Sins of Omission - Entry #79: Django Unchained (2012)

Running Time: 165 minutes

Directed By: Quentin Tarantino

Written By: Quentin Tarantino

Main Cast: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson

MORE Q.T. 

SINS OF OMISSION - Entry #38: The Hateful Eight (2015)

Running Time: 187 minutes
Directed By: Quentin Tarantino
Written By: Quentin Tarantino
Main Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir
Click here to view the trailer

MORE Q.T.

In my opinion, this was the best Quentin Tarantino movie since Kill Bill. I wasn't crazy about Death Proof or Inglorious Basterds and while I did really enjoy Django Unchained, I loved this one even more. Great cast, great story, great suspense - really, there's nothing bad going on here whatsoever. Enjoy some stills, because I'm not in the mood to write...

RATING: 9/10  I have a feeling that every Q.T. movie will end up on my list, but man, I really enjoyed this one and as of now, it sits with Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill on my personal, 1,000 list.

SINS OF OMISSION - Entry #10: Sin City (2005)

Running Time: 124 minutes
Directed By: Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller, Quentin Tarantino
Written By: Frank Miller, based on his graphic novels
Main Cast: Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Rosario Dawson, Jessica Alba
Click here to view the trailer

WHAT IS A "SIN OF OMISSION"?
As noted many times in the recent past here at the "1001 Movies I (Apparently) Must See Before I Die" blog, in the next 12 - 18 months the ultimate goal of this blog will transform from 'one man's journey to watch all 1001 movies in the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" book' to 'one man's journey to create his own, personal canon of 1,000 favorite films and show "those 1001 people" just how it's done! Sins of Omission will become a regular feature on the blog where I'll take one film that WAS NOT included in any incarnation of the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" book and DOES NOT appear on the next list of 1000 films that I plan to tackle, give it a formal review and make it a permanent part of my list, which is entitled: 1000 Films You REALLY Should See Before You Die: A Personal, Ongoing Canon of My 1,000 Favorite FIlms.

COMICS COME TO LIFE

As I get back into the swing of things here on the blog, I don't expect to bang out more than one or two reviews per week - maybe three on a good week. My days off each week are Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so those are the prime times you're going to see me coming at 'ya. Through the week, I don't get the chance to watch movies until my wife hits the hay and by then, I'm dog tired myself. Anyway, now you know.

I'm going to be writing a piece about Sin City and it's ties to film noir for an upcoming issue of The Dark Pages newsletter, so I took the opportunity to get reacquainted with the film and in doing so, decided to go whole hog and just include it as a SIN OF OMISSION. It's actually a very important film to me, more on that later. Read on...

The film is busted up into three parts, with each section telling a different story, which also happen to be based on graphic novels by co-director Frank Miller. We start out with "The Hard Goodbye", the main character of which is Marv (Rourke), a scarred up brute with super human strength and a penchant for beating people up. Marv spends the night with a hooker named Goldie and when he awakes in the morning, he finds her in his bead, without a pulse. Conveniently, the cops storm his apartment at that exact moment and Marv begins to realize he's being framed. He busts from the cops and goes on the hunt, wanting to avenge the death of a beautiful girl who treated him nice even though she didn't have to. His search leads him all the way to the upper hierarchy in Sin City and Cardinal Roark, a powerful man who's brother is the state senator. Next we meet Dwight (Owen), a sneaker wearing tough guy who's currently shacking up with the ex-girlfriend of a thug named Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro). When Jackie Boy makes his way into Old Town - a corner of Sin City where the prostitutes are in charge and police have no jurisdiction, per a deal between the two groups - he grabs hold of the wrong skirt and gets turned into a pez dispenser for his troubles. With Jackie Boy dead, Dwight picks his pockets to see who he is and finds that Jackie Boy is actually a cop, albeit a crooked one. Now, fearing that the deal between law enforcement and the girls may be off, now that they've offed an officer, Dwight helps the girls, including his ex-girlfriend Gail (Dawson) dispose of Jackie Boy's body. Finally, we're introduce to Detective John Hartigan (Willis), an aging detective with a flaring case of angina. Days from retirement he saves a little girl, Nancy Callahan, from a serial pedophile/killer and in the process takes away the killer's manhood. Later, Hartigan finds himself awaking in a hospital bed, being talked to by the killer's father, who just happens to be Senator Roark, who tells him that he plans to spend money out of his own pocket to ensure that Hartigan live a long life, even arranging surgery to cure his angina so that he can rot away in prison for disfiguring his son. Hartigan is framed and is sent to prison. In prison, he receives weekly letters from Nancy. The letters come for eight straight years and then one week, they stop. Then he gets an envelope with what appears to be Nancy's severed finger and he decides to play good con, appease the parole board and get released so that he can go look after her and make sure she's okay. Once released, Hartigan inadvertently leads Roark Junior - now a disfigured, yellow monster - right to Nancy's doorstep.

