Quentin Tarantino Filmography

As Writer & Director

0ax) Love Birds in Bondage (1983) [incomplete & lost]

0bx) My Best Friend's Birthday (1985-7) [partially lost, short]

1) Reservoir Dogs (1992)

2) Pulp Fiction (1994)

3) Jackie Brown (1997)

4) Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)

5) Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)

6) Death Proof (2007)

7) Inglourious Basterds (2009)

8) Django Unchained (2012)


As Writer Only

True Romance (1993)

Natural Born Killers (1994) [credited with story only]

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)


Collaborations As Director

Four Rooms (1995) [directed segment: The Man From Hollywood]

Sin City (2005) [uncredited, directed segment: The Yellow Bastard]


For more Tarantino goodness be sure to check out my month-long Tribute to Tarantino

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

"Say 'auf Wiedersehen' to your Nazi balls. "

Inglourious Basterds (2009) is Quentin Tarantino’s unique WWII epic about language and revenge. The film simultaneously follows Lt. Aldo Raine and his group of Nazi hunting Jewish American soldiers called "The Basterds" and Shoshana a French Jew who barely escapes death at the hands of the Nazi SS and sees and opportunity to exact revenge on the National Socialist German Worker's Party.

I really like how Quentin Tarantino, who is known for his dialogue filled with pop culture references, uses pop culture to his advantage in this film. The characters in this film still talk about pop culture in a very Tarantino fashion, but they talk about actors, movies, music and even historical events that were important and hot topics during the time this is supposed to take place. I think this is very interesting and super smart of Tarantino, and not many other writers could actually pull something like this off in a film.

I believe this film is proof Quentin Tarantino finally settling into his own way of storytelling that works for him. This film stops with clever attempts to reinvent how to tell a film story with different formats, instead with this one he kind of makes up his own quirky way to tell a story. The majority of this film is actually straight linear storytelling, but through clever editing (and some other small tricks) Tarantino cuts away in the middle of a scene or action to explain anything further than the linear story can tell. This is evident more than anything in the sudden interrupting flashback/voice over to explain Hugo Stiglitz, the German soldier who went AWOL and killed 13 Nazi officers. It's stylish and still better than random exposition. Kill Bill (2003, 2004) did this also, to a much lesser degree actually (on top of the mixed-up-chapter nonlinear storytelling) in Volume 1 it cut away to set up a lot of the story while the Bride was trying to 'wiggle her big toe' and in Volume 2 it cut away to explain the Pai Mei flashback while she's stuck in a coffin buried alive. And now, retrospectively, I can see Django Unchained (2012) did this for all of its nonlinear cuts, essentially it's just a stylish and very streamlined way to do a flashback and relate relevant exposition or backstory.

My biggest problem with this film is it doesn't feel like one film, instead it feels like a bunch of separate incidents that are loosely connected. The film is essentially telling two different stories moving forward about about the same thing. For my taste I would have liked to see these two stories crossover more, because as it is side characters cross over and (a couple) events cross over from one story to the other but otherwise they're pretty much completely separate stories. There's actually some kind of humor in the fact that they both climb to basically the same climax and never actually cross [though I liked this better in True Romance (1993) where they actually crossed at the end,] and maybe that's what he was going for, but to me this feels incredibly like a serial TV show with a bunch of different characters moving forward and doing different things than a movie that is nicely interconnected.

Also adding to the feel of a TV show, there's too many characters in this film for my taste. This just makes it so that there's a lot of different things going on in this movie that we have to keep track of, I really didn't even appreciate how much is actually really going on in this film until subsequent viewings. Now a majority of the characters come from the fact that he's telling two separate stories, the antagonists (thankfully) carry over in both stories but each has its own set of protagonists and then halfway through we add even more with the advent of "Operation Kino." I've got to ask why the heck there's so many Basterds? It's fine we show 9 Basterds at the beginning of the film (some of which actually never do anything!), and then we add in the German Stiglitz (that's 10) and then we add the two foreign British agents in Operation Kino. I'm not a fan of useless characters or characters who's sole purpose is to die. At least why couldn't we just start with less soldiers in the Basterds to begin with? And all these protagonists are just for one story of the two in this film.

