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[MOVIE] JANUARY 2016 DISCUSSION


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I saw an interview with Tarantino where the interviewer asked him what he would say if someone told him that Jackie Brown was their favorite Tarantino movie. QT said that if he was being snotty he would say that person isn't a Tarantino fan, because it's the least Tarantino-like movie in his filmography.

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Yeah, it was posted here a couple weeks back.

I'm with the guy interviewing him. Tarantino might be my favorite director, but Jackie Brown is the best of his films (and topped my 90's ballot)

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I'm not saying you're wrong, I just thought it was interesting.

 

Since Walton Goggins is in his stable of actors now, and since he was so successful with adapting Elmore Leonard for Jackie Brown, I kind of wish Tarantino had directed an episode of Justified. He directed an episode of CSI, so why not? QT directing a scene between Olyphant and Goggins could have been awesome.

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Without seeing Hateful 8, I'd go:

 

1. Inglorious Basterds

2. Pulp Fiction

3. Django Unchained

4. Jackie Brown

5. Kill Bill Vol. 2

6. Death Proof

7. Kill Bill Vol. 1

8. Reservoir Dogs

 

I think Jackie Brown is a fine movie, but QT is on an unbelievable streak where for me, each movie has been better than the one before it. Pulp Fiction still ranks so high because it's damn near a perfect movie, but Basterds is just that much better for me.

 

The funniest movie he's made is Django and I think it's probably one of the best comedies of all time. I know it wouldn't appear that the subject matter is all that funny, but I find the KKK scene the funniest in movie history. It's like QT summoned all of the greatness of every Mel Brooks movie and play ever and dumped that energy into that one scene. It's so perfect in its absurdity and the more subtle notes of that scene with the comments and reactions by people in the background raise it to incredible heights. Maybe I'm alone in my opinion of Django, but it's a funny fucking movie. QT's cameo with the Australian accent and getting blown up comes to mind too. I watched it with a few friends again recently and I about lost my voice from laughing. The brilliance of the movie is how disarming the humor is because then you get a scene like the one at the end with dinner at Candyland, where Leo cranks it to 11, legit cutting the shit out of his own hand, which mortified Brunhilde.

 

Just typing all of that makes me want to raise Django to #1. Sometimes it really does feel like QT's best movie, but the disjointed ending leaves a bit to be desired.

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It's definitely the most overtly comedic film he's made.

But it's also the worst edited (RIP Sally Menke) which drags it down quite a bit.

Also, I mean, Hot Fuzz is probably the funniest movie made in the 21st century but it's still my least favorite of Edgar Wright's four films.

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It's definitely the most overtly comedic film he's made.

But it's also the worst edited (RIP Sally Menke) which drags it down quite a bit.

Also, I mean, Hot Fuzz is probably the funniest movie made in the 21st century but it's still my least favorite of Edgar Wright's four films.

You spelled Tropic Thunder wrong. . . .

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I liked Hot Fuzz more than Shaun of the Dead and certainly more than The World's End, but I'm not sure I'd call it the funniest movie in the 21st century.

 

Well, it's probably really high up there at least. Hmm, now I feel like watching Hot Fuzz.

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It's definitely the most overtly comedic film he's made.

But it's also the worst edited (RIP Sally Menke) which drags it down quite a bit.

Also, I mean, Hot Fuzz is probably the funniest movie made in the 21st century but it's still my least favorite of Edgar Wright's four films.

You spelled Tropic Thunder wrong. . . .

 

 

I don't like Tropic Thunder and don't think it's a good movie...I thought it was alright the first time I watched it. The second time was just...not good. Once you experience all of the actors poking fun at themselves, the lustre is gone. It's like watching Borat for the second time.

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I'm not saying you're wrong, I just thought it was interesting.

 

Since Walton Goggins is in his stable of actors now, and since he was so successful with adapting Elmore Leonard for Jackie Brown, I kind of wish Tarantino had directed an episode of Justified. He directed an episode of CSI, so why not? QT directing a scene between Olyphant and Goggins could have been awesome.

He also directed an episode of All-American Girl. :)

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Without seeing Hateful 8, I'd go:

 

1. Inglorious Basterds

2. Pulp Fiction

3. Django Unchained

4. Jackie Brown

5. Kill Bill Vol. 2

6. Death Proof

7. Kill Bill Vol. 1

8. Reservoir Dogs

 

I think Jackie Brown is a fine movie, but QT is on an unbelievable streak where for me, each movie has been better than the one before it. Pulp Fiction still ranks so high because it's damn near a perfect movie, but Basterds is just that much better for me.

 

The funniest movie he's made is Django and I think it's probably one of the best comedies of all time. I know it wouldn't appear that the subject matter is all that funny, but I find the KKK scene the funniest in movie history. It's like QT summoned all of the greatness of every Mel Brooks movie and play ever and dumped that energy into that one scene. It's so perfect in its absurdity and the more subtle notes of that scene with the comments and reactions by people in the background raise it to incredible heights. Maybe I'm alone in my opinion of Django, but it's a funny fucking movie. QT's cameo with the Australian accent and getting blown up comes to mind too. I watched it with a few friends again recently and I about lost my voice from laughing. The brilliance of the movie is how disarming the humor is because then you get a scene like the one at the end with dinner at Candyland, where Leo cranks it to 11, legit cutting the shit out of his own hand, which mortified Brunhilde.

