coen bros vs. tarantino

This is a pretty tough poll. Coens' highs are probably higher, but Tarantino is awfully consistent. Crimewave >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> From Dusk Til Dawn or True Romance though.

Much prefer the Coens just in terms of their basic sensibility. (I suppose I'm one of those people who finds Tarantino's sensibility a bit garish and hollow.)

that's a weird criticism - both could conceivable be accused of opting for "style over substance", and both make ridiculously reverential genre excercises that are filled with film trivia nudge-nudge-wink-wink sorta stuff.

conceivably

I thought that was a pretty common criticism of Tarantino's sensibility!

coens, by a mile

also I assume we're talking strictly about films both have written AND directed...?

in that case the Coens' probably win just by virtue of having written and directed more movies. altho Tarantino hasn't written/directed anything half as shitty as The Man Who Wasn't There or that stupid divorce movie or Burn After Reading

I thought that was a pretty common criticism of Tarantino's sensibility!

I know I'm just sayin you could level it at the Coens too - particularly for stuff like Hudsucker Proxy or Miller's Crossing

also, while there are some examples of hollywood directors who still have that auteur thing going (woody allen, lynch, etc.) - I think what puts tarantino and the coens in their own category is that they're the only ones who have done it in the 90s/00s w/ a pretty constant level of mainstream popularity

I'd pick Lynch over everyone tbf

Oh man I loved the Man Who Wasn't There! And you love the Hudsucker Proxy?!?!

also I assume we're talking strictly about films both have written AND directed...?

no - vote on their entire filmographies

i vote for the tarantino bros

Oh man I loved the Man Who Wasn't There! And you love the Hudsucker Proxy?!?!

haha yes

QT 4ever

also I assume we're talking strictly about films both have written AND directed...?

so... we're including Natural Born Killers and Destiy Turns on the Radio...?

sure

xpost - Oh, and to address the other half of that point: maybe I'm not enough of a film buff to really pick up all the winks, nudges, and references in the Coen's movies, but they don't really scan as super-formal to me, or so insistent on a certain aesthetic; stylized, yes, but they seem significantly more varied and human, the style feels more flexible and curious and less attracted to garishness. I dunno, that's just my feeling as someone who doesn't know a ton about film. So I don't really locate that issue with both Coens/Tarantino -- it feels really pronounced in the latter and I don't much notice it in the former.

I really liked Burn After Reading, actually, partly for reasons having to do with that "human" thing

i think brad pitts best performances have all come in movies written and/or directed by these dudes

What else has Pitt been in other than Burn After Reading and Inglourius Basterds?

i think these dudes find it easier to get financing for their movies if they call up brad pitt and ask him to be in it and he's never been the best thing in any of their movies (xpost)

apparently he was in true romance!

xp

What else has Pitt been in other than Burn After Reading and Inglourius Basterds?

True Romance

true romance!!!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxp

d'oh!

Morbz favorite Pitt role, iirc

i think these dudes find it easier to get financing for their movies if they call up brad pitt and ask him to be in it and he's never been the best thing in any of their movies (xpost)

― batch-posting microscope-toting joyless rock critic motherfucker (some dude), Friday, August 21, 2009 4:15 PM (48 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah i buy this--but even so hes great in burn after reading and IB and true romance, and otherwise i pretty rarely dig him

coulda used a none of the above option tbh

the 'none of the above' option is 'go play in another thread'

i like him in 12 monkeys, fight club, assassination of jesse james...come to think of it he's usually really funny and good

Anyway I think Coen's reference points are pretty bludgeon-y too, they just have a slightly less exhuberant way of bludgeoning you with them (nerds vs. dorks, amirite.)

