I've had a frustrating relationship with Tarantino as a filmmaker. On
one hand he wrote and directed PULP FICTION, one of the best movies of
the 1990s. On the other I grew tiresome of his propensity to force his
language and his fan boy fantasies on his characters. In Tarantino's
universe, everyone is on his wavelength but he is the God: the ultimate
arbiter of good taste in his self made world. Made more evident by
literally placing himself in his movies (and revealing himself to be the
worst actor). But there was still brilliance in even his most indulgent
of fantasies. INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, while the whole is not the sum of
its parts, had moments that were so fantastic, so brazen you had to
applaud some of its set pieces. And the idea of approaching something
like DEATH PROOF by not parodying Grindhouse by way of Rodriguez's
PLANET TERROR, but instead attempted to exist as an actual movie in it's
own right. Although valid in theory, the film ended on a bad punchline
to a joke that wasn't too funny in the first place.
