june gloom on 15/7/2009 at 20:46
The very fact that Tarantino's movies are love-letters to bygone eras of film (especially the 70s, all those "feature presentation" things he has at the beginning are straight out of 1975) is why I'm drawn to his work. I have to admire a filmmaker who is that worshipful of the medium, who is that driven BY the medium's history.
I saw
Grindhouse- both movies- in a theater. But not just any theater. it was the cheapass dollar theater in a (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_Mall) suckass, half-empty mall, on the very last day they were showing it (it was long out of 'real' theaters), the whole theater was a threadbare mess, the food kinda sucked, they fucked up in the projector room for a few minutes (the entire audience- all 20 of us- turned around to yell at them to hurry up and fix it), and IT WAS AN AMAZING EXPERIENCE. The whole point of
Grindhouse was an homage to the shitty movie theaters in the 70s that showed B-rated horror movies and exploitation films, and I honestly believe that if I had seen
Grindhouse in a nice, futuristic theater like at Springdale the experience would not have been the same.
I can't afford to be a film buff, but film is still an important medium for me. And Tarantino's films, despite whatever faults they may have, appeal to me on the basis of showing me a slice of eras of film I missed out on.
Queue on 16/7/2009 at 00:11
Quote Posted by Angel Dust
Actually I think it was the other film he released that year that is his true masterpiece:
The Conversation. I appreciate and enjoy the first two
Godfather films and
Apocalypse Now but none of them resonate with me like
The Conversation does.
Hmmm--you may be right about that. A wonderful, understated, and quiet film that had Hackman in it, to boot. Unfortunately, it also had Cindy-What's-Her-Face from fucking
Laverne and Shirley. She was annoying, and I kept waiting for "The Big Ragu" to show up.
--
Scots is right, the best thing about QT films is the dialogue. Snappy and clever.
--
dethtoll: Shouldn't the 70s be forgotten? I remember hating wearing fucking corduroy pants, plaid shirts, and watching inane films (I don't look back upon Smokey and the Bandit with fond and pleasurable reminiscence.).
Scots Taffer on 16/7/2009 at 00:17
I hated The Conversation but I don't think I knew what I was watching when I sat down with it - different expectations perhaps, it'd be worth revisiting.
I fucking LOATHED Apocalypse Now and I knew what I was getting in for when I watched that.
Coppolla did The Godfather trilogy and that's it for me, I honestly couldn't give much of a fuck about anything else he put out.
And everything dethtoll likes about Quentin Tarantino is where I feel like if he could drop the slavish adoration of things past and speak in his own language (albeit his own language is just this horrific collage of different eras and styles that is arguably "unique"), I'd love to see a film to just come straight from his head - I reckon Pulp Fiction was close to this.
Queue on 16/7/2009 at 00:20
Just out of curiosity, why did you hate Apocalypse Now?
Scots Taffer on 16/7/2009 at 01:06
It was phenomenally fucking boring.
june gloom on 16/7/2009 at 01:54
Every time you say that about a movie I like a little part of me dies. :(
Quote Posted by Queue
dethtoll: Shouldn't the 70s be forgotten? I remember hating wearing fucking corduroy pants, plaid shirts, and watching inane films (I don't look back upon Smokey and the Bandit with fond and pleasurable reminiscence.).
I was born in 1982 but I can't help but feel like I should've been born at least a decade earlier.
Fuck the 60s though.
Scots Taffer on 16/7/2009 at 02:28
The movies that people always seem to have a problem with me disliking are Bladerunner, Taxi Driver, The Graduate and Apocalypse Now. All of those films had things about them I liked but they utterly failed to click with me on any meaningful level, and I certainly could never rewatch them. I can remember individual moments from each that I loved but they're almost cliché to list off because they are the quintessential moments that have been repeated through history ("like tears in the rain", "you talkin' to me?", "you're trying to seduce me", "love the smell of napalm in the mornin'").
I used to cite 2001, but I tried to watch it when I was 13 and fell asleep. I need to pick it up and give it another try.
Angel Dust on 16/7/2009 at 03:51
I predict you will still hate it. You generally seem more like a straight up, in terms of structure, film kind of guy. That's not some elitist film-snob slur against you or anything but merely an observation. I would highly recommend you rewatch The Conversation again though as it's a great character study nested within a solid mystery plot.
june gloom on 16/7/2009 at 03:51
2001 is the .9 of the 2.9 Kubrick films that I enjoy.
Scots Taffer on 16/7/2009 at 04:21
Quote Posted by Angel Dust
I predict you will still hate it. You generally seem more like a straight up, in terms of structure, film kind of guy. That's not some elitist film-snob slur against you or anything but merely an observation.
And it's probably a fair observation to be perfectly honest, however I would guess that having not had that exposure to more arthouse or experimental movies in my youth definitely moulded my cinematic sensibilities to the more conventional end.
That said, one of my favourite movies of recent years was The Fountain. I also have a soft spot for Lynch. Those are fairly freeform. Not in the same league but I was utterly captivated by Baraka a week or two ago also.
What films would you recommend for expanding one's cinematic consciousness?
I'm game for getting outside my comfort zone, however I'm fully aware that I have no literary aspirations when it comes to entertainment.
I'll qualify that: I love smart cinema, but generally it has to be grounded in something that I can connect with - freeform floaty explorations of theme with nothing except ambiguity don't do much for me in books or in cinema.
As for Kubrick, in reverse chronology:
Eyes Wide Shut - I can't recall if I watched all of this but it was a delightful mess, the fidelity issues of the least sexy couple imaginable and musical chair masked orgies in mansions to the sound of solitary piano key notes in an attempt to be spooky.
Full Metal Jacket - Absolute tour de force of mounting tension and unease for the first hour or so, the second half is patchy, it's funny, horrifying and sort of bland in an ineffective way that sort of lets the movie down.
The Shining - I used to hate this movie but rewatching it recently in hi-def late at night while slightly unwell had a very powerful effect on me. There's definitely something to the way Kubrick frames certain scenes in this movie that creates a very unnatural sensation.
Barry Lyndon - I like telling this story: I was at a LAN party and we decided we wanted to watch a comedy, my friend suggested this movie telling us that it was "the funniest comedy Kubrick ever did". After ten minutes of slow ponderous period battleground footage set to
Sarabande we turned to my friend and eviscerated him.
A Clockwork Orange - I saw this one young and to a certain extent the shock value of the content overrode the themes in the story, but it was delightfully bizarre and somewhat illicit to my teen brain.
2001: A Space Odyssey - Again, very young, fell asleep maybe half hour in.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb - Sporadically this movie would cripple me with laughter, the rest of the time I was waiting for it to be as funny. A very effective, if somewhat dated satire.
There's probably a period in every Kubrick movie where I was utterly bored.
Oh, and to pick up on a point that Angel Dust made earlier on: I reckon there's a very good case for Jackie Brown being QT's best. I saw it for the second time about six months ago and really enjoyed it whereas there's a vague sense of overfamiliarity with Dogs and Fiction which breeds discontent.
