Jackie Brown

Jackie Brown is the first Tarantino film I watched, so perhaps that makes me soft on it, but I do agree with Mark Kermode that it is by far his best picture. Of all his work it's probably the least flashy and stylish. It lacks the unconventional non-linear structure of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, or the bigger budgets (and the bloat) of Kill Bill, Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. But it makes up for all that by having characters with a depth that isn't found anywhere else in the Tarantino universe.

It's the one film he didn't write from scratch, and perhaps we should thank Elmore Leonard for supplying that missing ingredient in Tarantino's scripts – real people. For all the blaxploitation genre signifiers, this isn't really an exploitation film, black or otherwise (for starters it's probably Tarantino's least violent work). Instead it doubles down on a twisty noir plot whose main source of intrigue is how it reveals different facets of the people wrapped up in it.

It's difficult to think of a film which uses Samuel L. Jackson's talents better – his Ordell Robbie is a fun guy to be around, sure, but he's also cold and ruthless in a really quite scary way. Pam Grier, who as an actress in those 70s classics Coffy and Foxy Brown could be rather flat, is magnificent here – being both outwardly steely but also at crucial moments letting slip the inner vulnerability and doubt that must be coursing through her mind as she conducts her heist operation. Robert Forster also does great work maintaining a professional distance whilst subtly suggesting the ways in which he's also being drawn into Jackie Brown's web.

Forster's character Max Cherry can't quite bring himself to cross the line at the end of the film. He shares a kiss with Jackie Brown but chickens out of following her to enjoy her spoils on a holiday in Spain. Both of them are heading towards middle age, and while never mentioned it's clear they've left many failed relationships behind them. They both want an escape from their dead-end jobs, but only Jackie Brown is brave enough to risk everything to grab it. And by having Max pull back and drift out of focus the film acknowledges how difficult navigating those risks are. Tarantino hasn't been able to replicate the emotional complexity of that finale anywhere else. Which leads me to think that perhaps he should try adapting other people's material more often.

Bad Lieutenant

First Herzog film I have seen (WHERE have you BEEN all my life??) and it's a scorcher. I watched it late last night with ma homie, and memories are vague, but I was thinking about it a lot today as a very pedestrian version of the film's events took over my life. I made a foolish mistake that led me to question how tight my grip on reality really was: some synapse forgot to fire between the read -> remember -> write process. It's actually quite scary how CRAP my brain can be...

In Bad Leutenant, Nic Cage's grip on reality is VERY shaky. There are the iguanas (we'll come back to that) and an extraordinary scene (a oner, I think) where he accosts a couple leaving a club, and things get very David Lynch by way of Quentin Tarantino. Scene is repeated, which (film skool 101) means it's important! Cage's character Terrence is a police detective whose life slowly spirals out of control -- gambling debts, losing a witness while high, conspiring with drug-lords, threatening the relative of a senator etc. The film leads you to expect one, very unpleasant, resolution. But no. He solves the case and gets a promotion. Why? Three things. One, Cage (srsly) is charismatic and commanding, even when caned. Two, audacity -- people around him are so astounded by his crazy behaviour that they do what he says. It also makes him unreadable -- the drug-baron thinks he's crooked, but he's not. Finally, and most importantly, LUCK. The film makes this point explicit -- one of Terrence's plays fails, but it works out anyway. And that's it. Success.

It's all very Machiavelli, actually ...((Ah philosophy, I knew you'd be useful!))

I think the croc scene is meant to suggest this. One croc goes on the motor-way. Result: car crash. The other croc walks away, an over shot tracks it as it escapes -- the same kind that tracks Cage throughout the film. It's luck, innit.

And the fish. The film begins with a snake swimming in a flooded prison, and ends in an aquarium. Is this a nature / art, chaos / order contrast? We begin in the jungle, but some of us are skillful and lucky enough to escape.

Grindhouse

Have seen both films separate, and can add my own voice to the consensus that the original double-bill release is superior, not only for the added trailers and cross-references. The two films are of a piece thematically as well, so it really is better to see them as they were originally designed to be seen.

