#Quentin Tarantino's favorite scene

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

La loba | 1965

[suzy-queued]

DVD Commentary: These Foolish Games

@stocious asked if I could share behind-the-scenes commentary from These Foolish Games. @shamelessdvdcommentary

Give us some stats - (when you wrote it, word count, how long it took to finish, is it a one-shot/multi-chapter, etc) I wrote it from March through November of 2022. It's a 15-chapter fic, 96,884 words.

What was the initial inspiration for your story? I love the "Shop around the Corner" scenario where people fall in love via text but hate each other in person. I've only seen versions of that trope where the love portion happens via letters but they remain enemies in real life. I wanted to see what would happen if they were chasing each other in a huge love square. Picture me giggling and saying, "All we want out of Gallavich stories is to see them fall in love over and over again. What if every major character in this story is either Ian or Mickey in alternate forms?!"

What was your favorite scene to write? Hands down, it was chapter 4, when they watched the training video. This Mickey is based on a friend I had in high school named Jason. He and I had health class together, and we'd chat and joke around during class. But two strange things happened: (1) when we were OUT of class, he wouldn't even make eye contact with me. It was like I didn't exist. (2) when we watched videos IN class and the lights would go down, it was like we were dating. He'd hold my hand and lock our feet together and trace shapes on each other's arms. I never knew anyone who could Jekyll and Hyde so quickly between three different dynamics. Were we friends, strangers, or crushes? That history with him churns in my brain, and I wanted to capture how that felt in this story.

How did you come up with the title? I took the title from Jewel's song.

Other working titles included: This Bitter Chase Addicted to that Rush Shock + Awe Rules of Engagement Cock it and Pull it Locked and Loaded Brace for Impact A Shot in the Dark Caught in the Crossfire Come Out and Play Mark and Misfire

Are there any little moments or references you hope readers will notice? That every chapter (except one) had a two-word title. I like coming up with chapter titles, and I thought that was fun.

Was there anything you struggled to write? If so, how did you overcome this? I painted myself into a corner with the criminal aspect. My notes said something like, "Hector is doing something related to theft in the facility. This theft leads to unsafe circumstances. These unsafe circumstances are serious enough for his franchise to be threatened." I know nothing about trampoline engineering. I know very little about underground markets and precious metals. You don't hear a lot of media coverage of trampoline parks as mob fronts. I visited soooo many sketchy websites and researched what could possibly net Hector a decent enough chunk of change. I read documents about safety liability and franchise law. The takeaway is, anything can be solved with the right amount of research.

You know what was really fun to research? Videos of people doing wall runs.

Did the storyline change in any way as you wrote the story? I started with a more dramatic rivalry between the laser tag staff and the bounce center. It was a blood feud, and if you crossed those lines, you'd be dead. It was a life-threatening and tense dynamic, which we as the readers would see as parody but the characters would take 100% seriously. Total noir, Quentin Tarantino vibes. The more I wrote, I couldn't sustain that intensity with a straight face.

Jett was originally "Finn," but I didn't want "NotFinn" to have the same initials as "Noel Fisher." Chara was originally "Samantha."

If you are writing a particular trope or genre, was it your first time writing this? I never put so much texting into a story! Whew! It was cool to figure out how to do AO3 skins for this story. I set it up so that Ian's texts were always orange and Mickey's texts were always blue. That was done with a skin, so I didn't have to code it fresh for every chapter.

What are you most proud about in the story? (plot, characterization, dialogue, twist/cliffhanger, etc) I'm most proud of keeping the identities straight. It was … a lot. With all the Shakespearean name swapping, the reader could still follow who was who (I hope).

Are there any ‘behind the scenes’ info you’d like to share - e.g. what’s going on in a characters head in a certain scene or how you came to write a certain line? I can share a little about the process of keeping a long story straight. I made a dossier of all the characters, locations, and scenes as I was going. That way, I could glance at the notes instead of having to re-read entire chapters to find details.

As with all my stories, I hand-wrote this one. I filled three notebooks.

Are there any ‘easter eggs’ in your story - e.g. references to other stories you’ve written, a trope you often use etc? One trope is that I create art for each chapter. I also like to create logos for each story I make. Here is the full TigerZone logo:

I also create Spotify playlists for all my stories. Here is the one for These Foolish Games.

If you’ve chosen your most popular story, are you surprised by the popularity? This is my most commented-on and kudoed fic, which makes me so happy. I think it's well-deserved.

Were you nervous or excited to post this story? Yes. The nerves never go away, no matter how much you've written.

Anything else you’d like the readers to know about the story? Here are a few images that show the inspiration as well as what was happening in my life as I wrote it.

Our family (pre-covid) enjoyed laser tagging and trampolining.

We had a tornado and major power outage in 2022, which didn't stop me from writing. We took a trip to Chicago, and I was poking my head into every laser tag arena we saw.

That summer, as I was writing, Noel was in Brooklyn filming The Calling. I also went to Brooklyn, a few weeks later.

After the story was complete, my husband gifted me a printed copy. 😭❤️

This is open to all writers! Pick your favorite story you’ve written or your most popular or the one you think deserves some more love! Or ask your followers to suggest their favorite fic of yours!

Thank you for the ask! This is so much fun. I can't believe how many wonderful friends I made from this fic.

[safarigirlsp]

40 LOOKS DAMN GOOD

I saw this on Twitter and thought it'd be fun to do here as a mini celebration. Interaction has been so dead on here for everyone, it'd be fun to liven it back up! Everyone feel free to play along!

Favorite Movie(s)

The Last Duel! I love that movie. Blackkklansman is the runner up.

I actually don't care for most of his other movies at all in terms of the movie itself. 65, The Report, and Logan Lucky were decent, but definitely second tier.