There's also a couple times the film's characters switch language kind of sloppily for convenience more than anything else. The first one is in the opening sequence, and I always find myself asking would a French dairy farmer really actually be proficient at speaking English during this time? This is somewhat excusable because it's in the very beginning of the film (where coincidences slide) and it sets up the language switching and how it will be used for the rest of the film, but I gotta wonder if it would have been easier and more historically possible if they instead switched over to German? Another time that I noticed this is in the pub shootout the German soldier Wilhelm (who is there celebrating the birth of his son) switches to English, this is solely to accommodate the fact that Aldo Raine shouldn't be able to speak anything else, and we wanted him in this scene even though he had another German-speaking Basterd up top. This convenience is pretty well swept under the rug with a "you speak English pretty well for a German soldier." and an "I know... [lets move along.]" Kinda sloppy, not going to lie but hey at least they addressed it?

When I heard the Quentin Tarantino was working on a World War II war film, I was a little disappointed. I personally don't care much for war films and just assumed this film would be a reason-less gorefest (funny how it actually turned out to be one of his tamer films gore-wise). Instead Tarantino decided to shoot the film like a spaghetti western, and I think that is simply genius. I'd never seen anything like that before, and to combine two seemingly completely different genres in one like this is (in my opinion) absolutely brilliant. Think about it, does this film seem like any other war films you've seen before? No. Tarantino used a majority of western music, had the cinematography mimic that of (primarily spaghetti) westerns, and even put in a lot of little nods to westerns story-wise like dynamite and even throwing in a very dramatic Mexican standoff! The result is very smart, interesting and super unique.

This film, like many other Tarantino films, has an absolutely amazing cast. I'm super glad that Tarantino decided to use some foreign actors in the foreign parts because Christoph Waltz really makes this film for me, I just think he's simply amazing as "the Jew hunter" Colonel Hans Landa. But Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Mélanie Laurent, Diane Kruger and Daniel Brühl all have very awesome and memorable roles in this film also, the acting is just great all around.

But my favorite thing about this film is the use of language. Unlike countless American films that use a cheap dubbing of sorts on the script level and subbing in say English in place of German (and maybe adding in an accent) when characters are in other countries, this film doesn't and as a result uses Language to build suspense for the characters in the story. This story takes place in Nazi-occupied France, there's Germans walking around in France and most of our protagonists are American, the film takes this even further by adding in British soldiers and a brief stint of Italian too as the plot develops. The film has a series of sequences (at least 3?) that are interrogations and a character's knowledge and use of language is a key factor in each of these conversations. Also the way that Tarantino masterfully divulges a little information about who knows what in each conversation adds so much suspense not only for the characters but also the viewer who is right there with characters during these sequences, trying to figure out how much each character really knows.

Inglourious Basterds (2009) is something new for Tarantino but also a return to great form too. Highly recommend it. 5/5 Stars.

Happy watching!





Want more Tarantino goodness? Check back all month for my Tribute to Tarantino in honor of his latest film Django Unchained (2012).

Go back to Tarantino's first film with Reservoir Dogs (1992), check out the first script he wrote (but didn't direct) True Romance (1993), The smash hit that really put him on the map Pulp Fiction (1994), another film written by him but in the hands of another director From Dusk till Dawn (1996), his blaxploitation-influenced crime film Jackie Brown (1997, The two part revenge epic Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004) or his tribute to grindhouse cinmea Death Proof (2007).

Even though I've gone through every film he's directed, I've got more films planned all month so be sure to check back!



Like this blog? You can support it by buying this film (and 8 other Tarantino hits from his 20 year career) in this new set (now on Blu-ray) through these links:

Death Proof (2007)

"You redneck, lunatic bastard!"

Death Proof is yet another tribute to grindhouse cinema from Quentin Tarantino this one however, also is a tribute to the car movies and TV shows from the 70s (you know, the kind that are pretty much completely non-existent these days). This film was released as part of Grindhouse (2007) in US theaters following Robert Rodriguez's zombie film Planet Terror.

