On thing I did love about Death Proof was was Zoë Bell’s sunny, cheerful performance as basically herself. She’s like Action Amy Poehler. I hated that her character died so quickly in Hateful Eight.
Django’s a Western. It’s got guys on horses with big hats and six-shooters. Despite the name, actually taking place “in the west” isn’t really a necessary part of the genre - if Firefly can be a “western in space,” then Django Unchained can be a western in Mississippi.
Reservoir Dogs is first in my book. Especially considering the budget. Inglorius Bastereds is a close second.
I had high hopes for Hateful Eight but it ended up being a sloppy mishmash of cliches with the acting a little over the top. I know that was probably the idea, but still…
Had he directed True Romance, that would have made my top - the writing in that is top notch.
Was tempted to do the same but I think Pulp is a somewhat better film.
I think Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs were the only two of Tarantino’s films to “ground” the weird and surreal stuff in the real world enough to not be perceived as intensely weird. And Reservoir Dogs was too dialogue-heavy IMO. So my choice is Pulp Fiction.
Django Unchained, Inglorious Basterds, Death Proof, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood leaned into the weird, which IMO took away a little bit from what could have been; Once Upon a Time in particular could have been a lot better if not for the truly surreal stuff, especially toward the end.
Never saw the Kill Bills or Jackie Brown.
Per the manual of style, it should be written as the Kills Bill.
Reservoir Dogs
Jackie Brown
Pulp Fiction
Inglorious Basterds
The rest were meh or didn’t like
I think Once Upon a Time in Hollywood would fit more as a comedy. Pulp Fiction is funny in moments, but OUATIH has straight up jokes, prat falls and sight gags in it.
When I made my list, I’d found a couple articles online arguing something similar. I dismissed it. Partly because Hateful Eight fits the genre far more cleanly. But moreso because Django just doesn’t have enough of those stereotypical characters or tropes that were common in Westerns. I need more than horses, guns and hats to call something a Western, any period piece is likely to feature that stuff regardless of theme. I concede I’m no movie geek when it comes to Westerns, so maybe my concept of a Western is too narrow, but I didn’t exclude Django because of the locale. Westerns tend to be set in the dusty desert and Hateful Eight is in the middle of a blizzard, my objection is more thematic and archetype based.