Latest Updates - Quentin Tarantino

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

Agreed, not a fun-fest, mainly, I think due to two reasons... Anglade's character being a nasty, damaged Psycho (which would be ok, if not for the other reason), and Stoltz, say times looks disinterested in the whole thing, like he thought: "Tarantino + arty European bank job movie... Great!", then got on set, saw what it was, and felt like a fish out of water..."well, I'm committed now, and this is still a payday".

(In fairness, that could just be the character he was playing, as much as anything, but it doesn't offset, or contrast well with Anglade).

Still, for all it's faults, and still in great need of a recut and restructure though it is, it has fared a little better in by mind since watching it, so I might keep this one for a little while, and watch it again sometime, this time, going in with no preconceptions... See what that does for it :)

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Comment by alexlincs:

@Magic Marmalade I bought this on DVD back in the day. A huge disappointment, but not necessarily a bad film. What struck me most is just humorless it is.

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

The strength of a good story is in the telling...

...And this is a potentially great story, told badly.

I remember this being a movie with a lot of buzz around it at the time of release, Mainly, due the "involvement" of Quentin Tarantino - of which much is made on the DVD cover and poster, but is in reality only a production credit, being written and directed instead, by Roger Avary.

That buzz being a mixed bag of good to bad reviews. I never got around to seeing it then, as it was also one of those "mayfly" movies, that appear to be everywhere for a short spell, before evidently disappearing entirely from public consciousness - in short, I forgot it existed.

But now I can see why the reviews are mixed, and why this isn't thought more of, as well as the movie within it, which could have been every bit the equal of a Tarantino "proper" movie, had one key decision been made differently:

Specifically, if this had been restructured in the narrative, cut and edited differently so as the actual bank robbery was the centre of the story, and the two key relationships given in pre-amble were told in flashback from key moments in the robbery, rather than in linear fashion as it is, this would have been an altogether different animal.

As it is, Stoltz (Zed) arrives in France (this has a very contemporary European movie look and feel - as opposed to a Hollywood, or Tarantino one) to meet with Anglade (Eric), in order to embark on this bank robbery with him, but while waiting for Eric, he hooks up with Delpy (Zoe), call girl / student in his hotel room, and a relationship develops, before Eric bursts in and boots her out (before it turns out she is present at the bank they rob).

All of this, and the next two thirds of the film of Zed and Eric doing the town in Paris, is very languid on it's own, even draggy, and boring, and even the beginning of the robbery is somewhat underwhelming, due to a lack of pace you might have expected from this movie...

...But really, that's the real story here, The relationship between Stoltz and Anglade, versus the relationship between him and Delpy, which puts Stoltz in a bind.

If we had come in cold straight into the robbery, then at key points, flashed back, or told those other snippets of story as reveals, the nature of his relationship with each would have unfolded the nature of these, as well as unfolding to the audience the nature of the circumstances, changing our perception of the scenario as we go towards the climax.

This, so rendered, would possibly have been a 9 or a 10 rating for me, but getting to the bank job in linear narrative fashion takes an eternity, and I found I didn't have much interest / energy for the last twenty minutes.

So it's another one, that I wonder, if some talented individual out there were to take this existing material, and "re-cut" it, or reorder and restructure the narrative through this means (maybe making it available to view somewhere - ahem :) - everyone would see what a great film was actually here all along, and even the critics may reappraise it to a much higher degree.

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

:)

Indeed, will have to make a list sometime of my favourite 90s movies!

Meantime, enjoy:

[YouTube Video]

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Comment by alexlincs:

@Magic Marmalade I couldn't agree more. Tony Scott reels in the pretentiousness that plagues Tarantino's later films. I still think he has the midas touch, but his latest films are just way too long. I also agree it's one of the best 90s films.

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

"You're so cool... You're so cool... You're so cool..."

I think this is actually one of my favourite "Tarantino" movies now, definitely my favourite Tony Scott movie, and certainly one of the top ten nineties movies for me.

I've watched it so many times since release, and it just keeps getting better every time.