Let me start this review by stating right off that there's going to be spoilers with this one, I can't really talk about the film without revealing things that happen that are supposed to be somewhat of a surprise so once again if you want the full first time experience of Death Proof stop reading now, and go rent the film. Death Proof is about Stuntman Mike a sadistic former stuntman who gets his jollies by killing women in cars at fast speeds.

[This review will focus on the 114 minute, theatrical cut of the film]

Turns out Eli Roth makes a very convincing creeper. Hmmm.

One major thing that doesn't work in this film for me is the structure. I applaud Tarantino for trying to make different films and always push the boundaries on how a story or a film can be told, but there's a good reason why everyone uses the three-act structure... because it works. This film is a two-act story (you know like a play?) and I don't think this is inherently the only problem with the film, I think that this may have worked if we didn't spend so much time trying to get to know these characters and then kill them all off at the halfway point. Yes the only character who carries over in the two parts is Stuntman Mike, the antagonist. While this is interesting and a nice thing to try, I just don't think it's successful. I really think he's trying to do too much with it: not only is he trying to split the film right down the middle between a "successful kill" for Stuntman Mike and an {everything goes wrong kill" for Stuntman Mike, but he's also trying to surprise you with the fact that he kills the protagonists at the halfway point. While yes, this worked in Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), I'm sorry you did not emulate it well.

The other major problem with this film is the transparency of the writing. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Tarantino films, and an even bigger fan of his writing and dialogue. This film however, did not do it for me. This film found the line of how much "Tarantino talk" I can really take, because frankly the first half is actually just pretty damn boring. The majority of the first half is four girls talking about (as far as the story is concerned) pointless stuff. AND they all sound like Tarantino [something I had had a problem with the way Alabama spoke in True Romance (1993)]. I just don't think that Tarantino must have many female friends because I don't know any females who talk like the girls in this film. The part where they're talking about how far one of them has gone with her boyfriend is especially cringe worthy, and awkwardly written and there's this extra long take of this film is circling a table with them all talking, that honestly I could have completely done without. It drags on for WAY too long, and there is next to nothing important gained from this conversation but yet it stayed in the film for the director's flair. This is a classic example of a director not knowing how to cut his own fat.

Oh and atrocious Quentin Tarantino cameo alert! Dude seriously, stop giving yourself speaking roles.

One good thing about this film is the Stuntman Mike character played by Kurt Russell. I had no idea that Kurt Russell could be SO creepy. His character is very well reasoned, he's interesting and also somewhat strangely funny. My only problem with Stuntman Mike is that Kurt Russell plays it almost exactly like Bill from Kill Bill (2004). I don't know if this is just the way it's written or if this was Tarantino's direction, but I can't listen to Stuntman Mike and not hear Bill, I'm gonna chalk this one up to the transparency of the writing again.

And basically the only reason I'd recommend people see this film is the car chase at the end. This is without a doubt the greatest car chase in the last 30 years, if not, one of the greatest ever filmed! This was filmed at full speed, without constantly cutting between different cameras, with real stunts and it really feels like a breath of fresh air compared to how action and car chases are filmed these days.

Death Proof (2007) is easily the low point of Quentin Tarantino's career, so much that I'd say it's pretty much completely un-noteworthy with the exception of the amazing car chase hiding out at the end of the film. 2/5 Stars.

Happy watching!





Want more Tarantino goodness? Check back all month for my Tribute to Tarantino in honor of his latest film Django Unchained (2012).

Go back to Tarantino's first film with Reservoir Dogs (1992), check out the first script he wrote (but didn't direct) True Romance (1993), The smash hit that really put him on the map Pulp Fiction (1994), another film written by him but in the hands of another director From Dusk till Dawn (1996), his blaxploitation-influenced crime film Jackie Brown (1997) or the revenge epic split between two volumes Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004). I got films planned all month, so be sure to check back!



Like this blog? You can support it by buying this film (and 8 other Tarantino hits from his 20 year career) in this new set (now on Blu-ray) through these links:

Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)

"That woman deserves her revenge... and we deserve to die."

