'Jackie Brown' is a great fucking movie.

actually i think this one is worse because of the scenes in the mall food court which gives me bad memories

yeah, great movie.

If one doesn't exist, I'm starting a Killing Zoe thread!

Lee G. said something to me when it came out about how he DID think QT was in it, suspected that his voice might have come over the loudspeaker in one of the airport scenes.

i need to re-watch this.

WRONG.

Also: I love Keaton in this.

And it certainly is Keaton's best recurring role, maybe his best role ever. Well, until Multiplicity 2, The Beginning: This Time It's Personal is finally released.

Three movies in a row with no guest starring role from the director gives me hope that he finally realizes he's not an actor.

He couldn't resist, though. He's the "automated" voice on Jackie's answering machine.

dude!

It's a GOOD movie, but Tarantino is/was the most overhyped talented person on the planet. (He and Jimmy Kimmel after the Oscars: two geeks getting ready to watch 16 hours of splatter movies til their girlfriends come back from vacation.)

Jackie Brown is just so good, though. I need to buy me a copy of it so I can re-watch the dressing room scene.

I'm pretty sure there are other more over-hyped talented people (and fare more over-hyped LESS talented people.)

And I just remembered Pam was better in Mars Attacks! :D How is she on The L Word?

i remember seeing it when it came out, and the cinema was packed with people who (like me, facing it) wanted another quote-packed 'pulp fiction'. and we didn't get it, and i think we were all a bit put out

so otm. was disappointed with this the first time round, but watched it again last night, and it's great.

greatest. not to mention the best ever adaptation of a leonard book imo.

^cosign

luv dis movie

Yeah, I'm not sure I can call this my absolute favorite QT movie - but its the one I come back to the most often. Although, looking at my shelves right now, I have no idea what happened to my DVD copy.

this is some repugnant shit

not to mention the best ever adaptation of a leonard book imo.

I dunno. I have a lot of love for the movie of Get Shorty. Two totally different tones, obv. Both great Leonard movies, though.

I'm not sure I can call this my absolute favorite QT movie

I hesitate myself, but I think... ok, yeah. I can say that. Jackie Brown is my favorite QT movie.

IB beats this imho

I will fight you!

No wait... I won't.

whew shakey got all shaky there for a sec

is there an anigif of robert deniro having stand-up style intercourse with jane fonda's daughter yet

jane's niece, peter's daughter

fine but my primary point is the anigif, is there one

So good. It's always been my favourite, though maybe Basterds matches it? Time will tell. But I watched JB again only last week, oddly enough. Everyone is so good in this, even Chris Tucker ("you're catching a nigga off guard with this shit"), and the whole switch scene in the mall is just brilliant.

xp Lemme rip the movie, see what I can do. This could take a little while.

you would

Jackie Brown - Get Shorty - Out Of Sight is like the trifecta of great Leonard adaptations.

xp Hey don't request a gif and then insult me for offering. Doo-doo head.

i never requested a gif dog i just said is there one! so chill with the ad hominem attacks you rapist

It's always been my favourite, though maybe Basterds matches it?

This.

that one scene where the car leaves and comes back and the camera just stays in the same spot is awesome

the camera is lifted or whatever but the whole effect it gets is great

so chill with the ad hominem attacks you rapist

Ok that's kind of funny.

Ripped the whole movie, and was just about to whittle it down to a little animated gif, but decided that it wouldn't be funny enough without the punchline at the end: DeNiro saying, "That hit the spot."

Followed by a brief scene of Robert Forster in a record store buying a cassette. Which made me sad, because I bought so many cassettes in so many record stores, and now those stores don't exist at all.

Yeah, I watched the whole movie again. It sucks you in. It's that good.

RG: My favourite film you've made is 'Jackie Brown', and I was sorry to hear you were cool on it.

QT: I have never talked bad against Jackie Brown!

RG: But you said it was the film you felt most distanced from while you were making it.

QT: That's true, but that did not mean that I don't love Jackie Brown. No, no, no, no, not at all. This comes up, and I couldn't love Jackie Brown more. However - when I was making it there was a slight… Let me put it like this. With Inglourious Basterds, every aspect of it is a product of my imagination. Until I filled up those 160 pages, there was no Inglourious Basterds, it was completely created by me: the characters, the backstory, mythology, even the stuff that never finds its way into the movie but which I know about. Now, Jackie Brown is not that way. As different as the movie is from the book, there is a second-hand quality to it. It is Elmore Leonard's. I completely made it my own. Having said that, it did already exist. And I didn't know I'd have that feeling until when I was in post-production, and I found myself losing patience with the process. And that's the hardest part for me, when you're kind of over it, and you still have to do colour timing; the sound mix gets wonderful and sounds like a proper movie, but it's also hard work getting there.

RG: Is there a sense in which a person whose favourite movie of yours is 'Jackie Brown' could be said to not really 'get' you and what you're about?

QT: No. I love Jackie Brown. Although I do actually think, truthfully, that it's easy to call Jackie Brown my best movie. It's easy.

RG: How so?

QT: Well, there's a maturity to it that you can very officially hang your hat on. It's dealing with older characters. And the three-dimensional aspects of the movie… well, it's become almost revisionist among critics to love that. I was not given that much credit for the long, three-dimensional aspects at the time. When the movie came out, it was like, “Get fucking to it. Get on with it.” Now everyone seems to feel differently about it. That's not me being a smartass. The thing about Jackie Brown is that it gains a tremendous amount upon second, third, fourth viewings, and people had to go through that. And now they're there.

The thing is - and I'm being a bit of a smartass here, but in a fun way - that was literally what I always intended. I always intended Jackie Brown to be like Rio Bravo, which I feel is a great 'hangout' movie. Jackie Brown is a hangout movie. And that was always intended. I'm sincere about this. I thought that, if you liked Jackie Brown, then maybe it'd be a movie you'd watch every three years or every five years, and when you did, it would be almost like Jackie and Ordell and Max Cherry would be your friends, and you'd hang out with them every time you watched it. Dazed and Confused is a movie like that. So I always knew it'd take years for people, if they liked it, to get a sense of what I was doing.

