Movies: Tarantino

The unsavory epithet "kitsch" came to mind during the first twenty minutes of Death Proof and it got me to thinking about Tarantino's latest efforts. He may have been the most revered director of the nineties, but the movie world has moved on and it seems Quentin doesn't seem interested in keeping up with it.

I don't mean to say that a director should latch onto trends and mold his style around them, but it's almost as if he's making films for his own benefit at this point. If Kill Bill was supposed to be his magnum opus at that point in his career it falls flat on it's face on a second viewing. It hasn't aged very well in six years, and in retrospect it's a cluster-fuck of references and borrowed stories that all come together to make, well that's just it - what is it? The thick layer of style and cool seem like they are there to distract us from the fact that nothing interesting is going on. Adding to his failure is the fact that he clearly doesn't know when to stay out of his own films. His brief appearance in Deathproof is awkward at best and brings into question whether the director has a clear understanding of how he's percieved on screen. Which to me, is a clear indication he's losing it.

Most of my generation ended up in film school because of this man. That's speculation, not fact, but it really makes me wonder how well the rest of his ouvre has aged. Maybe calling him a rennasaince man was premature, because I can't forsee him making any more valuable contributions in the future. Because they way I see it, he's never going to get tired of himself even if the rest of the world does.

Anyway, by way of making a thesis statement here, I just think a man that clearly has this much talent should be able to offer something better than an empty homage.