In the wake of Jackie Brown 15 years ago I was pretty much a confirmed Quentin Tarantino fan, despite his obvious tendency to rewrite, remake and basically rip off ’70s exploitation films (except with Pulp Fiction, which he co-wrote with Roger Avary). Pulp and Reservoir Dogs had won me over and I was willing to follow him anywhere. But despite the pleasures of Death Proof, I’ve gotten off the boat over the last ten years. The Kill Bill films were tedious (I tried re-watching Part One as few months ago and couldn’t), Inglourious Basterds was basically a wank and there’s no way in hell I’ll ever watch Django Unchained again. If Tarantino was to declare today that he’ll never ever make a film again, I could live with that. I wouldn’t be that sorry. I would say to myself, “Well, he’s basically been over since Jackie Brown so no great loss.”
I think something snapped inside when Christoph Waltz won his second Oscar last February for playing essentially the same kind of cynical, loquacious, ironically disengaged, darkly self-amused Tarantino figure. When that happened I said to myself, “Goddamn it…they went for Waltz again? This is effing ridiculous. There’s something really shallow and facile going on here…do Academy voters have the slightest sense of shame?”
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