When I was a kid, a neighbor lady used to take me and my brother to the movies. We didn't have a decent movie theater in the town that we lived, so we'd hop into her car and she'd take us to the next closest town - about twenty miles north. She took us to a theater called Cinema World, which my brother and I would jokingly call Cinnamon World. It was kind of a dive theater, an independently owned little hole, but as kids we didn't know it was crappy and we loved it. It was there I got my earliest glances at cinema, seeing flicks like The Rescuers Down Under, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and No Holds Barred (the Hulk Hogan movie). We probably only saw a handful of movies there with the neighbor lady and after a while, that fad fizzled out and we stopped going. Flash forward to April 2005 and for some reason my brother and I found ourselves back at the God forsaken Cinnamon World, preparing to feast our eyes on Sin City, a movie we'd been anticipating for weeks, months.

A couple of months prior to this, perhaps having heard about the impending movie (I don't remember), I had asked to borrow my brother's copies of the Sin City graphic novels. My brother had always been a big comic geek and these were titles I'd recognized from his book shelf, when he still lived at home. He obliged me, of course, bringing them over one night and I read them up in probably a matter of days, loving every black & white panel. I can still remember seeing the trailer for the first time, having just finished the books and watching these characters breathe for the first time. Watching Clive Owen being called Dwight, a man I'd just read on the written page and Mickey Rourke as the scarred up, bandaged Marv. Oh, it was going to be a great movie and my brother and I made plans to go almost immediately. However, I don't remember the circumstances that had us landing back at the shitty theater, with stained floors and seats that had squeaky bolts. It didn't matter though, here was Marv, Dwight and Hartigan living and large on the big screen and I for one was mesmerized by the black & white, with splashes of color. It seemed as though every other frame deserved inclusion in MoMA and I was overdosing on quotable lines. It was pretty much, word for word the same lines that I'd read only a month prior, but to hear them spoken, accompanied by actor's with passion in their throats and a score behind them made them goosebump inducing.

Maybe it's just a personal thing, but that night at that little hole in the wall theater is a night I'll never forget because it was probably the most excited I'd been to see a movie on the big screen. I've stated many times before on the blog that I'm not a guy who goes out to the theater that often and can usually hold off to seeing movies on the small screen and in the comfort of my own home. For Sin City, waiting wasn't an option. I had a healthy obsession with Frank Miller for a long while after this, even reading some of his Daredevil work and of course, 300, but it was Sin City that always struck me as his most mesmerizing work and yet it was all so simple. Tales from a city where crime is second nature, where fast cars important and where dames will leave you with "to die for" feelings. A city that lurked and lived in the shadows, where the sun didn't shine and where smoke rings rose up to circle a pale moon that barely lit the dangerous alley ways, alley ways where you could find nearly anything - a kind hooker, a yellow bastard or a headless cop.

RATING: 8/10  I feel like that's a good note to end on, so I'll end on it. Great movie, one that will dazzle your eyeballs and hopefully leave you wanting to read the graphic novels, although I'd suggest doing that first.

July 8, 2014  10:59pm

SINS OF OMISSION - Entry #6: Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004)

Running Time: 137 minutes
Directed By: Quentin Tarantino
Written By: Quentin Tarantino
Main Cast: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Perla Haney-Jardine
Click here to view the trailer

WHAT IS A "SIN OF OMISSION"?