Favorite Character(s)

Jacques, Flip, and Mills

Favorite Co-Star(s)

Ben Affleck blows absolutely everyone else out of the water! "Come In! Take your pants off!"

Bill Murray and John David Washington are runners up, and I loved Jeremy Irons in Gucci.

Favorite Love Interest(s)

None so far! Rey and Hanna are my absolute least favorites. I hate them, honestly. Jodie Cromer was my favorite female lead in one of his movies. Lady Gaga and Marion Cottilard were alright too. I like Scarlett Johannson the best as a stand alone actress, but I hated her character in Marriage Story. I anticipate liking Aubrey Plaza

Favorite Scene(s)

Jousting and kicking ass are hard to beat!

Favorite Sex Scene(s)

All the scenes from Last Duel! I don't care how offensive that is!

This scene from The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.

Girls seasons 5 and 6 were hard to beat. The couch scene in season 5 is pretty nice.

Favorite SNL Skit(s)

Slow for obvious reasons.

Undercover Boss Part 2

Favorite Line(s)

Dream Role(s)

I got a Knight with Jacques and an Action Hero with Mills, both of which were high on my list. I'd love to see him as a Vampire, a Dark Victorian Gentleman, an Old West Gunfighter, an Adventurer, and a John Wick style Hitman or Action Hero.

Oh, and he needs to be his actual age and not have goddamn face prosthetics, altered hairlines, or terrible fucking haircuts!

Dream Co-Star(s)

Love Interests: Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet, Margot Robbie, Ana De Armas, and Lily Rose Depp for size kink purposes.

Co-Stars: Another hot guy like Goran Visnjic or Gerard Butler. Keanu Reeves would also be a blast.

Directors: Ridley Scott (again), Clint Eastwood, Tim Burton, Robert Eggars, Quentin Tarantino.

Favorite Photoshoot(s)

Favorite Candid(s)

Favorite Red Carpet Appearance(s)

Venice takes the cake!

Favorite Interview(s)

"Fuck you. I don't know."

"I hated this. Goodbye."

Favorite Moment(s) of Your Choice

[chaos0pikachu]

So @doyou000me sent me an ask about the film making of Love for Love's Sake (which I have learned is based on a novel and now I'm very interested in reading it lol) so having watched the currently available episodes the big thing I noticed was the shows use of Aspect Ratio.

"In simple terms, the aspect ratio of a movie is how wide the frame of the movie is versus how tall it is, usually expressed as a ratio. For example, most TVs and computer monitors are 1.77:1 (more often expressed on consumer packaging as 16:9), which means the screen itself is 1.77 times as wide as it is tall. The higher the first number in this ratio is, the wider the screen will be." (source)

I know, nerd math.

Basically you know those black bars you sometimes see on the top and bottom of the screen when watching a film or tv show? That's a director filming in a specific aspect ratio:

(source)

Film makers use aspect ratios in a ton of ways, there's a lot of examples out there from Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino), and Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan) where the former used aspect ratio to invoke the film making style of old westerns, while Nolan used a taller aspect ratio for fight/action scenes to give the scene more physical impact.

A recent example that I've seen that I think applies really well to Love for Love's Sake is Marry My Husband:

See how the first scene has black bars above and below? The director is using a different aspect ratio than in the second shot (these are both taken from ep01). What does this signify in the story?

Flashbacks. Flashbacks in Marry My Husband are always filmed in a different aspect ratio than scenes in the "present" storyline of the show. Perfect Marriage Revenge also uses aspect ratios this way.

Love for Love's Sake does something similar but instead of flashbacks it uses aspect ratio to denote between "worlds".

The game world is filmed in a longer aspect ratio than the "real" world which is filed in a different ratio (not a standard full screen but it does have a taller ratio than the game world):

This, so far, has been consistent in the four episodes that are out. We have another return to the "real" world in I believe ep03 and we see this same aspect ratio dynamic.

Another thing I noticed is the "real" world's color saturation is much higher and warmer than the "game" world, but it's also (ironically) much more enclosed - this could honestly be a story choice or a budget issue - and boxed in. Something I don't see discussed a lot in terms of cinematography in BL is the use of Lines and Shapes in film and how they add to the composition of a shot.

I really like this video on the subject though it focuses mostly on animation it's still relevant:

Now if you look at the "real" world scene in Love for Love's Sake we see that the protagonist, before we even know who he is, or anything about him, is in a highly saturated room, warmly lit, but also boxed in:

The warmer saturation denotes a sense of intimacy, which makes sense in a bar setting, but the boxed in frame around him gives us a sense of tightness, tension even, maybe a sense that he feels trapped. We later learn through dialogue he's unhappy with his life and unhappy with the way the novel story he read has played out.

Then, when the scene transitions into the "game" world, the protagonist is in a different aspect ratio, the color grading is now more desaturated and has a higher blue hue to it, the character is also in an open space and filmed front forward facing instead of from behind:

This all works well because the audience knows, even before the character does, they are in another "world" and its very different from their own. It creates to specific aesthetics which help set the worlds apart from one another.

For more on color theory, this is one of my favorite videos on the topic which has more to do with like, hue and saturation rather than "the blue curtains mean xyz" which is a singular and narrative heavy way to focus on color theory instead of how color adds to the tone, emotion, and world building of a piece of media.

I think the first episode of Love for Love's Sake is the best filmed of the episodes so far, the budget starts to chip away in other episodes but I do want to give them their roses b/c they do work within their budget well. There's a lot of interesting visuals used especially with the game pop ups that I really like, and some nice camera work. The editing is a bit weak at times but there's been some good choices too.

I also really liked the scene with Yeo Woon running and how his feet lit up and how that aligned with his affection points going up. The editing for that was well done.

