Tagarchief: Quentin Tarantino

En de award voor coolste filmposter ever gaat naar…

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

‘Hobo with a Shotgun’

Zoals het de poster van de betere exploitation film betaamt is de poster van ‘Hobo with a Shotgun’ een getekende poster die de sfeer van de film perfect in één beeld visualiseert. De held van de film is uiteraard het grootste afgebeeld. In het geval van ‘Hobo’ is dat Rutger Hauer die het titelpersonage speelt. Hij heeft een echte zwerverslook met een schitterende nasty gezichtsuitdrukking. Om de hoofdpersoon heen zijn alle belangrijke scènes en personages uit de film te zien. Ik kreeg echt direct zin om de film te gaan bekijken, iets wat alleen de beste posters voor elkaar krijgen. De titel, logo en tagline zijn ook nog eens te gek. Kortom, een dikke tien.

Behalve de vette poster is de film zelf ook behoorlijk geslaagd. Hij begint met een naamloze zwerver die met een goederentrein arriveert in een naamloze stad. Een beetje zoals Clint Eastwood in de westerns over the man with no name. Door de mooie georchestreerde muziek krijg je helemaal het gevoel naar een film uit de jaren zeventig te zitten kijken.

De stad waar de hobo arriveert, is een smerige plek waar sadistische psychopaten de dienst uitmaken. Tussen de vele hobo’s worden bumfights georganiseerd en gefilmd, vrouwen worden gebruikt als lust- en martelobjecten en de politie wordt betaald door de leider van al het tuig, de über sicko Drake. Hauer’s dakloze heeft door een paar slechte ervaringen al snel genoeg van alle smeerlappen en besluit aan het moorden te slaan. Gewapend met een shotgun richt hij een bloedbad aan onder het tuig. In zijn missie wordt hij bijgestaan door prostituee Abby.

‘Hobo with a Shotgun’ was oorspronkelijk een namaaktrailer die deelnam aan een fake trailer competitie georganiseerd om de première van ‘Grindhouse’ te promoten, het grootse exploitation project van Quentin Tarantino en Robert Rodriquez. De trailer won de competitie en werd in sommige Canadese bioscopen vertoond als onderdeel van ‘Grindhouse’. Het is de tweede aan ‘Grindhouse’ verbonden trailer die het tot een speelfilm schopt. De andere is ‘Machete’ van Robert Rodriguez zelf.

Omdat de film met een relatief bescheiden budget is gemaakt en geen grote Hollywood sterren in de cast heeft, is het een overtuigendere exploitation film dan de ‘Grindhouse’ films van Rodriguez en Tarantino zelf. Het excessieve geweld en sadisme maakt wel dat het moeilijk is om veel te geven om de personages, inclusief de protagonist. Ook is de opbouw niet helemaal geslaagd; Hauer verandert in een paar minuten in een massamoordenaar, wat ook de genoegdoening wat teniet doet. Maar de boodschap over de human condition is toch overtuigend neergezet. Ook is het exploitation gehalte optimaal; je kunt je het geschreeuw en gejuich bij de vele bloederige scenes in het theater levendig voorstellen. Deze hobo is het zeker waard om wat kleingeld aan uit te geven.

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld


‘Girls like me don’t make invitations like this to just anyone!’

Directed by:
Quentin Tarantino

Written by:
Quentin Tarantino (stories / screenplay)
Roger Avary (stories)

Cast:
John Travolta (Vincent Vega), Samuel L. Jackson (Jules Winnfield), Uma Thurman (Mia Wallace), Tim Roth (Pumpkin), Amanda Plummer (Honey Bunny), Bruce Willis (Butch Coolidge), Ving Rhames (Marsellus Wallace), Eric Stoltz (Lance), Rosanna Arquette (Jody), Harvey Keitel (Winston Wolf)

After Quentin Tarantino’s insanely cool debut in 1992, Reservoir Dogs – which he wrote and directed – the expectations of him in movieland were quite high. Two years later he delivered. When Pulp Fiction premièred at Cannes in 1994, they didn’t know what hit them. Tarantino’s L.A.-based crime opus, inspired by the Black Mask pulp magazine, blew them all away.

