Anyone else think Quentin Tarantino is kind of a hack?

Andrei_Rublev said:
I would think id like his films since I like the trashy b movie and grindhouse films he is inspired by but holy shit do I seem to find his films boring. Ive seen Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, and Death proof and they were mostly dull and rather juvenile (in a bad way). People act like hes some God ofdialogue but i dont see it. A lot of it feels forced and unnatural like hes speaking through the actors. Like this is here from Reservoir Dogs I find (for lack of a better word) really cringey.



Also his homages to old B movies can tend to feel more like bad parody particularly in Kill Bill. I watched Lady Snowblood after watching Kill Bill and enjoyed it much more. I feel like for someone who goes so far out of his way to pay homage to these old martial arts and grindhouse B movies he doesnt really understand what made them great.

J_LEE_C said:


Everyone has different tastes. Personally, he's one of my favorites - and not even a full month ago I watched all eight (nine if you count Kill Bill volumes as 2 different films). My favorites (in order) are:

#1 - Pulp Fiction
#2 - Django Unchained
#3 - Jackie Brown
#4 - Inglourious Basterds
#5 - The Hateful Eight
#6 - Reservoir Dogs
#7 - Kill Bill (Vol. 1 & Vol. 2)
#8 - Death Proof

^^The Top 3 there are pretty interchangeable for me.

His calling cards are satire, (mostly) lengthy movies, over-the-top violence, using an often-recurring cast, oddly placed props/etc, making a cameo himself, and having a hefty portion of each film dedicated to intriguing & bizarre yet personal conversations between the cast.

Tbh, of those (4) you listed you had seen - only Pulp Fiction is in my favs of his. The other (3) are my least favorites, but again, that's only my personal opinion / preference. 'Death Proof' really should have an asterisk next to it being one of 'his' films, because it came about to be a double-feature Grindhouse project with one of his closest friends, director Robert Rodriguez & his film, 'Planet Terror'. Those are by no means "good" and 'Death Proof is widely regarded as his worst film. 'Kill Bill' I didn't find very interesting, other than the short anime segment detailing Lucy Liu's background in Vol. 1. 'Reservoir Dogs' is his very first, and I don't think it's "bad", but he definitely had room to improve. I do think it is fantastic considering that it is an independent film, and his first at that.

I'd really recommend going ahead and seeing the remaining ones you haven't yet - especially Django & Jackie Brown. Probably Basterds too.

Pulp Fiction actually makes the top 100 in AFI's 100 Years..100 Movies at like 94-95th. There's the original list from 1997, and then the 10th Anniversary list from 2007. Those links are below (if you're interested, and more than just Tarantino):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI%27s_100_Years...100_Movies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFI%27s_100_Years...100_Movies_(10th_Anniversary_Edition)

^^I've been working on watching every film listed on these since April of this year.

LONG story short, Tarantino is one of my favorite all time directors; do I honestly think he is THE greatest? Probably not, but he definitely is a once in a generation kind of influence.

My all-time top directors (in no particular order):

Akira Kurosawa
Steven Spielberg
Alfred Hitchcock
Charlie Chaplain
Francis Ford Coppola
Stanley Kubrick
George Lucas
Martin Scorsese
Quentin Tarantino
Yasujiro Ozu
Frank Capra
Billy Wilder
John Huston

Abominable said:
Nope, I totally disagree.

He is one of the best directors in Hollywood ATM. It's either a sequel, a superhero movie, or a tarintino movie that will blow up (and last) in theaters.

I feel like for someone who goes so far out of his way to pay homage to these old martial arts and grindhouse B movies he doesnt really understand what made them great.

karambia said:

sure it's not lack of sugar for morning provocative thread mr andre rublev

on the point aside i dont remember he's really bad regard dialog as the example sound more like an attempt for cherry picking. even as matter of technicality and vision, he has lot admirable things to offer not only that. not that the guy immune with critics, just thread far from really being fair

talk reservoir itself probably spark argument as movie that not age so well (or is it?)
or this talk more like tarantino himself being cringe, bad actor in some sort? wont argue

the scene, the overall dialog itself flow naturally imo, except the shallow taratino's delivery. well not many movie pretarantino offer perspective about boring breakfast chat of bunch of crime

i mean im not into argument for he not being original or just copy idea or there already inovative way of storytelling way before, as it clearly does. except he did bring thing into the table and got it more mainstream attention. cant bragging for lovely exotic shit like lady snowblood without bring kill bill to diss on? more like the question
also sound like the pseud tarantino critic just tend to forget his movie always got over the top b movie premise told in in laid back way, kinda scorsese meet linklater in some sort, not some pure or shock grindfest .

