From watching every Tarantino movie available on Netflix, you'll learn a few things about his directorial styling. I really liked the non-sequential aspects of them. I was introduced to Tarantino's style of splitting movies into chapters or sections or parts by watching Pulp Fiction. I think my favorite element to Tarantino films (besides excessive blood and gore) are the parts that are split up and how they relate. The other main element to Tarantino films that I really love is that, when you watch enough of them, you realize how many actors Tarantino recasts in all his films. I noticed the British guy who was holding up the diner in Pulp Fiction in two other movies, but who knows if he was an extra in some other movies. The absolute best element of Tarantino movies, in my opinion, is the excessive gore and violence present in almost all of his movies; as Tarantino says himself, "violence is one of the most fun things to watch". It's so outrageous and incredible, it's fun to watch if you can handle it. The way to violence is handled within the scene is super interesting; a lot of the time when something super violent happens, or a main character dies it isn't really a big deal in the Tarantino universe. Everyone kind of just, moves on. It's really interesting because, usually, when a director goes through the struggle of having a huge fight scene with a bunch of gore it's meaningful, and while all of Tarantino's violent scenes are meaningful, they aren't necessarily special, since they happen so frequently.
Pulp Fiction was a very interesting movie. I've never seen anything like it. It certainly isn't my favorite Tarantino movie, but I totally understand why it's been so acclaimed. My favorite aspect of Pulp Fiction was the disconnectedness. I loved how all the storyline's were simultaneously disjointed both in time and storyline, but they also all have connections to each other. I thought Pulp Fiction was a really good introduction to Tarantino movies.
Django Unchained was the first recent Tarantino movie I've seen. I personally loved Django mostly because of all the familiar actors in unfamiliar roles. I really loved watching Kerry Washington, since the only other thing I've seen her in is her show Scandal, so I've obviously never seen Kerry Washington in any role like this. Leonardo DiCaprio was the most surprising in this movie. He has never played this straight up evil guy. The character he played in The Wolf of Wall Street wasn't exactly evil, just greedy and selfish. Calvin Candie (his character in Django) is straight up, full blown evil. Django is funny, it's sentimental, and it's probably my second favorite of the Tarantino movies I've seen.
Inglorious Bastards was easily my favorite of all the movies. While it was also split into sections, I do love me some World War II fiction films. I could listen to Brad Pitt's southern twangy accent for days. Christoph Waltz was terrifying, and every time he was on the screen you knew someone's secrets were gonna be figured out. Other than Waltz though, it wasn't a necessarily "scary" movie; it was actually pretty funny and fun to watch. Brad Pitt's Jewish militant group "The Bastards" were fun to watch. They would be scalping people and beating the shit out of Nazi's (or "nate-see" if you asked Brad Pitt) and you would find yourself smiling or laughing because in every scene they were in, they lightened up the mood, even in their super dark scenes. It was also one of the most violent movies of the bunch. There were two specific scenes that were actually too terrible for me to not cringe at; there was a choking scene which is pretty hard to watch, and the very final thing that happens in the movie is Brad Pitt carving a swastika into a Nazi's forehead, which you knew was happening the whole movie, but you never see it; in the final shot you see the total terribleness of Brad Pitt slowly carving the swastika and it's really, really hard to watch (although very satisfying). I think the contrast between the blatant violence, and how fun the characters were created this dark comedy tone within the movie, which is my favorite kind of tone.
Kill Bill Volume 1 was everything that I hoped for. Periodical crazy violence throughout the movie and then this incredible final slaughter scene. Now, that final scene wasn't even to kill Bill, so you would expect (at least I did) that the final fight between The Bride and Bill in Volume 2 would be epic! But it was very disappointing. In fact, after the awesomeness of Volume 1, basically all of Volume 2 was pretty disappointing.
Dusk Till Dawn was just weird. Quentin Tarantino is actually one of the main characters in this movie and I didn't like it. I really didn't like the character and I thought it was odd that it was Quentin Tarantino. Otherwise, the movie is about vampires. The movie goes too long without vampires, just to throw all the vampires right in your face in the last 45 minutes. The ending wasn't at all satisfying, but George Clooney has a tribal tattoo up his whole arm and onto his neck so some would say, me included, that makes up for it.
Reservoir Dogs was interesting because it was about a group of men who committed crimes together, however, we never get to see any of those crimes, only the aftermath of one that went very very wrong. I really liked the strategic background flashbacks of the Mr.'s, and I thought there were a lot of good plot twists; enough to keep it interesting. It certainly wasn't as hard to watch as Dusk Till Dawn, it was just kind of fun with a pretty cool ending, even though it was not as gory as I wanted it to be.
Now, Four Rooms reminded me of a Wes Anderson movie, it was just so odd. Tim Roth, from Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction (and probably some others), was the main character, and the strange thing is, in each of these movies he's played a completely different character. He's a twitchy bellhop in Four Rooms and it's a very weird role. It's called Four Rooms because the whole movie just documents his trips and adventures to and in four different rooms in the hotel he works at. The ending is super abrupt but kind of fun. I really didn't know what to think of it considering this was the only comedy of his I've seen. It was interesting. If you're wondering how the guy who made Django Unchained would make a comedy, watch it, because it's very interesting considering his other filmography.
If I didn't realize it before I certainly realized that Quentin Tarantino is one out-of-the-ordinary screenwriter/director from my Netflix binge. I certainly like his calling card of blood and guts a lot more than some of the other things he's tried, but I do appreciate his other, not so run of mill kind of stuff. I really thought it was fun to watch all the different things he's done considering that, nowadays, he mostly is doing the gunslinging, super violent movies. I really liked going back and watching a repertoire of Tarantino films and I'm thinking about doing it more often with some different directors. It's definitely cool to see how directors change stylistically--try it sometime with your favorite director!
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