So yeah, those are my film making thoughts on the show for now lol

Check out other posts in the series:

Film Making? In My BL? - The Sign ep01 Edition | Aspect Ratio in Love for Love's Sake | Cinematography in My BL - Our Skyy2 vs kinnporsche, 2gether vs semantic error, 1000 Stars vs The Sign | How The Sign Uses CGI

[like these posts? drop me a couple pennies on ko-fi]

[theguywithaplan]

List of Films Turning Ten (10) Years Old in 2025

American Ultra (stars Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart as stoners).

Ant-Man

Avengers: Age of Ultron (pretty short Age, if you ask me...)

Beasts of No Nation (stars Idris Elba as a warlord).

The Big Short (the favorite movie of the most annoying guy you know).

Black Mass (stars Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger).

Bridge of Spies (directed by Spielberg, written by the Coen Brothers, and stars Tom Hanks. What more could you want?)

CHAPPiE

Cinderella (the live-action disney remake)

Creed (the successor to the Rocky movies

Crimson Peak (a gothic horror movie from Guillermo del Toro).

Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (a horror movie from Spike Lee).

The DUFF (stands for Designated Ugly Fat Friend).

Ex Machina (the AI movie with Oscar Isaac).

Fant4stic

Fifty Shades of Grey

Focus (a pretty decent crime drama with Will Smith and Margot Robbie).

Furious 7

The Good Dinosaur (the rare misstep for Pixar).

Goosebumps (starring Jack Black as R. L. Stine).

The Green Inferno (a cannibal movie from Eli Roth).

The Hateful Eight (the eighth movie from Quentin Tarantino).

Hitman: Agent 47 (based on the video games).

Home (the DreamWorks movie starring Sheldon Cooper and Rihanna).

Hotel Transylvania 2

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2

Inside Out (one of Pixar's best)

Insidious: Chapter 3

It Follows (a fantastic horror movie).

Jem and the Holograms (I'm so sorry that you guys had to go through this).

Jupiter Ascending (an honest to god underappreciated sci-fi movie from the Wachowskis).

Jurassic World

Kingsman: The Secret Service (look up the church scene with Doom music. Thank me later).

Knock Knock (an erotic thriller starring Ana de Armas and Keanu Reeves)

Krampus

The Last Witch Hunter (a strange passion project from Vin Diesel).

Mad Max: Fury Road (greatest movie ever made, don't at me).

Magic Mike XXL

The Martian

Minions

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

The Night Before (a really fun Christmas movie with Seth Rogen, Anthony Mackie, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt)

Pan (a really terrible Peter Pan adaptation with Hugh Jackman).

Paper Towns (based on the John Green novel of the same name).

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2

The Peanuts Movie

Pitch Perfect 2

Pixels (Pac-Man's da bad guy...?)

Poltergeist (the remake)

The Revenant (Leo DiCaprio got his Oscar, and all he had to do was get mauled by a bear).

Room (Brie Larson won an Oscar for this. Deserved).

Run All Night (Liam Neeson post-Taken).

San Andreas (not based on the GTA game.)

Sicario (Denis Villeneuve does not miss)

Southpaw (a boxing movie with Jake Gyllenhaal).

Spectre (the James Bond movie... it was just okay).

The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water

Spy (a shockingly good spy comedy with Melissa McCarthy and Jason Statham).

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Steve Jobs

Straight Outta Compton (starring Ice Cube's son as Ice Cube).

Taken 3 (how were there three of these??)

Ted 2

Terminator Genisys (I'll defend Salvation, but not this).

Tomorrowland

Trainwreck (an Amy Schumer comedy. Approach with caution).

Vacation (a reboot of the National Lampoon Vacation movies).

The Visit (the movie where M. Night Shyamalan finally decided to stop sucking).

[lbctal]

y’all mind if i yap about the walton gq interview a bit?

okay shoutout to my friend ash for manifesting this interview after danny did his LMAO

FIRST THOUGHTS: WHERE THE FUCK IS VENUS???

if you asked me his most iconic characters, venus is absolutely in the top three. how the fuck do they mention BILLY CRASH and JAY WHITTLE but not VENUS VAN DAM???? fuck whoever came up with this list.

now that that’s out of my system, let’s go in order, shall we?

lee russell: ty walton for describing russell fucking perfectly. him and i are the only people who understand russell. (jk) ALSO YESSS THE DUCK LIPS BUT SIR CAN YOU SAY A LINE. PLEASEEE. on my knees. MOST IMPORTANTLY; WALTON SHIPS GAMBYRUSSELL. FUCK YESSSS 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 LOVE WINS

cooper howard: snore. i’m so fucking bored of this guy. are we not tired of hearing shit about the goddamn ghoul. moving on.

shane vendrell: STOP MAKING ME WATCH LEM DIE. CHRIST. but thank you again walton for focusing more on the shield than on your biggest piece of shit character!! and when he started talking ‘psychological condition’ it reminded me of how i’m like almost certain shane is bipolar. wonder if he’d agree w me on that? anyways.

boyd crowder: WHYYYY DO THEY HAVE TO PLAY THE FINAL SCENE HOLY FUCKING SHIT I ALMOST CRIED AGAIN. so thankful to mr. olyphant for convincing walton to do justified. their chemistry IS SO PALPABLE. his love for boyd and raylan and justified in general is so fucking precious to me and it makes the show so much more special and it would absolutely not be justified if it weren’t for his spectacular input. i could listen to him blab on about that show all fucking day, it’s the whole reason i love him. beautiful fucking words to describe it. just speechless. much love to this man. ‘raylan givens is an asshole. but he’s my asshole.’ WE KNOW YOU’RE THE ORIGINAL RAYLANBOYD SHIPPER, BABE. 🩶

baby billy freeman: this bit was JAM PACKED w info and i loved it sm. really shocked they just came up w him on the spot but you could really tell cuz he’s like the perfect combination of walton’s ideas and danny’s ideas cultivated into this old man. too bad he didn’t mention that he was inspired by his dad again, lol.

