OFF: Tarantino

[Nick English]

> that he is good at it.  Second, as far as the bloodshed, I don't think his
> movies are necessarily more violent than others, or more bloody.  I think
> that it is the tone the movies take towards the violence: matter-of-fact,
> playful, funny.  Such a tone makes us experience violence in unexpected
> ways that make it "show up" for us in ways we are unaccustomed to,
> primarily because we have become so inured to it.  I think that Tarantino
> is to be applauded for this.

Again, I say he is in no way the first. To me, he's just the first
independent filmaker to pull in major mainstream success. Scores of
others, from Romero to Raimi, Abel Ferrera, Lloyd Kaufman, John
McNaughton, John Waters, Peter Jackson, John Woo -- probably scores of
others that I don't know enough about fringe cinema to name -- had
his spirit, and in some cases his style, long before he did. I think
that his popularity is simply one of those "right place, right time"
situations. The market was finally ready to handle this stuff on a
larger scale, and he was the best one out there at the time.

I'm not totally trying to diss Tarantino. I don't hate him or his
movies. I just think the hype is in some ways undeserved. His work,
IMO, doesn't break any new ground...other than the fact that it
played at your local shopping mall cinemaplex.

--  Nick