Abominable said:


Micheal bays sucks imo
Nolan only made good movies for batman, which were overrated in and of themselves.

The Wachowski siblings, both writers, directors, and producers, first caught the attention of the world in 1999 with their groundbreaking sci-fi hit "The Matrix." At the time, the wunderkinds were referred to in the press as the Wachowski brothers. Since then, a lot has changed. Andy and Larry Wachowski are now Lilly and Lana Wachowski, and they don't care who knows it.

Soverign said:
Yeeeeeah. At least Tarantino understands that you probably shouldn't take any strange pills offered to you by random strangers.



https://www.rebelcircus.com/blog/the-wachowski-brothers-are-now-sisters-how-they-changed-their-lives/

Abominable said:


Personally, I'm just tryna say that he is one of the only good directors currently.
Superhero movies are oversaturated pieces of shit meant to apeal to the largest demographic possible, horror movies are just lazy peices of film that haven't been scary since the black and white days.

Tarintino puts out constantly above average cinema peices, none of them are in my favorite lists, but I can not deny the quality.

Andrei_Rublev said:
Theres another moment of imo cringey dialogue in Reservoir dogs when Steve Buscemi complains about being Mr Pink. Theres also the scene with the two guys roughhousing and conversations that feel try hard and edgy. I posted the one i did because its at the begining of the film and seemed like a blatant example.

Theres also stuff in Pulp fiction like Christopher Walken going on about how he hiding a ring in assholes, Bruce Willis's girl going on about wanting a pot belly, and Tarintinos n***** in the garage rant. In kill bill i had to pause the film after the Silly rabbit Trix are for kids bit because it just seemed so stupid to me.

I compared Kill Bill to Lady Snowblood because its very blatant thats what he modled Kill Bill after and while Kill Bill is much more well known i find it to be a downgrade. Kill Bill reminded me of a lot of films id rather have been watching.

I get that part of the appeal of Tarantino is supposed to be he takes B movie schlock and supposedly makes it more sophisticated but for me he takes the fun out of schlock and doesnt have the sophistication to hold up against a Scorsese film.

His films are like this boring middle ground for me.

Railey2 said:


Watch this and tell me that he's a hack again

CondemneDio said:
They're crass, juvenile, violent, and that's exactly why they're good.
The racial slurs are cringy but if the movie itself is entertaining, I can live with it.

jal90 said:
Tarantino's dialogues are appealing because they are inappropriate and absurd, completely against the progression of the narrative tension in their movies, not because they are realistic in content. They intend to make a contrast with the crude side of these characters who will usually be murderers, robbers or any other outlaw job which displays a lot of violence. They are fast, incongruent and yes, juvenile, the latter being a relevant part of his entire style, from the way violence is depicted to the fixation with B movies and exploitation as a main aesthetic and narrative influence.

Anyway, the dialogue about Madonna in Reservoir Dogs is not supposed to be about how real it sounds. It is supposed to be about how detached these people appear from the seriousness of their "job", that they can engage in conversations that go nowhere about stuff that doesn't matter, because they are people with common interests and they need to fill time between one major event and another with random blabbering about unrelated things. It is done on purpose to kill tension and solemnity, and to portray these characters in a way that lets us remind that they are just ordinary people who happen to have a violent criminal life, with an interest in pop culture and junk food. Do you remember the dialogue in Pulp Fiction about "uncomfortable silences"? Well, that's pretty much it. That sums up his whole stance on the issue. The characters talk at random and their conversations are mundane, unstructured or plain stupid at times, because otherwise his movies would be a succession of extended uncomfortable silences to avoid killing a mood, and that's exactly the contrary of what Tarantino's films are about.

If you want a different take on the whole idea of criminals having anticlimactic and tonally inappropriate routine scenes check Jim Jarmusch's Ghost Dog for instance. You may just have issues with the way Tarantino depicts this, but it's not a bad concept on principle.

Andrei_Rublev said:


Oh i get what hes trying to do and I agree its not a bad concept but one i enjoy. As you suggested though I dont like the way Tarintino depicts this stuff. It feels unnatural and scripted. I feel like the characters say what they say because Tarantino wants them to not because its what they would naturally say if that makes sense?

jal90 said:

Yep, it makes sense, and with how meta Tarantino is already and how obsessed he is about his own cultural background as part of his style this feeling you have seems pretty natural. I don't agree but I see where you come from.

