I’ve had the house to myself for almost a week and I decided to watch some Tarantino movies. I’d seen Django: Unchained and that rocked, so I figured I’d go on a small marathon. I watched (in this order) Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Inglorious Basterds, and Kill Bill Vol 1. First of all, I would like to confirm that Tarantino has a foot fetish. It’s real, man. Watching these movies back to back to back makes it abundantly clear. It’s a little weird, but who cares? Or maybe Woody Allen and Roman Polanksi set the bar so low.

Pulp Fiction was great. I like those long conversations they have at the What I admire most about Pulp Fiction and Tarantino’s work in general, is how he’s able to use unoriginality to make something original. The three stories in Pulp Fiction are, by themselves, rehashed plots from previous movies/stories. The femme fatale/don’t sleep with the boss’s wife. Then the underdog Boxer who fights for his integrity and overcomes the odds. And then the mafia underling who looks to escape a life of crime. But when he puts them together and has them overlap, they make a unique story. It’s like a collage, or like a scrapbook, (kinda like a Pulp magazine hmmm…). It took me a while to understand, but I think Pulp Fiction deserves the popularity it has. And besides, when Sam L Jackson is on screen in this movie, you really can’t look away. His character sort of epitomizes the zany nature of the film. Then by the end begins to grow past its vapidness towards something better.

Reservoir Dogs was good but a step down from Pulp Fiction for me. I always like it when there are fewer environments and more dialogue in movies. Less cuts, less jumps in time; it’s not a hard and fast rule for me, but sometimes you gotta let the characters breathe and I enjoy it. One problem for me was that I guessed the big reveal that the traitor was in the room the whole time. While I was vindicated by that reveal, it ended up falling a little flat. Not Tarantino’s fault, though. I guess the big problem for me was the theme. Maybe it deserves another watch, but when they get to the end, I thought “that’s it?” Not every movie has to have a strong message or be that intellectually stimulating, but what was the point exactly? Don’t trust people? It’s exciting but I won’t heap praise on it.

Inglorious Basterds. I know what people say about this movie, I know Tarantino regards it as his best. But I think it kinda sucked. Maybe I was a little sick of Tarantino’s style and the novelty had worn down on me. There’s great scenes. The subtlety of the bar scene to the in your face killing Hitler scene were great. But again, what’s this movie about? It’s the same as Reservoir Dogs in that sense, but with less characterization and more spectacle crammed into it. Also, I don’t understand the characters’ plans sometimes. The Basterds disguise themselves as Italian, claiming they speak Italian. But their Italian is horrible. This would be funny in a comedy movie but feels out of place; I mean these guys are the US’s strongest death squad and they’re suddenly idiots. Then sometimes there’s characters who act naive. The soldier at the tavern dropping his weapon I could stomach, but Hans Landa dropping his weapons and all leverage made no sense whatsoever. The cold, calculating villain suddenly can’t imagine someone betraying his trust? If you really liked this movie, you’re an idiot. Just kidding just kidding. But seriously, if you liked this movie I hope you appreciate I try to stray away from absolutes. I like to keep an open mind and maybe my mind will change.

Then I got to Kill Bill Vol 1. and I enjoyed that. But wait a minute, this one is pretty much all spectacle, how come I don’t like the other ones? Because I never felt the need to take this movie seriously. That’s not a bad thing, either. I enjoyed it like I would a Michael Bay movie; I didn’t expect it to be deep and it wasn’t. That said, I wouldn’t say Quentin Tarantino is on the same level as Michael Bay, that’d be disrespectful. (Which director am I referring to? Who knows?) Kill Bill is a simple revenge story. It doesn’t hide that. It’s over the top, it’s flashy, it’s stylish, and it’s fun to watch Uma Thurman kick ass. And there’s a short anime film in the middle. What else is there to say?

Maybe if I’d approached the others the same way as I did with Kill Bill, I would have liked them more. But isn’t that partly on the author? Reservoir Dogs and Inglorious Basterds have darker themes, more grounded realities. People can’t do triple backflips and aren’t flying on screen like they are in Kill Bill. I mean, Inglorious Basterds is about the Holocaust. And that slow, methodical, terrifying opening scene gets betrayed later on. Then it gets traded for low brow humor by the end.

Authors can’t control how an audience will approach their work. Tarantino is no different, but I will be left thinking about how Inglorious Basterds felt contradictory whereas in Pulp Fiction, I felt like I could actually grow into it, I could fall in love with the concept of it.