What’s with this past tense bullshit?

<< But Elmore Leonard was a terrific writer and a big influence on my writing style. He would set up a standard genre story an then he would have real life come in a fuck up everything. >>

LACrimAtty - 29 April 2009 03:18 PM

What’s with this past tense bullshit?

If there’s anybody who should be talked about in the past tense….

Heh exactly he has done like 3 good movies in his hole career…...

LACrimAtty - 29 April 2009 03:18 PM

What’s with this past tense bullshit?

<< But Elmore Leonard was a terrific writer and a big influence on my writing style. He would set up a standard genre story an then he would have real life come in a fuck up everything. >>

Probably meant when Tarantino was young and first discovered Leonard.  Seriously you are reading way too much into it when the guy was trying to give a compliment to Elmore.

Parker - 29 April 2009 07:51 PM

Heh exactly he has done like 3 good movies in his hole career…...

He’s only made 5 so his batting average is pretty high.  Death Proof was a homage to the Grindhouse cinema of his youth.  It’s not like he was trying to make high art.  Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Kill Bill were all great. Jackie Brown was pretty good as well but not up to the standards of his other work.  But it doesn’t matter if he never made another movie in his life he made Pulp Fiction and that’s better than most will ever come close to.

Pulp Fiction wasnt that good.  Mostly hype imo.  Good but not that great.  Its strenght was its quality and that they didnt make a movie like it when it came out.

Kill Bill was two movies,so what Planet Terror/Death Proof.  Imo He made Jackie Brown,Pulp Fiction Kill Vol 1, that is real good.  So he is good 3 times out of 8 films imo.

The new one looks good though.

When I started this thread, I certainly had no intention of putting down Tarantino. True, I don’t like most of what he’s done, but that has nothing to do with the point I was making, that it’s offensive to see Elmore talked about in the past tense. By anyone.

That said, I disagree re Pulp Fiction. It’s one of my favorite movies, one of only a handful I can and do watch every time I run across it on cable.

(Also on the list—just for fun—would be Heat, Ronin, Goodfellas, Get Shorty, The Spanish Prisoner, State & Main, House of Games, Quiz Show, Full Metal Jacket, Salvador, Rounders...and a few I can’t think of at the moment).

LACrimAtty - 01 May 2009 02:37 PM

(Also on the list—just for fun—would be Heat, Ronin, Goodfellas, Get Shorty, The Spanish Prisoner, State & Main, House of Games, Quiz Show, Full Metal Jacket, Salvador, Rounders...and a few I can’t think of at the moment).

I’ve got to agree with you, re Get Shorty; no matter how many times I put that disc in the machine, I never get bored with it.

Publication Logo
The Guardian (London)

May 3, 2009 Sunday

Quentin Tarantino The golden boy must make good: THE OBSERVER PROFILE by Ryan Gilbey: He exploded onto the scene with Reservoir Dogs. Fifteen years ago he triumphed at Cannes with Pulp Fiction. Since then, the critics have mauled him. Now he’s back on the Riviera, can he recapture the coveted Palme d’Or?: THE TARANTINO LOWDOWN

He came back from the brink in 1997 with Jackie Brown , adapted from Elmore Leonard’s Rum Punch . This tribute to the blaxploitation era is his most compassionate work to date, as well as a film that cheerfully violates the Hollywood commandment regarding screen romance: “Thou shalt not show physical attraction beyond the 16-35 age bracket, unless thou playest it for laughs.” Tarantino says it is the film to which he feels least attached. “I would have died for Reservoir Dogs . I would have died getting a shot for Pulp Fiction . I don’t know if I would have died, would have thrown myself into that kind of harm’s way, for J ackie Brown , and that scared me a little bit.”

How peculiar that of all his films he feels so divorced from Jackie Brown , with its emotional plausibility and understated melancholy. There is in the brash, unchecked indulgence of Kill Bill and Death Proof the air of a film-maker sorely in need of a judicious editor. When it became apparent that Kill Bill would have to be released as two films instead of one, the producer, Harvey Weinstein, ever grateful for the glory bestowed on his company Miramax by Pulp Fiction , memorably announced: “Miramax is the house Quentin Tarantino built. Because of his stature he has carte blanche.”