Of course, at least half of this would be "cancelled" according to today's standards of social acceptability, especially the sublime Walken / Hopper scene, but that's where the authenticity of the characters lies.

Not sure if this is one that Tarantino has now "disowned" (not being 100% him), but I believe he is still pretty pissed about Natural Born Killers, in any case, far be it for me to advise a movie making God on movie taste, but he would be dead wrong on both counts.

For his brilliant, and uniquely Tarantino style, shone through the prism of Scott and Stone's (respective) directorial, and movie making talents offers something unique, and a more magical mixture than he alone could achieve, in this case. I know he wanted the story structure for this to be different, in order to leave questions that are only later, more progressively revealed as the movie goes on, but this linear structure works just fine for me.

Following Clarence and Alabama (Slater and Arquette) as they meet, and fall in love after a whirlwind "Romance" (Clarence aptly Surnamed: Worley) and marriage, which opens a mafia / drug world / gangland sized can of worms, before venturing off on on a road trip / scam / gambit, and meeting a brilliant array of characters along the way, is an absolutely exhilarating ride, and a joy to behold.

And as well as the hauntingly memorable theme by Hans Zimmer, which sweetens the the whole affair, there's an excellent Chris Isaak tune on the end credits to send you away happy: Two Hearts.

(This song is now burned into the most difficult to reach parts of my brain at present, having watched it again! :)

A stunner... And a must see.

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

I don't think it is possible for me to overstate the impact and importance of this movie on me personally, or indeed others, who like me, were lucky enough to have seen it at the cinema at time of release...

...I remember, having reached the pitch of "Hollywood superstar vehicle movies" fare prior to this, me and some friends, went because we thought it might "be cool"...

(Teenagers eh?!? - ha ha :)

...And sitting transfixed in the cinema, and it being like: "What the hell is this? - is this what a movie can be?.... in the cinema?!!!" - not our usual diet of big budget action schlock.

We all walked out the cinema in frowny, thoughtful silence.

...Something has, or was about to change, dramatically in cinema, I felt, and indeed, I think this certainly allowed things like Pulp Fiction to be accepted by a wider audience.

The only other moment in culture I can remember in my lifetime, that represented as dramatic a shift, or push into some other space than the usual was the release of the Nirvana album: Nevermind.

...almost literally, overnight, everything that had gone before was redundant, and quite simply "over", and now... this.

(In the case of Nevermind, there were ever increasing levels of unrelatable absurdity in hair metal, consuming all the cultural oxygen in rock, least... then: BANG! Teen Spirit! - you hair metallers are done - find new occupations please. Of course, now I have a nostalgic appreciation for those old permy rockers - "How I learned to stop wirrying and love hair metal" :)

But this is still my fave of the Quinisters - because it was (consciously) the first.

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Comment by Magic Marmalade:

I don't think it is possible for me to overstate the impact and importance of this movie on me personally, or indeed others, who like me, were lucky enough to have seen it at the cinema at time of release...

...I remember, having reached the pitch of "Hollywood superstar vehicle movies" fare prior to this, me and some friends, went because we thought it might "be cool"...

(Teenagers eh?!? - ha ha :)

...And sitting transfixed in the cinema, and it being like: "What the hell is this? - is this what a movie can be?.... in the cinema?!!!" - not our usual diet of big budget action schlock.

We all walked out the cinema in frowny, thoughtful silence.

...Something has, or was about to change, dramatically in cinema, I felt, and indeed, I think this certainly allowed things like Pulp Fiction to be accepted by a wider audience.

The only other moment in culture I can remember in my lifetime, that represented as dramatic a shift, or push into some other space than the usual was the release of the Nirvana album: Nevermind.

...almost literally, overnight, everything that had gone before was redundant, and quite simply "over", and now... this.

(In the case of Nevermind, there were ever increasing levels of unrelatable absurdity in hair metal, consuming all the cultural oxygen in rock, least... then: BANG! Teen Spirit! - you hair metallers are done - find new occupations please. Of course, now I have a nostalgic appreciation for those old permy rockers - "How I learned to stop wirrying and love hair metal" :)

But this is still my fave of the Quinisters - because it was (consciously) the first.