At the same time, you know, if you watch Pulp Fiction tomorrow, you would go, “Wow, look at what he did here.” I mean, the experiments I did in that movie are still very bold. My point being: it's very easy to say Jackie Brown is your favourite. Look, I'm not trying to talk you out of that, but take a look at some of the other ones again and… you know, it's easy to take the others for granted.

Jackie Brown is a hangout movie.

Spoken like someone to whom "hanging out" means nothing more than watching movies.

I take his point, but fuck it, it's even more my favorite having just watched it again. I like the way that Elmore Leonard gives it a paperback structure that QT would have avoided otherwise. I love that is has these chapters, and that each of them end with some majorly punchy dialog and a fade-out. As a movie, it's a real page-turner.

will possibly be the last good one we see from him, unless he does more adaps.

Did I just hear you say that QT made a good movie?

It's a GOOD movie, but ...

― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, March 8, 2006 4:53 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha Ok.

Tarantino is/was the most overhyped talented person on the planet

he's undeniably talented, and i don't think he's the most overhyped, but i do think he's plenty overhyped. his biggest strengths: snappy dialogue and style. but many times his movies aren't much beyond those two elements, and there's an unseemly quality to them that gets grating.

having said that, i like tarantino's films. i just rented inglorious bastards. the revisionist-history and revenge-aspect of the film appeals to me as a jewish man.

"I'm being a bit of a smartass here, but in a fun way"

Off topic, maybe, but I'd LOVE to see a Tarantino adaptation of Swag, set in '70s Detroit before every liquor store had a surveillance camera. The city could use the money, and T could use another good coffee break of a movie, which that book is even truer to than Rum Punch. And maybe he could improve the ending--as he did with Rum Punch. Jackie Brown's not a great movie for me because it just doesn't feel like it's really happening most of the time--I thought Forster and Grier were "pretty good," but every scene with Samuel L. Jackson crackles.

I love the cool dive bars Jackie, Odell, and Louis hang out at.

Sam Jackson's best performance? Part of why he's so pissed off is that all the people he genuinely likes (Louis, Jackie, Max) fuck him over.

no still a boring superfly minstrel bit

does Ordell genuinely like any of those three? I definitely don't think he likes Max, Louis to him is a shell of his former friend ... Jackie, maybe, but idk. It's a great character - obviously psychopaths have to be charming but I don't think they're often made to be this personable.

Maybe--certainly tied with Jungle Fever and Pulp Fiction. Slight disagreement on your formulation of Odell's anger. Jackie, yes, but I wouldn't say Louis fucks him over, not intentionally--Louis just screws up, and Odell kills him out of exasperation with his stupidity--and I'm not sure he likes Max, either. He's wry and sarcastic the first time in Max's office ("Oh, it's like that, is it?"), and when he's sitting in the car looking evil and hateful while Johnny Cash plays, some of that hate's reserved for Max.

ah, this thread. good times.

nah, Morbs: minstrels aren't this three dimensional and don't boast Jackson's hair.

To me it's clear he respects Max's sangfroid and hidden layers ("I didn't know you liked the Delfonics"), and it's clearer in their last exchange in the car before walking into Max's office. Ordell's scared but when he gives Max a last chance to explain himself it sounds like he genuinely wants to believe this guy wouldn't fuck him over.

i'd put it behind jungle fever but a hair ahead of pulp fiction. it's a shame jackson has generally spent most of his post-breakthrough career to hackwork, though i guess i can understand if you have to wait until twenty years into yr career for that breakthrough (as late as 1990 he's still doing glorified extra roles like 'taxi dispatcher' and 'black guy') that as soon as the opportunity comes you might go right for the paychecks. is 1997 the last year he could be said to have given a damn w/ jackie brown and eve's bayou? he's given some fun performances since obv (this year even) but nothing exceptional or worthy.

c/ping this from the other tarantino thread because otm:

Like it a lot. Esp. QT's sneaky commentarty on De Niro's career:
Sam Jackson sitting in car with De Niro: "Mannn, you used to be beautiful." Shoots him.

Jackie Brown's obsession with the black suit was pretty ace too.

― Omar, Sunday, October 21, 2001 8:00 PM (11 years ago) Bookmark

de niro is so great in this film

i love his outfits

Better every time and QT's best movie by a million fuckin miles

if you just watched this we were in sync

a thing i appreciates this time was forster's sweeping thanks-i-found-my-bag gesture to the store clerk; he puts all the excitement he's concealing into it

i didn't hear you wash your hands

I think much more highly of Reservoir Dogs than number none, but I'd agree it's his best. I'll never understand why he abandoned the (not quite sure how to phrase this, but...) unadorned seriousness of the Grier-Forster relationship and went back, apparently permanently, to a kind of show-offy flash he'd already exhausted.

great fucking movie...or... fucking great movie? you decide

There is some fucking, but--as Bridget Fonda's character will attest to--it's very perfunctory.

i like slj's delusions of grandeur in this: he acts like a kingpin but his big macguffin is only half a mil and all of his henchmen are women whose rent he pays (and dumb stoned deniro). the money's just as transformative for him as it is for jackie/max. he can get a place even better than that lil beach house w the tiny tv.

great fucking movie...or... fucking great movie? you decide

Three minutes later...

michael keaton's mounting exasperation in this scene is such a little masterpiece of comic timing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_ip79SGVLo

Jackie's euphoric expression when she puffs on first post-jail cig

keaton's shitbird costume in that movie is so perfect

The most poignant part of the movie is realizing in their last scenes that Ordell genuinely likes Max or at least respects him and is thus devastated that he might be pulling a fast one.

had no idea Michael Bowen (who played the lapd detective in this) was uncle jack in breaking bad.

Yeah, that dude is a total chameleon.