billy crash: this part was like a bit confusing to me cuz i have heard different stories about how he got the role from other sources but it’s good to get some confirmation. pretty akin to what i heard, though. also giggled a bit when he said you don’t change what quentin writes cuz tarantino himself said ‘someone’ wanted to change the ending of django. but y’all didn’t hear that from me, lmao. always love to watch billy crash writhing in pain. :)

chris mannix: also a lot of new info for this one!! although i already knew about all the drama about h8 and the leak and all that, it’s interesting to hear the process the actors went through. would’ve paid millions to hear him do his voice. also why is he gatekeeping info, UGH. all i wanna know is if he had an encounter with tarantino’s punsihment dildo for falling asleep on set. lmfao.

the hero / jay whittle: okay, at first i was kinda pissed that he got a spot instead of venus, but this might’ve been my favorite segment aside from boyd’s. I never really find anything about him talking about his time on set of I’m a virgo so this was such a nice treat. i LOVE how he approaches each one of his characters, it’s so special and is why each one of them are so special and different from any other character you’ve ever seen. the wig story was fucking hilarious and it’s just so sweet how he says let’s figure this person out together. such a wonderful guy. it is SUCH a BEAUTIFUL story with a POWERFUL message and i adore how he recognized that. and the way he described jay? CHEF’S FUCKING KISS. mid-life crisis superhero who behaves like an alcoholic and is incapable of seeing different than his own pov? walt, you’re a fucking genius. his closing statement was absolute beauty.

anyways thanks for reading my ramble.

JUSTICE FOR MY GIRL VENUS

[darkshrimpemotions]

Is your thesis available online, with the horror film synopsis that disturbs men? A post you made back on the jujubiest acc has gone up on tiktok and I just wanna read it (if you share it) also a bunch of other people in the comments wanna read it, because ... its really interesting, I do film and this is the kinda stuff I wish I was taught in my horror modules, instead of how good films made by straight white men are :p

Oh there was plenty of that in my courses, too. My professor, bless his heart, had a hard-on for Quentin Tarantino like you wouldn't believe. But he was excited and supportive when I proposed my thesis to him! And gave me a lot of really valuable advice and support throughout it. He was a huge horror nerd...which just made his discomfort with the material so much funnier. Like my guy, your favorite director is famous for aestheticizing violence. You've seen and loved shit like Scanners and Reanimator. But fucking Teeth gave you the heeby-jeebies?!

Anyway, horrifying that this has made it to tiktok of all places. The horror thesis isn't available online anywhere, and when I was looking for the file to maybe just upload it and post the link, I discovered I apparently no longer have the file?! My laptop crashed in 2012 and I lost a ton of stuff, so that was probably among the casualties. But! I have the nice copy my school printed for my thesis advisors to read and sign!

So on my lunch break I typed up the part of the film synopsis that had my all-male thesis panel professing they were afraid to go near their own wives for seven business days, just for you (and all the other people who've asked, lol). Enjoy!

(Content Warnings: Discussions of the plot of the film Teeth below the cut, including descriptions of rape, sexual assault, and genital mutilation.)

Teeth is about Dawn O'Keefe, a teenage girl who spends her free time advocating for abstinence until marriage. She is an all-around good girl with a close relationship with her mother and stepfather, a dedication to maintaining her sexual purity, and an automatic avoidance of her raunchy bad-boy stepbrother, who is secretly obsessed with her.

Dawn's trouble begins when she develops a crush on one of the boys in her abstinence group at school, and the two meet in a secluded area to go swimming. He attempts to convince her to sleep with him, resorting to force when she tries to refuse. Unfortunately for him and unknown to her, Dawn has what is known as vagina dentata--teeth inside her vagina. This mutation comes to Dawn's rescue by castrating her would-be rapist. Terrified and devastated, Dawn flees the scene, leaving her attacker there.

What follows is a vicious cycle of fear, trust, betrayal, and more fear as Dawn attempts to cope with her body's strange capability. At first attempting to go to a gynecologist for help, she accidentally bites off his fingers when he attempts to take advantage of her on the examination table. More afraid than ever, Dawn must do her own research to discover what is going on with her body's unique adaptations.

[frazzledsoul]

So years before Kathleen Wilhoite played an irresponsible, substance-abusing hippie chick with a codependent relationship with her sibling who never should have been trusted with a child on Gilmore Girls she played an irresponsible, substance-abusing hippie chick with a codependent relationship with her sibling who never should have been trusted with a child on ER.

Exact same character but with a grittier and more frustrating character arc. It culminates in AU Liz bringing her six year old to a crack house (where she is promptly kidnapped) and then being shuttled off to rehab once the kid is rescued, at which point the show forgets about her.

Anyway, before all of that this is Chloe Lewis (AU Liz)'s birth scene. The episode was directed by Quentin Tarantino and aired in 1995. It's actually one of my favorite TV episodes, ever, and one of my favorite TV scenes as well.

I'm pretty sure something like this went down when Jess Mariano was born.

[cannolli1]

Django Unchained (2012)

Django Unchained is one of those rare perfect movies. In my opinion it is director Quentin Tarantino's best work. Everything in the movie works together in harmony the soundtrack, writing, acting, cinematography and pacing are all expertly done. I should say that this was the first Tarantino film that I ever watched in about 2014 and it had a profound effect on my taste in films. It is entirely responsible for my love of Westerns and exposing me to the masterpieces of Sergio Leone. I will be getting into light spoilers for this film.

