Across 110th Street

Bobby Womack's Motown-tastic banger combined with Tarantino's stylish tracking shot opening makes for one hell of a character intro. Succinct yet sublime, well played T-dog.

Jackie Brown: QT try's something new

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Jackie Brown, the painfully stylish, third film from Quentin Tarantino follows the story of a failed flight hostess, a forlorn bail bondsman, a charismatic and fowl mouthed arms dealer and a variety of other more forgettable characters in pursuit of half a million dollars.
Jackie Brown breaks the usual QT mould by doing a number of things differently to it's two predecessors. It is an adaption of the novel "Rum Punch" as apposed to being the normal 100% biological, brain baby of QT, it has a structured storyline as apposed to the usual sporadic collection of intersecting episodes associated with Tarantino's movies. It contains an array of widely recognised and praised actors. Its typically over stuffed like a compulsive eater consuming not only the complimentary diner mint but also the tray that came with it, doesn't make a huge amount of sense, similar to my last metaphor, and most noticeably of all, as the ending credits roll up, doesn't nearly approach the frenetic quality of his previous two movies.

The anniversary had lost some of it's romance

Tarantino evidently isn't quite used to making conventional cinema. Watching him attempt to create an inherently normal film from source material that wasn't born, kicking and screaming, from his own hyperactive "brain womb" is like watching Bambi trying to surf. And when he trys to incorporate character development and the complex, central narrative into the mix it's similar to seeing a quadriplegic try to juggle. It's an admirable sight but he doesn't quite manage to succeed to the extent he and the audience would of liked.
Each of the characters feels as if they could have carried an entire film on there own and even in the lengthy running time of 2 and a half hours almost none get nearly enough screen time.
The shear amount of misused talent is staggering, I know Jackie Brown was primarily a comeback vehicle for Pam Grier, but you'd have thought Tarantino would have found a little more screen time for De Niro and Micheal Keaton and would have invested a fraction more of his time making them more developed than simple 2 dimensional ciphers. They really only seem to be there to fill out the steadily increasing list of amusing crime movie cliches.
Robert De Niro doesn't seem to have an ounce of heart in the performance, looking uncannily like an alcoholic, post sleigh crash Santa, speaking in mono syllables and really only showing a flicker of emotion about 30 seconds before his onscreen demise. Micheal Keaton does his best with what little he's given but permanently has the look of an over enthusiastic Labrador with bladder problems.
Bridget Fonda who's fantastic as the oopa loopa coloured beach bunny bitch is also massively under used.
QT has opted instead for focusing all his twitchy attentions on the three central protagonists and does this well incorporating a degree of character development, some of his classic dialogue and trademark direction style into their scenes.

Eye spy wasn't as fun as they'd remembered

And don't get me wrong there were many aspects of it that I enjoyed. Samuel L Jackson played his smoother than a aggressively exfoliated baby's arse, character word perfectly and I'm still shell shocked to discover that he didn't even get an Oscar nom for it.
The scene inwhich Ordeal walks his recently bailed out, associate to his car is one of the most memorable and  classically Tarantino moments of the entire film.
And the tentative and brilliantly realised relationship between Robert Foster's crushingly lonely bail bondsman and Pam Griers fiesty flight attendant is wonderful to watch, and both actors are equally brilliant.
The FUN-KEY, oh god i'm a loser, 70's soundtrack is absolutely great and I found myself re-watching the opening credits, a homage to the graduate, repeatedly purely to experience QT's fantastic direction but also for the painfully catchy song "Across 110th street".
Per usual in a Tarantino film it's an entertaining experience yet sadly the entire movie comes across as a rather hollow missed opportunity, with the potential to be so much more.
I'm sorry to break the glorious string of 8's but I feel it's my duty
6 out of 10 stars
feel free to post your comments and opinions below

Pulp Fiction: Royale with Cheese!

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QT's glorious second directorial outing is unashamedly similar to his ultra violent debut in a variety of ways.

The coffee shop, single shot opening has returned, the oh-so stylish direction has remained oh-so stylish, the dialogue is as fresh and inspired as ever and the ultra violence and steady flow of cursing are both still going strong with a constant barrage of bullets and f-bombs being fired at each of the protagonists... and thank god for that! 

In between QT's opening two feature lengths he's lost none of his originality and spark, with his hilarious dialogue as sharp and fresh as ever, managing to draw yet more unbelievable performances out of the cast and giving me even more reason to start spouting phrases like "performance of a lifetime" all over the place, like a cliched water fountain gone mad.  The narrative is slightly less structured this time around and the plot isn't quite as intricate as before, that is to say there isn't a plot at all, simply a series of lovingly crafted, hilariously surreal chapters, similar, that's right you guessed it, to a pulp fiction novel.

The Crap in the coffee gag hadn't gone down well

The pacing similar to that of reservoir dogs constantly changes tempo, randomly going up and down, like an Alzheimer's patient on a stair lift. But again the lack of plot and pacing consistency doesn't seem to matter in any way. The scenes seamlessly transition between an evangelical, bible quoting hit man to a 70's dance montage, and then to a nail shreddingly tense adrenaline injection scene without even giving you cause or concern over how you got there.

Tarantino combines snappily edited, close up shot sequences with lengthy wide angle camera shots of the fronts of houses and derelict motels to great, varied effect.

The gloriously witty dialogue once again brings the characters and set pieces to life providing the viewer with actually sympathetic and vaguely likable protagonists as opposed to the group of psychotic bastards in Reservoir dogs who were a little harder to root for. 
Another nice touch is the interconnecting story lines between each of the protagonists, with many of the characters stumbling into each others stories and either having little or huge effect on the various chapters.
Each of the "colourful" and well rounded characters are stereotypical caricatures, from the rapist, gimp keeping hillbilly to the menacing king pin, Marseillus, spouting lines like, "If Butch goes to Indo-China I wanna n###er hiding in a bowl of rice ready to pop a cap in his ass." But it's also this abandonment of realism which makes every chapter and character so fun to watch.
The two foremost, show stealing protagonists, Vincent and Jules are played gloriously by John Travolta and Samuel Jackson, each acting as the central performance in  every one of the films most iconic and memorable scenes. 

They had finally found their hair stylist

Lets just say Travolta assassinates all my doubts about his acting talent and Jackson kidnaps my heart and holds it to ransom with his biblical anecdote... well...that was...weird.

But the bottom line is this is Reservoir Dogs with a bigger budget, bigger set pieces and a wider range of more famous actors.

It may not be quite as good a film as Reservoir dogs but it's easily more entertaining. Comparing the two is almost like trying to find a comparison between FHM and the lovely bones, I may enjoy FHM more but the latter is considered to be a slightly better piece of literature, or at least that's my opinion.

In short Pulp Fiction is an overwhelmingly entertaining if slightly empty, moral wise, hilarious and flawlessly acted movie  from one of the most iconic directors of the 90's.

9/10 stars freakin awesome, one of the least thought provoking yet most enjoyable films i've ever seen.
Thanks for reading and feel free to post your comments and opinions below.