Quentin Tarantino may be a genius, but the dude’s got weird taste; witness, for example, his video list of the best films of the 1990s, which included the Woody Allen/Jason Biggs movie Anything Else (a flick that even Woody’s fans didn’t like, and we’re a tolerant bunch). And who knows, maybe his oddball sense of what’s good and what’s bad has led to his distinctive voice and style as a filmmaker; soaking up all those bad kung-fu movies and grindhouse epics was, no doubt, part of why he is this director he is. So, y’know, we’ve cut the guy some slack over the years for his weirdo advocacy.
You’ve got to draw a line somewhere, though. And we’re drawing it at his “Best of 2011″ list.
Take a look, via “the Quentin Tarantino Archives”:
Quentin Tarantino’s official Top Eleven of 2011
1. Midnight In Paris
2. Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
3. Moneyball
4. The Skin I Live In
5. X-Men: First Class
6. Young Adult
7. Attack The Block
8. Red State
9. Warrior
10. The Artist / Our Idiot Brother (tie)
11. The Three Musketeers
Okay, look. That top 10, while a little peculiar, makes some sense; sure, most people weren’t quite as nuts about Rise of the Planet of the Apes or X-Men: First Class or Our Idiot Brother as Mr. Tarantino apparently was, but they got some good reviews (as did the divisive Red State). It’s at number 11 where our troll alarm went off.
The Three Musketeers? The reviled 3-D adaptation of The Three Musketeers with Orlando Bloom and Milla Jovovich, from the director of the Resident Evil movies? That one? That was one of your favorite movies, QT? Ranking above all of these movies?:
Others he liked (no particular order)
50/50
Beginners
Hugo
The Iron Lady
Carnage
Green Hornet
Green Lantern
Captain America
The Descendants
My Week With Marilyn
Fast Five
Tree Of Life
The Hangover Part II
Mission Impossible 4
The Beaver
Contagion
The Sitter
War Horse
So, to Mr. Tarantino’s eyes, The Three Musketeers was a better film than Beginners, Hugo, Carnage, The Descendants, Tree of Life, and Contagion. Really?
No, not really. The telltale sign is the fact that it’s #11 (after tying two movies for #10); he put it in his “best movies of 2011″ list, if you’ll pardon the indelicate phrasing, to fuck with us. Ha ha, he presumably thought. This’ll make me look subversive and nonconformist! I’m edgy! I like stuff no one else likes! (This is the Internet commenter in him.)
I’d like to think that’s the same reason that Green Lantern, Fast Five, and The Hangover Part II are on the “others he liked” list, but who knows, maybe he genuinely enjoyed that swill; he’s always championed popcorn flicks, and as we decided last week (and keep reminding ourselves), there is no such thing as a universal taste. If the director of films as unique and unpredictable as Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs genuinely enjoyed the scene-for-scene remake that was the Hangover sequel, who are we to second guess him?
What’s problematic is the smugly-titled “Nice Try Award” category. To wit:
Nice Try Award
Drive
Hanna
Drive Angry
Real Steel
Yeah, Drive. NICE TRY. Nice try at making a cooled-out, homage-heavy, violent yet intellectual crime picture. You just go sit over there with the 3D Nicolas Cage mess and the Hugh Jackman boxing robots movie. Wait, what?
(Could it be — and we’re just spitballing here — that Tarantino realizes that not only is Drive stepping into his territory, but he’s maybe a wee bit peeved that Drive is better than any film he’s made since Jackie Brown? Or, from a tough-girls-kicking-ass perspective, that Hanna does in two hours what Kill Bill barely managed to do in four? Just a theory…)
Tarantino also made comparatively predictable choices for director and screenplay; those are available on the Tarantino Archive. What’s not on there is his “Worst Films” list, which was pulled after the post’s original appearance, though the fine folks at the Playlist grabbed it while it was up:
Worst Films
Sucker Punch
Potiche (Trophy Wife)
Miral
Insidious
Rampart
Straw Dogs
Paranormal Activity 3
Meek’s Cutoff
That’s right, Meek’s Cutoff. I’ll tell you what that movie needed: A big 3-D zeppelin pirate ship sequence.
Comments (5)
I think that expectation is a decisive factor when it comes to judging a film.
For instance, when I saw the trailer for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I was beyond baffled. “Seriously, Hollywood?” I scoffed.”Running out of ideas…wish I lived in the 70s… all hollywood cash ins herpderp.”
I went in the theater pretty much for air conditioning.
Little did I realize that I’d actually start to care for the characters. Yes the premise and the very fact that it exists is ridiculous, but I think that there’s more genuine humanity and heart in that movie than most this year (which is ironic, considering humanity is essentially doomed at the close.)
It seemed to me that the film makers actually tried to make a good movie, instead of the franchise cash in that I was expecting.
I love watching movies almost more than anything else in the world. But most of what I like about movies in the moments before and after. Where you were in life. Who you were with at the time.
Quentin Tarantino probably got drunk with his friends and saw Three Musketeers. Maybe not but who knows? I bet he had fun, though. And that’s all you really want out of a movie like that.
All in all, I don’t think Quentin Tarantino is as mad or as ironic as you think he might be. I think he’s just a guy who makes movies.
Having an opinion is a crime, it seems.
Drive is a lot like Tarantino movies, if you surgically cut away every piece of originality, joy of filmmaking and actual emotions and replace the soundtrack with the corniest musical choices you can ever made. “Nice try” is what it is.
@Maxw, Congratulations! You’ve just been nominated for a “Nice Try at Trolling!” award…
Tarantino is the reason I got into cinema and filmmaking and I (basically) revere him.. So when I saw that he had put ‘Drive’ in his ‘nice try’ category I was baffled to say the least. Your explanation makes a lot of sense (though I hate to say it, I can’t believe the Maestro would really be jealous or worried about Refn stealing his thunder)
I’m all on Refn’s tip now (who was no doubt also inspired by QT)… I just ate up those Pusher films (great stuff!)
That said, Django is going to be dope…
I agree with you a lot Max Grater.
Refns Pusher trilogy are awsomesauce and unlike any movie I’ve seen before. Gritty, realistic and in your face grotesque. Among the best foreign movies I’ve seen.
I think QT might be pissing of territory with his “nice try” award.
He feel a young talented director threatening his domain as an artistic unconventional avant-garde.
I have a great deal of respect for QT, he made some of the best movies of the 90′s. But when I think of his recent work and a the taste which is displayed at this list. I think the era of Tarentino is passée and Refn is reaching for the crown and the throne.
Post a new comment