Kill Bill is Quentin Tarantino’s first [well second if you count From Dusk till Dawn (1996)] tribute to the films of a “grindhouse” cinema. This film is a revenge story that’s jam-packed full of references to different films from all across the scope of cinema: different genres, cultures and styles. Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004) continues the story of the Bride on her quest to, well, kill... Bill. Where Volume 1 is questions, Volume 2 is fortunately answers.

If you remember (all the way back to yesterday) my biggest problem with Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) is that its story doesn't work on its own as a film. Well Volume 2 totally fixed that. This film starts by introducing a frame story of the Bride on her final drive to Bill's home. This changes the story so that the bride is narrating and explaining everything she's been through as she's on her way to her anticipated final destination. This makes me question why we didn't start with a frame in the beginning of the first film, then we could have cut back to it for a cliffhanger at the ending, but who am I to tell Tarantino how to order his films right? Maybe the frame opening to this film is the actual opening to the first film if we saw both films back to back? *cough*don't hold your breath*cough* Well whatever the reason, this makes this film work right from the beginning better than the way the last one ended. (Yay!)

I also want to mention how much I love the Bill character in this film. In the hands of most other directors, he would have stayed an aloof mystery as he was in the first film, but nope instead the character comes in (really not until) the ending and becomes one of the coolest and most interesting characters of the entire movie(s). Now I'm sure some of this coolness is thanks impart to the awesomeness of the late David Caradine, but still this should be proof that you can have an awesome antagonist even with only a little actual screen time.

Volume 1 has a great soundtrack, but personally I really like Volume 2's better. The Spanish style guitar, (some of which provided by director Robert Rodriguez) really is the cherry on top for this film. And the credit sequence is just plain cool. It' really makes me wish these were released together as one film, because no matter how hard your butt hurts that credit sequence with the full curtain call and the amazing music rolls, would make it totally worth it.

I admit this is nitpicky, but I noticed that if you watch this film on it's own the Pai Mei flashback really sticks out because the first film is very decidedly "asian" in feel, and this film is much more "western," thanks in part, mostly to the settings (Texas, California desert, etc.) The Pai Mei scenes will work as a nice connector between the otherwise very different "in feel" films but as it is now it kinda seems out of place. Don't get me wrong, I love the Pai Mei scenes, and I think they're introduced in a really, really great way (during the buried alive sequence) just an observation.

I liked the fight scenes in the first film, this film somehow manages to plus them! As would be natural, in one film the fight scenes in the first half pale in comparison to the second half, the fights in this film are far more interesting, clever and unique in my opinion. I love how the Pai Mei sequence is a direct throwback to Shaw Brothers kung-fu films, and I love how the fight with Elle in Budd's trailer is very "Jackie Chan-esque" in that they use a lot of the surroundings in the trailer to fight and I love the gag in the first part where Elle can't even pull out her Hanzo sword without hitting a trailer wall. And I know its short and abrupt but the climactic fight with Bill is really awesome to me, I love how they talk for ever and ever and then it's over in almost a flash. Very cool.

I think the "buried alive" sequence is possibly the most suspenseful piece of film in the last decade (or two!) I absolutely love how it goes completely dark for quite a while and all you can hear is the sounds of being buried alive, and then when she turns on the flashlight underground, the frame is suddenly black and white. Super clever, stylish and effective all in one!

But what I really love in this film is the story. Everything I thought was lacking in the first, improves tenfold in this. I love how the film basically builds its own modern mythology with these characters (specifically the Bride) and I love how the story pays off in the end. I really like how the reveal (not a twist because the audience already knew) to the Bride that her daughter is still alive almost completely unhinges the story we were following, and suddenly her revenge takes a backseat to her daughter. Then she goes to talk to Bill and realizes he's still kind of an a-hole and that he does in fact deserve to die for what he did, still.

Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004) is everything I was missing in Volume 1, and then some. 5/5 Stars.

Happy watching!