No other Val dude can touch him.

favorite part is near the end, when Jackie's sitting at Max's desk, rehearsing how to relax and then suddenly pull the gun out of the drawer.

"That hit the spot"

i like it when jackie says "boo ya"

"Why don’t you be a good hostess and hook a brother up a screwdriver?"

Odell tapping his fingernails on his screwdriver, trying to interest jackie.

The stoned concentration Louis puts into untangling the telephone cord

Bridget Fonda. Rowrrrr.

Pam Grier - what a beauty! Who knows what to watch earlier in her career?

her "Cosby Show" appearance.

Foxy Brown

Coffy

had totally forgotten she's in Something Wicked This Way Comes

i thought the revive was for this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnaI-w8h8Ls

sweet! even tho there are a lot of leonard movies im always surprised there arent more cause his books just demand to be adapted

that one looks good

its fun to see how everyone always tries to adapt his vibe into a visual

The sweetest part of this movie is realizing Ordell seems to genuinely like Max, thus is disappointed that he'd fuck him over.

the movie is about people whom Ordell likes (Max, Jackie, Melanie) fucking him over

does he like beaumont

shit yeah he would've had Bojangles with him

or Popeyes -- I forget

lol

Nothing in "Modern Film" annoys me more than QT's refusal to direct someone else's story again (yeah it's been said before, bt still)

The movie's backbone is Ordell's wornout support system finally disintegrating to me, dunno if that's down to "ppl he likes" letting him down necessarily

Guys, let me help you out here. The movie is called Jackie Brown.

no it's not

The movie's backbone is Ordell's wornout support system finally disintegrating to me, dunno if that's down to "ppl he likes" letting him down necessarily

sure but it's down to SLJ, who suggests that he respects Max and Jackie.

Yeah and under his old values they'd respect him back, bt those times're gone. This also kinda syncs up w how routine and bathetic Beaumont's shooting is, I guess

ordell's let down that max doesn't wash his hands

does anybody know what music is playing in the scene where ordell is sitting back on his couch in his living room (i think)? for years i wanted to know, could never figure it out on the internet for some reason.

"your ass used to be beautiful" is the best

I love the beat that SLJ takes when he and De Niro are sitting in the van trying to figure out wtf happened to the money, before he says, "It was Jackie Brown." Executed wrong it would be "being caught acting," but he does it so perfectly.

that whole scene has terrific dynamics. Anger at what Louis has done turns to commiseration to rage again.

Ebert began his review with that scene:

I like the moment when the veins pop out on Ordell's forehead. It's a quiet moment in the front seat of a van, he's sitting there next to Louis, he's just heard that he's lost his retirement fund of $500,000, and he's thinking hard. Quentin Tarantino lets him think. Just holds the shot, nothing happening. Then Ordell looks up and says, "It's Jackie Brown.'' He's absolutely right. She's stolen his money. In the movies people like him hardly ever need to think. The director has done all their thinking for them. One of the pleasures of "Jackie Brown,'' Tarantino's new film, based on a novel by Elmore Leonard, is that everybody in the movie is smart. Whoever is smartest will live.

Say what you will about QT, but he does quiet pretty good too.

i watched life of crime it was pretty good

they def got some of the subtleties of leonards plotting which was cool

been on such an EL binge lately.
reading "unknown Man #89" right now.

bobby womack passed a while ago, and this is always relevant anyway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtzRJgZG98I

prob the best ever writer to binge on xp

lagoon do you like richard stark? his parker novels are like candy bars.

never read him what do u recommend

Almost missed this--Pam Grier is in town tonight to introduce a Lightbox screening. I had been planning on seeing the Billy Crudup film tonight, but as soon as I saw the schedule I checked on ticket availability, assuming there wouldn't be any. Wrong...very excited!

I doubt that my students would mind at all if I cancelled tonight's tutorial and immediately hauled ass to Toronto--and I could easily make it--but I figure that the prof I work for definitely would. Damn.

Enjoy, and please share stories/pictures!

Not too many women intimidate me (actually, all women intimidate me, but to make my point, I have to begin by saying that not too many women intimidate me). Pam Grier intimidates me.

You should read her autobio which is pretty crackers. I love her work, but there's something a little off about her

wasn't she a scientologist at some point... some kind of cultist.

she also dated bobby womack, which is... pretty neat, actually.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Richard Pryor also

they dated bobby womack?

yeah they double-teamed him until Kareem realized the situation conflicted with his Muslim beliefs

I was so floored when this happened that I took a screen shot

http://www.quartzcity.net/ilx/pamgrier.jpg

(turns out she follows a lot of people)

i like her in bogus journey

yeah they double-teamed him until Kareem realized the situation conflicted with his Muslim beliefs

Never bothered him when he and Magic were busy double-teaming Dr. J.

She mentioned Jabbar tonight as her "first boyfriend in L.A." No photo--she was late, and the Lightbox makes such maneuvering very difficult--but she was nice enough to sign my Foxy Brown DVD. She got a standing ovation, spoke for probably half an hour, and was very funny. It'll be the only time in my life I get to hear a 66-year-old woman say "blow job" six or seven times.

It was her generation that invented blow jobs iirc. But seriously, that sounds cool, she is an interesting person.

She did say in her autobio that Jabbar wanted her to be a traditional Muslim wife or girlfriend and that's what split them up.

Roger Ebert loved it;

"There is a scene here that involves the ex-con Louis (Robert De Niro) and Ordell's druggie mistress (Bridget Fonda) discussing a photograph pinned to the wall, and it's so perfectly written, timed and played that I applauded it."

"It's the only photo I have of Japan... (points at photo) That's Japan."

Great scene.

booya!

Bit where Louis tries to hang up the phone properly is one of the most subtle bits of weed - concentration acting I've seen

best movie

max going to the mall to buy the delphonics tape

sweet! even tho there are a lot of leonard movies im always surprised there arent more cause his books just demand to be adapted

― lag∞n, Thursday, August 28, 2014 8:01 PM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

came to say essentially this, glad to see it's already been said. in recent months I've read Swag, Tishomingo Blues, and City Primeval, and the first two in particular would make terrific films in the right hands.