As noted many times in the recent past here at the "1001 Movies I (Apparently) Must See Before I Die" blog, in the next 12 - 18 months the ultimate goal of this blog will transform from 'one man's journey to watch all 1001 movies in the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" book' to 'one man's journey to create his own, personal canon of 1,000 favorite films and show "those 1001 people" just how it's done! Sins of Omission will become a regular feature on the blog where I'll take one film that WAS NOT included in any incarnation of the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" book and DOES NOT appear on the next list of 1000 films that I plan to tackle, give it a formal review and make it a permanent part of my list, which is entitled: 1000 Films You REALLY Should See Before You Die: A Personal, Ongoing Canon of My 1,000 Favorite FIlms.

ROARING RAMPAGE OF REVENGE!

Did you miss me? Something told me you guys could use some new reading material, so here I am to present you with the sixth entry in the SINS OF OMISSION series - a series that allows me the opportunity to propel some of my old favorites (pre-1001 BOOK) directly into my personal 1,000 best list, which is carefully being constructed. Since I'm currently working on an some outside projects, particularly one that involves David Carradine's Bill character, I thought I'd take the opportunity to put this one on my list. However, this will not be a new entry. On my list, KILL BILL VOL. 2 appears as one entry, combined with KILL BILL VOL. 1. Makes sense, right? Anyway, read on...

So Volume 2 picks up right where Volume 1 left off, with The Bride (Thurman) having already killed two of the five people on her Death List Five. The only three that remain are Bill (of course), his brother Budd (Madsen) and his current muse, Elle Driver (Hannah). The film begins by flashing back to that fateful wedding day (which was in fact a wedding dress rehearsal) and Bill's first appearance (onscreen) in the whole bloody affair. Bill has a talk with The Bride (whom we later learned is actually named Beatrix Kiddo), which seems to be fairly pleasant, before we learn that Bill is still harboring some sour grapes, thus sending in his team of assassins to wipe out the wedding party. Flashback to the present, as we follow The Bride as she tracks Budd, who lives in a mobile home, out in the middle of nowhere. Budd actually gets the jump on Kiddo, by unloading a shotgun blast of rock salt into her chest, right before he ties her up and buries her alive, under a grave stone marked Paula Schultz. While underground, Kiddo remembers the "cruel tutelage of Pai Mei", which actually took place years earlier, when Bill dropped her off to become the warrior she is today. She remembers how her ultra cruel instructor would make her break wood with her fists, thus allowing her to summon her teachings and break out of her coffin and crawl up out of the ground. Meanwhile, Budd makes a deal with Elle Driver - he'll give her The Bride's Hattori Hanzo sword in exchange for $1 million in cash. Elle agrees and this all leads to a showdown at Budd's mobile palace between him, Elle and the recently unearthed Bride. Of course, that's not to mention the grand finale which involves a regretful Bill.

SPOILER ALERT!

You know, speaking of The Bride crawling up out of the ground, I think that's the one thing about this movie I really don't like. I mean, why weren't we given the part of Kiddo's back story where she goes to groundhog training and learns to burrow up out of the ground? Anyway, it's nitpicky shit, but last night, when I watched this, it really took me out of the whole picture.

Besides that, I mean - how awesome is this flick? I can remember KILL BILL VOL. 1 being released on DVD about a month or so before KILL BILL VOL. 2 was to hit theaters. My brother both watched it and made plans to get our asses to the theater to see how this all wrapped up. I remember the anticipation of waiting for the Friday that this was to be released, so we could see Bill finally get what was coming to him and see Tarantino's ingenuity at play. I also remember a co-worker of mine at the time, making the critique that "you can't give me that much blood in part one and nearly none at all in part two". You see, that's the thing though. I think it's best not to think of these movies as VOLUME ONE and VOLUME TWO, but rather one big, long film. That way the blood of VOLUME ONE and the story development of VOLUME TWO can coexist and make for one exciting affair when combined.