Check out this original minimalist poster design I did for this film, click through to buy prints/posters etc. OR check out other movie posters I designed here. :)

Want more Tarantino goodness? Check back all month for my Tribute to Tarantino in honor of his latest film Django Unchained (2012).

Go back to Tarantino's first film with Reservoir Dogs (1992), check out the first script he wrote (but didn't direct) True Romance (1993), The smash hit that really put him on the map Pulp Fiction (1994), another film written by him but in the hands of another director From Dusk till Dawn (1996), his blaxploitation-influenced crime film Jackie Brown (1997) or the first half of this story Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003). I got films planned all month, so be sure to check back!



Like this blog? You can support it by buying this film (and 8 other Tarantino hits from his 20 year career) in this new set (now on Blu-ray) through these links:

Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003)

"Revenge is never a straight line..."

Kill Bill (2003) is Quentin Tarantino’s first [well second if you count From Dusk till Dawn (1996)] tribute to the films of a “grindhouse” cinema. This film is a revenge story that’s jam-packed full of references to different films from all across the scope of cinema: different genres, cultures and styles.

The story of Kill Bill: Volume 1 revolves around a (thus far) unnamed assassin known only as “the Bride,” who is killed by other assassins but somehow survives and ends up in a coma. When she wakes up four years later, she has one thing on her mind: revenge on those who turned on her.

Kill Bill is a film that works far better than it really should. If anyone else tried tried to combine, tribute and homage so many different films in one it would not be as successful as this one. I personally think its Tarantino’s own bold and well defined style that makes all these different things work together so well under one roof. Just look at Pulp Fiction (1994), that film is not only a mash-up of 3-4 different stories but also different musical styles and time periods. But Kill Bill makes Pulp Fiction look like child’s play. This film seamlessly drops direct references to American, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, kung-fu & martial arts, anime, samurai, western and action films and even comics all over the place. Some of these are slight little nods [like the Bride's motorcycle jumpsuit that's patterned after Bruce Lee’s jumpsuit in his final and uncompleted film The Game of Death (1972)], others are the way a person gets killed or even just mirroring the way a shot is framed in another film.

I think some of my favorite ways this film uses different styles is the way the amazing soundtrack (almost all hand chosen from different films) combines with the stylish cinematography. You’ll hear western music over two people kung-fu fighting all the while telling it’s own original story. There’s far too many references in this film for me to dwell on it any longer but if you want a treat check out The Quentin Tarantino Archives, they have compiled quite a few references on their site. Its not a complete list because there were a couple things I noticed that they didn’t have listed, but they have a lot of stuff I had no idea was lifted from other films so be sure to go check that out, its a fun read.

Most of the problems with this film stem from the fact that its really only half of a story. The set up is great, but it doesn’t pay off on it’s own and without more answers or a decent conclusion the film seems like a stylish but empty action film. The ending in fact, makes an amazing mid point (revealing her daughter is still alive).

Now this is no problem if you look at the films as two parts to one film, but as it is right now Quentin Tarantino has never given the full film a decent release. If he wants to release Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair in wide release or even just on home video, I will revisit this film as one film. But until that day as it is now, I'm sorry its two films.

I usually don't care for Lucy Liu too much as an actor but I love her in this film because her backstory is told in one of the greatest anime sequences in film or television history. Its absolutely beautiful and very expressive with lots of really stylized action and great shot choices. The anime sequence is produced by Production I.G. the studio responsible for Ghost in the Shell, Neon Genesis Evangelion & FLCL. This is such a great way to incorporate another medium even one as drastically different as anime.

I love the fight choreography and cinematography in this film. The cinematography is made up mostly of homages to other films combined in really interesting and clever ways and Tarantino was smart to hire fight choreographer Yuen Woo-ping, who is well known for his work in the films Wing Chun (1994), Iron Monkey (1993) and Jackie Chan's Drunken Master (1978).

And lastly I gotta mention Sonny Chiba, I personally love Sonny Chiba and apparently Quentin Tarantino really does too. I love the way he uses him in this film as an almost Yoda-esque retired sword-maker. His performance in this film is cool, funny and super memorable all in one, and that's really something because apparently he can speak next to no English!

Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) is probably Quentin Tarantino's most stylish and action packed film to date, but without it’s second half a large part of the film seems like it's just another emotionally hollow action film. 4/5 Stars.

Happy watching!

Check out this original minimalist poster design I did for this film, click through to buy prints/posters etc. OR check out other movie posters I designed here. :)

Want more Tarantino goodness? Check back all month for my Tribute to Tarantino in honor of his latest film Django Unchained (2012).

Go back to Tarantino's first film with Reservoir Dogs (1992), check out the first script he wrote (but didn't direct) True Romance (1993), The smash hit that really put him on the map Pulp Fiction (1994), another film written by him but in the hands of another director From Dusk till Dawn (1996), or his blaxploitation-influenced crime film Jackie Brown (1997). I got films planned all month so be sure to check back!



Like this blog? You can support it by buying this film (and 8 other Tarantino hits from his 20 year career) in this new set (now on Blu-ray) through these links:

Jackie Brown (1997)

"Half a million dollars will always be missed."

Jackie Brown (1997) is a crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino and based on the book Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard. The film is Tarantino's tribute to blaxploitation films of the 70s. It follows a 47-year old flight attendant named Jackie Brown who is caught bringing cash into the country for a gun dealer named Ordell Robbie and the many different parties that would like to run off with Ordell's half a million dollars.

This film has an absolutely amazing cast. There's nothing better than a film with a character-driven story where every character has a great actor behind it. It's no surprise that this film revitalized Pam Grier's career because she is really great in this film. The only character I didn't really care for is Robert De Niro as Louis Gara, a bankrobber recently released from prison. He's not bad in it, but this is a pretty minor role and I kind of feel like its kind of a waste for Robert De Niro's talent.

A majority of this film uses actual lighting, in a world where every movie has fake "Hollywood lighting" this really stands out to me. Not just in mall scenes where it would have been hard to affect the lighting, but I love how Tarantino uses the very dark lighting inside apartments to it's full effect. This is such a simple way to increase the suspense and intensity in a film, but I'm completely blown away by its use in this film.

The plot in this film is too convoluted and complicated for my taste. It took me a couple viewings before I really appreciated how much is actually going on. But with so many characters and so many different plans and plots I just feel it could have been a lot simpler.

The film also seems incredibly long winded. I'm not sure if this is just because we effectively watch a money heist/exchange four different times or what. Also the structure is unusual to this film in that it takes almost an entire hour to set up all the different characters and their separate plans.

Also the cinematography seems a lot less meaningful and more random in this film than most other Tarantino films. For example this film has a lot of random close ups for seemingly no reason.

This film does a thing where it shows a money exchange three different times. Each takes place at the same time, nothing actually changes in the exchange, but each is shown with a different perspective and each gives the viewer more insight into what actually happened. It's kind of like Rashomon (1950) except the events don't actually change from each character perspective, it just takes advantage of the fact that not every character is going to see the same thing because they all enter and leave at different times. This is something that must have taken a long time to plan, but its masterfully executed really seamless and surprisingly easy to follow and figure out while you're watching.

And if for no other reason you see this film, I recommend you see it just for Samuel L. Jackson's character Ordell Robbie. Samuel L. Jackson hit's all the major ranges of emotion with this one character. I love how funny and humorous (and even dumb) he can be in one scene and yet completely menacing and sinister in another. He's really a treat to watch and makes a really convincing antagonist for the story.

Jackie Brown (1997) is probably Quentin Tarantino's least "flashy" film, but its a very solid film and has a great cast and amazing characters. 4.5/5 Stars.

Happy watching!

Check out this original minimalist poster design I did for this film, click through to buy prints/posters etc. OR check out other movie posters I designed here. :)

Want more Tarantino goodness? Check back all month for my Tribute to Tarantino in honor of his latest film Django Unchained.

Go back to Tarantino's first film with Reservoir Dogs (1992), check out the first script he wrote (but didn't direct) True Romance (1993), The smash hit that really put him on the map Pulp Fiction (1994), or another film written by him but in the hands of another director From Dusk till Dawn (1996).