 

Just typing all of that makes me want to raise Django to #1. Sometimes it really does feel like QT's best movie, but the disjointed ending leaves a bit to be desired.

 

 

It's definitely the most overtly comedic film he's made.

But it's also the worst edited (RIP Sally Menke) which drags it down quite a bit.

 

I think I lean more towards Craig's side on this issue, even though Django Unchained isn't my #1 and I see where Fowler is coming from. That may be the reason it isn't my number one. 

 

Anyway, after seeing The Hateful Eight, I think The Hateful Eight suffers more from Sally Menke being gone than Django Unchained. I think Django Unchained suffered, but it also had a somewhat valid excuse. QT felt obligated to turn Django Unchained into character actor heaven. The baghead scene was so Mel Brooks-ish without trying skirt around the issue of race. He turned a throwaway scene (scene where the red hoods ride in with the poorly cut eyeholes from Django '66) into perhaps one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen. That's context I really didn't have when I first saw it in December 2012.

 

The problem with Django Unchained and all the character actors is everybody has to have lines. You had Don Stroud, Lee Horsley, James Russo, James Remar, Dennis Christopher, Tom Wopat, Rex Linn (WHO DIDN'T GET TO TALK FWIW), Dana Gourrier, Michael Parks and his son James, M.C. Gainey, etc. Tarantino even gave love to super obscure New Orleans stage actor Dane Rhodes, who was Tennessee Redfish. It didn't bother me on the rewatch because everyone nailed their part. 

 

This brings me to the larger problem. Tarantino may be only director who suffers because he casts so well. That and his infatuation with people who he has a good working relationship with. It shouldn't be a real problem, but he has worked with a ton of people over the years and many who he brings back. You would think with 1/3 or 1/4 of the cast and without having the go to six or seven places for principal photography that The Hateful Eight wouldn't have those issues. In my opinion, it's much worse. Tarantino, if it wasn't evident already, is clearly in his preachy career phase. The first 30 or 40 minutes of The Hateful Eight is basically a broadway stage play with intense, unexplainable social commentary that really didn't make a ton of sense until the end.  A little heavy handed, but hey, it's Quentin Tarantino. If he believes Jackie Brown least resembles his stuff, then that first part of The Hateful Eight is whole different director from a different era. It's like you told someone fresh out of film school about the best works of David Mamet in under 5 minutes and gave them 40 million to do a western. That's what they would come up with on the spot.

 

In regards of the editing, it just seems like at this point, Tarantino could remake Sleuth and somehow make that 4 and a 1/2 hours long just because. He feels like he has to work in everything. I understand he probably feels that way and had to work Zoe Bell into the film just because she got edited out of Django Unchained. The thing is her character really didn't add anything to the film. Ok, she's from New Zealand. Now we can move along. I'm not saying the scene was terrible or anything because that Four Passengers scene perhaps had the best tension in the film and was shot wonderfully. I'm saying that if someone feels that this movie is a task to watch, then I can see where they're coming from. A recurring problem, even when Sally Menke was his editor, was some of QT's best scenes went on a bit too long. You know what would make a great scene damn near perfect? You tighten it up by dropping 2 or 3 minutes. You do that for a handful of scenes, and it adds up over the course of the film. With Django Unchained, doing that would probably mean you had more Zoe Bell situations. With The Hateful Eight, he could have done that and everyone still get to say something. Fine, you don't want to take Zoe Bell out? Axe some of the meandering stuff about who broke out of prison and/or the rebels.  It wouldn't have destroyed any of the context between Mannix, Major Warren, and any other featured player that you needed later in the film. 

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I watched Under the Skin and kind of wish I hadn't bothered. I really don't like those type of movies that have loads of long takes in which nothing happens and no-one says or does anything. I don't see the point of them... Any time your 90 minute movie could be edited down to a 20 minute short without losing any of the plot whatsoever, it just seems like it's been a wasteful exercise.

 

I think a lot of it depends on the cache of Scarlett Johansen being the sexiest woman in the world and then making this movie where she's all naked and oddly sexless, but I've never really seen her in that sex symbol that way (I think you have to have watched Lost in Translation to think that, because I've never seen it, and everyone who has seen it is in love with her somehow). Although mentioning that does mean I can bring out the old "Sexiest woman in the World? She wasn't even the sexiest woman in Ghost World!" quote, which is the sort of thing some people feel really proud to think they thought of.

 

Back to Under the Skin, she's driving around Glasgow meeting all these Scotsmen, and they all try to have consensual sex with her. The Czech guy doesn't really get around to it because he stops to save a life he can't save, but the only guy in the film with an English accent

molests her in her sleep, tries to rape her and then burns her to death.

That's just pandering, just pointlessly feeding Scottish bigotry towards their Southern neighbours. You expect that shit from Mel Gibson, you don't expect it from bloody 'I make Radiohead videos' Glazer.

 

Apparently loads of critics gave it five out of five and said it was the best film of 2014. But really, at the end of the day, it's shit, isn't it?

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