Release Date For Basterds

Someone quite wise said, a good movie is not what it is about but how it goes about it.

It’s a point of view moment. I know whose (I read the script,) and it will be handled brilliantly coming from the mind of QT.

Dave, the jury on QT is quite split. From the moment he emerged on the scene he has polarized audiences. Certainly he would love to have everyone love all his works, but he simply cannot. There are some film aficionados who think “Jackie Brown” is his best work to date. I happen to think “Kill Bill” (the entire work) is his best (you surely disagree.) “Pulp Fiction” is audacious brilliance and deserves all the accolades it gets, but in my eyes and mind “Kill Bill” is a towering masterpiece for its scope, vision, and execution. Where you see “cartoon,” I see quite an intelligent filmmaker who hid his powerful, universal, symbolic subtexts in plain sight (many people cannot see the deep passion in his artistry of this masterwork…Louis Armstrong said one cannot explain jazz one simply knows it, or something to that effect.) “Death Proof” was not reaching for the moon, he simply wanted to make a mood piece film and I love it lots. So for me QT has not lost one bit of why he always wanted to be in the movies and make films. Quite the contrary, he has just gotten stronger.

test (problems with “movable type”)

Dave, there are symbolic subtexts that are very specific to what Tarantino wanted to achieve with “Kill Bill.” He created an entire mythology out of movies and TV shows that he loves and have influenced his own aesthetics and sense of the power of film to illuminate (not just explain.) Can you see his respect for the normalcy of miscegenation, the empowerment of females, the futility of revenge even with it’s strong “satisfaction,” lore, the power of nurture vs. nature, the conflict of paternal rights and maternal instincts, the idea that evil cannot really be forgiven (of course who really has the right to claim “good”), a strong revulsion to prejudice? One of the greatest set pieces in his oeuvre is the decimation of the Crazy 88 at the House of Blue Leaves (the symbols are there, the Bruce Lee yellow jump suit, the Kato masks, and the name Crazy 88). It is a SYMBOLIC epic battle against racism. This is why I do consider Quentin Tarantino an extraordinary ARTIST in the medium of films. He “ain’t” mindless, and he is far from being a sensationalist violence monger. He is passionate about films to be transscendental. That’s not to say he is the best personality on the planet, But, he is willing to travel the journey. I really do see his art from his heart (I first saw it in “Reservoir Dogs” in two scenes, the tutelage of the undercover cop (Mr Orange) on the rooftop, and the torture scene. Then, I realize I was in the hands of a rare cinema artist.
“Kill Bill” is a magnum opus (more complex than “Pulp Fiction” though I do believe PF was Oscar’s best picture (not “Forest Gump”) for that year nominated,) and in my view “Inglourious Basterds” is going for a higher summit still Also, Jackie Brown is straight narrative and much more conventional filmmaking. It is a tribute piece for one his much admired iconic figures, Pam Grier. He wrote (adapted) the piece to allow her to display the strong acting range that very, very few people had given her the opportunity to shine. While the story is compelling about the rushing tides of age and the scary marginal irrelevance of underachievement, I believe Tarantion’s works are more powerful when he strives for his grasp of symbolic subtexts. “Jackie Brown” is the least symbolic subtextual film he has done though it ranks third on my list, DP next then RD (I have never seen “Four Rooms”). I do believe a great film is not what it about but how it goes about it(Roger Ebert.) Plot is important but it’s not all I observe.