One of the standout parts of the film is the acting. Jamie Foxx is excellently cast as Django. The arc that he goes through is incredibly gratifying and the final scene never fails to leave me with a big smile on my face. Foxx's performance is fantastic, but my personal favorite part of the film has to be, Christoph Waltz's supporting character, King Schultz. In fact, I think his performance transcends this film and is one of my favorite film characters of all time. His mannerisms are what really draw me to his character. The subtly present in all of the performances is what makes the acting standout. In one of the most impactful scenes of the film. Brunhilde(Kerry Washington) is laying on a bed with her back toward the door and a figure approaches. She is mortally terrified, but the audience knows that this is unfounded, but her acting sells this perfect ironic moment.

The technical aspects of this film are excellent. The movement of the camera is spectacular and one of my favorite bits of camerawork, by Robert Richardson, are the snap zoom-ins and zoom-outs that are peppered throughout the film. The slight corniness of the shot just really speaks to me. Richardson also knows when to keep the camera still and during the moments of tension the camera moves very little and moves the viewer towards the edge of their seat. The editing in this film, by Fred Raskin, is just as good as the camera work. The film is tightly edited. The montages move the film along while during the moments of tension the editing slows down so the audience can really revel in the atmosphere of the scene.

The writing in this film is fantastic. There are so many things that brought up earlier in the film that pay off by the end. In my opinion, that is the sign of a great film, but also of a writer. Meaningful callbacks reward the viewer for paying attention and I feel that it doesn't happen enough in cinema. The film is set in the pre-Civil War South and it uses this setting to its fullest. The film is about a freed slave, Django, who sets out to rescue his wife from a Mississippi plantation. The film does not make light of slavery it shows just how disgusting and reprehensible it was. In a way the film shows how pathetic racism and slavery was by its use of violence. Much like Tarantino's other films there is a lot of blood and violence. The violence here is used in two ways. The first way is to show the horrors of slavery. In one scene there is a death match between two slaves that is incredible violent and incredibly uncomfortable. The second way is for a sort of cathartic release. The climax of the movie when Django is unchained and just kills all these slavers, the audience is awash with catharsis. Seeing blood burst out of these evil people is the perfect revenge.

Before I get into the conclusion I just want to gush about the soundtrack really quickly. The score is made up of recent pop songs, new compositions , and appropriated tracks from spaghetti westerns. All of these fit the film amazingly, but the appropriation of music from other westerns feels so natural. I cannot imagine this film without them. From the title track ripped straight from the original Django film, to the end credits theme (my personal favorite), all of these songs are hand picked to compliment the mood of each scene.

Upon re-watching this film it's been elevated to one of the few films that I would consider perfect. The journey that this film takes you on is unlike anything that I've encountered in another movie so far. I would absolutely recommend this film to any and everyone. I acknowledge that this film isn't for everyone. The violence and subject matter may be a bit much for some. To those that can tolerate geysers of blood and uncomfortable subject matters I say give it ago. If you haven't watched this film already then what are you doing with your time. WATCH IT NOW!!

Edit: I realized I forgot to talk about the music so I had to add a section for it.

[alexstudyjapanese]

Sukiyaki Western Django

The opening scene really set the tone for what the rest of this movie would be. Everyone dressed like cowboys, speaking in a prophet-like manner until everything explodes into violence, blood splattering against the vibrant backdrop. Also Quentin Tarantino is the main guy in this scene? I’ve watched Django: Unchained before coming into this movie so I was expecting some sort of connection or influence, but to have Tarantino appear as an actor was hilarious to me.

To be honest, I didn’t quite follow the plot of this film closely. A lone gunman comes into a town with a long-standing conflict. Luckily for me, it wasn’t hard to discern between characters in this conflict, as one gang is dressed in all white, and the other side is splattered in red. This is just one of the many over-the-top choices in this movie that makes it a fun, extravagant watch. A lone gunman pulls up into the town and decides to search for money.

A lot of violence ensues, it’s level ranging from somewhat grounded to absolutely batshit crazy. In any given battle scene, gatling guns may show up, something is bound to explode dramatically, and certain characters are given character introduction cards like they’re in a fighting video game. Blood is bright and abundant, but there’s also more serene shots that are either character-driven or peaceful shots of nature. The final battle scene features a sword vs. gun. In classic don’t bring a sword to a gun fight fashion, the swordsman is shot point blank in the face, but only after slicing a bullet with his blade.

One of my favorite scenes which highlights how strange this film is begins with a quitter moment. A wheelchair-ridden Emperor Palpatine lookalike who describes himself as an “anime otaku” speaks to another character in which he tries to pass on a message. The scene immediately cuts to a building exploding with some cowboys trying to calm the scene, to a woman shouting in the mountains, to one of the characters involved in an earlier conflict being treated for his injuries in the woods. There’s no predicting what will come in the next shot, making this film a ride from start to finish.

The funniest thing about this film was that the cast, other than Quentin Tarantino, is practically completely Japanese actors doing their best to speak English. Even the director, according to the internet, didn’t speak English, so I just wonder how this was done on set. I mean, I couldn’t imagine how difficult yet entertaining it would be to work on a project like this done in Japanese with only a few people who are truly fluent in the language. Overall, this was definitely a film I’m going to remember, but probably not much more than as the over-the-top Japanese Western filmed in English.