I saw this at the cinema the night before last, it still rules. De Niro is so funny as a dude with nothing going on upstairs

Were Get Shorty or Out of Sight good movies? I can't really be bothered to re-watch them. I guess Out of Sight at least gets points for bringing back the Michael Keaton character.

Out of Sight is really good!

Rewatched JB a few days ago w a friend who'd never seen it, still a totally delightful movie

De Niro is so funny as a dude with nothing going on upstairs

He really is. He should have played more dumb guys.

Get Shorty is a lot of fun too.

now he plays smart guys dumbly

xpost

Hooked on Delphonics, it's happened to many of us.

"Nothing going on upstairs" is the perfect description, too. Over his 20 or so minutes of screentime he never once displays the spark of inner life or independent thought. He's barely sentient.

I hate Get Shorty. Out of Sight is pretty good. JB is leagues ahead of both tho.

Justified is one of my favorite shows ever

casting DeNiro in that role was genius

QT must have been a big Justified fan too given he's recently cast Goggins, Olyphant and Herriman

imagine if quentin tarantino had devoted his career to adapting elmore leonard instead of whatever it was that he did

— br⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️seph (@on3ness) June 24, 2019

if the coen brothers adapted elmore leonard

— br⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️seph (@on3ness) January 4, 2015

i downloaded all the elmore leonard books onto my iphone five

— br⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️⚫️seph (@on3ness) August 25, 2013

lol

i love out of sight i rank it second in the elmore leonard adaptations, get shorty is fun but it doesnt really nail the leonard vibe turns it into a goofy overblown thing

the Karen Sisco series w/ Carla Gugino is pretty solid too

De Niro is so funny as a dude with nothing going on upstairs

He really is. He should have played more dumb guys.

He just got an Emmy nomination for doing so.

This is, no hyperbole, the most blatantly awful “performance” I’ve ever seen nominated for any award by any awards-giving body. Razzies included. https://t.co/zQYmN5aLXm

— Mike D’Angelo (@gemko) July 16, 2019

(To clarify, the shittiness of his performance made it seem as though he was playing Mueller as a dumb guy.)

i love this movie. its got more heart than any other tarantino film

I co-signed lag∞n’s tweet at the time and I will co-sign it now, if qt is really only gonna make 10 films he will have wasted 9 of them not adapting Leonard

I love how the mall (the food court, AMC theater, dept store) is a supporting actor. It should've gotten an Oscar nomination.

Justified is one of my favorite shows ever

that show really has the best ending, i loved all the tedious and offtm speculation about how it would wrap things up bc it was as if no one had watched the show at all and was just guessing based on other shows.

Boyd asks why Raylan went out of his way to deliver the news in person, and answers himself, "We dug coal together", to which Raylan responds, "That's right."

"...is that Rutger Hauer?"

love Jackie Brown. I think i like Out of Sight a bit more, but I'll have to rescreen both of them to confirm. it's close either way.

Get Shorty is good, it's got a bunch of great performances and it's vv entertaining. It's just a bit more minor, and there's not much heart to it. maybe that's the case with the novel too but i doubt it.

"your ass used to be beautiful" is my favorite line in this (great) movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e7wbs_xfas

iconic

One of the small subtle touches is that Ordell has a respect for Max Cherry -- like, Max keeps surpassing his expectations (cool in the face of danger, the Delfonics, etc).

did his ass used to be beautiful tho?? guess we have to take Ordell's word for it

we dug coal together legit one of the greatest scenes in history

I’m sort of stuck on Max not washing his hands after using the bathroom

I love how the mall (the food court, AMC theater, dept store) is a supporting actor. It should've gotten an Oscar nomination.

i saw Jackie Brown at the Del Amo Mall in Torrance, where those scenes were (mostly?) shot. it was weird!

did strawberry letter 23 play when you walked out of the theater

awesome xp

I’ve hated every Tarantino film since, but this is a masterpiece imo.

It’s certainly the QT film that has the most replay value for me, which is directly related to the fact that it’s his least affected film. I always think of it as the only QT film that actually takes place on what is recognizable as planet Earth as we know it, populated by identifiable Earth Humans.

One of the small subtle touches is that Ordell has a respect for Max Cherry -- like, Max keeps surpassing his expectations (cool in the face of danger, the Delfonics, etc).

LOL that difference and range are a virtue not a fault

It’s funny to imagine what this movie would look like if it was made in QTs post Jackie Brown dgaf style.

“Uh uh uh - I didn’t hear you wash your hands!”
“My what?”
“Your hands - I didn’t hear you wash them.”
“Wash my hands?”
“Those very hands.”
“These hands here?”
“Clean, scrub, disinfect, sanitize. Wash.”
“These hands?”
“Those motherfuckin hands.”
Etc etc etc

lol otm

Thats more like post-IB (ie the death of his editor)

Menke didn’t edit his ‘90s screenplays, which were less discursive than his recent films indicate their screenplays to be

my point about the chronology still stands, that stuff didn't set in in his films until after Menke died

but it had nothing to do with her death. you can see it creeping in in IB anyway, especially the scenes with Waltz.

with Waltz it at least comes off as a character trait that makes sense. In the succeeding two films it feels more like arbitrary time-marking

yeah from what I remember it's not fully there, but Django is such a mess... H8 is talky by necessity and I was gripped by it tho I realize ymmv, but I saw it in 70mm, not sure if when I'm going to revisit it. I need to revisit IB first.

i think her editing was incredibly skillful though i don't want to lay all the credit at her doorstep. i think QT has a gift for tension in scenes leading up to a violent event, a tension that she probably helped along or maybe even partially created with her editing. i'm not a huge fan of Death Proof but i think for example the editing in the scene w/the car ride and head-on collision is ridiculously good (not to take away from the directing either).

