Tarantino's Favorite Movies of 2011

The Three Musketeers is a baroque, high-camp fantasy. Immense, ridiculous, terrible. Funniest film of last year and cult classic in waiting. So glad it made it on someones best of list.

As someone pointed out on my Facebook feed, Three Musketeers also stars Cristoph Waltz.

In terms of musketeers movies that came out this year... QT has to be talking about this one.

I fucking watched that one when it was on SyFy. I can't quite explain my complete befuddlery of it.

His favorites/least favorites are always surprising. The dude has weird taste. Like, the kind of weird taste that if it was just a buddy or some guy at your work you'd call it shitty or at least super questionable. But then Tarantino goes and makes the movies he does, and that (I guess unfairly) gives him a pass. Plus you gotta respect him for publicly sticking to his idiosyncratic guns, especially when so many critics' best of lists - even when you agree with them - are basically the same 10 or 20 movies.

Well, I think the reason he gets a pass is not just because he makes great movies.  It's because he makes great movies that clearly come from that same unusual sensibility that celebrates "high" and "low"  (really hate those terms) culture equally.

I remember on the special features on the Clerks 2 DVD, one of the first people Smith screened that film for was Tarantino.  I assume they're somewhat friendly.

I understand different strokes for different folks and all, but the inclusion of DRIVE in the "nice try" category reeks of professional jealousy.

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Originally Posted by Bailey 

Well, I think the reason he gets a pass is not just because he makes great movies.  It's because he makes great movies that clearly come from that same unusual sensibility that celebrates "high" and "low"  (really hate those terms) culture equally.

Yeah, people with skewed tastes are often that way because they have a certain way of looking at things, and are maybe looking for and responding to different things in movies than your average person. But there's nothing wrong with that. I don't think it's just Tarantino who gets a pass for that kind of thing, most of my favourite critics have an at least slightly unusual worldview and react to things in unusual ways, but that's what makes them interesting.

One thing I've always hated is when people write off unusual opinions as trolling or provocation, or just as being outright wrong. I'd rather see an unusual opinion from someone who can articulate it than another person toeing the critical party line.

Excellent choice for #1, can't complain.  I think it's the first Woody Allen film I've watched in a decade, and besides the quality of the acting involved by everyone, it was even more enjoyable due to the fact that I'd visited Paris for the first time beforehand

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sebastian OB 

I understand different strokes for different folks and all, but the inclusion of DRIVE in the "nice try" category reeks of professional jealousy.

I won't say all that, but declaring something like DRIVE a "nice try", does strike me as rather cunty. 

No love for "Shame," QT?

Yeah, Drive and Hanna being 'Nice Trys' while Green Lantern is under 'Others Considered' is the biggest WTF for me.

Maybe OTHERS CONSIDERED is literally just that: movies that QT simply thought about while making his list.  Hahahahaha

Pretty ballsy for a filmmaker to make a Worst Films list. Particularly considering some of the names on there - Kelly Reichardt? Ozon? James Wan? Some interesting names to slag. Would love to read QT's full rationale.

The "worst films" bit seems to have been removed from the original link. Maybe he had second thoughts.

The love for Midnight in Paris seriously puzzles me. Not just with Tarantino, but in general. I mean, it's good, and I liked it -- but it is very slight, slighter than Vicki Cristina Barcelona even (which was a far better film), and is very much a stock Woody Allen movie. He's not pushing himself like you would expect from such a championed film, or even doing what he usually does in a particularly commendable or interesting way. Perhaps it resonates more with people who suffer from nostalgia-fever -- and also with people who think the movie is literary because it features Fitzgerald and Hemingway in minor roles, talking about "what art should be."

But yes -- this is a typically weird list from Tarantino. It reads way more like a favorites list than one tempered with any attempt to objectively judge which films comprise the most impressive artistic achievements of the year (tempered is the key word there, since yeah, it's impossible to actually judge such a thing objectively). Like, Planet of the Apes at #2? That's craziness. On repeat viewings the movie turns out mediocre at best. And putting stuff like Moneyball and Red State on there stinks of nepotism. At least his list for 2010 actually made some sense.

Nothing to be puzzled about, Midnight is an amazing movie. Beautifully directed and performed not to mention featuring possibly the best screenplay of the year. It and Drive are neck and neck for my favourite of the year.

I'll second that love for MIDNIGHT.  Slight?  Yes, I suppose, although its romantic tone is very much what the material needed to work.  But the script and performances were across-the-board terrific for me, which I can't say for too many movies from 2011.  I'll take a supposedly "slight" movie where genuine passion and a love of its subject matter permeates every frame.

I don't find your opinion incomprehensible, though.  You hear the "But he's not pushing himself!" and "But it's so slight!" criticisms all of the time.  Well, what isn't slight about the movie is what enraptured me the most -- its thick appreciation for its geography, a keen, almost effortless understanding of the dynamics between its characters, etc -- but if that's still "slight", well, I suppose we won't understand each other regardless.

Yeah, it's cool with me that you guys liked it -- it's definitely a good movie, and 2011 could do a lot worse if it's going to be recognized as one of the best. I think thematically it's pretty coherent, but it never goes as deep into those issues of "venerating the past" and such as I would expect from a truly brilliant film, and I find the Lost Generation cameos pretty gimmicky.

