I want to see Quentin Tarantino direct a mainstream movie.

 

QT did direct a GI Joe movie....

 

 

:)

So, I wish this really great director with a distinct touch would make a stupider movie that feels like the work of someone else?

Normally I'd totally agree with you, Gabe.  But this isn't like wishing Paul Thomas Anderson would make a Batman movie.  Tarantino even flirted with a standalone Bond film, if I recall.  Inasmuch as it's a discipline, and he's one of the premiere genre filmmakers out there, I'd like to see him try his hand at something a little more straightforward.  Obviously if he's got a shitload of more personal projects lined up, I'd rather have those first... but in an ideal world we could have both, right?

BTW, I think I remember arguing the exact opposite thing when this came up some years back.  So maybe I'm just in a weird mood.

I was somewhat pleased when Spike Lee did the straight up crime thriller Inside Man. So I feel where you are coming from here.

 

If Tarantino directed a movie that he didn't write, that could be really interesting.

How does one define a mainstream movie? Because I'd say the Kill Bills were pretty mainstream. Sure, they're smarter and wittier and have a lot more filmmaker's stylistic flourishes, but isn't that the sum of what you'd want him to add to a mainstream film? 

 

Unless we're talking about wanting him to make a franchise movie, in which case I couldn't disagree more. Something like a Captain America sequel seems like a waste of his time, especially when its an aesthetic already largely defined. Seeing Tarantino beholden to wider audience appeal doesn't hold much interest for me.

 

And beyond that, Tarantino has tons of mass appeal anyway. Every single one of his movies gets a major release and finds a big audience. The only one I can think of that really reeked of Indie was Death Proof. He's in rarefied air with people like Scorsese. The gen pop knows them, and their gift for storytelling is strong enough to have won over a fanbase of way more than the nerds. 

 

Nope, what I want to see is Lars Von Trier's Ghostbusters remake.

It's not about doing a franchise film.  Something where he'd be tasked to disappear into someone else's vision.

 

Yes, his films are mainstream in the sense that he's doing genre-work a lot of people find appealing.  But they're also tremendously stylized and specific.  I think it's just a curiosity about how he would approach something a little differently, be a bit of a chameleon; rather than a desire to make him generic.

I'd like to see him do another crime film personally, I watched a interview with him once where he said he'd like to do a melodrama or a romantic comedy sometime but he felt if he did a melodrama people would laugh at the bigness of the emotions and wouldn't take it seriously.

Doesn't he want to direct a James Bond movie? Now that would be good viewing.

Tarantino said he would never do a super hero movie, but he would rather create his own super hero character.  That would be interested.  Like Shyamalan and Unbreakable.

He's already a chameleon in that he has done several different genres and has kept his voice and his style clear. Unless you're wanting him to give up his voice and his style, in which case I'd ask what you're watching his films for. He's not some hired gun you can just anonymously assign and know he'll do a competent job and not get in the way of the franchise. That's what people like Joe Johnston and Martin Campbell are for. And since he crafts stories that have mainstream appeal, I still don't understand what it is you're wanting him to do.

 

And he has disappeared into someone else's vision. That was Jackie Brown.

 

See, now I want to see Wes Anderson do a Batman movie.

 

Like I already said, I argued the exact opposite position on this before.  I'm not watching Tarantino hoping he becomes less Tarantino-y in the future.  Speaking of Jackie Brown, I don't watch it and say it was his first "mature" film, like many others do.  I don't find myself longing for him to go back to a less stylized approach.  I love his specific voice.  And yet, I think his resume is better for having JB in it, because it feels slightly different.  Yes, he tackles different genres, but I wouldn't say that makes him a chameleon.  Not like, say, Soderbergh or Assayas can be.  There's a difference between becoming generic and taking varied approaches to different material.  Having said that, I actually prefer Tarantino to Soderbergh or Assayas (although Olivier is one of the most underrated filmmakers on the planet.) I'm just saying I'd be curious to see something different.  Not that I would rather have it than Django Unchained, which I am looking forward to more than I probably should.  But if I could have both, I'd be eager to see what he'd do.

Well, he did direct that 2 hour episode of CSI that time... And it looked and felt like a CSI episode, albeit with some added quirk. But I can't imagine ever wanting to see the cinematic equivalent of that when he could be making full-on Tarantino movies. That's just crazy talk.

 

The Batastic Mr Wayne?

 

Making an episode of a formulaic TV show, and taking a different approach to genre films are not the same.  If Tarantino was to try something different, he wouldn't automatically become a robot cookie cutter filmmaker churning out stuff that is indistinguishable from industry hacks.  There's a world of difference between those two things.  Are Neil Marshall, Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, and John McTiernan action movies all indistinguishable to you?

 

I certainly don't want Tarantino to stop making the films he wants to make.  I think we're* just saying if he had an inkling to do something different...  Even the Coen brothers, for my money the ultimate modern auteurs, have changed things up from the approach they took earlier in their careers, to the more economical No Country for Old Men, and True Grit.

 

 

*Or at least that's what I'm saying.  I know there is a rather large contingent of people out there who find Tarantino's ironic, films about films approach tedious, and wish he would just stop it and "mature."  Those people should just stop watching his movies.

 

 

The Bride wasn't super-heroic enough for you? 

Something depressing about how even the supposed hardcore cineastes of today apparently now want their favourite auteurs to make superhero dreck and franchise sequels based on toys.

 

Well, I don't. But don't you think it's possible that people would like superhero films that are more than dreck. I thought that was the appeal of the Nolan Batfilms.

 

(Author's note: I disagree with my own premise here.)

 Tarantino seems like one of only few filmmakers out there with the clout to do whatever he wants. There are less and less of those these days.

 

I want to see Phil Alden Robinson direct a mainstream movie. Tarantino should stay awesome forever.

 

I knew someone would say this.

 

The Bride's "powers" are merely a heightened form of martial arts.  What I (and probably Tarantino, since he mentioned a super hero film in the first place, meaning someone other than The Bride) meant, is powers that are more supernatural.  Flying, lifting heavy objects, telekinesis, etc.

 

If QT did a superhero film, it would be dreck?  

 

I think what people are wishing for is for QT to bring his specific voice to more traditional narrative genre fare, elevating it.  The old Saturday matinee serials are awful, but Spielberg and Lucas elevated that stuff to near art in Raiders, by bringing their A-game to B-level material.

I'm not averse to him making slightly more conventional genre fare (though I get the feeling it would just end up feel like slightly more upmarket Robert Rodriguez), it just depresses me that the two genres that people immediately think of when they thing 'commercial genre movie' are superheros and toy movies. I find it kind of ridiculous that superhero movies are even considered a 'genre'. I mean it's basically the same movie remade again and again with different costumes.

 

Not me.  I'd simply like to see QT make a conventional thriller but bring his unconventional voice to it.  

 

 

Batman, Daredevil, etc etc. 

 

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'd like to see him have a bit of a 'moonlighting Scorsese' period where we get QT's Color Of Money or Cape Fear.

Yeah, in the early 2000s when EON finally gained the rights to CASINO ROYALE he expressed his desire to take on the project, have it set in the 1970s while also being a direct sequel to ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE. Pierce Brosnan would be his Bond and Uma Thurman would be Vesper. He'd also have the film narrated with paragraphs taken directly from the novel. Basically it wouldn't be a James Bond film, it would be a Quentin Tarantino film adaptation of a Bond novel.