If I'm honest it would be Kill Bill, but only because it was such a step down from Jackie Brown. Which isn't to say I don't like Kill Bill, but felt like quite a step backwards.

Until Once Upon a Time... I'd never rewatched his films after Kill Bill. They're not bad (well, except Death Proof. Planet Terror really saved that) but didn't find them that engaging. Once Upon a Time..., though, enthralled me in a way I can't really explain. Maybe I'll get over it.

andyman wrote: Thu Jul 14, 2022 11:50 am Everything up to Jackie Brown was decent (JB is really entertaining; he didn't write the story, funnily enough). Disappeared up his own B-Movie asshole after that.

I've heard that JB was considered a commercial failure, and so he felt some pressure to give the public what they wanted. And apparently that was a two part (so five+ hour?) homage to kung fu and exploitation movies. He's something of an oddity.

handsbloodyhands wrote: Thu Jul 14, 2022 11:42 am Jackie Brown has Pam Grier and Robert Forster to elevate it some. Without them I can't stand the rest of the movie.

Made the decision to never watch another one of his flicks after Kill Bill/Death Proof. With every clip I have run across from the rest of his catalog I know I made the correct call.

Yeah. To clarify: while I found JB kind of boring, I didn't say "fuck this, turn this shit off" until I got to one of the Kill Bills.

Tom Wanderer wrote: Thu Jul 14, 2022 10:57 am I enjoy all of his movies to varying degrees.

This is how I feel as well, though Django and Hateful Eight weren't as good as the rest. Need to rewatch Hollywood sometime.

I am a total snob, but I think he's very good, especially if you consider what a creepy manchild he is, frothing at the mouth in every interview. He might be one of the few working American director that I might take a chance on. None of the films are terrible, but the two I'm mostly happy with are Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. OUATIH was admittedly pretty lousy.

Not a big fan but he was an omnipresent "cool" figure in my teens so everybody saw all the films - but even in those groupthink days I thought Kill Bill 2 was rubbish. KB1 was fun but when I saw 2 in the cinema it so clear there was 1 good film dragged our into 2 unbalanced messes. Sorta soured me on him ever since.

The only one I've rewatched as an adult is Reservoir Dogs , which I still enjoyed. Hard to argue w/ Keitel, Roth and Buscemi's performances.

I love a lot of the same films that influenced him, but his style wears on me. Reservoir Dogs was my favorite, but I haven't seen it in ages.

I don't want to blame him for inspiring Rob Zombie to make films, but...

Kill bill.

Is it supposed to be some sort of homage to oriental action flicks? I just don't get it. Boring

Enjoyed Inglorious bastards and the last one, but they are so-so compared to the first three.

Just about all his films contain some amount of cringe, often when he is on camera.

I think directors, even the "auteurs," get too much credit for how their films turn out. Besides the DP and all the crew making shit happen, you've got a cast who can either make or break a film. He surrounds himself with actors who bring some sort of cache with them, as well as their varying degrees of talent. Without the stars and character actors these movies would hit different.

I fucking hate his obsession with African-American people and culture. Severely. Fuck off Quentin, go make movies about moon people or wherever the fuck you are from. Stop being a culture vulture.

I just watched Once Upon a Time .... I loved it. DiCaprio playing an emotionally stunted star teetering on has-been status was excellent. Brad Pitt's character (another Tarantino nod to the stunt people) and his dog were great. I was shocked by the ending because I thought I knew how it'd end, history and all.

I totally agree with the takes on JB seemed slow to me as a teen, I appreciate it more now.

Overall it reminds me of the Wes Anderson conversation we had a while ago. He's cultivated a unique style that is very strong. I can't fault anyone who doesn't find it to their tastes; they're both highly stylized. What I would argue is that he shows a unique control of his medium to achieve that style and he's clearly working with a specific vision.

I also find his homage to Blacksploitation a bit uncomfortable. He clearly has a real love for it and relishes characters brutally punishing slave owners and Nazis, but elements of Django were weird to me.