The Ultimate Movie Thread of Ultimate Destiny

Tarantino's body of work is really good. He has also done just a few movies so I don't really get this whole hate for the newer stuff. Kill Bill might be not everybody's cup of tea and I haven't watched Jackie Brown, but both Inglorious Basterds and Django were really good.

 

It just wasn't a very good movie. Nothing wrong with being "confused" by it. The staple long and amusing conversations of Tarantino flicks weren't as amusing in Inglorious Basterds. The opening conversation between the farmer and the villain was slightly intriguing, but not very amusing. The exposition scene where they both explain and "introduce" the Bear Jew was over-the-top, but nothing like Pulp Fiction scenes (my favorite Tarantino flick) that made you love the characters no matter how nasty they were. The best part of the film was when the Nazi officer was addressing the Basterds by where they were born because of their accents. But that lasted about 3 seconds, and it was more cool than funny. Still, it's a highlight of characters that most movies MASSIVELY overlook. EVERYBODY has the same accent, no matter what. It's incredibly frustrating when films think you can just overlook regional differences and homogenize characters, accents, habits, language, and so on. So Inglorious Basterds have a scene where a major conflict between characters is based around one of them noticing discrepancies with a spy's accent was a lovely touch.

Still, overall, not a great film. I missed out on seeing Part 1 of Kill Bill when it came out, which was while I was in high school, so I never got to participate in its mega hype (which is only magnified by high school students who have zero perspective) and I saw Part 2 first, which was all about the exposition and the conversations, and hardly any of the wacky, excessive, anime-inspired violence. By the time I saw Part 1, I felt like there was nothing to it. I knew the ending, and its lack of character development bored me. The gratuitous violence just felt empty by that point. But Pulp Fiction? EVERY time I see that on the TV, I stop to watch it. Every moment is classic. I find myself quoting it at random sometimes, like yesterday when I stopped at a red light, and I was reminded of a certain scene where someone sees another character stopped at a red light, and "Mother fucker!" just popped out of my mouth. Then later (cause now my mind's on Pulp Fiction) I'm quoting things like "I'm a get medieval on your ass" and more. Great film.

Tarantino sure has his ups and his downs.

 

I still think... hmm... Reservoir Dogs, if I remember the original title - it was adapted into "Le iene" in the country where I live - is his best work, with Django and PF as an ex aequo second place. I still like Basterds the most of them all, though, as a matter of personal, subjective, tastes.

 

Reservoir Dogs was a good gangster movie, Jackie Brown too (never really saw the whole "blaxploitation" angle there). He also wrote the script for True Romance. In the 2000s his entire "style" became breaking the 4th wall and "homages". Death Proof is one of his more obscure films but it was actually the most successful is in paying tribute to the targeted (sub)genre (I was wrong to say I hated everything after Jackie Brown, Death Proof was in fact significantly better than his other movies of that decade). Django just failed miserably at being anything even remotely similar to Leone's westerns.

It seems that over time he turned more populist, probably due to the huge success of Pulp Fiction (which was and is a brilliant movie). But it really isn't necessary to cram Samuel L. Jackson into as many movies as possible to play the "bad motherfucker" just because people loved him in that role. The same thing happened with the guy who played the German in Django, the crowds liked him as the "German bad motherfucker" in Inglorious Basterds so he was brought back for the same role, only this time he's not a Nazi.

And his revisionism just pisses me off at times. Although I admit it's not a big deal whether a movie is historically accurate or not (unless it presents itself as such), it's also part of his whole "homage" thing. What Tarantino fails to realize is that the movies he pays homage to were not historically inaccurate on purpose (unless it was unavoidable) but because getting the history actually required work back in those days, instead of a twenty-minute encounter with the internet. Or they just didn't care enough to investigate. But being inaccurate on purpose just makes the movie less believable (for example, the whole KKK scene in Django was completely unnecessary, and I'm pretty sure that everyone in the US knows that the Klan was only formed after the Civil War).

 

Well, what do you expect? He ALWAYS does this all the time! Just look at how be brought back an Inception favorite to play Bane, and how he kept Michael Caine in every film, and how... wait.

Joking aside, I actually felt like the "KKK" scene in JU was one of its best moments. The whole argument between the men and the guy who ran off while quoting Cartman because they were "insulting" his wife's work and the repeat "I can't see SHEEIT" even after the scene was over were wonderful moments that added plenty of color to completely background characters. In contrast, the film's "core" moments weren't as interesting, like the "suspenseful" gunpoint dinner table scene near the end. It's REALLY cool to look back and realize that DiCaprio physically wounded himself but kept acting so Tarantino kept filming and that's why the character randomly gets injured in the scene. But besides that bit of trivia, it doesn't really add much to the scene, itself. I liked MOMENTS, in Django Unchained, but as a whole I didn't really love it. Didn't dislike it, unlike Inglorious Basterds, but QUITE unlike Pulp Fiction I just don't bother to watch it when I find it on TV.