You know, on second thought, there's another thing I hate about this movie. The fact that Kiddo doesn't actually kill either Budd, nor Elle. Elle kills Budd and Kiddo leaves Elle in the trailer, still alive when we last see her. Sure, it's assumed that she gets bitten by the snake, but we never see it and after all that Kiddo's been through, it's hard to believe that she'd actually leave a survivor, even a blind one who's alone with a black mamba. Another thing that kind of gets me (and I don't know whether I love it or hate it) is the fact that the biggest fuck up of the whole group - Budd - is the one who actually comes the closest to killing The Bride. Oh, oh, oh and another thing! What's the deal with the big fight between The Bride and Bill only lasting a total of like twelve seconds? Really? I just sat through four hours of a movie called KILL freaking BILL and you're going to give me a ten second fight scene between these two, that should've lasted at least ten minutes!? Man, it sounds like I'm crapping all over this one, but I promise, it is a favorite! I just have a tendency to really pick on the movies that I like and ones where I know the opportunity for maximum potential existed. Those are just a few things that kind of piss me off about this one.

However, it's a Tarantino flick and I'll always have a soft spot for that man's movies. He's the man that got me interested in movies and one that I'll always show up for. He's one of the few guys going today who still brings that special something when it comes to modern cinema and allows the true cinephiles to realize why they fell in love with moving pictures in the first place. I've heard the term "pure cinema" used a lot, but have never bothered to look up it's text book meaning. I have a feeling KILL BILL qualifies though. It nails perfectly everything from score to acting, dialogue to storytelling, not to mention larger than life characters (can I just say I LOVE the Elle character - Hannah NAILED it!). It provides an engaging, exciting, riveting, suspenseful, nearly flawless trip to the movies and when watched in conjunction with VOLUME ONE, as a whole, the damn thing is impossible to exclude for any list and shame on THE BOOK for leaving this volume out of every one of their editions!

RATING: 8/10  I deducted a few points for the nitpicky stuff I mentioned, but an '8' is hard to come by recently, especially by my picky ass standards.

March 30, 2014  10:53pm

875. Pulp Fiction (1994)

Running Time: 154 minutes
Directed By: Quentin Tarantino
Written By: Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary
Main Cast: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel
Click here to view the trailer

MY FAVORITE FILM AND DJANGO TALK

So, here's the deal: "Pulp Fiction" was SUPPOSED to be the film that I ended my entire journey with, the 1001th review that I would have written. The reason it was going to be the final film, is because it has long since been the movie that I cite whenever someone asks me what my favorite movie is and I figured what better way to end, than with my stock answer to the favorite film query. HOWEVER, after watching "Django Unchained" the other night, I had a mean hankering to do some comparing - comparing between the Quentin Tarantino of 1994 and the Quentin Tarantino of 2012. It's an eighteen year difference and somewhere in there, he's gone from being my absolutely favorite director to being someone who always leaves me looking for just a little bit more and unfortunately, disappointing me often. Therefore, this review will be a little bit different than all of my other reviews, as I'll spend time talking about both "Pulp Fiction" and "Django Unchained" and doing some compare & contrast work. Off we go...

First, we get to the movie at hand: "Pulp Fiction". The film is split into a few different stories and it all starts with a couple common crooks (man and wife) sitting in a little diner, planning to rob the place when they're finished with their breakfast. Then we cut to a car and meet Jules (Jackson) and Vincent (Travolta), two hitmen, working for crime lord Marcellus Wallace and out on a job, just before 7:30am. As they get to where they're going, Vincent confides to Jules that, since Marcellus is going to be out of town the following day, he's asked Vincent to take care of his wife - take her out to dinner, show her a nice time, etc. Eventually the guys get to where they're going: an apartment and inside are three (four?) men, one of whom is undercover and working for Marcellus as well. The guys are after a briefcase and after they retrieve it, they kill the occupants of the apartment and are on their merry way. After this, we get a title card entitled "Vincent Vega and Marcellus Wallace's Wife" and we get that whole story. They go to dinner, casually flirt and dance at Jack Rabbit Slims (the restaurant). I won't give away anymore than that. From there, we go to "The Gold Watch", which tells the story of Butch Coolidge (Willis), a boxer who has been paid by Marcellus Wallace to throw his upcoming fight (we saw the payoff earlier, after the briefcase piece). Butch takes, seemingly a lot of money, but come fight time wins the fight and actually kills his opponent. He flees the arena, heads to a hotel, meets up with his fiance, Fabienne, with plans to leave the following morning. Only one problem - she forgot to pack his gold watch, an heirloom, which has been handed down, starting with his great grandfather. Now, with dozens of hitmen and criminals looking for him, he must go back to his apartment to retrieve the watch. We end with a funny little piece entitled "The Bonnie Situation", which involves a man's head being blown off...but that's just the beginning.