SimeonStylitses said:
I don't necesarily think he's awful just kinda one-note and transparently in love with his own clevereness and dialogue to the point where it's uncomfortable. It feels like your watching a man jerk himself off in script form to put it crudely.

casual_filth said:
Originality isn't always essential to my enjoyment of things, so I won't even bother to criticize him on that. I dislike him enough that being original wouldn't save him for me anyway.

Hack or no, I've never been a fan of QT. Neither as a writer/director, nor as a human being. He irritates the shit out of me, and his films are all but devoid of any real substance in my opinion. This would be okay, if all the flashy, "cool" shit were at least endearing to me, which it almost never is. Otherwise, it's all been pounded into the ground to the point that it's lost any appeal or significance beyond lazy pop culture gag/references for bad comedy writers and people who flog merchandise (t-shirts, posters, plastic crap) to dumb nerds.

For what it's worth, I don't dislike him exclusively. I hate nearly everything similar to what he does outside the realm of comics/cartoons (where his "style" belongs). I hate Joss Whedon's work for very similar reasons. I believe that he is responsible for ruining modern sci-fi/fantasy with his garbage writing style, which was itself a product of the 90's culture-and-marketing machine selling angsty/ironic/too-cool-for-school posturing to people too naive to notice they weren't part of a movement that valued sincerity and critical/independent thought, but a trend in marketing (a bit like Vaporcrap, BTW). Grunge is dead! The 90's sucked.

krustyK said:
I think Tarantino is one of those directors that sways from project to project with different stories but he has a one dimensional way of telling them, which is usually a comedic OTT bloody experience.... which is the words of Tarantino himself "because its fun" and I completely agree, it is fun and if you go watching his movie looking for something different you're only kidding yourself. It's like going to watch a Michael Bay movie expecting a serious gritty thriller... it just wouldn't happen.

I agree dialogue lacks a little stimulation from time to time, but in my personal opinion some of the conversations his characters have in the movies are extremely realistic, and delivered with great conviction might I add. The breakfast scene in pulp fiction is almost a parody of itself because of the dialogue used but because it's delivered so well its amazing and captivating and contributes towards character development. There are many scenes like this in Reservoir Dogs also.

I compare his dialogue/conversation structure to Brett Easton Ellis, if you've ever read American Psycho you'll know what I'm talking about.

I know it sounds like I'm licking his arse so I will add some of his work is just god damn awful.... I found Jackie Brown rather boring (although I haven't seen it for many years) and I can't even watch Death Proof a second time I think its that bad, this would have been better if George A. Romero took the helm.

So overall I think he's consistent when it comes to quality movies but rather one dimensional.

Just out of curiosity OP what are you favourite films and directors?

Andrei_Rublev said:


Favorite films include Seven Samurai, High and low, Hara Kiri, M, Andrei Rublev, Marketa Lazarova, Funeral Parade of roses, Pixote, The Wages of Fear, Das Boot, The Thing, The Human Condition, Shura, The Plague Dogs, and The Toxic Avenger are all among my top.

Favorite directors? Akira Kurosawa is the one im most consistently impressed by so I go with him as my overall favorite but ofcoure I also like Kobayashi despite not being the most consistent. Ofcourse I like Bergman, Tarkovsky, Jodorowsky, Buñuel, Scorsese, Bakshi, and Lloyd Kaufman. I like Wes Anderson for a more recent director.

krustyK said:


See even in terms of Kurosawa he does some stupid things sometimes in his films (although I think he is an amazing director and up there with the best ever).

I remember one scene vividly in "Throne of Blood" where a horseback rider is lost in the thick fog and looking for the fortress and this sequence literally goes on for 15 minutes.... Yes I got the point he was lost and searching aimlessly and frantically after the firs 2 minutes the scene didn't need to be that long and my attention wandered. I guess the same could be said for you in terms on meaningless dialogue that has no really impact on the actual story telling/progression? Hell I suffer from that sometimes also.

Andrei_Rublev said:


I dont remember that scene being that long. At least it didnt bother me when I watched the film which wasnt one of my favorite Kurosawa films. Also tbf I dont think wandering aimlessly is as major a part of Kurosawas work as the dialogue is with Tarantino. Both Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction very much revolve around their dialogue.

krustyK said:


Regardless it was a lot longer than it needed to be. Anyway I don't see a problem with the dialogue in either of those films you've mentioned... like I said maybe if you picked Death Proof or even True Romance which he wrote I could kind of get where you're coming from but for Reservoir Dogs? I don't see any of the dialogue out of place what so ever.