QUENTIN TARANTINO

The best heist film of all time was panned by most Tarantino fans, but just because it lacks the cool factor of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, does not make it less of a movie. The cast is phenomenal, and Taratino's direction is skillful and clever. The film is exhuberantly entertaining, as well as being deep in it's character development.

Classic, and yet completely new. Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction is the fabulous tale of 3 stories entangled together, filled with blazingly original characters and clever and witty scene setting and dialogue.

A film made in the script; ferocious, oddly giddy in it's own narrative, and reeking of serious cool. QT clearly has directorial potential, making a lot out of a shoestring budget, but at times it's obvious that he's being a little bit held back by his inexperience and lack of finances.

Tarantino's latest is a surprisingly flat and lifeless effort that fails to climax and feels so devoid of anything beyond novelty that you wonder if this was really made by the overly excitable film director you've seen on the late night shows the last two weeks. The standard QT strengths are here, very unique characters, terrific colourful dialogue, well-chosen music, and numerous homages and throwbacks to different forms of cinema. The weaknesses however are somewhat new; weak supporting players, slowly delivered lines, tedious camera work, and a real lack of cohesive direction for the film. While at times Basterds is hammy and over the top, other times it plays relatively straight and serious. It is mostly successful scene to scene, but congeals poorly when linked together. Quentin's story is interesting, and I admire his unconventional approach to a historical action film, but his scenes are senselessly long and dully blocked. Despite it's 2.5 hour runtime Inglourious Basterds probably contains substantially fewer scenes than most standard Hollywood fare, electing to have the fewer scenes run considerably longer than we might expect. The result is an eloquent but uninspiring movie that goes nowhere and manages to entertain sporadically along the way. Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz provide most of the really enjoyable parts of the film, with the abominable Eli Roth and BJ Novak providing most of the pained grimaces. And while I did want to like this film, it's hard to miss how truly unimpressive it is for one of America's most infamous filmmakers. I wasn't particularly shocked by anything he did, even the over the top violence seemed careless and tossed in, but his skills as a writer and flair for language and character are still very prevalent. I would place this behind Kill Bill but before Death Proof in Tarantino's filmography.