Quentin Tarantino

Jackie Brown

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  • Title: Jackie Brown
  • IMDb: link

Jackie Brown

Taking advantage of Pam Grier‘s history blaxploitation films, Quentin Tarantino cast her in the title role of his 1997 adaptation of Elmore Leonard‘s novel Rum Punch. More than a quarter of a century later it remains the only non-original film Tarantino has created (which is interesting as some, although not me, argue it just may be his best work). Grier’s inclusion easily lets the viewer tie this film to her earlier works in film like Coffy and immediately understand the tone Tarantino is going for with the stylish Jackie Brown.

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Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood

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  • Title: Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood
  • IMDb: link

Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood movie reviewThe latest from writer/director Quentin Tarantino includes all the trappings that fans have come to expect over the past two decades. Overly talky, in need of a little editing, with a few too many shots of his characters’ feet, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood is still quite entertaining and easily the best film Tarantino has made since 2009’s Inglourious Basterds. Most comparable with Death Proof, Once Upon a Time offers a slow build-up focused on character and snappy dialogue before jumping headfirst into an explosive finale.

Set in 1969 Hollywood, the plot follows the exploits of western star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) on the downside of his career, his friend and stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), his new neighbor Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), and the Manson Family. The separate threads will eventually intertwine late in the film’s final act on one fateful night in the Hollywood Hills, but for most of the film Tarantino takes his time with each, featuring the Dalton/Booth friendship most prominently with plenty of inserts of the the actor’s glory days as the star of Bounty Law which came to an abrupt end after he started chasing a movie career.

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The Hateful Eight

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  • Title: The Hateful Eight
  • IMDb: link

The Hateful EightThe Hateful Eight is neither the best nor least of writer/director Quentin Tarantino‘s oeuvre. Like most of his work, the film is highlighted by the mix of snappy dialogue and gruesome violence. And, sadly like much of his work, the film is hampered the filmmaker’s indulgences (such as shooting a film shot almost entirely in close-ups on a sound stage in 70mm simply because he felt like doing so) which don’t always serve the final product. The result is a film with terrific sequences, hampered by dark humor that doesn’t always find the right note, which eventually overstays it’s welcome.

The film begins with the chance encounter of a pair of bounty hunters (Kurt Russell, Samuel L. Jackson) both fighting to get ahead of the oncoming blizzard. Before all is said and done the two men, along with one man’s bounty (Jennifer Jason Leigh), the carriage driver, and a host of other strangers, will all attempt to seek shelter from the storm in Minnie’s Haberdashery.

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Tarantino Unchained

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  • Title: Django Unchained
  • IMDB: link

django-unchained-posterWith Inglourious Basterds writer/director Quentin Tarantino strode a fine line between between drama and revenge fantasy in his depiction of a select group of Jewish soldiers taking on the Nazis during WWII.

With his latest, Tarantino returns to the well of his revenge fantasy, the theme he’s been stuck on for nearly an entire decade (since 2003’s Kill Bill Vol. 1), to push the envelope even farther with a blaxploitation western that leaves good taste in the dust. If there’s ever a film that so thoroughly argues for a director to be shackled to studio pressure it’s the inarguable trainwreck that is Django Unchained.

Jamie Foxx stars as Django, a slave freed by a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) in need of his help to hunt down and kill the Speck brothers (James Remar, James Russo). After Django shows promise, Shultz (Waltz) agrees to train the newly freed slave in the art of bounty hunting and help retrieve Django’s wife (Kerry Washington) from a ruthless plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio).

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