Quentin Tarantino is by far one of the greatest directors of his generation, beginning his career with the genre-busting Reservoir Dogs through to his latest effort of the Western/Southern slavery mash-up Django Unchained. Jumping from crime heist to kung-fu revenge flick, he has become acclaimed as a master of genre filmmaking. With Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction seen as modern classics, all eyes are on the director's body of work to match his brilliant earlier works. With his seventies grindhouse feature Death Proof, the director payed homage to the double feature exploitation flicks of his youth. Despite a disappointing box office take and mixed critical reception Death Proof is an epic whirlwind of a film, with great style, an epic soundtrack and a thrilling car chase finale.
by Jo Johnstone
Quentin Tarantino is by far one of the greatest directors of his generation, beginning his career with the genre-busting Reservoir Dogs through to his latest effort of the Western/Southern slavery mash-up Django Unchained. Jumping from crime heist to kung-fu revenge flick, he has become acclaimed as a master of genre filmmaking. With Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction seen as modern classics, all eyes are on the director's body of work to match his brilliant earlier works. With his seventies grindhouse feature Death Proof, the director payed homage to the double feature exploitation flicks of his youth. Despite a disappointing box office take and mixed critical reception Death Proof is an epic whirlwind of a film, with great style, an epic soundtrack and a thrilling car chase finale. by Gloria Daniels-Moss Many people forget the many aspects of filmmaking, and one of the most important is the writer behind the screenplay. Quentin Tarantino, who has made quite a name for himself as a director (and who isn’t afraid of some bullets and bloodshed), is also the man behind such phenomenal narratives. Here for Tarantino Day, we are going to take a closer look at some of the top films from his collection and indeed delve into the all important process of how this man puts pen to paper. by Vanessa Hague Tarantino's most recent film, Django Unchained (remember the D is silent), follows a somewhat similar path to Inglourious Basterds - it is influenced by some kind of historical truth, deciding to depict slavery in Colonial-Era America in a highly stylised and brutally violent manner. It's a Western that draws heavily from the Spaghetti Westerns that launched Clint Eastwood's career and before Django, we had never seen a foray into the genre from Tarantino. However, that doesn't tarnish Django in the slightest; bold, violent and highly stylised, it's everything that could be expected from a Tarantino Western. by Vanessa Hague I remember when Basterds first came out, I narrowly missed watching it in the cinema because I wasn't 18, but I was when the DVD was released. I had heard good things - a WWII movie with a Tarantino spin; "yeah, they basically come up with this plan to assassinate Hitler", my friend said to me who had seen it before. In a nut-shell, yes, that's an incredibly easy way to describe Inglourious to someone who hasn't seen it before but it is so much more. by Cookie N Screen Quentin Tarantino is a bit of a legend, isn’t he? I mean, some may not like his film obsessed and sycophantic dialogue that actually happens sometimes (all of his characters, most of the time, have at least one movie conversation. And it is highly enjoyable if you do love film, not so much if you don’t). Then again, some of his stellar characters, his ultra-violent ways and brilliant stories translate incredibly. With many, he dared to do what filmmakers weren’t doing and revelled in doing it with the childish glee of many who wield a camera with passion. It’s only natural, then, that people behind the camera want to appear as many times as possible in their films. Hitchcock did. Scorsese has a massive speech in Taxi Driver. But no one does cameos in their own movies quite like Tarantino! Honourable Mention: Little Nicky as the crazed priest but that film is terrible and Planet Terror which is equal parts disgusting and fun! by Melissa Haggar What has Samurai swords, killer iconic yellow jump suits and a schoolgirl wielding a large meteor hammer? Yes, it can only be the one, the only, Kill Bill. Split into two tantalizing volumes, the Tarantino series is one of the most recognisable of all of his works, with plenty of martial arts action to keep your eyes fully fixated on your screen for hours. In celebration of Tarantino Day, it would be sacrilege to not re-visit Tarantino’s iconic films; Kill Bill Volume 1 and Kill Bill Volume 2, and explain to you, even if you do nothing else today, you should whack on these classics and emerge yourself in butt-kicking action that Tarantino does so well. by Robbie Jones
Quentin Tarantino – One of the best filmmakers of all time. A great director and an even better writer, who created such masterpieces as Reservoir Dogs, Inglourious Basterds and Pulp Fiction. Speaking of Pulp Fiction, it’s been 20 years since it was first released in the UK. To celebrate, we’re devoting our day to the works of Quentin Tarantino, and right now, we’re gonna take a look at the best uses of music in his films. Now to be honest, there aren’t many bad moments of music in Tarantino’s films. He is perhaps one of, if not THE, best director to use pre-existing music. Whatever he chooses, it just seems to go. So let’s take a look at some moments that were particularly awesome. Now this isn’t a ranked list, cause that would just be too hard, but rather a collection of moments that excelled at showing Tarantino’s skills with music. by Liam McMillen Jackie Brown was Tarantino's third feature film. That's right, he made this after he had made Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. No pressure, right? Unfortunately, Jackie Brown didn't do as well as those aforementioned predecessors – but I'd like to argue that it's as good, if not better than them. Jackie Brown is a 44 year old air hostess who also acts as a money carrier for her boss, gun dealer Ordell Robbie. When one of Ordell's other employee's is caught he is forced to kill him, however, before he can get to him the employee tells the police about Jackie and they pick her up. With Jackie facing jail or being killed by Ordell, she strikes a deal with both the police and him to bring in a large stash of money. To help her retirement, she plans to play the game to her own ends. by Jennifer Drewett As November approaches, there are some highly-anticipated films we are excited to see on the big screen whether it’s The Anticipation Game, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, Horrible Bosses 2 or any other releases. As much as I’m looking forward to some of these releases, I feel a sinking feeling. How many of these films are being made by women? Out of the three I’ve just listed, none are directed or produced by women. As a female writer, it is disheartening that there are very little female directors at the helm of major film releases. Is there anything helping the situation? It would appear there is hope in the form of Underwire Festival, a film festival supporting female film making talent. It is running Tuesday 11th - Saturday 15th November 2014 for the fifth year, this time appearing in Hackney Wick. The festival boasts a wide range of events and activities throughout the five-day period including screenings of short films made by women from different parts of the world, awards, networking and training days and panel sessions to name but a few. A really encouraging aspect is that this year will see the launch of a screenwriting competition for female writers sponsored by The Tommy Vine Fund which will offer a financial award to help produce the winning script. This festival isn’t just there to showcase the talents of unsung female film-making talent. Important issues facing women in the film industry are being tackled through some of the activities offered including representation of lesbians on screen, lack of genuinely strong female characters, female superhero representations and many more. This could be a wonderful step in the right direction. If you’re an aspiring female director, writer, editor, sound designer, producer etc., do your best to attend Underwire Festival 2014. Check out more here by Cookie N Screen When you market a film, you really have to do your best to convey the films best side. Sometimes, that doesn’t work. For a while, the clips and trailers for Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (which we will call Alexander for the sake of my typing fingers,) didn’t shed much grand light onto the film. It just looked sloppy, a hammy family film where the hilarity comes from slapstick events that happen in concession. The ruthless succession of clips hammered home the sickening bile of toilet humour based gags that vomited jokes out rather than thinking cleverly and only to amuse the kids. I went into the film with low expectations thanks to the wrongly amount of clips released, no matter how successful the book it was based upon was or the legion of fans willing to see it. And I came out pleasantly surprised. |
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