But I will say -- when people connect to an Allen film, they really do connect. His movies have a way of striking a chord with people that can sometimes make them intensely personal; perhaps I can file this one as an Allen movie that just didn't resonate with me specifically.

Midnight In Paris is so good, I don't even mind that Owen Wilson is in it.

Lost me on Drive, but pulled me back in by putting the boots to Sucker Punch!

I don't know if I would call Midnight in Paris "slight". I did originally characterize the film as such after first viewing, but I think the themes of love, happiness, nostalgia, and art are very powerful. Just because there are no life or death stakes in the film doesn't diminish its importance, in my opinion. I can see how some would feel otherwise, but personally I found myself very moved by it. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by JMulder 

Yeah, it's cool with me that you guys liked it -- it's definitely a good movie, and 2011 could do a lot worse if it's going to be recognized as one of the best. I think thematically it's pretty coherent, but it never goes as deep into those issues of "venerating the past" and such as I would expect from a truly brilliant film, and I find the Lost Generation cameos pretty gimmicky.

 

But I will say -- when people connect to an Allen film, they really do connect. His movies have a way of striking a chord with people that can sometimes make them intensely personal; perhaps I can file this one as an Allen movie that just didn't resonate with me specifically.

It's funny, because I think the most gimmicky part of the cameos was my favorite.  I was wondering if he would resist the urge to have Gil comment to them about their future work, which just seems like some Robert Zemeckis shit, but I have to admit Bunuel not understanding the premise of The Exterminating Angel was a pretty inspired gag.  Also, when Adrien Brody did that crazy Dali eye thing, holy shit was that uncanny.

I thought it was pretty damn minor, myself.  But effortlessly charming.

The RED STATE love/SUCKER PUNCH hate seems strange, as both are trying to say something profound but both fall apart thanks to their director's limitations. They're very similar - to praise one and damn the other is weird. But then, RED STATE is directed by one of his best friends and stars one of his pet project actors, so there ya go.

Rhinoceros.

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Originally Posted by Andrew Merriweather 

The RED STATE love/SUCKER PUNCH hate seems strange, as both are trying to say something profound but both fall apart thanks to their director's limitations. They're very similar - to praise one and damn the other is weird. But then, RED STATE is directed by one of his best friends and stars one of his pet project actors, so there ya go.

I didn't notice because I don't share the fetish, but if Sucker Punch had had more shots of the girls' bare feet he would've been all over it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sebastian OB 

I understand different strokes for different folks and all, but the inclusion of DRIVE in the "nice try" category reeks of professional jealousy.

Jealousy?  Naw, I agree with him. Are we seriously playing that "you're just jealous!" game if you don't like something?  And I really don't think he's being a smart ass with that list.  Drive was going for something very specific and didn't quite get there, doesn't make it a bad film, just a nice try.  I went into the same thing when I reviewed the film in post release, *so QT and I see eye to eye on this.

*what a weird sentence!

I have to agree with Tarantino about GREEN LANTERN. And the film's reputation will improve with time.

Nah, Sebastian's right. While Tarantino might not be "jealous" of Drive, the reason it's on that little list of "nice tries" is because Tarantino sees himself as some kind of arbiter of cool in cinema. He sees a movie that is cool as fuck, and is cool in a similar way to how his movies have tried to be cool (only, at least in my opinion, better), and he feels the need to establish a filmmaker's hierarchy over its makers. Putting Drive on that list is just a way of asserting his ego. And yeah, he's probably a little threatened.

I don't think QT sees himself as "arbiter of cool". He's just enthusiastic about proselytizing for the films he likes and -like most geeks- has strong opinions about films he doesn't care for or that don't work for him.

Okay, but why "nice try"? This isn't a situation where the movie didn't just "not work" for him. The fact that he has this list of "nice tries," films that aren't "good" or "bad" or "his favorite," implies that he sees something in the movies that could've been done a lot better -- that is, he sees "potential" in it. He's implying that he can see something in the premise and execution that the makers of the film weren't able to follow through on.

With something like Drive, which is obviously very good and the kind of thing that you would expect Tarantino, or at least people of his breed, to adulate, there is obviously something weird going on not because he didn't like it -- which would be fair, he would either put it on a "worst of the year" list or not mention it at all -- but because he felt the specific need to appreciate something about it but to say that it fell short. I think we can all agree that to do so is pretty odd, especially since the other films on his "nice try" list, like Hanna and Drive Angry, are similarly trying for the style-over-substance-to-the-point-where-it-becomes-substance-again thing like he always goes for (and fails at, in my view). It's not unreasonable to subscribe that oddness to professional jealousy -- in fact, it feels like one of, if not the definitive, logical rationales for it.

I love that he's got Drive and Drive Angry on the same list, since I prefer Drive Angry to Drive. He's saying, "Yeah, the artsy critics' darling that was incessantly compared to my stuff is on about the same level as the cheapjack 3D flick with Nicolas Cage."

On a related note, if Albert Brooks deserves Oscar consideration, so does William Fichtner, goddammit.

Also Drive Angry is obviously better because of that extra adjective, although it should actually be an adverb, i.e. Drive Angrily. Yes, it's snowing and I'm bored.