[lumber]

❤️🎂🎈🎁💕 Happy belated Birthday goes out to director Quentin Tarantino. Here's an #AlanMooreVember piece I did a while back that celebrates one of my favorite scenes in Quentin's Reservoir Dogs. My #ArtOf AlanMooreVember #ArtBook is coming soon from #ExperimentalComics/@exptlcomics! 🔥🔥🔥 Swipe thru for a fun, lil' detailed close-up view! 👀

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❤️👂🏼💕 "#StuckInTheMiddleWithYou" #AlanMooreVember2021 Day 25: #InPictopia! #AlanMoore #DonSimpson @donaldsimpson1713 #MikeKazaleh #PetePoplaski #JeauxJanovsky #JeauxJanovskyArt #JeauxJ #Fantagraphics #MashUp #QuentinTarantino #ReservoirDogs #MrBlonde #EarCuttingScene #MichaelMadsen #MTVAnimation #BeavisAndButthead #MikeJudge #Disney #Goofy #Cartoons #Animation #Comics

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Inspired by @nickchargeart's Reservoir Dogs #PosterArt.

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

Revenge of the Creature | 1955

[hungry-hobbits-art]

march madsen day 31 - the man himself

my plans to watch his recently made documentary got foiled by the fact that it's apparently not available anywhere so i chose one of my favorite pictures of him to redraw. with this - march madsen is over, but i'd like to leave it with a very sappy note:

I started watching Michael Madsen movies during the middle of the pandemic that first year - it started with my first real deep dive into Quentin Tarantino's filmography with my best friend, and in a time of uncertainty and fear it was a comfort and a newfound joy. Michael Madsen first truly grabbed my attention in The Hateful 8, and after that I was hooked.

Michael Madsen is a prolific actor and creator with a career that spans decades; he has over 300 movies (and counting) to his name, a long list of voice acting work, and a great deal of poetry as well. He is unabashedly outspoken about things he is passionate about, such as Hollywood's treatment of people, especially women. He's also had a lot of hardships and follies in his life that have shaped him into the actor he is today.

I have a lot to say about him as an actor - he has a one of a kind voice that can range from shockingly gentle to fearsome and intimidating. He has a unique way of speaking and line delivery. His hands are just as much of a character as he is. He really knows how to get noticed in a scene. His roles, not matter how small, are memorable, and his deaths are as heartbreaking as they are numerous (seriously he is always dying in his movies).

There's a few big titles and memorable roles on my list, like Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill, and The Hateful 8, and there are a lot of which I purposely left out like Thelma & Louis or Donnie Brasco. I did that because I wanted to check out his other work too, the less notable works. These movies aren't popular, and in some cases they aren't even well done, sometimes they're just excuses for him to cut a check (which I can respect). Even if they aren't very good you can see in a lot of them just how much fun he's having. If I decide to do a March Madsen 2, I think I will focus on his more prolific roles and older films in his filmography.

To keep this short, I'll say this: To Michael Madsen (on the off chance he ever sees this), thank you. Thank you for over four decades of creation. I hope we keep seeing more of you.

[generic-whumperz]

What was your whump awakening?

Oh fuck where do I begin? 😅

Honestly, it’s hard to say since I don’t think I ever had a definitive moment, but more so a culmination of things. So here’s a list of my earliest memories of getting whumperflies in no particular order:

Around Christmas time I remember watching those stop-clay animation movies like Rudolph and Santa Clause is Comin’ to Town on VHS tapes. I remember seeing a Passion of The Christ preview before the movie started, and I remember being absolutely transfixed by bloody Jesus in the trailer and turning to my mom and saying “I want to watch that!” I did not come from a religious household nor was that age-appropriate for 5 years old me, so my mom was like “wtf, absolutely not!” Only recently did I unlock this memory when my partner showed me the Passion of Christ whipping scene- a snippet he promptly pulled up on YouTube once I told him that I was into this whump stuff.

In 4-5th grade I was REALLY into A Series of Unfortunate Events and read all the books. I now know that was a telltale sign of being a whumper.

My dad let me and my younger brother watch rated-R movies (as long as they weren’t R because of sexual stuff). So I was watching Terminator, Rambo, Predator, Saving Private Ryan, Mad Max Thunderdome, Braveheart, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original version), Jeepers Creepers, etc. before I probably should have been?

Scooby Doo was my FAVORITE cartoon as a kid.

Um, Courage the Cowardly Dog!

Goonies & Stand By Me were childhood staples.

Monster House had be in an absolute chokehold.

Was literally obsessed with Indiana Jones and wanted to be a Nazi-fighting archaeologist.

Became a Hannibal Lector stan at the tender age of 12.

Was very into Hunger Games.

BRAM STROKER’S DRACULA & From Dusk Till Dawn really did something to me.

I became a diehard Quentin Tarantino fan at 11.

That was more than I expected to dump, but I think that was all the formative stuff from ages 5ish-13!

[seriousfic]

Recently read through the various drafts of the as-yet-unproduced Sgt. Rock adaptation. Since the movie’s been a would-be blockbuster since the days of Arnold Schwarzenegger, it’s a pretty fascinating journey through the idea of what a blockbuster even is, as communicated through expectations over the decades. Even now, Rock is still supposedly being worked on...

The starting point, as near as I can tell, is by David Webb Peoples, the writer of Blade Runner, who wrote the first draft in 1987 (it was almost directed by Quentin Tarantino). Notable plot points include a cook being mistaken for a general, a soldier’s erotic dreams about his wife, and a squad of black soldiers who function as the Heroes of Another Story.

Throughout the 90s, other drafts wrangle the story. Manly man’s man John Milius in 1993 essentially writes a war movie that happens to have Sgt. Rock (here depicted as suffering from PTSD) in it. It’s historical fiction centering around the real-life Battle of Monte Cassino, but it still includes the above plot points. Milius also introduces a few survivors from a slaughtered Japanese-American unit; they seem to be localized to this draft.