The three intersecting stories that are told non-chronologically in Pulp Fiction are all amazing in their own way. The first one about two hitmen Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) that have to dispose of a headless body and blood-soaked car is both mean and hysterical. The second one in which Vega takes gangster boss Marcellus Wallace’s wife Mia (Uma Thurman) out on a date (“it’s not a date!”) is druggy, cool, sensual and exciting. The third story about boxer Butch (Bruce Willis) who swindles Marcellus Wallace is romantic, ironic and twisted. The whole plot is tied together by a crazy short about a young couple in love who decide to rob the restaurant they are having breakfast in.Whether a person knows about movies or not, it is hard to miss that this is an amazingly clever movie. The screenplay is out of this world and so is the cast (5 million dollars of the 8 million budget went to the cast). The non-chronological structure to which Tarantino holds the patent is never done better. And although not his most mature, the dialogues about foot massages, piercings, TV-pilots and uncomfortable silences are unforgettable. Especially the exchanges between Vega and Winnfield are absolutely hilarious.

Of course, this being Tarantino’s early masterpiece, it contains a trainload of movie references. One could even call it his ultimate homage to cinema. But what makes it richer and cleverer than just a highly entertaining crime flick stuffed with pop-culture dialogues and references, is the biblical thread that runs through it. It is truly remarkable how the separate stories intertwine and destiny comes into play the whole time. For example, Butch and Marcellus Wallace walk into the most terrible place on earth, but it does put them square in the end. And what becomes a life changing event for Winnfield, is ignored by Vega for whom things soon end badly. All the characters get a lesson in some sort of way. Some get a second chance and some don’t. The viewer can keep looking into this and discover new things all the time. In this respect, the screenwriters did a wonderful job and justly won an Oscar for it.

The nineties was a glorious time for cinema, when surprises like Pulp Fiction would still appear once in a while. Although, we can only hope for this period to return, we can also re-live the beautiful movie experiences from the past. Like the content of the mysterious briefcase in the movie, Pulp Fiction is a treasure that will undoubtedly still be viewed and honored long into the future.

Rating:

Quote:
JULES:  “Marcellus Wallace don’t like to be fucked by anybody except Mrs. Wallace.”

Trivia:
Samuel L. Jackson auditioned for the part of Mr. Orange in Reservoir Dogs (1992), but it went to Tim Roth. Tarantino enjoyed Jackson’s work so much that he wrote the part of Jules specifically for him.

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Z-Channel 3

(2004, USA)

Director: Xan Cassavetes
Features: Robert Altman, Penelope Sheeris, Jim Jarmusch, Quentin Tarantino, ao.

Running Time: 120 mins.

Documentary about the legendary Z Channel in Los Angeles, a pay TV channel where great cinema was shown between 1974 and 1988. Aspiring filmmaker Jerry Harvey became chief programmer of the channel and created a Walhalla for cinema lovers in that time in L.A.

Unfortunately, Harvey was mentally very unstable and in 1988 he committed suicide after killing his wife. After his death, Z Channel was finished as well when it turned into a sports channel. In this ‘legacy’ of Harvey, former friends, teachers and colleagues as well as filmmakers explain why Z Channel was such a successful and important platform for cinema at that time.

It was before VHS made its way into the living room, and people were dependent on television, besides cinema, to view movies. Harvey combined art films and commercial films in his programming which turned out to be a fantastic formula. Quentin Tarantino and Jim Jarmusch explain how much they loved Z Channel when they were growing up, and how it formed an important part of their education. Director Xan Cassavetes, the daughter of actor-director John Cassavetes and actress Gena Rowlands, got hooked to Z Channel after being grounded as a child. It was the beginning of her obsession with cinema.

The channel was so popular that even market leaders HBO and Showtime couldn’t muscle it out of L.A. Z Channel had a zero turnrate which means that no subscriber ever cancelled the channel.

Z-Channel 1
Programmer Harvey wrote the screenplay for the western China 9, Liberty 37

Another one of Harvey’s triumphs was to show uncut versions of films such as The Wild Bunch, Heaven’s Gate, Once Upon a Time in America and 1900. Films that were initially trashed by critics now became very successful features. Z Channel also became a platform for European directors, like Paul Verhoeven, that found work in America thanks to the screening of their European work on the channel. Harvey and his team also organised regular film festivals with retrospectives of Kurosawa and the likes. It must have been truly magnificent.