The only scene I'd really care to see if I catch it can be replaced by its highligh quotes: "I count six shots, nigger." "I count two guns, nigger."

 

His movies all take place in the tarantinoverse, so there's no revisionism there.

Also, Inglourious Basterds bad? Are you off your rocker? I wouldn't call it high art, nor would I any of Tarantino's films. But if you say that one's bad but the Avengers for instance is good ol' fun. you're off your rocker. I'd type a more cohesive and better argument here but I am le tired.

 

Anyone who takes Tarantino movies as serious historical pieces kind of misses the whole point of them. It's not revisionism, he actively puts in shit that is completely anachronistic in all of his "historical movies". That's like complaining about Godzilla being unralistic because giant Lizards that spit nuclear breath don't exist.
Calling it revisionism is even dumber because he is not claiming that Hitler died in France or that the KKK existed back then. That's like calling out Star Wars on it's lack of scientific accuracy or Jurassic Park for messing up Dinosaur anatomy or chronology.

 

I am saying, point blank, that Avengers is a great movie, and tons of fun to watch, and Inglorious Basterds is a boring movie, not as fun as any of his earlier films, and at the end of the day it's just not a good film.

There, have your tantrum. I'll wait. =)

Seriously though, I'm a HUGE critic of the artists who peddle their shit just as much as the next guy. I DO NOT like Joss Whedon, in particular because I had the great misfortune of listening to his nonsense about existentialism and his adoration of existential babble while listening to the director commentary on the Firefly DVDs. But he is a classic example of "hate the artist, love the art", because DAMN IT, Firefly, Serenity, Cabin in the Woods, and Avengers are DAMN GOOD works! High art? No. But GOOD! Tarantino, by contrast, is a really likable guy, and his work is very likable, too. But that doesn't excuse his missteps. Inglorious Basterds is a misstep. Django Unchained was a misstep. The latter was MUCH better, but still overall NOTHING compared to specific works from his previous efforts. I have yet to see Resevoir Dogs, so I can't comment on it, but many who have say it's his greatest work, or at least one of his greatest. Was IB absolute filth? No. But it doesn't hold a CANDLE to stuff like Pulp Fiction.

 

Inglourious Basterds is my favorite Tarantino movie to be honest, or maybe it's tied with Pulp Fiction. Hard to say, but I'll never understand why people don't like Basterds. It's actually a pretty clever movie when you get what he was going for.

 

Actually I love to imagine that Inglorious Basterds is the Captain America movie we deserve - though not the movie we need. Call me an idiot, but I hated the first Captain America movie.

Well, to be honest the new one will never reach the style of some of the better old Django movies - but that's impossible anyway. But to think that Tarantinos Django was bad ... well ... it could have been a lot worse. I think it is a good adaption.

 

I liked Django less and less and the movie progressed, which is bad, because I really liked the beginning of it, it felt as if Tarantino had finally come out of the Kill Bill Cave, wanting to give us something we could actually take home with us, the way PF was taken home, and stayed home, I mean, to this day I'll compare works to Pulp Fiction, to this day I am capable of sitting down with it, and watching it from start to finish, with the same enjoyment as the last time

Of the anachronisms, I did like this moment, although I'm not sure that score counts as anachronism


But, from here on, I was beginning to get a bit impatient.

Little did I know just how horribly impatient I'd become

Spoiler

 

@Crni: But the first Captain America IS a terrible film.

 

I just watched the trailer for The Hateful Eight. It seems to draw inspiration from The Great Silence. Which is not at all a bad thing because The Great Silence is a great movie.

 

Yes, the ending of Django was AMAZING. It had great shootouts. Great quotes. Great elements. But disparate parts do not comprise an equal whole. As a whole, the movie wasn't great, even though many parts of it were great.

I think one of the problems with the film was how much attention it got for saying the word "nigger" so many times. To me, that just comes with the territory of the setting. But people both got up in arms over saying such a "dirty" word and riled up defending it as a gallant work of art deserving of reminding us how horrific those times were. Both were stupid. People said "nigger" in the setting, so the characters should say "nigger". That's all there is to it. Same with how the Nazis spoke German in IB. If a movie actively avoids being genuine, then that just lowers the caliber of the film. If it tries to be genuine, then it should be gauged by its other merits (not necessarily given a bonus).

