“I’m shutting your butt down.” Quentin Tarantino doesn’t need to justify himself to anyone – just ask Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy – so he’s not keen on turning up with the DVD goodies anymore. Like Elvis in True Romance, he just floats around the margins of your disc, leaving it to the rest of the cast and crew to fill the gap for him. This hasn’t always been the case though, and with the Django Unchained Blu-ray out next week, here’s the top 15 of his greatest DVD hits…
The Jackie Brown disc is filled with juicy stuff – a detailed Tarantino interview, a selection of blaxploitation-era Pam Grier trailers that put the tit into titillation – but the pick is the full-length version of the NRA’s favourite fake porn.
The chance to geek out over one of his favourite flicks proves irresistible for the prodigal fanboy (Switchblade Sisters is another beneficiary). On this Shaw Brothers kung fu classic from 1972, he immerses viewers in his knowledge of Hong Kong movies, acting as a virtual primer for Kill Bill.
If you’re brutally honest, compared to some of Tarantino’s other discs, the forthcoming Django Blu Ray is weaker than QT’s Australian accent. It does contain one touching highlight though: a tribute to the production designer Michael J Riva, with the crew resolving to go on with the show after his sudden, sad passing in the middle of making the movie.
“My best movie,” insists Goebbels of the latest to strut out of his propaganda studio, a biopic of super-sniper Fredrick Zoller – starring the man himself. The joke featurette sees the in-character Basterds cast send themselves up a treat, though the $5 milkshake goes to Eli Roth as the movie’s spectacularly creepy director Alois Von Eichberg – a man you suspect was a close, personal friend of Jimmy Savile.
Despite being his own best cheerleader, Tarantino refuses to wag his chin for his own movie’s DVDs. Judiciously pieced together with interviews from the cast and crew, this cobble-job is the nearest we’ve gotten to the real thing, with QT talking extensively about how he uses violence and how he tries to make the audience feel culpable: stick that up your shunt-pipe, Guru-Murthy.
Quentin Tarantino was such a big De Palma geek that he kept a scrapbook of his every interview, article and review. Back in late 1994, film journo Dave Thompson put them in the room together and recorded the result. Thompson came away with the transcript included in the forthcoming Blow Out booklet. Tarantino probably came away with a small doll made entirely out of De Palma’s belly button lint.
“This is Quentin The Writer taking care of Quentin The Actor,” laughs Robert Rodriguez as Selma Hayek’s liquor-slathered tootsies enter The Chin’s gape-hole. Filched from the original laserdisc (which you suspect QT would regard as the cooler retro vinyl to DVD’s CD), this chat track sees him banter his way through the movie and his performance with his future Grindhouse compadre.
He might be wearing a disastrous green Astro Boy tie but QT comes out of this interview looking pretty damn good. Tarantino walks Rose through his background, his approach to filmwriting and how he used to watch his idol Brian De Palma’s films: screening 1) alone on the first show, first day to take it in; screening 2) The midnight show the same day with a friend to work out how they made it.
Edgar Wright. Simon Pegg. Quentin Tarantino. You can’t go wrong there, can you? (See also Hot Fuzz)
“Hi Sally!” Having worked together since Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino repeatedly called his late editor Sally Menke his greatest collaborator. He’d sent his love back from set to Menke’s lonely editing suite in the form of messages he and his cast would add to the end of scenes once he’d call cut. An affectionate look inside a filmmaking family.
Bill kills! Two movies are devoted to his offing, but you barely get to see William live up to his double-hard vermin status. But glimpsed in the original trailer, cut from the movie and finally let loose on DVD is this showdown with Michael Jai White’s vengeance-seeking swordsman. As they swing sheathed samurai swords at each other, the composed Bill exposes just enough of his blade to empty White’s jugular of all that useless plasma.
Meet the Reservoir Puppy. Gearing up to direct Dogs, Tarantino managed to get into the Sundance Institute to pick up some tips from the likes of Monte Hellman and Terry Gilliam. Shot on video, a puppy-fattish QT acts out soon-to-be iconic scenes from the script with Steve Buscemi. A fascinating glimpse at Dogs in its embryonic state.
Prepare to be amazed at the only time Quentin Tarantino has ever admitted his script was wrong. Alright, he qualifies it. A lot. “I think Tony Scott’s ending is better for the movie Tony made,” he concurs as he talks over the more script-faithful ending, ditched in favour the more upbeat fairytale version. Tarantino’s whole True Romance chat track is a delight, explaining the personal nature of the movie and celebrating the (now) much-missed director: Revenge is indeed the bomb.
“This is a scene,” explains an on-set Tarantino, “where Vincent Vega, played by John Travolta, has to take out the big man’s wife…” It’s hard to imagine a time when someone would have to explain one of cinema’s most iconic scenes. As Travolta and Thurman jive and dive their way through the steps, you can see QT boogieing alongside them behind the camera. It's kind of adorable.
A great movie in its own right, FTB is the view from inside From Dusk Till Dawn’s filmmaking bubble – from union troubles to flirty parties to long boring days on set punctuated by a ‘Best Butt’ competition. Better yet, Sarah Kelly’s documentary opens with an amazing joke steadycam sequence of QT and George Clooney badassing their way to set, flipping off one male fan and – much more convincingly – sleazing up a female one.
No comments:
Post a Comment