Am I the only one who prefers DU to IB? The scenes with the Basterds are just so terrible that it slightly ruins it for me. Apart from the bravura set-pieces, it doesnt add up to much really imo. Django has its flaws but its v enjoyable and Samuel L's turn in it is his best role ever.

His staging changes more than the writing does imo. Both show-off monologues, and redundant back & forths, from IB on start being shot in long takes on soundstages rather than dynamically in locations or more naturalistic sets. Probably because it worked so well for Waltz on that one (and he claims he cut an entire featuresworth of an action movie about Brad Pitt’s crew out of that, which may have changed its tenor).

The actorly showcasing & Goggins repeating things worked for me in the 70mm version of H8ful too. It comes off as more forced at times in the super-extended / episodic version, but nbd.

Django just basically sucks.

For me the rot had fully set in w/Basterds - it just felt like completely aimless wheel-spinning, insanely flabby scenes that went nowhere, performed by actors doing wacky voices and accents, expecting the audience to indulge & be impressed by anything as long as it was “a long take”. I haven’t seen it since I failed to make it through a DVD rental viewing in 2010 or so, but I have a strong memory of so many boring dialogues of people ordering food, being served food, & talking about food - the lowest form of lazy screenwriter page-filling imo.

But there are plenty of threads for me to piss & whine about nu-Tarantino, instead of this thread to celebrate the greatness of Jackie Brown. Another detail I love - Tiny Lister’s quietly haunted delivery of “I found him” after Ordell had been killed.

don’t touch my levels

^^^

Jackie Brown is a great fucking movie imo

t I have a strong memory of so many boring dialogues of people ordering food, being served food, & talking about food

Lol there is literally only one scene where this happens, its comparatively short

I liked Django

the best thing about this movie is Jackie's character arc, or more accurately the way Jackie's character is gradually revealed to us, mostly through Max: initially we're worried about her, then charmed, and finally frightened by her

One of QT's most sensible moves was calling it "Jackie Brown" instead of Rum Punch ... it's typical of Leonard to stick a throw-away title like Rum Punch on this novel, no big deal because he'd already written a couple of dozen others just as good

I like the title Rum Punch because it reminds me of this quote from Paul McCartney - "This substance cannabis is a whole lot less harmful than rum punch, whisky, nicotine and glue, all of which are perfectly legal..."

Also, the new title now undercuts the power of the opening sentence to George V Higgins' The Friends of Eddie Coyle - "Jackie Brown at twenty-six, with no expression on his face, said that he could get some guns."

I love Michael Keaton’s bouncy walk in this. And the moment when Max drops his keys on the way to the office with Ordell. A small thing, but they finished the take and it adds this tiny unpolished detail.

Finally had the time to get around to rewatching this inspired by this revive, and enjoyed every second as expected. Havent watched pulp fiction in a lot of years but I cant imagine it holding up better than this. For all its merits there is no getting around some super hammy acting in PF, where JB seems far and away to have the best acting all around of any tarantino.

Weirdly, one of the only things I *don't* love is Ordell's "you used to be beautiful" line - it seems to poetic & screenwriter-y to me & takes me out of the movie a little bit.

I admire how all the bag-switching is handled so easily & seems way less confusing than it could otherwise be, just kind of patiently showing you what you need to see until you see it all. I feel like a lot of filmmakers, even tarantino not long after this, would have explained it all a lot more garishly with dumb freeze frames and graphics and whatnot.

New little thing I was thinking about this time while closely watching DeNiro was a personal theory that (in addition to just being shy & a dumbass) I think his character is also deathly afraid of Ordell, to the point where he's trying hard to keep calm & not let it show during their scenes together. Could just be a too-charitable reading of his general fidgety DeNiro-isms, but I liked the way it made me think about the character a little differently. He and Ordell go back 20 years, he is & always has been a barfly-thug-fuckup while Ordell has turned into this relatively successful & brutal smooth operator, maybe not unlike the guys that would have been hiring & pushing around DeNiro's character 15 years prior, but now after spending 4 years in jail he finds his old friend has turned into one of those guys and it freaks him out. He's clearly very impressed by Ordell - he always pushes back whenever Bridget Fonda badmouths Ordell - but he's also maybe frightened of how Ordell has become something he can't relate to anymore.

a+ ty

I admire how all the bag-switching is handled so easily & seems way less confusing than it could otherwise be, just kind of patiently showing you what you need to see until you see it all. I feel like a lot of filmmakers, even tarantino not long after this, would have explained it all a lot more garishly with dumb freeze frames and graphics and whatnot.

right. that or nolan-style completely incomprehensible direction.

Alongside with that, for a film with so many double and triple-crosses, they're not really depicted via big audience-surprising twists or reveals in the way that lesser crime & con genre movies do (and that I think audiences have now come to expect). If you're following what the characters are saying you pretty much know what's going on for the entire movie. The movie pretty much tells you what the double- and triple crosses are going to be, then takes pains to slowly show them to you. The 2nd bag switching sequence that we return to three times, from jackies pov, then louis & melanies, then max's - by the time we get the sequence with max's pov its pretty clear how max figures into the plan and what we're about to see him do. It just becomes about observing character through action.

There are obv twists w/r/t plot such as louis shooting melanie and etc, but the schemes in play are never really farther ahead of the audience's understanding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v6C3lZ9Ic0

jeez, Forster has 186 credits on the iMdB.

Made quite a bare-assed impression in his first film Reflections in a Golden Eye.

robert forster was a fox
goddamn he was a handsome mfer

AV Club Interview From 2000

O: I don't want you to give your act away, but one item on the menu that intrigued me was "A Chilling Brando Story." Can you tell me what that is?

RF: It's a story about respect. You want the story?

O: Sure.