Just like our earlier conversation a couple pages ago about censorship, covering the language up would've only served to distract and ultimately lower the quality of the scenes wherever it was avoided and/or covered up. But allow the characters to casually blurt it out as they do, because people spoke that way in that setting and time period? It feels natural, not uncomfortable. It didn't raise the film to some kind of wonderful standard, however. Rather, it was what all films SHOULD be doing, by default. Stop cowering, stop pretending what's happening isn't happening (like no blood when your limb/head is cut off by a light sabre) just because you want to make it more "family friendly". Tell a story and tell it truly... even if the story is completely fictitious and possibly even contradictory to historical fact.

Django Unchained wasn't a bad film because of its considerable usage of the word "nigger". It wasn't a good film for that reason, either. It was an appropriate film because it colored its setting appropriately (for the most part). If people didn't care about that one, inconsequential thing, the entire popular reception to the film would've been DRASTICALLY different. More people would've approached the film as great purely because they liked its cinematography, its acting, its dialog, its action, etc. More people would've focused their criticisms on substantial failings (like AGONIZING pacing, throwaway scenes, etc) rather than superfluous details such as the language. I personally never gave two shits about how many times I heard the word "nigger", just like I give no shits about dispensing it as I please, whenever I please. I saw the film for what it was, I enjoyed parts of it, but overall didn't like it AS MUCH as other Tarantino works. Didn't hate it, but didn't love it. Saw it as a step backwards in an otherwise forward moving career... excluding Inglorious Basterds, of course. That really was a piece of shit. =P

 

I sometimes have a feeling that Django was created in the form that it was created in preciesely because people didn't get the message of Inglorious Basterds.

I have a "theory" about the message of Ingorious Basters, but it came about a pretty long time after I actually watched and disliked the movie itslef, so I'm not putting too much credit into it. But the basics are the following:

The first scene, where Waltz comes to the French farmer and finds out whether or not he's hiding Jews. When he finds out that he is, we see soldiers shooting the floorboards and when Waltz is given the opportunity to shoot the girl that is running away, he doesn't do so. We see no real evidence of a war crime being comitted by the bad guys. Yet the war crimes that the Basterds themselves commit are shown in a most direct manner.

So there is a multitude of messages that the movies might be trying to convey:

A) The movie happens in opposite-world, and the message it intends to show is shown through the audience's ignorance of the fact.

Take Aldo's speech from the beginning and exchange the word "Nazi" with "Jew" and the word "Jew" with "German" and what you get is basically what an officer of an SS death squad would be telling his men. And their actions are depicted most vividly, while the Nazi crimes are not. We even have a cinema in Nazi-occupied France being run by a Jew and a black man. Talk about affirmative action.

B) That the morality of a conflict isn't necessarily determined just by what we experience. A sort of anti-empiricist movie.

C) An Israeli-Palestinian allegory.

EDIT: Forgot about Django.

While I personally hated the 4th wall breaking stuff like the KKK scene and such, what I found most peculiar was the main antagonist. He is, in fact, a product of his society, which is an excuse often used for and by black "gangsters". But while people are ready and willing to accept a black thug as merely a product of a downtrodden society, when it's a white slave-owner he is PURE EVIL despite being a product of his society as much as the aforementioned example. This message would also be showcased by the audience's ignorance.

 

I find your analyses of Inglorious Basterds' showcasing of Allied war crimes while never really showing Nazi war crimes to be the most depth to ever come out of that film. It's the first thing to come along that makes me think it's not as shit as my experience would leave me to believe. Still does the film no favors that the film ITSELF left me with said experience, and it took someone ELSE to get me to think more favorably about it.

Though I wouldn't call option A "opposite world", so much as showcasing thought-provoking irony. We all see the winners as the good guys and the heroes, we persecute and prosecute the losers for war crimes and never the winners, so we don't even recognize that war crimes were committed by both sides. So reversing that, just to highlight that it's not so black-and-white, is a pretty nice touch.

 

Spoiler

I wonder whether this scene truly shows the way Quentin sees movies or if it was just a role he was playing. From what I remember hearing of his interviews about Travis Bickle's racism or Butch's immorality in Pulp Fiction, it might be the former.

But the problem remains that his post Jackie Brown movies put too much effort into style and too little into substance.

 

Jesus christ man hurddur they're not all fuckin Pulp Fiction.

yeah but the references, le nerd jokes, banter and special effects of say the Avengers ARE fun.

Django broke away from the non-linear structure Tarantino employed so well, which made me like it less than his previous films, except Jackie Brown which I thought was dull, but they're all fun movies.

But I'm not trying to convince anyone here, and I'm 6 beers past being able to.

 

At least I'm not the only one drinking while shitposting on NMA. Cheers.

What I found to be the problem with Jackie Brown was that it didn't end up being what it was supposed to be (an homage to blaxploitation movies). But it was a good movie in its own right. The only issue I had with it was that Jackson's role felt somewhat forced, the "badass motherfucker" trope I was talking about before.

What do you think about Death Proof in comparison to his other movies form the 2000s?