Okay, so before we get into talking about "Django Unchained', let me first talk about why I love "Pulp Fiction". You know, I actually still remember watching "Pulp Fiction" for the first time. My brother and I had watched "Reservoir Dogs". I was young, but lucky enough to have a cool older brother who showed me quality films at my young age. At the time, he had seen both "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction" and when the former ended and I loved it as much as I did, he promised to get "Pulp Fiction" and show me that as well, with promises that most preferred it to "Dogs". We started watching it and after a little while, I decided that it wasn't for me and quit on it. Yep, that was my first encounter with "Pulp Fiction" - a bailed out viewing. The next day, something was eating at me. I needed to finish that movie and I really didn't know why, but I just knew if I could get all the way through it, I'd love it. There was something about those opening minutes (during the bail out viewing, I probably didn't even get to the introduction of Mia Wallace) that sparked something in me. So, I put it back in (it was a rental VHS) and sitting by myself, I finished it. I think, at first, it may have even had something to do with wanting to impress my brother. "Hey, I finished Pulp Fiction and I loved it", was something that, perhaps, I wanted to be able to say. Well I did love it and over the years, through MULTIPLE viewings (probably close to fifty, at least), it's always been a movie that just totally encapsulates me.

It's like saying water is wet and heat is hot, to say that the dialogue in "Pulp Fiction" is magnificent. Everyone who has seen it and liked it cites those exact words, so I won't hammer that point home. But it's more than just the dialogue. It's the way these stories are made to hook us and that, my God, there's three of them!! Maybe it's the fact that each story isn't copy & paste, cookie cutter material and that any of the three stories potentially had dozens of different outcomes. Would Mia have cheated on Marcellus with Vincent had she not overdosed? What if Butch hadn't gone back to save Marcellus? What if Bonnie had made it home? And, sonofabitch, what's in that briefcase!!?? Tarantino keeps us on our toes. He hooks us with the common criminals, continues hooking us and makes us laugh a little with the "Royale with Cheese" dialogue, warms us up with the Mia Wallace story, keeps the heat on for the Butch Coolidge story, lets us breathe a little bit and laugh with the Bonnie Situation and finally, has the criminals, that we've probably forgotten about at this point, reemerge and meet our two main characters. It's a ride man and let me tell you, it's a lot of fun and it's just so damn good. With this film, in 1994, Tarantino proved that he was the next link in the great director's chain and that if he stuck around, he'd become a force to be reckoned with on the filmmaking scene.

---

Fast forward to 2012 and notice that Tarantino did, indeed, stick around. He's now made seven feature films (eight if you count Kill Bill as two) over the course of a twenty year period, proving that meticulous work goes into the making of each of his films and that he's not just making movies for the sake of making movies. So why didn't I like "Django Unchained" near as much as anything pre "Kill Bill" (including "Kill Bill")? In fact, why didn't I like "Death Proof" or "Inglorious Basterds" as much either? Simple. Because Quentin Tarantino is getting older and because Quentin Tarantino has officially established himself. Look at his work...

Reservoir Dogs - This is Tarantino writing as a fan of film, after jockeying the register at a video store. He's still a bonafide fan and therefore he knows what other film fans want to see. Plus, he's a nobody when he writes this, so he's trying to get his foot in the door.

Pulp Fiction - Foot is in the door! Still a fan, still knows what we wanna see and hear, creating over the top characters, having conversations that could only possibly exist in the realm of a fictional work.