RF: This is my closer, by the way. It's four or five minutes long, so relax. In the same week in which John Huston gave me my very first acting advice, and it is a great piece of advice—that's the top of that list, the John Huston story—but in the same week in which Huston gave me that piece of acting advice, I met Marlon Brando. We were shooting starting at noon and finishing at midnight. I was playing a private, we were out on the drilling field, and there were lots of other guys dressed like me; we were drilling and doing army stuff. Late in the afternoon of the fourth or fifth day of shooting, preceded by a whisper, [voice drops to a whisper] "Marlon's here. Here comes Marlon. Marlon's on the set." Everybody looks. Yep, there he is, Marlon Brando. John Huston breaks the set up, he starts walking over there, and he turns back to me and says, [imitating Huston] "Come on over here, Bobby, I want to introduce you to Marl." I walk over, I'm introduced to Marlon, they blah blah for a minute. Marlon says to me, [imitating Brando] "When do you break for dinner?" I say, "In an hour or so." He says, "Well, come on over to my Winnebago and we'll have a little conversation." We break for dinner and I go over to his Winnebago. We're sitting there in the Winnebago, and you know how they're set up: There's a couple of bench seats and a little table, and there's a picture window. The picture window looks out over everybody out there on the set. We're talking and Marlon's looking out the window a little bit. We're talking, and he's still looking out the window once in a while. He turns to me and says, "Where's your dressing room?" I said, "Well, you know, I'm over there. I'm fine." I came from the theater, and I was used to dressing in the bathroom if necessary. They'd given me a little corner with a drape on it where all the guys were dressing up as privates, and I knew it was a little bit of a loaded question, so in response to, "Where's your dressing room?" I say, "I'm over there. I'm fine." He's looking out the window a little bit more. He spots somebody. He gets up. He walks to the front door. He opens up the door. He points to the first assistant [director], a big tall guy, and the guy comes running over. "What do you need, Marlon?" Marlon looks at him and he points at me. He says, "This actor hasn't got a dressing room. He's dressing with the extras." That's something I hadn't told him, something he determined on his own. I'm thinking, "Why is this guy putting the heat on me? I didn't ask him to." The first assistant is, "Oh, but…" as he's wringing his hands, and he's saying, "Marlon, I'm sorry, but there weren't enough Winnebagos because of the tennis tournament," or because it's Long Island or because of this or because of that. Marlon says, "But, by the way, when we go to Italy he'll have a great dressing room." And when we got to Italy I had a great dressing room. He dismisses the first assistant, but by now everybody on the set, though they couldn't hear what Marlon was talking about in front of his dressing room, they saw the body language of the first assistant and knew something was going on. Something was wrong, and now he's got everybody's attention. Now he points to the biggest guy on the set, one of the producers. I forget who it was; let's call him Phil. "Phil," he yells to Phil. He points, and Phil comes over. "Yeah, Marlon, what is it? What is it, Marlon?" "Phil," and he looks Phil straight in the eyes. I'm inches away from all of this. He says, "Phil, I'm very, very upset." And he eyeballs Phil for a long time, 12 or 15 seconds, enough time for sweat to start forming on Phil's upper lip. I'm thinking, "Oh, please, please, please don't let it be my dressing room he's so upset about." Finally, in answer to the question Phil and I are both asking ourselves—what's he so upset about?—Marlon says, "Phil, there's too many folks around here. They're making me nervous." "What do you need, Marlon?" "I need some tranquilizers, Phil." "Right away, Marlon. What kind do you need?" He tells him what kind he needs. He says, "I'll be right back." He starts to leave. Marlon says, "Phil. Phil." Phil comes back. "What is it, Marlon?" "Phil, there's no music in this Winnebago. I'd like to hear some music. A little classical music to make me feel better." "Right away, Marlon. Right away." He starts to leave. "Phil. Phil." Phil comes back. "Something with a couple of speakers, Phil." Phil leaves. Thirty minutes later, he's got a big guy with him carrying a big record player, two speakers, and a stack of classical records. The guy brings it in, he installs it in seconds, and he's out the door. Phil gives the tranquilizers to Marlon. "Anything else I can do for you?" "No, Phil, you did great. I appreciate it very much." "Anything you need, you just let us know, Marlon." "Phil, you did great, I appreciate it very much." He shoos Phil out the door, closes the door, sits back down, and watches Phil walk back to the other producers. We're waiting to find out whether we're going to work tomorrow or not. He watches them for a while, and then he turns to me and he says this: "You see, if you don't scare them, they will never respect you, all right?" I learned three important things. Number one, I learned that the word "respect" has polar opposite meanings. At one end of the meaning of the word, respect is the thing that people give you if you've got a hammer over their head. At the extreme opposite end of the meaning of the same word is the thing that people give you if they love you, if they're not afraid of you, and if they want you to succeed. Number two, I realized what passed for respect in Hollywood, and that's who's got the hammer. And number three, I realized that if I ever got any of this respect, I wanted it to come from the other meaning of the word, where you don't have to worry about getting stabbed in the back. I tell my children—and part of this program, by the way, is about parenting—that life is short. It's an arc: First you're born and you can't take care of yourself, then you can take care of yourself, and then for most of your life you have to take care of others until the very end, when you can't take care of yourself anymore. You've got to rely on the ones you've parented. "You'd better do a good job, Bob," I say to myself. I realized that life is a series of moments along this arc, moments at which you can deliver excellence, or less, if you desire. But if you do deliver excellence, you get that reward, and I've built up a metaphor during this program of what you get when you deliver excellence to any job of any kind: You get the reward of self-respect and respect from others and satisfaction. And this is the real McCoy. This is untransferrable wealth. You stick this in your pocket and it's like a little nugget; it'll always be there. If you're ever wondering what to do right now, and if you're ever asking yourself, "What shall I do with this job that I've got right now?"… If I apply the simple formula that I'm going to do this job as good as I can, that and a little practice gives me excellence almost every time. And when you're delivering excellence every time, you get that reward I keep mentioning. And if you happen to be getting that reward on a frequent enough basis, you know… Those in both religious traditions, the Eastern and the Western, talk about a path: the path of righteousness. If you're getting these rewards on a frequent basis, you're on that path. And if you're one of the ones who believe in a heaven, this is the path right to it. But if you're one of the ones who believe that inner peace is the best life has to offer, you know precisely what you're doing when you wake up in the morning. You're using your life and your life experiences to understand with, and with every action you create, you deliver that understanding. You're doing what an artist does: using his life to understand and deliver that understanding with every act you create. And if you're doing that, and you're getting those rewards on a frequent enough basis, you're making the best that you can out of the life you've got to live. End of program.

amen.

such a decent-seeming, humble guy.

RIP Robert Forster, and in honor of his acting style, that’s all I’m going to say.

— That Polter Geist (@mattzollerseitz) October 12, 2019

otfm

That’s quite an interview, damn

Rest In Peace.

now i want to hear the John Huston story!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tpyV1tjwQM

My friend Scott and I are still plugging away on our Zoom conversations about pop music in movies; we did Jackie Brown, our 50th, last week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll9CS9vsECE

We've had a running joke keeping track of all our egregious gaffes, and in this one, I call the conveyor-belt opening an allusion to The Godfather, rather than what I meant to say, The Graduate. Obviously, people get those two films confused all the time, what with both starting with 'G.' Ghostbusters, too.

And Gremlins.

it's a note perfect allusion to the grinch (2018)

Great discussion. I don't know if I already knew that JB had become the consensus-favourite QT film, but it feels a bit vindicating: I remember seeing the film in a nearly empty theatre at the time (admittedly, a few weeks into its run) and there being a general feeling QT fatigue at the time even among people who had been all over Pulp Fiction a few years earlier. I still suspect that the film is more of a favourite among fans of a certain age--I hear Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds routinely cited among people younger than me (I like the latter, but no way is it even close to his best)--rather than everyone's favourite, but I'm still pleased that so many have come around to my way of thinking.

i remember the enthusiasm being a little more muted toward jackie brown when it came out, so when i finally got around to it i wasn't sure what to expect, and it totally blew me away. i think i may run younger than most people who think it's his best, but it's so obviously his best lol

one reason Jackie Brown is QT's best is because it's his only film that handles violence and its consequences with some humanity, thanks to the source material

his fantasy violence works for me in Kill Bill but not so much elsewhere

also the love story between grier and forster is so well-developed and there's such a heartening "life doesn't end just because you got older" undercurrent running through it, and i'd be hard-pressed to even think of another movie that does the same or as effectively

Thanks, crypto. I probably wasn't clear enough: I think Jackie Brown is the favourite here, on ILX--that's my sense--but in the world at large, it's still Pulp Fiction by a wide margin. PF is 72nd on TSPDT's big list; JB isn't even in the Top 1,000.

also the love story between grier and forster is so well-developed and there's such a heartening "life doesn't end just because you got older" undercurrent running through it, and i'd be hard-pressed to even think of another movie that does the same or as effectively

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson

It's Tarantino's Ozu film.

yes!!!!

i remember talk from QT, perhaps disappointed Jackie Brown didnt set the world on fire the way pulp fiction had, saying he was never going to work from someone elses source material again, which is where he stepped off the cliff creatively imo

i was doing post-grad at uni when it came out & my jock friends & normcore friends were all UGH THAT WAS BORING but my film school friends were like THAT WAS SO GREAT

it was def seen as a boring left turn by the Tarantino fans who’d been expecting more of the Reservoir Dogs/Pulp Fiction zip-zap dialogue & shoot em ups

i had already been getting into Elmore Leonard after Get Shorty came out in 95 so I think that helped a lot. anyway was all about Jackie Brown - plus the soundtrack & just the slow easy vibe of it, it was immediately a favorite

one reason Jackie Brown is QT's best is because it's his only film that handles violence and its consequences with some humanity, thanks to the source material

― Brad C., Wednesday, December 9, 2020 12:46 PM (ten months ago) bookmarkflaglink

great fucking movie imo

the chemistry between Forster & Grier is so incredible, and 90% is just from the way they look at each other! i could watch a trilogy of movies of them together

The Leonard movie adaption I saw as a teenager and really would like to see again is "52 Pick Up" with Roy Scheider and Ann Margaret. I remember it being really sleazy but digging it as a teenager on HBO.

Is Get Shorty any better or worse as source material? I found that entertaining and immediately forgettable; for me, 95% of Jackie Brown's greatness is in the casting (starting with Forster & Grier, but literally every principal besides).

Get Shorty was a pretty good read, but I don't really remember any part of it being that different than the movie. That movie has a really killer cast too outside the main rolls too...Delroy Lindo, Dennis Farina, Danny DeVito, James Gandofini etc.

I bought 52 Pick-Up on Blu-Ray last year. It's just as sleazy as you remember. Clarence Williams III and John Glover are amazing in it.

Get Shorty is better as source material, but it adapts so well to a light (crime) comedy flick because it’s a very slight Leonard. You could knock it over in an afternoon if you do wanna check it out

That movie has a really killer cast too outside the main rolls too...Delroy Lindo, Dennis Farina, Danny DeVito, James Gandofini etc

Right but the main roles - Hackman, Russo, Travolta - have nothing on the Jackie Brown cast. Anyway it's a very different kind of movie. light comedy otm

Anyone seen the Burt Reynolds-directed Stick (1985)?

52 Pick-Up is one of the few movies I watched as a kid where I just sat there thinking "I really shouldn't be watching this."

I really need to watch the later seasons of Justified. I got to the end of the Margo Martindale storyline/season and never watched the rest. Considering the stories and characters in Miami of these various Leonard stories intertine in some ways, you could easily see that one could do a prequel series with all of them in one (Chili Palmer meets Raylan meets Max Cherry etc.) if done right.

Probably impossible to get made with Elmore Leonard being gone, but one could see how it could work.

I haven't seen Stick but I love the the poster -- it's such an iconic "VHS my parents won't let me rent" image.

lol yes!

out of sight is another great leonard adaptation imho

made point a while ago of trying to watch as many of them as i could but looking at imdb i didnt make it that far lol

OOS has the best bourbon sipping scene at a hotel bar with Clooney and J-Lo in cinema history

Are there others?

you don't own the George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez sipping bourbon in a hotel bar anthology?

Phaidon's coffee table edition is beautiful!

i saw 52-pick up when it came out in the theaters
teen (15?) had no idea about elmore leonard - who he was etc
went to see it solely for fact that Vanity was in it (as a Prince & Vanity 6 fanboy)
also reason saw The Last Dragon in theaters, which was a much more enjoyable experience
sleazy is still how feel when think of 52 pick-up decades later

but to reaffirm thread title Jacki Brown is great

at age 10 or saw, went to see Foxy Brown 4 times in the theater (Addis in late 70s and early 80s hads wildly varying times of whem novies would arrive and some jarring juxtapositions on saturday matinees when you'd go in for 3 movies back to back)

my parents did not accompany me to any of my foxy brown screenings and def would not have approved if aware but i loved it and pam grier ever since

The Grier & Forster casting sends this movie to a level it couldn't have touched with any other pair of actors. Together they make the movie. Well scripted, too. I'm not sure Tarantino added much to the project compared to some other director working with the same script & cast.

I'm not sure that the guy who wrote the script for that cast added much to the project by the guy who wrote the script for that cast

Aimless:

After completing Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary acquired the film rights to Elmore Leonard's novels Rum Punch, Freaky Deaky, and Killshot. Tarantino initially planned to film either Freaky Deaky or Killshot and have another director make Rum Punch, but changed his mind after re-reading Rum Punch, saying he "fell in love" with the novel all over again.[4] Killshot was later adapted into a film, produced by Jackie Brown producer Lawrence Bender. While adapting Rum Punch into a screenplay, Tarantino changed the ethnicity of the main character from white to black, as well as renaming her from Burke to Brown, titling the screenplay Jackie Brown. Tarantino hesitated to discuss the changes with Leonard, finally speaking with Leonard as the film was about to start shooting. Leonard loved the screenplay, considering it not only the best of the twenty-six screen adaptations of his novels and short stories, but also stating that it was possibly the best screenplay he had ever read.[4]

Tarantino's screenplay otherwise closely followed Leonard's novel, incorporating elements of Tarantino's trademark humor and pacing.

afaics, Tarantino's best contribution was ensuring Pam Grier played the lead character and bringing Forster in for the main supporting role. The script, as noted, closely followed the novel. If Tarantino had bowed out early and handed over the same cast and script to another director, the movie would probably have worked out just fine.

did you read the script before or after you saw the film?

(xpost) As much as I agree that the performances of Grier/Forster are central--and as much as I'm far from a Tarantino lover--I do think he brought a lot to this that another director wouldn't have. Sam Jackson is, for me, as crucial as Grier/Forster, and I suspect he and Tarantino really worked together to craft that character. Or little things like Johnny Cash as Ordell sits outside Jackie's apartment; that's Tarantino.

The script, as noted, closely followed the novel.

Aimless, did you read the excerpt explaining Tarantino's changing Jackie to a Black woman? That's a major change!

I found this pretty empty and tedious when it came out; but very curious to rewatch as an older viewer -- perhaps the slower rhythms will make more sense. Not a big fan of the novel either - I think it’s the nearest Leonard got to producing a stock “Miami caper” novel.

perfect line

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e7wbs_xfas

tarantino’s fingerprints are all over this movie, from the script to the soundtrack to the camera angles to the dialogue to the casting to the editing.. ffs just look at get shorty or true romance for a taste of what a “replacement level director” would bring to a story like this

A "script" isn't even a play -- it's a network of suggestions that a resourceful director will modify.

The source material maybe helps the pacing of the movie somehow? I dunno. But t has a much more relaxed vibe than anything else he’s done and I love it so much. It moves at the speed of Forster’s character, and with his same intensity

There's a shot of Forster walking out of a screening at an AMC mall theatre, his hands in his pockets, that's so casually good, so redolent of the character he plays, that no one else could've realized it.

he's walking out of an weekday afternoon screening!

that's a great shot

It’s such a *casual* film, even when shit gets wild.

yeah exactly

It's a great movie, great cast, great book, but to argue any Tarantino movie doesn't have his fingerprints all over it (for better or worse) and that anyone could have done it is crazy

AND he's literally the only director on Earth who was going to cast Forster and Grier as the leads in a movie in 1997

I remember reading an interview with Stephen King where he said his reward for finishing a novel was reading an Elmore Leonard book. I thought that a really wonderful compliment.

it’s a really great version of the kind of films and TV shows I normally hate

and yeah, Tarantino’s fingerprints are all over it. It is a movie out of time, like Forster & DeNiro & Grier, so all the locations & cars & outfits have a very specific 70’s look while also seeming like present day…down to like, the car Forster drives or the loungey carpeted bar they go to, Grier’s airline & uniform. Tarantino cares enough about that granular stuff to hire the kind of ppl who *also* care. Same with the music. To me his specificity is what defines his style

Y'all are my people, y'all know this.

But

https://i.imgur.com/hfHQVoB.gif

lmao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZNufFkpgIc

sry pplains

please pass the milk, please

AND he's literally the only director on Earth who was going to cast Forster and Grier as the leads in a movie in 1997

yes, and probably the only one with the confidence to play out the entire heist scene twice & at that pace. The film is a miracle.

lol pp

Tarantino more about footprints anyway surely

https://media1.giphy.com/media/BMTzHbtf96few/giphy.gif?cid=ecf05e476barkc2oirf4s7whed7dqp8y4ciywyev112uy7d3&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g

QT while he's editing one of the numerous female foot shoots in his movies

Oh no, someone accidentally added sexual overtones to the scene in Jackie Brown where the first woman Louis has seen in many years seduces him, in a manner that establishes her propensity for boundary-pushing. No wonder Sally Menke got fired for this blunder.