Pitt is v v funny in BBR, i'll give you that, but there are soooo many actors who the Coens have brought out the best in more frequently

er BAR -- thought of it as "burn before reading" for a sec haha

sure but pitt comes to mind as a guy whos worked well with BOTH subjects of this thread

which is why i brought it up

u feel me

Still thing the best thing about BAR is Sledgehammer and Schillinger trying to figure out WTF is going on.

felt (xpost haha yes totally)

trying to think who else has worked with both --- Buscemi, definitely

one of the things I like about the Coen films is the balance between character as genre reference/signifier and character as person, such that when the bad things happen to them that are genre conventions, you also feel bad for the character. I don't get that from Tarantino films. They just feel so pre-digested, with their strong points being lines one can quote with one's friends.

James Gandolfini was in TR and TMWT

one of the things I like about the Coen films is the balance between character as genre reference/signifier and character as person, such that when the bad things happen to them that are genre conventions, you also feel bad for the character. I don't get that from Tarantino films. They just feel so pre-digested, with their strong points being lines one can quote with one's friends.

I think that this is true - but at the same time I feel like PF/RD/KB would actually be worse movies if he actually made them more...humanist?

Jackie Brown doesn't fit this trend, also...

Paul Thomas Anderson shoulda been in here, too, for the writer/director edition of the Mexican Standoff.

I really love both QT and the Co.Bros. Together, they've put out some of my favorite movies of all time. And each time I think "No, definitely _______" I think of another part of another movie and I can't make up my mind.

The Coens take it, based on Miller's Crossing, Lebowski, Fargo, O Brother, and No Country for Old Men.

xp iatee: they'd definitely be different movies ... I think Jackie Brown is probably the film of his I like best, though most of them don't do much for me.

yeah I was actually thinking PTA would probably be the closest thing to a 3rd '90s/00s hollywood auteur w/ mainstream success'

but nobody was gonna vote for him anyway, so

Certainly no one should have.

Glad someone else said this ^^^

wouldve voted paul w.s. anderson

i like a lot of the coen bros movies but i never really love them theyre probably more "consistent" than qt but i like his best movies a lot more

The only Coen brothers movies I really "love" are Raising Arizona and Barton Fink.

yah miller's crossing cums pretty close 4 me but qt seems way better @ crafting imgs that settle inside me and stick around esp w/ jackie brown and res dogs

I've only seen half of the Coen Brothers movies. I've seen most all of the Tarantino films

Much prefer the Coens just in terms of their basic sensibility. (I suppose I'm one of those people who finds Tarantino's sensibility a bit garish and hollow.)
― Isabella Cup (nabisco), Friday, August 21, 2009 7:58 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark

Hollow in that his garishness has become a one trick pony who hasn't changed but instead has found new ways to specialize in his one trick. The word I use to describe all his movies is pulp. Pulp like the majority of designs on threadless.com that might look good as clipart but I wouldn't be caught dead wearing them. Coen brothers gets my vote.

it boils down to tarantino not being my thang

that threadless analogy makes me want to vote for Tarantino.

Plus, Tarantino never made anything as terrible as Intolerable Cruelty.

when the bad things happen to them that are genre conventions, you also feel bad for the character

^^ yes, YES, this is exactly what I had in mind about Burn After Reading having a "human" quality. (I only just realized that I might have had a direct comparison in my mind -- accidental gunfire in BAR vs. Pulp Fiction ... in one it's unexpected and sorta tragic, in the other it's basically a genre joke)

in one you've spent most of the film with the character, in the other the character has no appreciable screen time or dialogue

I don't agree with your characterization of the violence in BAR and PF at all, nabisco.

If anything the best comparison is Travolta getting shot in the bathroom vs. Pitt shot in the closet and I think the tone is very similar except the former is about a million times more interestingly handled.

that threadless analogy makes me want to vote for Tarantino.
Plus, Tarantino never made anything as terrible as Intolerable Cruelty.
― depressed is a hugoholic (sciolism), Friday, August 21, 2009 9:08 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

one vote for tarantino is one vote for threadless.com. remember that kids

when Pitt shot himself, I wasn't even really sure what had happened. (iirc it was edited such that Pitt isn't shown holding the gun in a manner that would enable him to shoot himself in the face)

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/1108/181053.jpg
maybe I'm just not as cool as this guy

are you guys spoiling inglorious bastards for me btw.... keep it to that thread if you are, bastards.

answer to shakey mo in op: almodovar

xp we are talking about Burn After Reading.