The squad of black soldiers sometimes shrink down to a few characters who join up with Easy Company, who are also sometimes accompanied by the cook/general and sometimes by a female guerrilla fighter (who also has a cute kid sidekick). There’s sometimes one ‘super-Nazi’ villain out to personally get Rock, while sometimes the enemies are just a bunch of stormtroopers.

In 2007, the scripting starts over from scratch with a script by John Cox, albeit with many of the above plot points still making it in--I think they’re favorites of Joel Silver or some other executive behind the scenes. This script adds a metafictional angle, with a reporter trying to get the ‘real story’ behind the famed in-universe Sgt. Rock. There is, once again, a female guerrilla fighter and survivors of a black Army unit that link up with Easy Company.

However, one thing you notice very quickly is that while the 90s incarnations of the would-be movie are gritty, R-rated things... with easily a dozen characters who are killed off in droves... the 2000s version is more... PG. There are only six soldiers under Rock’s command, one of whom died tragically to motivate the rest.

The scripting has also taken a turn into ‘Weird War’ comic book stakes. The Nazis have access to radioactive super-bombers (four years before the first Captain America movie), train-mounted super-cannons, hovercrafts, and so on, while action scenes take place on speeding trains, in top-secret mountain lairs, and onboard aforementioned super-bomber.

Guy Ritchie writes the next draft in 2008, chopping the page count down and generally seeming barely literate (maybe it was a rushjob). Here, Rock is a cynical, Han Solo type who is intent on enjoying a ‘vacation week’ with his men instead of fighting. That one tragic death scene is taken out; now Easy Company consists of five soldiers from the get-go and all of them make it through the story. And a lot of queerbaiting/gay jokes are thrown in: Rock bickers like an old married couple with his 2IC, who is introduced wearing an apron. And the “soldier having wet dreams” subplot from way up in the second paragraph now features the dreaming soldier dry-humping another soldier.

It’s overall a lot more childish and PG-13 people-pleasing than before. Rock does a pratfall through a skylight and, at another point, fights a huge Nazi train conductor in a one-on-one fistfight. Basically, Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes movies, but set during WW2.

At last notice, the WW2 setting had been abandoned completely, replaced with a futuristic war. Yeah, with lasers and aliens and robots and shit. I can’t imagine why that would strike anyone as a good idea, since Sgt. Rock is *the* iconic WW2 character and who doesn’t like seeing a bunch of Nazis getting their asses kicked? Maybe they got tired of coming up with excuses for involving women and minorities in the action and decided to set it in 2050 so it could be as diverse as they wanted.

[kevinsreviewcatalogue]

Review Double Feature: Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)

 Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)

Rated R for strong bloody violence, language and some sexual content (Volume 1)

Rated R for violence, language and brief drug use (Volume 2)

<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2023/06/review-double-feature-kill-bill-volume.html>

Score: 5 out of 5

There's really no way to talk about Kill Bill as two separate movies. The two volumes are two halves of one story, that story was originally planned and filmed as one movie before it was split in two (which meant that no scenes had to be cut), Quentin Tarantino has screened the original, four-hour cut as one movie titled Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, and a few weeks ago, Popcorn Frights screened the two volumes back-to-back, treating them as a single movie for all intents and purposes with the time between the two volumes used as an intermission. If you're gonna talk about 'em, you may as well talk about 'em as one big movie, arguably Tarantino's magnum opus in terms of just going wild with every cool idea he's had in his career and making what would be, to a '90s film geek raised on '70s kung fu flicks, grindhouse sleaze, and the aisles of the video store he once worked at, the ultimate action movie: an explosion of gorgeous women in leather outfits, razor-sharp samurai swords, East Asian martial arts, neo-Western atmosphere, cameos from '70s legends, an out-there crime thriller plot and universe that feels like John Wick more than a decade before John Wick, and a flurry of sweet, sweet bloody action sequences.

(And feet, because Tarantino.)

It's a big, sprawling epic rooted less in the gritty realism of "serious" crime movies than in the gonzo, go-for-broke mayhem of Hong Kong action cinema, only here with a much bigger budget than any Shaw Brothers flick ever had. It's obvious just from the runtime why they split this movie in half for its theatrical release, but watching the two halves together, it still felt perfectly paced, with an immediately iconic heroine, a slew of creative scumbags for her to cut through, and a second half whose slower pace felt like exactly the downshift the film needed as I got back in my seat to start my third hour in the theater. The locations, spanning the world from Texas to California to Japan to China to Mexico, felt exotic without feeling exoticized, the action scenes were outstanding, Tarantino's dark humor did a lot to get me in the mood for more, and while the story wasn't particularly deep, it was still a very well-told to some of Tarantino's favorite movies. The John Wick comparisons may be unavoidable watching it today, but if I had to decide between them, I'd say that, while those films have the better action scenes, this one offers the superior story and the better all-around package. The fact that I hesitate to call it Tarantino's best comes down less to any faults it might have and more to Tarantino's high standard of quality throughout his career, as this is still a classic.

The plot is surprisingly simple for a movie that takes two movies to tell it. Four years ago, Beatrix Kiddo was a highly skilled member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, a team of assassins feared throughout the criminal underworld... until, upon finding she was pregnant, she decided to retire and settle down with her fiancé. Bill, the leader of the DVAS, responds by showing up at her wedding with her former co-workers -- the Japanese yakuza boss O-Ren Ishii, the murderous housewife Vernita Green, Bill's brother Budd, and the one-eyed Elle Driver -- in tow to make it clear to her that there's only one way out of this business, and that's the grave. Everybody at the wedding is killed with the exception of the Bride herself, who survived her injuries but spent four years in a coma, during which time she lost her baby. When she wakes up, she gets right back to work, this time aiming at taking out the rest of the DVAS who destroyed her one chance at a normal life, concluding with Bill himself.

