So... am I the only one who was disappointed by this film? I enjoyed Inglourious Basterds. That first part, on the French farm, is some of Tarantino's strongest writing, and the last half hour was completely insane and unpredictable. Django Unchained on the other hand has Tarantino's maybe weakest script (next to Death Proof). In a revenge drama the story is already given. It needs some surprises. Here there are none, really. Even visually the film seems less assured than his previous films. The Candyland / Mandingo part feels pretty forced, with plenty of scenes or dialogue that could have been cut without much of a loss. I wanted to like this film, but... I didn't.
Top five Quentin Tarantino films:
1. Reservoir Dogs
2. Pulp Fiction
3. Kill Bill
4. Inglourious Basterds
5. Jackie Brown
I agree...but I really put Inglorious Basterds at number 1...and I didn't mind Death Proof but...I don't know...I'm also a big actor person when it comes to film ratings...it's WHO I want to see that sells me on it...
ReplyDelete...like if someone else drew your comics...I'd be sad...or if someone not wonderfully talented wrote your comics...I'd be sad...but I'd still read them to see your art.
My Top 5:
ReplyDelete1. Pulp Fiction
2. Reservoir Dogs
3. Jackie Brown
4. Django Unchained
5. Inglourious Basterds
Django is too long, but so was Basterds. I also thought Basterds was very uneven, with some pretty silly parts. And that Jackie Brown is still underrated.
I agree, Jackie Brown is a good film, it's just less fun than his other ones.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised that the storytelling was completely linear aside from a few very brief flashbacks. I was also surprised that Schultz died, mostly because I really liked him, though I was unsurprised when he took down Candie.
ReplyDeleteHey! Comics and Cinema put together! Great blog, Jason: congratulations!! :-D
ReplyDeleteNow, I´m having a look to your older posts (starting at 2010) and I love your artwork. I have all your comics edited in Spain by Astiberri. You´re a master, man! For me, one of the most interesting, coolest, and best artist of our time!!
My top five Tarantino´s films:
1- "Reservoir Dogs" (up above the rest of his filmography: IMHO, his best movie at the moment...).
2- "Kill Bill (Vol. 2)" (better than Vol. 1: the work of David Carradine is fantastic!).
3- "Pulp Fiction".
4- "Kill Bill (Vol. 1)".
5- "Inglourious Basterds".
Maybe you already know, but Tarantino said in an interview with Josh Becker: "Reservoir Dogs is like the films of Jean-Pierre Melville, "BOB THE GAMBLER", "LE DOULOS" which is my favorite screenplay of all time, with Jean-Paul Belmondo; it's fantastic. Melville did "LE SAMURAI" with Alain Delon. He made, like, the coolest gangster films ever. They're, like, fantastic. His films were like he took the Bogart, Cagney, the Warner Brothers gangster films, all right, he loved those, and a lot of times he just took the stories from them and did them with Belmondo or Delon or Jean Gabin and just gave them a different style, a different coolness, you know, they had this French Gallic thing going through it, yet they were still trying to be like their American counterparts, but they had a different rhythm all their own. Then I took those movies and threw an L.A. right-now into them. So it's like a crossbreed, giving birth to this, giving birth to this... "LE SAMURAI" is like a samurai movie that becomes a western, then goes back to being a samurai movie. It's like they keep going back on themselves".
Sorry for this long post and, again, VERY GOOD WORK, Jason!!
:-D
Thanks! I like Le Samurai, but I prefer Melville's black and white films.
ReplyDeleteKill Bill: I like most of the film, both parts, except the last chapter. It just feels weaker than the rest.
Thanks for articulating why I felt the film was lackluster. I also love Tarantino too. I still don't understand why everyone is praising so much. Does American white guilt extend to the cinema?
ReplyDelete