all tarantino does is emulate, which is bad ass but there’s innumerable better directors.
His visual style is bland, his writing is often laughably bad, and watch Death Proof for some of the worst directing of female actors I think I’ve ever seen. He’s also probably a real creep.
Tarantino is a hack who peaked with Pulp Fiction. He loves the sound of his own voice, he thinks he can write dialogue when really all it is ranting in 4-letter words. He’s obviously a racist, judging from his often racist dialogue, and he’s very pretentious. Every film he has made since Pulp Fiction has been a half-assed emulation of old Kung Fu movies, old car chase movies, old gangster movies and old blaxploitation movies. Very little originality comes from his work. If I sat down and watched 200 movies over one weekend, I can pull a scene from each one, tweek them a little and put them into script form and have what Tanrantino usually has.
THREE KINGS and FLIRTING WITH DISASTER are both good. David O. Russell is great, but has such as low output, much like Alexander Payne, Wes Anderson, PT Anderson, and David Fincher. They are the precocious perfectionists among current US directors. too. Why do the bulk of new goldenchild directors feel the need to emulate Stanley Kubrick’s workstyle?
Tarantino works this way too, but instead of spending 2 pre-shoot years obsessing over the script and assembling the perfect cast and crew, he spends 4 years cutting and pasting from 100s of shot scripts, fancies himself Godard, and calls up Uma Thurman.
There are tons of directors better than Tarantino, but not so many screenwriters better than him.
How much time you got?
um there are so many American Directors better than Tarantino. I don’t really have a problem with his movies or anything but I hate it when he acts. I remember watching him interview on Jay Leno and he was speaking about how he asked Robert Rodriguez for a minor part in Planet Terror and said that “I can act pretty good”, when he definitely cannot. I could act better than Quentin Tarantino when I was in elementary school. I mean I’m no Jean Pierre Leaud but still, have you seen the trailer or movie for Suziyaki Western Django, the new film from Takashi Miike? I’m sorry but Quentin Tarantino lost so much credit in that movie.
If someone wishes to point out Resevoir Dogs, fine…but he isn’t good in that either, although he does a find job of directing.
I don’t think he is a great Director. But he is a good film maker. To me he captures something (not always) that is missing in popcorn movies for me. And I look forward to his music choices as much as the film it self.
I liked him when he played himself in From Dusk till Dawn.
he gets good performances, even if they have to work themselves around his dialogue. that’s all I know.
Man, if you want to be taken seriously you have to clean up your post and AT LEAST read it before posting. I stopped reading after:
“Tarantino could have made a film called there would be blood, but I better it would be very different”
Syntax, capitalization etc etc. I am not reading such a long post with such a bad wording…
I’m surprised that someone who apparently thinks Fight Club is really good takes issue with Tarantino. Fincher is definitely a better director than Tarantino, but Fight Club is ridiculous. Palahniuk has to take a lot of that blame, but, as far as adapting novels goes, I’ll take Jackie Brown over Fight Club every day of the week.
Everybody overlooks Jackie Brown which I think is his best film. I think he’s much better than David O. Russell(I Luv Huckabees is a real stinker) and Takesi Miike(who hasn’t done a good film in years). Paul T Anderson and David Fincher are probably better directors but I stlll love Tarantino.
If Trainspotting was the best film of the 90s, then the 90s were the worst decade of cinema in history – which they weren’t.
And I don’t think Tarantino was emulating Miike in Kill Bill at all, more like Sonny Chiba and the samurai cinema of yesteryear. I guess hating on Tarantino is the new hating on Wes Anderson, I’ll pull my horse from the wagon before the wagon becomes too heavy and leave it at that.
I think Darren Aronofsky has at least the potential—if Requiem for a Dream and The Wrestler weren’t enough for you—to be one of the greats, that is, more so than Tarantino, who seems to be running out of steam.
I think Tarantino is a good purveyor of ‘surface’.
In pilfering the collective film attic for all the moments he enjoys and then cobbling them together, he displays a skill that has come from being obsessed with pop culture and other people’s films as opposed to having been obsessed with becoming an original, self-thinking filmmaker.
He is good at doing it, but I do not think of him as a ‘good director’. “Kill Bill 1 + 2” at least are more fun and varied than most of the other over-the-top action garbage, simply because as films they are such grab bags of recycled material. But they are nothing but surface.
Tarantino is without a doubt a good film maker, but definitely overrated. He does emulate others but you can’t say he doesn’t have his own way of putting it together, and that’s what’s important because at the end of the day everybody borrows from everybody else and everything is a homage to something else, consciously or not. That’s just the way people interpret the world.
It also can’t be argued with that he is blatantly a self-important, pretentious twat… the proof is in the dialogue… and the cameos! No, he really can’t act ;)
Still, True Romance is one of my favourite films.
I think what puts most people off of Tarantino is how directly or blatantly he borrows from the greats. He takes a bit from column a, a bit from column b, and calls it a new thing. This puts alot of cinephiles into cardiac arrest, but truthfully, to me it seems like more of an homage. He is not an inventor of new genres, he is making movies that are extremely aware of other movies, and they say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. He is the boy re-shooting his favorite movie in the garage.
I find him disagreeable, but I think he is doing some good directing, getting alot out of source material that is not his own, getting performances out of actors that the viewer remembers.
