re. QT

[Dave Monroe]

On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 1:00 PM, David Morris<fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Completely agreed.  After Pulp all was shit.

I wouldn't put this quite this strongly, but ...

> QT is just so pleased with himself.

This is perhaps the problem.  Or, at any rate, he's playing to the
wrong fanboys, the grindhousers rather than the Godardians.  My
particular gripe is, with RD and PF (which I saw 15 times theatrically
during its initial run), or True Romance, for that matter (which he
wrote, and Tony Scott directed), one could walk out with all sorts of
useful phrases to uss in one's daily life ("... and on this invention,
tehy show show"--one of my favorite bits of movie dialogue ever).
After that, it's all simply camerawork and emulation ...

> So annoying.  I do not plan on seeing his latest.

... but you can't bitch about it if you don't suffer through it.  Me,
I saw a midnight showing Thursday, was far more over the top than even
I expected, but, reservations (to say the least) about the
turnabout-as-fairplay line towed there, I wasn't as annoyed by the
stylistic indulgences as I thought I'd be.  But, yeah, Come and See is
a good antidote here, I'd also note that, during WWII, the War Dept.
ultimately took unkindly to filmmakers treating Hitler (and/or the
Nazis, regardless of their Fuhrer) as anything but a serious threat
(they also declared Hirohito hands off, not wanting to fortify in any
way the Japanese resolve).  Grist nonetheless for book on
WWII/Holocaust/et al. film for as long as people continue to publish
thereupon ...