Cassavetes shows a great collection of film fragments that give a good sense of how brilliant and revolutionary the Z Channel programming must have been. Cinema lovers will be thrilled at the idea of seeing something like Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz uncut on television. It was not made to last. Like one of the interviewees says; ‘you just never know when you are living in a glorious time’. The downfall of Z Channel came together with the downfall of Harvey. An obvious loss that Cassavetes makes manifestly clear.

Z-Channel 4
Boxoffice hit The Empire Strikes Back had its television premiere on Z Channel

Review originally written for International Film Festival Rotterdam, where this documentary was screened in 2005.

See also: List of Film Fragments in Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld


‘Let’s go to work’

Directed by:
Quentin Tarantino

Written by:
Quentin Tarantino

Cast:
Harvey Keitel (Mr. White / Larry Dimmick), Tim Roth (Mr. Orange / Freddy Newandyke), Michael Madsen (Mr. Blonde / Vic Vega), Steve Buscemi (Mr. Pink), Lawrence Tierney (Joe Cabot), Chris Penn (Nice Guy Eddie Cabot), Eddie Bunker (Mr. Blue), Quentin Tarantino (Mr. Brown), Randy Brooks (Holdaway), Kirk Baltz (Marvin Nash)

‘Mr. Brown, Mr. White, Mr. Blonde, Mr. Blue, Mr. Orange, and Mr. Pink.’
‘Why am I Mr. Pink?’
‘Because you’re a faggot, all right!’

Meet the Reservoir Dogs. It’s 1992, and cinema firebrand Quentin Tarantino has just exploded onto the scene. Reservoir Dogs is easily the most impressive directorial debut of the 1990s – arguably of all time.

Joe Cabot and his son, Nice Guy Eddie, assemble a six-man crew for a daring diamond heist. None of the men have met before. To maintain anonymity and protect against betrayal, each is given an alias. Despite meticulous planning, the robbery goes catastrophically wrong. Someone talked. At the rendezvous point – an abandoned warehouse – the crew turns on each other in a deadly showdown.

This relatively simple premise is executed with striking ingenuity. Tarantino crafts a masterful nonlinear narrative, shifting back and forth in time between the heist’s setup and its bloody aftermath – yet never showing the actual robbery. Background details are revealed with precision, each revelation tightening the suspense until the traitor is unmasked and tensions reach a violent climax. It’s absolutely riveting cinema.

Since its release, Reservoir Dogs has inspired countless indie filmmakers hoping to capture the same low-budget brilliance, but few have come close. Why? Because they can’t write a screenplay this sharp, that’s why. Tarantino delivers more than just clever structure – he populates his film with complex, vividly drawn characters. And then there’s the dialogue: razor-sharp, darkly funny, and endlessly quotable.

At times, the film plays like a black comedy of the highest order. Yet it never loses its edge as a hyper-tense thriller. “My heart is beating so fast I’m about to have a heart attack”, Mr. Blonde says at one point and the same could be said for the audience. Whether it’s Mr. Pink’s frantic getaway, the desperate escape attempts, or the slow-burn mystery of the undercover cop, the tension never lets up.

The atmosphere swings from effortlessly cool – see the iconic opening credits—to grim and downright brutal. The casual banter gives way to explosive violence with little warning. The warehouse itself becomes a chamber of horrors: Mr. Orange bleeding out for most of the film, the infamous torture scene – it’s disturbing and hard to watch, and that’s exactly the point.

The cast seals the deal. With actors like Harvey Keitel and Steve Buscemi delivering Tarantino’s dialogue with perfect rhythm, even conversations about Madonna or tipping become electric. Chris Penn gives what might be his best performance, and Lawrence Tierney is unforgettable in his final tough-guy role.

Tarantino’s debut might still be his finest work. Pulp Fiction may be equally brilliant, but it occasionally meanders. Reservoir Dogs, in contrast, never loses momentum. It’s lean, vicious, and near-perfect – a film so good it’s almost a curse. Tarantino didn’t just enter the scene with a bang; he set the bar impossibly high from the very start.

Rating:

Quote:

MR. WHITE: “What you’re supposed to do is act like a fucking professional. A psychopath ain’t a professional. You can’t work with a psychopath. You don’t know what these sick assholes are gonna do next.”

Trivia:

Michael Madsen auditioned for the part of Mr. Pink. But Tarantino told him: “Here’s the thing: you’re not Mr. Pink, you’re Mr. Blonde. And if you’re not Mr. Blonde, then you’re not in the fucking movie.”