it was very run of the mill. It took a simple crime story and made it overly complex IMO. Granted, I haven't seen it in close to a decade so I should watch it again.

Death Proof I also haven't seen in a while, and only once, but I remember really liking the first half, it's only the second half that drags the movie down.

I don't think any of his particular movies 'killed' QT--he's still Tarantino the film dork (and like his latter films Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction had their share of dorky references to TV and movie--but yes somehow there did feel like there were realistic characters inhabiting those movie worlds). There was a sense after the box office failure of "Grindhouse" that QT had fallen off. Maybe everyone's just gotten over-familiar with his style.

I wonder what he's going to make next----if he'd ever actually make the Vega Brothers movie that's been proposed.

[QUENTIN]

While I agree in part, and you make a good case, you're neglecting to mention one of QT's best character creations in years, Basterds' "Jew Hunter" Col. Hans Landa. He never came off as a caricature to me.

I don't get the contrarian fascination with Jackie Brown--it was very run of the mill. It took a simple crime story and made it overly complex IMO. Granted, I haven't seen it in close to a decade so I should watch it again.

Death Proof I also haven't seen in a while, and only once, but I remember really liking the first half, it's only the second half that drags the movie down.

I don't think any of his particular movies 'killed' QT--he's still Tarantino the film dork (and like his latter films Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction had their share of dorky references to TV and movie--but yes somehow there did feel like there were realistic characters inhabiting those movie worlds). There was a sense after the box office failure of "Grindhouse" that QT had fallen off. Maybe everyone's just gotten over-familiar with his style.

I wonder what he's going to make next----if he'd ever actually make the Vega Brothers movie that's been proposed.

While I agree that Hans Landa is certainly one of Tarantino's best character creations (second only to Budd for my money in his 2000s oeuvre), I disagree that he isn't a caricature. He's a fascinating, calculating, wonderfully acted villain I couldn't take my eyes off of... that doesn't mean he doesn't behave distinctly like an especially "written" and implausible bad guy caricature though, rather than a human being. I loved watching him, he's the best thing in Basterds, but while he's certainly got a more believable and tangible sense of humanity to him than Aldo Raine or Hitler for instance, he still doesn't feel real to me. I will admit though, beyond the Basterds crew I mentioned in my previous post, he comes the closest and I don't think it's problematic or detrimental to the movie that he isn't given more human characteristics, so it's a fair point anyway.

I assure you I'm not being contrarian. I saw Jackie Brown when it came out and fell in love. As a whole, it fell just shy of Pulp Fiction, but it was then and is now his most intelligent, mature, well-acted, perfectly paced, and moving (well, it's the only one that really touches me emotionally) film. "Run of the mill" kind of shocks me. I don't think there's anything run of the mill about the picture, and it features several of my favorite Tarantino moments where he successfully accomplishes a tight rope walk much of his later work fails to. The scene of Ordell talking Beaumont to his death first with indignation then with promises of chicken and waffles, for instance, is long and wordy (a problem of many scenes in DP and IB) but it grips me the whole way through. It's clever and funny, but there's a very keenly felt sense of tension, suspense, and unpredictability to the scene and it's fucking beautifully captured in a minimal number of incredibly well-composed shots. Max Cherry and Jackie Brown have the best and most honest relationship I've seen Tarantino capture between any two characters and I'm actually attached and invested, rather than "just" fascinated by their stories. I think it's stylish in all the right ways, regularly hilarious, smart, unpredictable, and also features QT's best soundtrack. It's a perfect example and blending of all the things Tarantino does well. Give it another chance, I think almost all of Tarantino's work benefits from repeated viewings.

In Death Proof, I didn't believe anything that came out of any female character's mouth the entire movie. It's got a lot of strong visuals and a couple great sequences, as his movies always do, but the script and many of the performances are cringe-worthy to me.

I will hold out hope that he returns to making movies about humans, maybe even adult ones, and Inglourious Basterds was better than I expected and definitely worth seeing, no matter how flawed. I just worry that after the underperformance of Jackie Brown with fans and at the box-office, and then the relative success of Kill Bill, he's decided to play it safe by giving fanboys what they want rather than the best work he's capable of.

A Vega Brothers movie won't happen for practical reasons. In 1995, maybe he could have done a prequel. But he's said he wouldn't cast anyone in the roles but Madsen and Travolta and they'd have to be playing younger than they did in 17 and 15 years ago respectively. It'd take some Benjamin Button shit to pull that off and he's notorious for tossing out ideas he never really develops. I wouldn't hold your breath.

[Ayestrain]

^ Thanks for the considered response. I'll give Jackie Brown another try..

[cloneofkelso]

The man can do no wrong!He's a theatrical genius!