Planet Terror is pretty much one of my favourite films ever. Even better, because more silly, than Rodriguez's adaptation of Sin City. Why do I love it? Well, Cherry Darling is a Go-Go Dancer (not a stripper!!) who wanted to be a doctor. She left her ninja boyfriend because she thought he thought she was worthless. Keeping up? The film is basically about her gaining confidence in herself and taking over from ninja boyfriend in the ninja business. There's a similar kind of story going on with Dr. Dakota Block, a lesbian trying to escape her sadistic husband. Both ladies get their freedom with the help of gentlemen: ninja boyfriend and father respectively. Still, the film can be read as a commentary on female empowerment. Cherry starts off cavorting with the camera, and ends by firing a minigun at zombies. It's fulfillment of a sort, the sort you get in sleazy pulp movies...

Also, the brothers bickering about the secret recipe to the best BBQ sauce in the world. The striving for transcendence, and the barriers in the way. The film ends with their reconcilement and death. In its own way, quite beautiful.

Death Proof is more tricky. The film is divided into two: one set of ladies get mauled by a serial killer, another set of ladies manage to fight back, and we're asked to spot the parallels. The first group are smoked-out, one has been pressured into demeaning herself, one of them is bitter at being stood up. They are weak and die easy. For Stuntman Mike, it's a power thing. He is the driver, the victim is the passenger. Man and wife. His victim begs for mercy, and he shows none.

The second group contains two stuntwomen -- the ladies now have access to those positions of power. Abernathy isn't, but wants to join in, and she sacrifices Lee to do so. When attacked, they fight back, and this time it's Stuntman Mike who begs, and the ladies who show no mercy.

Sidebar: Kurt Russell seems to me to be doing a Quentin Tarantino impression, and Tarantino himself plays a gruesome sadist in Planet Terror. Is Quentin punishing himself for his misogyny? I smell catharsis...

If you were being really pretentious (ahem), you could describe Planet Terror as portraying female emancipation as the ladies being able to achieve fulfillment / transcendence / flourishing -- carving out a small corner of tranquility in a planet full of terrors. Death Proof is like the negative liberty flip to that -- not freedom to do but freedom from. Female emancipation means becoming death proof. It's a bleaker picture, where the gents aren't any nicer, it's just that the ladies are better able and willing to defend themselves. And not all the ladies at that. Lee, the gullible fool, the innocent cheerleader, the actress who must sell herself to magazines, is left to be torn apart by the predatory male. Uncomfortable stuff.

I liked the positive angle more, being a guy who wants guys to be constructive. But writing this, I'm even more convinced that you need both angles. Grindhouse as a whole, then, goes down as one of the more impressive geek films of recent times. And so, inevitably, one of my favourites.

Inglourious Basterds

I wrote a terrible piece on this film a while ago, which is one of the few terrible pieces I have penned that made me gag so much I had to subsequently erase it from the internet. I think my problem was trying to overthink it too much (haha, what's new?). The thing is, many bloggers I follow slavishly encouraged me to do so. But hey, really guys! This one is all too simple, no? I mean, it's all in Soshanna's cackling projected ghost crying THIS IS THE REVENGE OF THE JEWS!!! Tarantino could not BE more in-your-face! Cinema, by portraying the Nazis as bloodthirsty, amoral robots who all get tortured, shot to pieces and burnt to a crisp, is fighting back for all the genocide they committed. Is such revenge fantasy a mature reaction to the horrors of the holocaust? Ummm.... no. But Quentin's never really been one for maturity or complex ideas. No. Really, guys, he hasn't.

The thing with Basterds is though. For a film this moronic, it ain't half bloody long! Yes, we get the slow-build tension-tension western pastiches, but did we really need all that stuff in the beginning, or all that stuff with the British? Couldn't you have cut to the chase a bit? It's not like there are any jokes here that top the banter of the 90s output. Keep the Landa stuff sure. I'm agreed with everyone on this -- Landa is great. But the rest could have done with some serious chopping.

The problem with Tarantino is that he thinks he's a genius and everyone seems to want to encourage that belief. Well, we should stop, because he's getting self-indulgent. The films are getting bigger and the same old tricks are bringing diminishing returns. Smarten up, son. Or eventually you'll make a film so bloated and stupid that everyone's gonna realize the pulp cinema emperor has lost his clothes. Just some friendly advice. Hopefully, it won't make me gag two months down the line.