Jackie Brown - His first (and only) adaptation. He's stepping up in the world, but he's still got those independent roots and still knows how to tell an intriguing story, using out of sync chronology and different angles of the same scenes to his advantage.

Kill Bill - The turning point. The last movie he truly makes for his fans and he sends us off in style, breaking this epic into two parts and giving us two chances to say goodbye to the Tarantino of old. QT has always been a self indulgent filmmaker, but after this he'll be fully indulging; a little "me time" if you will.

Death Proof - Just messing around, as far as I can tell. The transition period between Kill Bill (the fans movie) and Inglorious Basterds (his movie).

Inglorious Basterds - A truly, 100% self-indulgent masterpiece. Good, but not near as good as anything pre "Kill Bill". Huge, overblown hat tip to Sergio Leone and now he's officially going into business for himself. He's no longer a fan, he's a celebrity and he knows this now, without a doubt. This is why QT is starting to lose me.

Django Unchained - Better than "Inglorious", but only by chance, because he's still in business for himself, still knows he's a celebrity and is still giving Sergio Leone onscreen blowjobs about every 10 - 12 minutes. Sorry to be so crass...

Hey, I liked "Django", don't get me wrong. However, it's sad seeing those traces of the old QT and realizing that he's probably never going to make a better film that "Pulp Fiction" or "Kill Bill" ever again. Just look at the way Leonardo DiCaprio's character talks; "tasty refreshment", for example. It's like a tip of the hat to himself, except it comes off as something like ripping himself off. Also, while ALL of QT's movies have had traces of comedy (hell, QT himself considers "Pulp Fiction" to be a full blown comedy, once citing in an interview that it should be in the comedy section of video stores), has there ever been a more blatant example of comedy that the KKK scene in "Django", with the crooked eye holes in their hoods? That was just stomach turning and God, even Jonah fucking Hill was in there!! Give me a break! If only QT could become a full blown fan again, forget his celebrity or even get a bad review, then maybe that would be enough to knock him off his pedestal and push him to get back some of that originality. However, even if that doesn't happen, it is the opinion of this blogger that when Tarantino passes on, retires, whatever, he'll leave behind a catalog of work that can hold water against the likes of the greatest director's of all-time. I may not like the extremely self-indulgent, post "Kill Bill" QT AS MUCH and he still may not be hitting home runs, but he's getting some nice double plays, nonetheless.

RATING: 10/10   And "Le Trou" officially has competition this season...and my God, picking between the two is going to be harder than Sophie's choice.

DJANGO RATING: 7.5/10  Good score, but for QT it's still a disappointment. He used to be my favorite director and anything below an '8' seemed impossible. Oh the times they are a changin'.

MOVIES WATCHED: 661
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 340

April 20, 2013  10:22pm

974. Kill BIll: Volume One (2003)

Running Time: 111 minutes
Directed By: Quentin Tarantino
Written By: Quentin Tarantino, Uma Thurman
Main Cast: Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Sonny Chiba, Vivica A. Fox, Julie Dreyfus
Click here to view the trailer

REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD

Tonight it was a short march to the "DVD room" for my next review, a personal favorite of mine - "Kill Bill". In this case, it's "Kill Bill: Volume One" and I have to wonder why THE BOOK didn't just mash the two volumes of the "Kill Bill" story together into one entry.

Eleven years after Quentin Tarantino introduced us to Mr. White and Mr. Pink, he introduced us to The Bride a.k.a. Black Mamba (Thurman). Though her real name is hidden from us until the second volume, what we do know about The Bride is that on her wedding day, moments before she was to be married, the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (with their leader Bill) gunned down and murdered nine people that were on hand for the ceremony - they should have made it ten! Though they thought they murdered her and despite the bullet Bill fired into her brain, The Bride didn't cease to be. Instead, she lay comatose in a hospital bed for four years, probably dreaming about the revenge that she'd serve her attackers. When she wakes up, she "takes out" a hospital orderly, steals his truck (the "Pussy Wagon") and gets to work, coldly serving her dish of revenge on the five members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. In "Volume One" The Bride takes out Vernita Green a.k.a. Copperhead (Fox) quite easily and the rest of the film is mainly focused on The Bride's travel to Tokyo and preparation for her grand fight with O-Ren Ishii a.k.a. Cottonmouth (Liu).

