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Reservoir Dogs 1992 ★★★★★
30 years after its first release, Tarantino's debut still stands as a genuine masterpiece. From the opening Madonna-banter to the final shootout.
It wastes no time in setting up the tension between the main characters. Who's the rat? Who set us up? The genius in the robbery - they don't know each other, so they can't tell on each other - now works against them. They don't know each other, so they can't trust each other. With one poignant dialogue between mister Pink and mister White as an example of Tarantino's infamous writing. In that aspect, I like the fact that they used the opening scene to set up mister Pink as a bit of a dick. As a viewer, you unconsciously take that baggage with you and side with mister White, even though mister Pink, from a a rational point of view, is right.
And of course, there is the infamous torture scene showing off both Quentin's love for excessive violence and the amazing soundtracks that would continue to dominate his movies. The opening shot with George Baker... yeah baby. Or Madsen into the cut off ear: was it as good for you as it was for me? I thought that was kind of funny. Also, who would not want to drive to and from work with K-Billy's sounds of the seventies?
Another thing I noticed was the smart casting. I know the guy playing mister Blue was a real life criminal, but no seasoned actor. So he does not get much lines and just looks the part. And he does give himself a part, but keeps his part to the thing he is good at: spouting pop culture banter. The people who have to ensure the tension and the credibility (Keitel, Buscemi, Madsen) are all seasoned pros delivering a great performance. Also, this seems like one of the better Tim Roth performances, but that might just be me. Though it did not really make sense to me why he outed himself as a cop at the end. What are your thoughts on these questions?
Two random thoughts:
1) Michael Madsen plays Vic Vega, the supposed brother of Travolta's character in Pulp Fiction. I recall Tarantino had plans for a movie about the two of them, but I'm not sure if that ever really became more than pie in the sky.
2) Between this one and Con Air, Steve Buscemi already had two roles as the sleazebag who somehow weasels through the mazes and gets away and he's pretty good at it.
Five star classic.
Terrifier 2016 ★★★★
After seeing articles about the commotion on the sequel (handing out barf bags, whooptidoo), I got around to watching the first one. One of those let's find out what all the hoopla is about- nights.
Honestly, this turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. What stops me from giving five stars is the lack of plot, resulting in too many characters that in other franchises would be described as randos. Let's drop in a few more characters so that Art has somebody more to kill. That sort of thing.
That said... I loved it. The main asset to this movie is the amazing looking killer. That Art is one scary dude. Masterfully shown in his staredown with Tara at the start. Or the lackadaisical, Jasonesque walk, showing off how much he feels in control. For me, this is also the reason why the jump scares are done so well in this movie. More than once, Art popping up out of nowhere really gives a fright.
And the kills are awesome. Just the type of bloodiness I was looking for, with Jason levels of variation and beyond. Art never repeats himself, so I'll give the gun kill a pass.
I get the criticism on how the movie is mean spirited, but this did not bother me all that much. The snark never became annoying and the dialogue never veered into Rob Zombie-territory. Just kids being kids and getting into all sorts of shenanigans.
Good stuff for the people who don't expect more than a decent hamburger.
Red Letter Day 2019 ★★
Not sure why or how, but I just got a bland collection of graduation day songs, with often easy and lazy sarcasm, going over the highschool stereotypes.
The second star is for the one or two chuckles this got from me.
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