[The Postmaster General]

Inglourious Basterds Killed The Thesis Of This Thread!

[CyclicNightmare]

Not really. He mentions it in his original post.

[ElDuderino]

While I agree that Hans Landa is certainly one of Tarantino's best character creations (second only to Budd for my money in his 2000s oeuvre), I disagree that he isn't a caricature. He's a fascinating, calculating, wonderfully acted villain I couldn't take my eyes off of... that doesn't mean he doesn't behave distinctly like an especially "written" and implausible bad guy caricature though, rather than a human being. I loved watching him, he's the best thing in Basterds, but while he's certainly got a more believable and tangible sense of humanity to him than Aldo Raine or Hitler for instance, he still doesn't feel real to me. I will admit though, beyond the Basterds crew I mentioned in my previous post, he comes the closest and I don't think it's problematic or detrimental to the movie that he isn't given more human characteristics, so it's a fair point anyway.

I assure you I'm not being contrarian. I saw Jackie Brown when it came out and fell in love. As a whole, it fell just shy of Pulp Fiction, but it was then and is now his most intelligent, mature, well-acted, perfectly paced, and moving (well, it's the only one that really touches me emotionally) film. "Run of the mill" kind of shocks me. I don't think there's anything run of the mill about the picture, and it features several of my favorite Tarantino moments where he successfully accomplishes a tight rope walk much of his later work fails to. The scene of Ordell talking Beaumont to his death first with indignation then with promises of chicken and waffles, for instance, is long and wordy (a problem of many scenes in DP and IB) but it grips me the whole way through. It's clever and funny, but there's a very keenly felt sense of tension, suspense, and unpredictability to the scene and it's fucking beautifully captured in a minimal number of incredibly well-composed shots. Max Cherry and Jackie Brown have the best and most honest relationship I've seen Tarantino capture between any two characters and I'm actually attached and invested, rather than "just" fascinated by their stories. I think it's stylish in all the right ways, regularly hilarious, smart, unpredictable, and also features QT's best soundtrack. It's a perfect example and blending of all the things Tarantino does well. Give it another chance, I think almost all of Tarantino's work benefits from repeated viewings.

In Death Proof, I didn't believe anything that came out of any female character's mouth the entire movie. It's got a lot of strong visuals and a couple great sequences, as his movies always do, but the script and many of the performances are cringe-worthy to me.

I will hold out hope that he returns to making movies about humans, maybe even adult ones, and Inglourious Basterds was better than I expected and definitely worth seeing, no matter how flawed. I just worry that after the underperformance of Jackie Brown with fans and at the box-office, and then the relative success of Kill Bill, he's decided to play it safe by giving fanboys what they want rather than the best work he's capable of.

A Vega Brothers movie won't happen for practical reasons. In 1995, maybe he could have done a prequel. But he's said he wouldn't cast anyone in the roles but Madsen and Travolta and they'd have to be playing younger than they did in 17 and 15 years ago respectively. It'd take some Benjamin Button shit to pull that off and he's notorious for tossing out ideas he never really develops. I wouldn't hold your breath.

Right on. I agree with you whole heartedly about Jackie Brown. While Pulp Fiction is my favorite of all time and definitely my favorite Tarantino picture, (and I am very green at this blogging about movies thing) Jackie Brown ranks as my second favorite. I read the book "Rum Punch" by Elmore Leonard before I saw the movie and I think he captured the characters in the book perfectly. It's almost as if Elmore Leonard wrote Ordell Robie for Sam Jackson. Granted QT took some creative liberties with the story but when hasn't that happened in a book adaptation?

As for Kill Bill killing Quentin Tarantino...I don't have the movie reviewing chops that the rest of you have (believe me reading these posts are making my head spin; opening me up to things I've never thought of before and I appreciate it) but I have really loved all of his movies. Death Proof is my least favorite but I won't split hairs, I still thought it was good. And I've never been jonesing for some kinda action packed extravaganza since Bill. Most of the violence in his movies have always been implied anyway. You don't actually see Marvin's head explode like a watermelon at a Gallagher show. There's not a lot of shoot 'em up action in Reservoir Dogs or Jackie Brown. Before watching a QT movie for the first time I usually just throw out what I know and enjoy the experience. Can't really enjoy a movie if I'm constantly comparing throughout. Just my two cents. Maybe one cent in the haphazard way that I express my thoughts. But don't be too rough on me...it's my sixth time.

[The Postmaster General]

Not really. He mentions it in his original post.

I believe you overestimate my seriousness when I refer to the subject of this rant as a thesis.

[CyclicNightmare]

Everything on the internet is serious.

[vesaker]

Everything on the internet is serious.

Rather.