If you’ve seen Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof (2007) – either as part of the Grindhouse double bill or as a stand-alone feature – and you’ve also seen Russ Meyer’s grrrl power fantasy, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), then you will probably recognize the former to be a quasi-remake, at least in spirit, of the latter. ... read more »

It’s amazing to me that some fellow Jews who were so indignant about Sophie’s Choice (by which I mean the Styron novel — arguably his best — and not the hollow Pakula movie) can give Tarantino a free ride on this one, presumably under the theory that this boy should be allowed to enjoy every ... read more »

The amount of discussion generated by Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds demonstrates, if nothing else, that whether you like the film, hate it, or harbor mixed feelings about it, what Tarantino has created is some kind of movie. Unless you have been living in the proverbial cave – and I don’t mean Plato’s – you should ... read more »

…and I mean *everybody*… Jonathan Rosenbaum posted a rather damning blog entry on his website regarding QT’s “IB” that was subsequently picked up and scoffed at by a smattering of online critics. Rosenbaum responded to the hubbub over his equating “IB” with Holocaust denial in a postscript, reprinted here: Since many people have been asking ... read more »

Is Robert Richardson (born August 27, 1955) the greatest cinematographer working today? Consider the difference between Oliver Stone’s JFK and Nixon, both of which were photographed by Richardson, and Stone’s W., shot by someone else. The two former films have a gravitas and visual complexity, compared to which W. seems light-weight and disposable, notwithstanding Josh ... read more »

Of all the real-life German film personalities referred to in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, the most notorious – apart from Goebbels himself – is Leni Riefenstahl. Most viewers know Riefenstahl, if they know her at all, as the director of the infamous Nazi propaganda film, Triumph of the Will, or the classic sports documentary, Olympia. ... read more »

One of the many incidental pleasures of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is the reappearance after far too long an absence of the wonderful Rod Taylor. Taylor, who was born on January 11, 1930 in Sidney, Australia, has worked with some of cinema’s greatest auteurs – with George Stevens in Giant, playing memorable leads for George ... read more »

On December 4, 2006, we (jokingly) prophesied that Britney Spears would co-star with Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan in a remake of Russ Meyer’s exploitation classic, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Our prophecy now turns out to be at least one-third true. Britney apparently IS going to be starring in a Pussycat remake – directed by ... read more »

What with all the year-end lists we’ve been seeing lately, I’ve been surprised at some of the omissions. Well, not all that surprised, since lists like these almost always neglect films released during the first three-quarters of the year in favor of movies released at the year’s tail-end (Sweeney Todd, There Will Be Blood, Atonement), ... read more »

A 5-hour epic film in two parts about a bride who swears vengeance on the conspirators who killed her husband. That’s Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill. It’s also an accurate description of Fritz Lang’s 1924 fantasy classic, Die Nibelungen, Part 1: Siegfrieds Tod (Siegfried’s Death), and Part 2: Kriemhilds Rache (Kriemhild’s Revenge). Unlike Tarantino’s Bride, Lang’s ... read more »