I think what puts most people off of Tarantino is how directly or blatantly he borrows from the greats. He takes a bit from column a, a bit from column b, and calls it a new thing. This puts alot of cinephiles into cardiac arrest, but truthfully, to me it seems like more of an homage. He is not an inventor of new genres, he is making movies that are extremely aware of other movies, and they say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. He is the boy re-shooting his favorite movie in the garage.
I find him disagreeable, but I think he is doing some good directing, getting alot out of source material that is not his own, getting performances out of actors that the viewer remembers.
Standing ovation to statements by Shotzi and Belmondo, Keagan completely agree with them.
Better directors than Tarantino – Fincher is definitely one and definitely not because of Fight Club.
For me a movie made with recycled scenes and scenes inspired from watching movies over the weekend is not a bad movie at all. Its really tough to quantify “inspiration”, but when Tarantino is at the helm with all his movie references and video store influences, I see energy, thrill, madness involved in making a movie like no other.Pulp Fiction has the power to influence and reiterate the fact that movie making is not about being artsy all the time a bit of intelligence and cheekiness will also help.
Having said that, Tarantino in his interviews and TV appearances comes off as a totally stupid and cuckoo person.
I think Pulp Fiction is his peak, followed by Kill Bill 1 & 2 and Jackie Brown
aaron katz has made two films and already has a more impressive body of work than old quentin.
Shotzi, don’t go there. I fell asleep…twice to be precise during Jackie Brown. Something akin to watching paint dry while everything is in slow motion.
Fight Club is Fight Club, opinions gather.
Good artists borrow, great artists steal. I don’t know if I really believe that but apparently Picasso did (so did John Lennon incidentally). I haven’t seen enough of the films Tarantino is allegedly stealing from to know if he’s really lacking in original ideas but most moviegoers haven’t either and I guess that’s why he’s such a powerful filmaker to the masses. I love his work, including ‘Death Proof’ and the only guy I’d put above him on the preceding list is Danny Boyle.
I am still willing to be surprised by Tarantino
I think that there are a good number of directors better than he is, but I do not think that Tarantino is a hack.
I think he’s only really made two movies: Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction (I haven’t seen Jackie Brown so I am keeping it out of a category)
The Kill Bill’s seemed to me to be something focused less on making a good movie, and more on making a “samurai” movie.
The same goes for Death Proof. A movie focused on recreating the Grindhouse feel, not on making a legitimate film.
I think Inglourious Basterds will determine whether he is a “great director” or a “one hit wonder.”
Yes Simon, Inglorious Basterds is a litmus test.
This is a pointless conversation.
Is there a better director than Stanley Kubrick?
is there a better one than Hitchcock?
is there a better one than …….?
whether the answer is yes or no is a matter of personal preference. Are you seriously asking us to not like Tarantino because there MAY “better directors”.
And Kill Bill and Death proof are just as legitimate of films as anything else.
I’ll agree with someone saying that Tarantino is “running out of steam.” It sure seems like he is.
I guess we’ll just have to see what happens with this Inglorious Basterds thing…
PASTICHE PASTICHE PASTICHE.
Agree with Filmy Andy et al. What’s wrong with the borrowing if the end product is a great movie? I think Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction are great as films and as movies that pushed movies in new directions. Killing Zoe, not so much. Boondock Saints, not so much. A million other late 90’s movies not so much. So maybe some venom can be directed towards Tarantino for what he begot, but as a filmmaker he’s created masterful films that live separately from the films they descended from and miles above the films they created and ultimately have their own voices. And more to the point, he’s done it consistently. ….Saw it first and liked Magnolia a lot, but no less after having seen Short Cuts. And the world is a better place having both exist. Tarantino’s no hack. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with reference in art as long as you can judge the referencer on its own two legs as something of worth.
I will say that I think Boyle has the most original voice among the directors mentioned and Paul Thomas Anderson branched best with Punch Drunk Love.
Alanedit
Just wanted to get your attention.
I had to get this man outta my system once and for all, he’s a bit of a bugger that Tarantino.
I could mention directors from his generation that have better skills, and don’t resort to his heineous cataloging as a means to cement one self. You could tell I’m not very fond of him, this is a punching bag post. He’s celebrated as one of the auteurs, I beg to differ by offering five directors who have more talent and never make the same twice. I don’t fail the realize what he makes, it’s just that he’s too far down the line of critical acclaim food chain.
1) Paul Thomas Anderson.
Tarantino could have made a film called there would be blood, but I better it would be very different (and less interesting).
Moments of Boogie Knights gave Pulp Fiction a run for it’s life, since the references weren’t so grandiosely displayed in your face like some cute t shirt.
2) David O Russell: Three Kings.
3) Danny Boyle.
Trainspotting is the best film of the 90’s. In my humble opinion.
4) David Fincher.
Fight Club…
5) Takashi Miike.
The man he so shamelessly tried to emulate on kill bill. Then again he emulates everyone.
I’m taking a step back to say I’m sorry if I sound like a high school bully. I do think Reservoir Dogs is brilliant, and like Pulp Fiction less after what it became. He lost me in Kill Bill, a film that didn’t merit two movies for a story that thin being so long. His saving grace was the kick ass house of blue leaves scene. I also think that True Romance was magnificent, though credit Tony Scott for that. Death Proof anyone?
More important is what do you think?