My friend Colin actually just wrote about Tarrintino the other day and pretty much everything he wrote I agree with so I will quote him.
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On the internet, I stumbled upon a site that ranked the films of Quentin Tarantino. I thought I would go ahead and do my own, but first, let me express my feelings towards Tarantino. I personally see him as a phase. He seems so cool and suave and original when you first see his films; some even idolize him. However, one needs to grow up and move beyond Tarantino, further back down the history of cinema. This is what I did. In middle school, Tarantino was my hero. The older I got, the more films I saw, and the less impressive his films became. Today, I have seen most of the films that Tarantino took things from and put in his films in a shameless way. You could argue that it's a homage, and you could argue that everyone "takes things from older films" but his films are like montages of other films, and the pieces put together do not fit. There is no flow in his films, it's just one jump to another. The structure is never good because there is never a structure. The older he gets, the more silly the content becomes. I don't understand how anyone can take him seriously as a filmmaker anymore. Now, I have not seen Death Proof, and I don't plan on seeing Inglorious Bastards, but anyway, here we go:
1. Reservoir Dogs- Tarantino's first film was his best. This film is a promise; Tarantino says "I'm not quiet there yet. But soon I will be." Most say it was Pulp Fiction that was the answer to that promise. I think he broke it. This is a flawed film; let me start by saying that. The dialogue is a bit "too cool" for me, but that doesn't hurt it. The flashbacks do. They take too long, they really don't serve a purpose either. The first two don't bother me as much as Mr. Orange's backstory, which separates you from the actual story and throws you somewhere else. Suddenly your in a different movie; I'm surprised projectionists didn't get confused. At this point in the film we're pretty committed to the story. And just when things start getting really interesting, Tarantino breaks that flow, and when we return after the flashback, it feels like we stopped the film to do something else for awhile. And while we're seeing how White and Blonde got involved, why not Pink, who is a huge character in the film? It's really a shame too because it's a rather decent film otherwise. The performances are great. It's a film, like I said, that shows a lot of promise in a great career, much like Coppola's The Virgin Suicides. The only difference is that The Virgin Suicides survives it's flaws, and Coppola kept her promise.
2. Pulp Fiction- The most influential film of the 90's. That doesn't make it good. It is because of this film that we have our Lucky Number Slevens and all that goofy hipster crap. But that isn't Pulp Fiction's fault at all. The faults of Pulp Fiction are in it's structure, it's flow, and it's corny dialogue. This all seems interesting and cool at first, but it gets less and less so as I age. That is not to say this film is a failure, or course, but it doesn't save the film. We find ourselves jumping from here to there without any apparent reason. But worse then that there is no reality. Even the most abstract films need a dose of reality here and there, but these characters stepped out of a comic book and gave catch phrase after catch phrase, and when they ran out, the film ended. The way I see it, this is a film of redemption, a film about two men, one who is saved, and one who is not. But if that's the point, is the only reason for the Bruce Willis segment to show us that Travolta dies? If that's the case, should it take up that much time? Because the Bruce Willis segment is when the film seems to stop completely, and we have to wait for the story to continue again. It sticks out like a sour thumb, but it isn't even the sour thumb in Sin City (the scene Tarantino directed), this thumb takes up a good amount of time. It doesn't seem worth all of that time. There are great moments, like Travolta walking around his bosses home as Dusty Springfield's 'Son of a Preacher Man' plays, and Sam Jackson's wonderful speech at the end of the film, but overall, it just doesn't work for me.
3. Kill Bill Vol. 2- The problem with the Kill Bill movies (and I really cannot think of another appropriate word) is that they are dumb. They are silly, illogical, cartoonish things. There are kids movies made for adults. Maybe that's the whole point, but it still doesn't work. The second one, however, is a little more interesting. We have this band of killers, right, these six assassins that work for Bill. Somewhere between the attempted killing of The Bride, and The Bride coming out of her coma, the band has split, and haven't talked in years, not even Bill and Michael Madsen's character, who are brothers. What happened? Was it the attempted murder of The Bride, because they sure didn't seem to mind doing it in all those flashbacks. So what happened? I don't suggest a film should answer all your questions, but there are no hints; no theories as to why one is now a stay at home mother and one is now a bouncer at a strip club. This is too much left open. See, Tarantino knows his characters, and in his writing he forgets that we do not, and therefor his characters are not complete. Even when we aren't supposed to know everything about them, we don't know enough about them. His films are like swiss cheese. Full of holes. The last thirty minutes drag on way too long, much like the Mr. Orange backstory. No flow. If you liked or disliked Kill Bill, check out Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black. Same story, much better execution.
4. Jackie Brown- This film, more then any other is a montage of better films edited together into a choppy, silly, way-too-long-for-all-the-n
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