Like this blog? You can support it by buying this film (and 8 other Tarantino hits from his 20 year career) in this new set (now on Blu-ray) through these links:

From Dusk till Dawn (1996)

"Fight now, cry later."

From Dusk till Dawn (1996) is a violent crime/horror exploitation film directed by Robert Rodriguez. Much like True Romance (1993) this is one of only a couple of films written by Quentin Tarantino, that he didn't actually direct. He wrote the screenplay very early on and in a very short time span (in two weeks!) with the intent to sell. People would call him up and tell him they loved it, but no one actually wanted to make it. When everyone passed on it Quentin's good friend Robert Rodriguez expressed interest and they decided to go forward with it.

The story follows the bank-robbing Gecko brothers on a killing spree as they try to escape the police and cross the border to Mexico, they hijack a family's RV and everything is going well but things take a drastic turn for the worse once they get into Mexico.

(Special spoiler warning for this one: If you want the full experience of this film don't read on any further. This film has a drastic twist halfway through and I'm going to talk about it bellow.)

The script for From Dusk till Dawn is really clever. The film starts out as a pretty typical 'bank-robbers-on-the-run' heist-type film that halfway through completely shifts tone and becomes a very gruesome horror film much like the exploitation horror films of the later 70s through the 80s. The shift is very weird but also clever and unique. What I like about it is how completely the script shifts and almost before the viewer knows it, they're in a completely different movie.

I like how well thought-out the characters are: a preacher whose recently lost his faith, a professional bankrobber who's stuck with his sex-offender brother. This is less so for the characters introduced in the second half (the Vietnam vet and Sex Machine the very typical biker bar patron), but with the genre shift it almost actually fits. The characters introduced later almost follow different rules because of the change of tone in the film.

And the film is packed with (now-classic) Tarantino dialogue. I really like the way the characters talk in this film and it's filled with lots of really memorable lines: "I said 'plant yourself.' Plants don't talk." and "What's in Mexico?" with the very memorable answer "Mexicans."

The genre shift in the film really leaves some awkward pacing, this is especially noticeable in the second half of the film though where all the action kind of happens in waves giving the characters these long breaks to talk about things between monster attacks.

Luckily his part is pretty minor, but the Asian adopted son of Harvey Keitel, Ernest Liu really just a nothing-special child actor and kind of sticks out like a sore thumb surrounded by all these other really great actors in this film.

And lastly I really don't care for the ending of this film. Its not fulfilling or satisfying at all and seems pretty meaningless. Tarantino has done meaningless endings before, but this one seems un-stylish and like they had nothing else they could think of to end on. What does the end establish? George Clooney's character isn't that bad of a guy? Yeah, the whole movie established that.

This film has one of the greatest opening sequences I've ever seen. The film starts so nonchalantly, then out of nowhere turns into a cut-throat hostage situation that's stylish funny and very interesting. It's 11 minutes long too! That's pretty intense for an opening to a film.

I love the camerawork in this film. Robert Rodriguez really knows how to direct a camera, he said that he actually emulated the way Quentin would frame a shot during specific scenes in this movie. But I gotta say, I think I like the cinematography in this film a lot more than I do in most Tarantino films!

And almost all the acting in this film is really sound, but the two actors that stand out are the two opposite leads George Clooney and Harvey Keitel. It's hard to even conceive this today but back in 1996 George Clooney was a huge actor on the small screen on E.R. but had never been in a movie before. Rodriguez and Tarantino saw the potential and cast him in a completely different role than he usually had and as a result of this film, he was amazing and his career just took off afterwards. Harvey Keitel is just a great actor he just knows how to command the camera's presence in the film, but his role in this film is pretty different than anything I've ever seen him in, and he really nails it. It just shows how great of a range he has as an actor.

From Dusk till Dawn (1996) is a very fun and stylish film that is super clever and a great blend of multiple genres. 4/5 Stars.

Happy watching!





Want more Tarantino goodness? Check back all month for my Tribute to Tarantino in honor of his latest film Django Unchained.