Standing proudly at the center of this movie is Uma Thurman as Beatrix. Thurman is playing a simple character motivated by revenge and loss, but she makes her immediately compelling, a crafty, snarky, and creative badass who manages to feel intimidating even when she's laying in a pool of her own blood looking up at the man who's about to finish her off with a headshot, or trying to get her legs working again after four years in a hospital bed. She doesn't just look the part of a hot babe with a sword, she put in the work to convince me that she really could use that sword to slice my head in two. This is a role that, had it not been for an injury she suffered on set thanks to Tarantino's carelessness, likely would've given Thurman the career second wind as an action hero that Charlize Theron has enjoyed more recently. It's not all action, though, and while Thurman is tough as hell, she also does great work showing how Beatrix mined that toughness out of her losses and vulnerability. I bought how pissed she was at losing her daughter, and her determination to go through her training in a flashback at the hands of a strict martial arts master (played by Gordon Liu) who routinely dismissed and insulted her for her race and gender. She may have been a professional killer, but in various moments, she's not completely comfortable with doing it, between her decision to retire in the first place when she got pregnant and the fact that she knows her revenge mission means killing several people she once considered close friends. She often puts on the image of an airheaded blonde ditz for people who don't realize why she's actually there. Between Tarantino's writing and Thurman's performance, Beatrix sprung to life as one of the most awesome action heroes I've ever seen on film, somebody who did not feel invincible (especially whenever guns came into play) but otherwise felt not only tough as nails but also deep, fleshed-out, and fully understandable in her motives, with a lot of layers beneath a simple exterior.

The rogues' gallery of bad guys she slices through with her Hattori Hanzo katana were also creative and larger-than-life while still feeling grounded within this film's sense of logic. Lucy Liu's O-Ren could flip from congenial to terrifying, her sympathetic backstory paired with an absolute ruthlessness that lets you know right away how a woman of mixed Japanese-American and Chinese heritage managed to take control of a patriarchal, ethnically chauvinist criminal organization (as one poor fucker finds out the hard way). I could've easily seen her as the main character of her own movie with how much she figures into the film's first volume. Vivica A. Fox's Vernita gets the least screen time out of all of them and exists mostly to be the Bride's opening victim (second chronologically, but placed at the start of the first volume), but in her brief time on screen, she's a compelling presence as a soccer mom who wants to put her criminal past behind her -- and sets up a tantalizing idea for a sequel, if Tarantino ever makes one. Daryl Hannah's Elle is characterized as an evil version of Beatrix, albeit one who still has her own sense of honor, hence why she didn't finish Beatrix off when she was in her coma. Michael Madsen's Budd is the lone man among the DVAS barring Bill himself, framed as a redneck living in a trailer in the desert who, despite his slovenly appearance and lifestyle, shows Beatrix the hard way why he should never be underestimated. Finally, David Carradine's Bill, the Charlie to these fallen Angels, spends most of the film looming over it like an ominous presence, shown only in a few flashbacks until Beatrix finally arrives at his mansion, yet he earns his status as the film's big bad.

Between them, they gave the film a particular kind of retro '70s atmosphere where it was clear that it was shot in the early 2000s, but nevertheless felt like the kind of thing an exploitation filmmaker from back in the day might've made with access to $60 million and all the Hollywood production values that money could buy. The overwhelmingly female nature of the DVAS, their one male member being their boss' brother, felt evocative of old chicksploitation flicks and shows about beautiful young women kicking ass and taking names (you think my Charlie's Angels reference up there was just random?), like Tarantino finally got to make the film adaptation of Fox Force Five, the failed TV pilot that Thurman's character in Pulp Fiction starred in. Its portrayal of East Asia is a love letter to Japanese and Hong Kong action films of that period, from to the presence of Sonny Chiba and Gordon Liu as key players in Beatrix's journey to a flashback to her training that's shot like an old Shaw Brothers movie (complete with film grain). The famous "Kill Bill siren" (lifted from the theme to the '60s/'70s cop show Ironside) may have become an overused meme in the twenty years since this movie came out, but there's a reason why it's so iconic, and it's just one of many great musical cues on this film's soundtrack.

Splitting the movie in half also gave Tarantino room to spend each volume tackling a different genre, in a way that still felt cohesive. The first half is a more straightforwardly action-packed martial arts movie, its big action set piece in a Japanese nightclub where Beatrix singlehandedly takes on the Crazy 88, O-Ren's army of goons, not only standing as one of the best and most stylish action sequences of its kind but also firmly establishing precisely why you do not fuck with Beatrix. Make no mistake, for all that Tarantino is known for his dialogue, he's also a legitimately good action filmmaker on top of it. The second half, meanwhile, feels like a more contemplative neo-Western thriller as Beatrix slows down, takes stock of her remaining mission, and starts to encounter serious and tricky opposition that she can't just cut through so easily. It was a shift in tone that served the film well, whether you're watching it as two separate parts or watching it as one movie, as by the halfway mark you're probably in the same position that Beatrix is in, increasingly weathered after the big burst of energy in the first half. This movie is still committed to Beatrix's journey, as evidenced in her battles with Budd, Elle Driver, and finally Bill himself, but it's taking its time now to flesh out its world and give the viewer some room to breathe. I felt like I was with Beatrix every step of the way, all the way up to a satisfying finale.

The Bottom Line

In any other filmmaker's filmography, Kill Bill would be their pinnacle. It ain't a very deep movie, but it sets out on a mission to deliver four hours of throwback martial arts spectacle, and it succeeds with flying colors. Even people who aren't fans of Tarantino can probably enjoy this two-parter simply as one of the finest action spectacles of the 21st century.