Quentin Tarantino

 Hello Charlie!

    Today when I got home after school, I found my parents watching one of Tarantino's most famous movies : Kill Bill. So I wanted to do a very quick and short article on the best movies of this American film director  (screenwriter, and producer). So here we go:

1- Reservoir Dogs (1992):

    With Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino began his career as an independent filmmaker. The aestheticization of violence, central to his neo-noir crime thriller, and the nonlinear structure of the story, became one of Tarantino's trademarks. Screened at the Sundance Film Festival, the movie created quite a controversy over its depiction of torture and became an immediate hit.

    The story is about six men who are hired to take part in a jewel heist and who are given colours as names to protect their identities. But the heist goes terribly wrong.

    I must confess that I haven't seen this movie actually, but my cousin who is a big fan of Tarantino's work, told me that it was excellent and that I should watch it ASAP. 

2- Pulp Fiction (1994):

    Quentin Tarantino's second movie, often described as a touchstone of postmodern filmmaking, is considered his masterpiece. It is the first of his movies starring Uma Thurman, who he described as his 'muse'. It was awarded the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Festival./

    Pulp Fiction follows three main interrelated stories respectively centred on two mob hit men (John Travolta and Samul L. Jackson) and a gangster's wife (Uma Thruamn), a boxer (Bruce Willis), and a pair of diner bandits (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer).

    

    This is my favourite Tarantino's movie. It is pacey, punchy and at times hilarious. It is quite a movie, and it is well-written. I actually don't have the words to describe how great Pulp Fiction is...just watch it!!!

3- Kill Bill (2003/2004):

    Originally conceived as one movie, Kill Bill's 4-hour plus running time prompted its release in two parts. This highly stylised movie assumes different cinematic traditions such as Kung Fu films, Japanese martial arts, Spaghetti Westerns (eg: Sergio Leone's movies!!!) and Italian horror.

    The Bride (played by Uma Thurman), an ex-professional assassin who is pregnant, is shot and left for dead at her wedding (neat!) by her former boss, Bill (David Carradine). When she wakes up from the coma, she sets out for revenge.

    I found this movie really interesting because Tarantino makes the plot as intriguing as possible and like all of his other movies, combines all the elements from various movie genres and makes one hell of a movie. Many of the scenes are iconic and well written. Not my favourite but still is a good movie. Watch it if you can it is a classic.

4- Inglourious Basterds (2009):

    The movie tells an alternative history story. It is heavily influenced by French New Wave cinema, Spaghetti Westerns (I probably will do an article on that too) and pre-war German cinema. Tarantino spent over a decade writing the script.

    During WWII, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt,...how handsome right?) organised a group of Jewish soldiers to take down the leaders of the Third Reich.

        The movie is a bit long, well over two hours and probably could have been two hours had the first half of the movie not dragged. But the second half is well worth the build-up. But as a whole,...well not a masterpiece. Maybe not one of the movies that you should absolutely watch at least once in your life such as "Le Grand Bleu" , "Titanic" or "The Godfather" whether you like those or not.

5- Django Unchained (2012):

    This action-adventure movies stemmed from Tarantino's desire to make a movie about America's "horrible past with slavery" but in the style of a spaghetti western. It is Tarantino's highest-grossing film to date.

    In the American Deep South, two years before the beginning of the Civil War, a slave named Django (Jmaie Foxx) sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio), with the help of a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz).

    I actually changed my mind! It is this movie that is my favourite! A friend lent it to me and I must have watched it three times I guess. The story is really interesting. It is about inequalities, slavery, death, torture, ... a terrible period of the American History. It is violent indeed but in this case I think it was a good thing : the hero is a strong man who gets what he wants and doesn't let white people bring him down...impossible at the time I presume but Django here is a powerful character.

6- Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood (2019):

    Tarantino's movie is based on a true event : the Manson Family murders. It has premiered at the Cannes Festival. It took Tarantino, who lived in L.A County most of his life, five years to write the script.

    The movie is set in L.A in 1969. Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), former star of a western TV series, and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), are struggling to make it in a Hollywood they don't recognise anymore. But Rick has a famous next-door neighbour...Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie).

    I was surprised by how emotionally moved I was by watching this movie. Clearly, Tarantino designed this movie for himself, getting to dabble in genres he enjoys and surrounding himself with memorabilia from the past. Yeah...I enjoyed that. The movie has got action, humor, drama, ridiculous situations and outrageous performances. It feels more human and more emotional than the other movies perhaps. Plus, which I found very good is that the film is set in a stunningly evoked Hollywood past. It can also be read as a commentary on Hollywood present.