A-Z Challenge: True Romance

I don't know why I like chick-flicks that aren't really chick-flicks.  The Princess Bride fell into this category, and we hit it again with True Romance, a movie I had passed over countless times while perusing the shelves at Blockbuster (NOTE: It has been ages since I set foot in a Blockbuster, I don't think there's even one open near here anymore).  I would have continued passing True Romance up based on the title had a friend not recommended it.

This movie is a triple-serving of holy f*&^ing sh!t.  I guess it does truly cover the romance angle, but it ranks so high in bad-assery the romance is a bit of a sub-plot.  Clarence (Christian Slater) is set up with Alabama (Patricia Arquette), a call girl, but they fall in love.  Clarence promises to get her things from her pimp, Drexel (an unrecognizable Gary Oldman in what, in my opinion, is the best supporting performance by a character actor in ever, period).  Clarence grabs the wrong bag and ends up with a suitcase full of coke, which mobsters Christopher Walken and pre-Soprano James Gandolfini want back.

And if that's not enough to fill the big screen we have Brad Pitt smoking a honey bear bong, Val Kilmer as the soul of Elvis, Samuel L. Jackson confessing his dietary habits before getting a bellyfull of shotgun, and Dennis Hopper taunting a hit-man in an epic racist rant.  And then there's the Mexican standoff at the end...a lot like the end of Reservoir Dogs, in a way.  Did I mention this was written by Quentin Tarantino?

This is another one for my top five favorites.  Aside from the mayhem, of which there is plenty, it still has humor and despite some preposterous turns of events, still feels real.

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A-Z Challenge: Quentin Tarantino

I'm taking slight liberties again, using a person's name instead of a movie title, but this serves as a better movie-related Q-word than Quest for Fire, The Quest, or Q-The Winged Serpent...Let's face it, the pickins are slim when it comes movies with Q-titles.

Reservoir Dogs was the first Quentin Tarantino movie I saw.  It is intense with great pacing, and it's almost all dialogue-driven.  There are some flashbacks to the robbery and brief foot and car chases, but 99% of the movie is the characters trying to figure out what's wrong with their heist job and each other (there's a snitch in their midst).  The Mexican stand-off at the end is classic.

Pulp Fiction is easily in my top 5 favorite movies of all time. (NOTE:  How many times have I said that in this series?  Like six or seven?)  I first saw Pulp Fiction in the theater in college.  The opening dialogue made me wonder if I was going to like it...It was a little tough to figure out what the heck they were talking about.  Then Hunny-Bunny whips out a pistol and shouts something about executing every last one of you mother-f#$@ers and surfer guitar kicks in, and holy shit!  Hang on, it's a wild ride till the end, kind of like a shot of adrenaline to the heart, and the soundtrack is great.

Kill Bill (both volumes) is a terrific homage to the spaghetti western era of martial arts movies.  I like how Quentin showed off his chops by mimicking old film styles.  Plus the action kept things moving (NOTE: By "action" I mean lethal sword-fighting and gallons of blood), which is a nice touch considering how his dialogue drives so much of his movies' content.

I'm not a huge fan of Jackie Brown, and Inglorious Basterds was good but not phenomenal (with the exception of Christopher Waltz's villain, he played the overly-nice but scary guy perfectly).  Quentin has a new movie coming out this Christmas called Django Unchained, starring Jamie Foxx as a slave out for revenge on Leonardo DiCaprio.  Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Waltz, and Kurt Russel will also be in it.

I could go on, and talk about his writing credits for movies like Natural Born Killers and True Romance, but the former wasn't that great and the latter will be discussed when we get to the letter T...

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