I can remember working at a video store when this film was released on DVD. At the time, I considered Quentin Tarantino my favorite director, however, like now, I rarely got to the theater, even to check out the movies that I most anticipated. I can remember waiting patiently, like a child wait's for Christmas morning, for "Kill Bill" to be released on DVD and I remember the day when it finally was. When I finally got to watch it, it was worth the wait and then some. In fact, I liked it so much that I actually made it to the theater for "Volume Two". However, through the years as I re-watched the film on multiple occasions, I realized that each time it would get less and less appealing. Well, tonight I watched the film for the umpteenth time and I can say that the appeal has returned. My tastes have changed drastically since the days when I worked at the video store and waited patiently for "Kill Bill". Now, I wait patiently for the new Woody Allen film each year and while I did make it to the theater for "Inglorious Basterds", I didn't much care for it and have yet to see it again, or even purchase it. In the words of Bob Dylan, "The times they are a-changin".

Anyway, enough rambling. Why do I like "Kill Bill" and more specifically, why do I like "Kill Bill: Volume One"? Well what's not to like, really? For all intents and purposes this film is flawless. It gets it's point across, uses it's time perfectly and never, NEVER drags. You know, you can gather your most keen-eyed film snobs and they'll fill a college ruled notebook with all the references, samplings and "ripoffs" that Tarantino uses in this movie and then they'll chastise him for it. I've never been one for caring about someone sampling someone else's work, as long as it's not blatant and as long as it serves their story too and they use it respectfully. Tarantino borrowed from and paid homage to several different genres here, including wuxia films, spaghetti westerns and blaxploitation films and he meshes it all together in grand fashion. He samples the scores of Ennio Morricone and Bernard Herrmann, while mixing in pieces of country tunes, Gheorghe Zamfir virtuoso's and music by "The 5, 6, 7, 8's". In fact, the music is so perfect here that even a blind man would have to acknowledge the greatness of this picture.

Tarantino is no longer my favorite director, through no fault of his own, but it's hard to deny him. He's one of the few director's still making movies that allows me to have continued faith in the future of American cinema. You can say what you want about the guy, but he makes his brand of picture. Is he a self-indulgent filmmaker? YES! He throws conventional rules out the window, paying no mind to certain details, such as telling a film in linear fashion. In "Kill Bill", Tarantino tells the story in all different parts and it only adds to our laundry list of questions, but makes it that much more enjoyable when we finally start piecing things together. Let's also take for instance the back story of O-Ren Ishii, which Tarantino tells using a Japanese anime sequence - a perfect fit in this unconventional film. The bottom line is that when you look at "Kill Bill" it's hard to believe it came out of 21st Century Hollywood, because it looks so damn good and certainly sticks out like a sore thumb - a good sore thumb.

On the poster for "Slacker" there was a quote that read something like, "this film is a twelve course meal composed entirely of desserts". I don't know if that pertains to "Slacker" or not, but it fits "Kill Bill" perfectly. Every other frame is a visual smorgasbord for the eyes. There are a lot of EXCELLENT films in history, that still make us sludge through a lot of dull to get to the payoff. In "Kill Bill" we work toward a payoff, but Tarantino makes it a hell of a lot of fun just getting there. Tarantino makes us savor every frame of his picture, never allowing us to think ahead to the inevitable ultimate clash.

RATING: 10/10 Well did you expect anything less? I reviewed "Reservoir Dogs" approximately 200 movies ago. Do you think I can wait another 200 before I do "Pulp Fiction"? We'll see.

MOVIES WATCHED: 405
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 596

January 21, 2012 3:49am

845. Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Running Time: 99 minutes
Directed By: Quentin Tarantino
Written By: Quentin Tarantino
Main Cast: Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi, Chris Penn

ON MY JOURNEY I MET A MAN NAMED QUENTIN

Remember when I was nearing 201 films watched and I slipped in "Sideways" to see how watching a longtime personal favorite would effect the outcome of my TOP 20 list? Well, in watching "Reservoir Dogs", I'm essentially doing the same thing, just a lot earlier. This has always been a favorite of mine and in fact, Quentin Tarantino has long been a favorite director of mine. As my director interests are beginning to sway in other directions, in my opinion, "Reservoir Dogs" still holds up as a great film.

