Tarantino is Dead to Me

I've had really mixed about Quintin Tarantino for a long time. I know there are a lot of critics out there who think he is the Orson Wells of his generation and can do no wrong, but I certainly see tremendous inconsistency in his work. And no small touch of complete insanity!

There's no doubt he's a very odd human being. Whenever I see him on a talk show or being interviewed, it's very obvious there's a totally off-kilter person inside that hyper, bubbly exterior. This comes through in his work as an actor too. If you didn't know who he was, you'd think they had done a very strange job of casting for that particular role. "What's with the weird looking tall dude who acts so geeky?"

Well, when he and Robert Rodriquez teamed up for their Grindhouse double feature last year I had high hopes. Rodriguez is more of an auteur - if anyone still uses that term - than most anyone else working in films today. He writes, direct, shoots - heck he even scores his own films and has a style that is distinct and interesting. Tarantino aspires to be this type of all-around filmmaker, but I don't think he has the requisite talent. He's just weird.

Back to Grindhouse.

When it came out, I just couldn't force myself to shell out the money to go see it. Part of me wanted to take the risk, but I was seriously afraid that I wouldn't be able to endure almost four hours of an attempt at bad filmmaking by people who have access to all of the top technology available in the world today. I know the movie did horrible at the boxoffice, so I felt somewhat relieved that I didn't make a monetary contribution. Then I saw that the videos - now separated into two films - were available "exclusively" at Blockbuster. But you know what, I still had that funny feeling that I was going to shell out three or four bucks and be horribly disappointed. Also, which one should I get and/or watch first? Rose McGowan with a machine-gun leg is pretty intriguing, but would that be enough? I decided not to make a decision and didn't rent either one.

Now Tarantino's film, Death Proof, is playing on one of the cable premium channels. No more excuses. I decided to watch.

What a sorry excuse for a film! There is nothing campy, interesting or redeeming about the entire work. I wonder what was going through the minds of the cast - a pretty decent one at that - when then were shooting these boring, overly talky scenes. I can only assume they deferred to Tarantino's "genius" and figured he knew what he was doing. Of course when he injected himself repeatedly into the bar scenes and over-acted his way to embarrassment - I have to wonder if they weren't starting to wise up by then.

I really want my 90 minutes back. I feel cheated, even though I technically I didn't pay anything to watch it. The two action scenes in the movie are exciting and well done. But the price one has to pay in order to get to them far exceeds their value. Women sitting around drinking, talking tough, chain smoking and cursing is 90% of Death Proof. It's Tarantino hiring a bunch of very nice looking woman and then masturbating in his mind over having sex with them. And we, poor unfortunately sucked-in viewers, have to endure his imaginary camera sex. Or not. I did because I kept wondering where this horrible excuse for art was going to go. Obviously America's movie-goers did not, hence the anemic receipts. Now I see why. Glad I didn't contribute anything to the bottom line.

It's going to be a long, long time before I let Tarantino sucker me in to watching anything he does in the future. Actually, after Grindhouse, I hope he doesn't get the opportunity.