Letters to the Editor
-
I'm glad Tarantino won nothing.
He's always pretended to be Roger Corman, a guy producing brilliant pop commentary out of the worst materials, but most of what he produces (except maybe Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs is like a sixth-generation Xerox copy of Corman. Just because Harry Knowles loves him, do we have to?
-
Good news about Romanian cinema is good news for us
If such a bad joke of a country can heal enough from its disastrous leadership to produce great cinema worthy of the Palme d'Or, it means there's still hope for America after all.
-
Re: Tarantino
To Mr. Eed Toon,
Sixth rate xerox copy and all that. There you've said it, and now it's true. The only truth, in fact. All of his work is entirely without merit. None at all. "Jackie Brown" and both "Kill Bill" films are, in their entirety, but pale shadows when set beside "She Gods of Shark Reef" and "Teenage Caveman."
I am a huge Corman fan, but, I mean. Come on.
-
Minor quible
O'Hehir writes:
(How did a Romance language get stuck in Eastern Europe, anyway?)
The Roman & Byzantine Empires had administrative languages of Latin and Greek, and had citizens settled all over the Empire with Latin as one of their lingua francas. If I'm not mistaken, after the Ottoman takeover of Anitolia, many of the Roman citizens fled into what is today Romania.
-
Well, "Anonymous," your courage shows again.
You must really be living in fear. "If I use my real name, or even a regular handle, the terrorists will win and be at my door to kill me and my single-guy cat."
Tarantino is a braggard and a fraud. He is plowing the same old violence and gore fields that people plowed decades ago. At least in the 60's, Corman and the other B directors were competing against a corrupt A-list Hollywood system. These days, Tarantino, del Toro and the others gladly work for that same corrupt system.
There are people doing subversive, wild films with intrinsic meaning out there on the Internet. They are not trying to make a fortune from an audience that they perceive to be trained monkeys. And since the megacorps that run Hollywood are afraid of ideas, they'll stick with the kind of schlock Tarantino pours out.
Now, I don't have a chance in hell to see any of the films that won at Cannes. Blockbuster won't even carry the DVD's, while they load up on multiple copies of anything Bruckheimer produces. The only way I'll be able to see them is via Bittorrent, which of course makes me a criminal. But at least Tarantino will get what he wanted at Cannes; not an award, but distribution contacts for all those third-world nations that eat up anything gory and nonsensical.
-
Michael Moore
No mention of Michael Moore's new film Sicko? I'm curious.
-
Hi Mr. ReedToon
I'm a lover, not a fighter. Let's kiss and make up!
I was trying to point out that in your first letter you dropped some pretty large and unsustainable absolutes. But you respond with even more absolutes: Tarantino is a braggart and a fraud. Those are the only possibilities you see; no other explanation. And all I'm saying is that if you can't see the difference between "Jackie Brown" and "The Wasp Woman," then I don't know what to say.
Who are these people "out there" on "the internet" who are doing "wild and subversive" films that have "intrinsic meaning?" What the hell does "intrinsic meaning" mean, and how is it utterly and completely missing from "Jackie Brown?" Please explain to those of us who are unable to "get it" with the depth and insight that you possess.
Even if Tarantino is plowing the same ground as Corman, so what? How many films did Corman make based on stories by Poe that were written more than 100 years before he got to them. By the same logic, everyone is only ripping off Shakespeare. Gore and violence? Titus Andronicus anyone? Macbeth, Hamlet? Othello?
And now you bring Del Toro into the mix. Did you mean to reference Robert Rodriquez? That would, at least, make a little more sense. But "Pan's Labyrinth" as the work of a studio sell-out hack? Ummm, no.
Where I'm sure we agree is in lamenting the loss of a movie industry where the free-wheeling entrepreneurship of a Corman can find no place to exist, much less flourish. I'm sure even Tarantino would agree with you on that score. I'm sure he would much rather be shooting movies every day of his life rather than chasing down big money and kissing studio ass all the time.
In summation, you are painting your arguments with too broad a brush. Cheers!
-
This might be a really good year for film?
I'm curious as well to the absence of Moore's new doc. I'm assuming that it was either kept low-key at the festival -- knowing the ubiquitous controversy the man's name alone evokes -- to let the burgeoning European talent shine. Or if O'hehir didn't find it worth mentioning: being one of the disappointments of the event maybe?
I was hoping Van Sant's return to form would have gotten a better write-up; it wouldn't surprise me though considering the creative quagmire he's been in for the last few years (I know a lot of people loved Last Days, but I found it artless...Cobain deserves so much more than Haas' wimpy "poetical" imitation).
Tarentino doesn't need any awards. The return of hetero-camp is at hand!!! And the return of Schnabel!!! He keeps his fans waiting too long -- for both his film and paint. Hopefully Mungiu doesn't disappoint after its success at the festival.
-
Kwentin is Krap
Quentin Tarantino has NO TALENT. None. No vision and no originality. When you see him acting you see how truly talentless the guy is. What he does have in spades is enthusiasm and a kind of dork's obsessive love of film that has got him as far as he is. Which history, I'm sure, will judge to be not very far. He knows what's cool because he loves cool films. He has a mega-fan approach to actors and genre that communicates enthusiasm to the audience. Everyone loves to love something all together. That's why Celine Dion does so well in Vegas. That's it, though, and at the end of the day Quentin's movies will sink to the bottom, where teenagers and outsiders will go to find unusual things with which to define themselves.