The film is told in a non-linear fashion, flip-flopping around as Tarantino gives us tidbits of information, as he sees fit. The entire film revolves around a group of criminals who are plotting a diamond heist, from a jewelry wholesaler. The five men who will carry out the job are brought together by two masterminds, the father and son duo of Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney) and "Nice Guy" Eddie (Penn). The five have no prior knowledge of any of the others' identity and are given code names to protect this information. There's Mr. Orange (Roth), Mr. White (Keitel), Mr. Pink (Buscemi), Mr. Blonde (Madsen), Mr. Blue (Edward Bunker) and Mr. Brown (Quentin Tarantino). We're treated to very little of the events surrounding the actual robbery and more to the aftermath. The film takes place mostly in an abandoned warehouse, where the men have planned to meet up once the job was done. Mr. White and Mr. Orange are the first two back to the warehouse and Mr. Orange has suffered a critical wound to the belly. As Mr. White consoles Mr. Orange and we're treated to the more human side of these criminals, Mr. Pink arrives. Mr. Pink makes it known that he has no doubts that there is a rat in the group, stating that the cops were waiting there for them, causing everything to go awry. We also learn that during the robbery, Mr. Blue and Mr. Brown were killed and that Mr. Blonde went on a "kill crazy rampage", shooting everyone in sight. As the criminals gather at the warehouse and await further instructions from Joe and Eddie, we're treated to marvelous dialogue and flashbacks to the events that brought the crew together.

POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT!

The thing that I've always enjoyed about this film is Tarantino's almost flawless execution. Tarantino is a master at writing dialogue and I think he is well aware of this fact. The reason I think he is well aware of this fact, is because he starts of "Reservoir Dogs" with some amazing dialogue, as the crew sit in a coffee shop and discuss menial topics, such as the real meaning of Madonna's "Like A Virgin" and why Mr. Pink doesn't tip. He hooks us with that dialogue and by the time that scene is over and the credits roll, we're buckled up and ready for Tarantino to take us wherever he may. Following that, before we even find out that these men are criminals, we're shown their human side, as Mr. White consoles Mr. Orange and protects him as if it were his own child. White holds Orange's hand, combs his hair for him, tells him it's not as bad as it looks and whispers something in his ear (that we don't hear), making him laugh, despite his critical wound. Then we start to get more pieces to the puzzle, after Mr. Pink arrives and he talks with Mr. White. We start to learn that these men were behind a robbery and that there were diamonds involved. Then we get some flashback, we learn more about these characters and how they came to be stuck together in the middle of a heist.

The key to "Reservoir Dogs" is the fleshed out characters, the dialogue and the fact that Tarantino places several elements into play, the key element being that one of these men is a rat. I don't remember the first time I watched this movie, but I wish I could watch it again not knowing who the rat is. In fact, I wish there would've been someway for Tarantino to hold off revealing the identity of the rat, until closer to the end. I think it really would've been fun to play the guessing game throughout the movie and try to figure out which one of these guys was the undercover cop. But we find out at about the halfway mark which of the colorful characters is the cop and everything still meshes together fine.

One last personal note, before I wrap up here. I'll never forget my brother sitting me down when I was a young teenager and showing me a lot of movie that would eventually turn into personal favorites of mine. This was one of them and it will always hold a special place, for that reason. This is a movie that I can pop in at anytime and watch, and despite knowing the outcome, I can still enjoy it every single time. Although, this time around, it didn't give me that '10' vibe that I had it pegged for, it still is a great movie and one that I would recommend to anyone...well almost anyone.

RATING: 9/10 I can't really put an explanation on why this isn't a '10', other than the fact that I just wasn't feeling a '10' exuding off of this one. Nonetheless, it's still an awesome flick.

MOVIES WATCHED: 202
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 799

November 24, 2010 10:55pm