Go back to Tarantino's first film with Reservoir Dogs (1992), check out the first script he wrote (but didn't direct) True Romance (1993) or The smash hit that really put him on the map Pulp Fiction (1994.



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Pulp Fiction (1994)

"Say 'what' again."

Pulp Fiction (1994) is Quentin Tarantino's crime anthology film. Pulp Ficiton is actually 3 different stories (about 40 minutes each) with a fourth story (the diner scene) that is split into a prologue and epilogue for the film. Each story crosses over at some point and characters from other stories walk in to other stories (primarily Vincent Vega). The stories are about a couple that decides to rob a coffee shop (prologue/epilogue), two hitmen that have a the strangest day of their lives (The Bonnie Situation), a hitman who has to take his boss' wife for a night out on the town (Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace's Wife), and a prizefighter that's trying to outsmart and escape gangsters (The Gold Watch). Each story seems to revolve around the craziest things that could happen on a otherwise seemingly normal day.

This film makes for a really great follow up to Reservoir Dogs (1992), it has the same bold style that I really liked about that film, but it all feels a little bit bigger and more comfortable. This is the first film of Quentin Tarantino's films that I think he really hits his full stride on his style. His quirky writing, great music choices, unique storytelling, and stylish scenes really all come to full bloom in this film. And much like Reservoir Dogs, some of my favorite things about this film are the simple but stylish little quirks he puts in that show he's really thinking about interesting ways to make a film, for example: Mia Wallace's "don't be a square" gesture complete with on screen diagram, I like how the camera moves over at the end of Zed's "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" to further show who his first victim will be, and who could forget the creativity of Jack Rabbit Slim's? ..."a wax museum with a pulse."

I also just really like the humor in this film, and not just the humorous dialogue there's lots of awesome viusal gags (like hitmen dressed in beach volleyball clothes!)

It's not bad so much, but I don't find Bruce Willis' story about a boxer named Butch trying to outsmart the mob really as strong as the others. It's still a strange tale, with a really weird couple of occurrences but it's just not as interesting as the other two (or even the diner scene) to me. The core story about a boxer trying to outsmart a promoter is also completely ripped off of one of the greatest boxing films of all time, Body and Soul (1947). That being said, it's no surprise then that this is the one segment of the film that Quentin Tarantino didn't write, I feel it shows.

I gotta mention how much I love the structure of this film. I feel like this is one of those films, that shouldn't have worked as well as it really does. Aside from being multiple stories (as I've already mentioned) the film also tells the stories out of order, characters die in one story and then their alive in the next! Although these are separate stories I love that they are somewhat circular and the things that are set up in the very beginning come full circle by the end. In fact, like how you wouldn't notice this on the first viewing, but the film sets up every single story and at least mentions each character in the first twenty minutes, some of them more obviously than others. Each story really works on it's own as a great short film, each with an amazing climax. But the way the film works together as a whole is a lot better than Tarantino's next anthology project Four Rooms (1995).

I love that the film has a great all-star cast but this doesn't get in the way of each of the characters really seeming like real people. Much like Reservoir Dogs (1992) I love how this film even makes dreaded hitmen argue and converse like your best friends do.

The film's writing is absolutely amazing to me. Tarantino's style is fully exemplified here and I love how he drowns exposition in so much minute and obscure detail that you have no idea what you are hearing is actually going to be very important later on.

Pulp Fiction (1994) is one of Quentin Tarantino's best films, it's very stylish, "cool" and probably one of his most creative storytelling-wise. 5/5 Stars.

Happy watching!

Check out this original minimalist poster design I did for this film, click through to buy prints/posters etc. OR check out other movie posters I designed here. :)

Want more Tarantino goodness? Check back all month for my Tribute to Tarantino in honor of his latest film Django Unchained.

Go back to Tarantino's first film with Reservoir Dogs (1992) or check out the first script he wrote (but didn't direct).



Like this blog? You can support it by buying this film (and 8 other Tarantino hits from his 20 year career) in this new set (now on Blu-ray) through these links: