Tarantino Poll

Oh, I like this idea a lot.

A rep theatre here has a Friday night series running based on his book: Taxi Driver, Sisters, Deliverance, Escape from Alcatraz, and Dirty Harry. Planned on seeing this first--Friday night, packed theatre probably--but a terrible storm quashed that. (The manager said they still drew 80 people.) Skipped Sisters, may see one or two or all three of the others, although I wish I hadn't just watched them while reading the book.

I'll say it again: if the above is true, Meryl Streep has to play Kael. I actually think she'd keep some well deserved payback out of it and create something memorable.

Mary Charlotte Wilcox has retired from acting to become a minister, otherwise she'd be in the running:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVpPsATDyy0

"I don't languish in that kind of naïveté"--love that whole bit! So that's what her name was...maybe the only thing she ever did on the show? She definitely caught some of Kael's manner of speaking.

My post above doesn't make sense--should read "Planned on seeing Taxi Driver..."

Holly Hunter is a little older than Kael was in 1979, but she'd be fun.

I always kind hoped he would do Kill Bill 3 with Vivica Fox's daughter going after Uma, but this will hopefully be a much better movie to go out on.

I liked the Kellow bio well enough, but I worry about a Kael "biopic." So much of a writer's life is writing. Once she settled into Shawn's New Yorker her life was watching movies, with her daughter as faithful amanuensis. If Tarantino (or anybody) created a work of fiction about a formidably intelligent female writer in the 1950s experimenting with fiction and theater who marries a gay man, this would be worth watching.

To be clear: a chapter of her life which a director would fictionalize.

Given his previous film, he'll set it up so she ends up going out to Kalispell, forcing Cimino to focus and saving New Hollywood (with guns).

I could imagine a great movie more in the “hang out” style of most of once upon a time in hollywood.

The movie will end with her watching Reservoir dogs

I thought of guns too--an alternate ending where she just blows away Renata Adler. (Still alive...sorry, that's in bad taste.)

Holly Hunter is a little older than Kael was in 1979, but she'd be fun.

I could see that, yeah--Kael liked Hunter. Maybe a couple of other actresses she really liked too: Joan Cusack or Sigourney Weaver. (Not Debra Winger, though, I don't think.)

Tagline: "You won't see it a second time."

Nice!

LOL

I could imagine a great movie more in the “hang out” style of most of once upon a time in hollywood.

― omar little,

she won't let you finish lunch until you agree to knock Shoah off your top ten.

Forgive me, since I'm knee deep in Biskind's New Hollywood book right now, so I wouldn't mind a revisionist take where Kael just blows all of the misogynist fucks away. Though that would end up wiping out half of the decades best movies.

So that's what her name was...maybe the only thing she ever did on the show?

She was a featured player in the last seasons of SCTV, usually playing a woman several decades her senior (as she did in that clip).

her life was watching movies

In homage to Kiarostami, the Tarantino film is going to be one reel of her in close-up watching Bonnie and Clyde, then a reel of her watching Last Tango, then Nashville...

Then The Fury ...

Then Batman...

Kael wrote a novel?

Calling her a novelist puzzles me as well. Maybe they're thinking of Renata Adler, who wrote two.

Kael did write (or attempted to write) plays iirc

yep

This Peter Bradshaw piece has a couple of good lines:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/mar/16/quentin-tarantino-next-film-critic-pauline-kael?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Pauline Kael isn’t going to be putting her bare feet up on the car dashboard in this film. At least I don’t think so.

I like this suggestion from a friend (as to who might play Kael): Laura Linney.

That's kinda brilliant. Not sure who else I'd even suggest.

Christian Bale?

Random thought: I like Tarantino a lot, but nothing makes me more certain that a film is going to be embarassing bullshit than the words "influenced by Quentin Tarantino".

Oh, definitely.

Pretty much ... the gap between him and his imitators is about as vast as any I can imagine.

Tho, to be fair, the only movies I think we're talking about when it comes to "Tarantino imitators" are Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, no?

That

xp, Tarantino ruined dickwit testosterone film school kids

Pauline Kael isn’t going to be putting her bare feet up on the car dashboard in this film. At least I don’t think so.

🥱🥱🥱

Tho, to be fair, the only movies I think we're talking about when it comes to "Tarantino imitators" are Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, no?

― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.),

It's a good question. Are there Jackie Brown heirs running around?

Tho, to be fair, the only movies I think we're talking about when it comes to "Tarantino imitators" are Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, no?

https://collider.com/once-upon-a-time-in-ukraine-trailer/

Collider can exclusively unveil the trailer for Once Upon a Time in Ukraine, aka Inglorious Serfs, an upcoming action comedy inspired by the work of Quentin Tarantino. Mixing alternative history, ultra-violence, and good humor, Once Upon a Time in Ukraine is finally crossing the ocean after becoming a cult classic in Europe.

Out of Sight had Michael Keaton playing the exact same character. You could make the argument that it is more of an Elmore Leonard thing, but I think Tarantino was the driving force behind the uptick in Leonard adaptations.

xp

Leonard was an excellent genre/movie writer who never earned his worth until Tarantination, which is another tick in Quentin's box for me but also really telling cos QT's Leonard adaptations are the worst possible adaptations of Leonard's work

do you consider Jackie Brown a bad movie or just not great as an adaptation?

i think most of Tarantino's movies are good to great, as movies. i was thinking about this between the bus stop and home: the thing that makes QT a bad influence for me is his winkingness. i'm not even sure that makes the films he's made himself bad. Jackie Brown is a great movie. but people who ape his style generally make shit

Leonard's stuff seems so downbeat to me and i don't think Tarantino can do downbeat. MR MAJESTYK (1974) is way better than any QT adaptation of Leonard imo at least in terms of articulating Leonard's vibe but probly also in terms of being a better movie, maybe

I'd say this is due for a re-poll but may as well wait the four or so years until the Kael movie is released.

Watched Pulp Fiction over the weekend; in honor, I guess, if its 30th Anniversary(!) year. It's been long enough since the last time I saw it that I was able to enjoy it with slightly "fresh eyes." It's not much to look at, and some of the "tech specs" (camerawork, lighting) are really not great; but the performances and many of the scenarios still pack a punch, enough to give you that sense memory of how hard it hit when it actually was fresh.

The main cast is terrific (of course), but also/especially some of the minor players, like Eric Stoltz & Amanda Plummer... so much so that you almost marvel at those performances (like, where did they pull them from?). Stoltz is someone I've seen in a bunch of movies, and while he's good, he never really makes a big impression (other than in Mask, I guess) – but he's so perfect in this, he just knocks it out of the park.

And Uma Thurman is just fantastic, in a role that could have been played any number of ways (most of them probably not as effective). I feel like if that performance had been weaker, the center would have fallen out of the movie, in a way. I didn't realize there are two (2) Arquettes in the cast, and had forgotten about some other minor/cameo appearances. The cast list is stacked, but in a way that feels low-key / well integrated, and not like, "Here's another famous player showing up..."

The Butch/Fabienne scenes (in the hotel room) were the faintest in my memory; and yet they may be the best written scenes in the movie (or at least they have the least "show-y" writing). The film gets a little dull toward the end, in The Bonnie Situation segment, but obv the final scene is great.

Circling back for one minor gripe (which I could only articulate after living in L.A. for years): for such an iconic "L.A." movie, it doesn't really have a strong sense of place. Other than a few times when specific neighborhoods/streets/cities are named ("Move out of the sticks, gentlemen..."), the action could be taking place anywhere. Most of the street/apartment scenes just feel like "generic Los Angeles." Though maybe that's kind of the point?

Yeah, they are mostly generic, but I do think that's part of the point. Interesting that the most "iconic" location, Jackrabbit Slim's, does not exist.

Marcellus' house scenes were shot up in the hills, ofc. Summitridge Drive, according to the webs.

It definitely doesn't feel like an L.A. movie in the way that, say, Lebowski does.

Or some of the "noirs" that are in its bloodstream – e.g., the famous one with a glowing suitcase. It's neat to think of Repo Man in contrast, which (like PF) pays homage both to Kiss Me Deadly and Grease, but has as deeply ingrained a sense of location any "L.A. movie" ever... (well, that I've seen).