There is no point in Burn After Reading at which Brad Pitt shoots himself, is the confusion. But Shakey, this:

in one you've spent most of the film with the character, in the other the character has no appreciable screen time or dialogue

this is just an explanation of exactly what I'm talking about, so I'm not sure what your thrust is. One movie does something as a kind of offhand joke, the other uses something similar as a much more human/meaningful point. (I can't think of much violence in a Tarantino film that seems meaningful or human, as opposed to just a formal point, a convention of violence.)

coens could never make a jackie brown, and i feel like that matters. qt personally.

"(I can't think of much violence in a Tarantino film that seems meaningful or human, as opposed to just a formal point, a convention of violence.)"

I don't think you are thinking very hard then.

Profound response, Alex, way to contribute to a good discussion

Reservoir Dogs seems to me to be filled with "meaningful and human violence". Jackie Brown as well.

jackie brown is a really flukey beautiful thing. yr right coens "could never" make it but it doesn't look like qt could make it either.

coens have made more movies that i like more than qt so i voted coens.

I HAVEN'T SEEN BURN AFTER READING ARRRRRG
I WANTED TO SEE THAT

you can still see it

you still can, relax

lol xp

dumbledore dies!

To be honest nabisco I think your original answer was basically pretty insincere. You took a totally joke-ish violent scene in a Tarantino movie and compared it with a quite bit less joke-ish violent scene in a Coen Bros movie and then stood back and said "look they aren't alike!" Big surprise!

but what violent scenes in Tarantino movies aren't joke-ish ... or at the least pastiche?

I think the violence in Reservoir Dogs is pretty serious throughout. Jackie Brown as well. Again I think Vega getting shot in PF (sorry for spoiling this guys) has real resonance. I do agree recent films have been more exploitational though, but that doesn't mean he's not capable of moving in another direction (note: have not seen IB so can't comment on that.)

alex already gave an example! when travolta is shot!

xp

there are a couple deaths in IB that hit me--but yeah its certainly more susceptible to nabiscos criticism than PF or JB

obviously this is a case of people responding differently to things, but I found the travolta bathroom shooting jokey. Any sort of "oh no, how horrible," feelings are dissipated due to the fact that he reappears later in the film for a significant amount of time.

also he's reading a modesty blaise comic book when he gets shot, isn't he, so i kinda remember that scene as another qt referencing some pop culture thing he digs more than "aw, travolta died"

the deaths in jackie brown are human and consequential imo

this guy has an angle:
http://www.mstrmnd.com/log/1311

This was the character you'd followed for the first 1/3 of the film and Tarantino 1) ruthlessly dispatches him almost offhandedly midway through the film (although he does give him the honor of confirmation "yup he's really dead" shot) and 2) then brings him back as a feature character again in the final 1/3 of the film. That the guy is on the john and reading Modesty Blaise (which also appears again later in the film) seems pretty secondary to me.

xp lamp: Jackie Brown is an exception, agreed.

Yeah, but the guy was a thug, the fact he got shot wasn't particularly tragic ... Brad Pitt was just a dumbass in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I didn't say it was tragic, just as meaningful and human most examples you are going to find in Coen bros films.

I didn't find it particularly human, is what I'm saying ... or meaningful, really. Again, I found it jokey.

sometimes death is stupid

Technically Travolta was also just a dumbass in the wrong place at the wrong time and I think PF gives a lot more opportunities to care about him than BAR gives you to care about Pitt's mentally challenged gym rat, but maybe that's just me.

the only problem was his boss was out getting him coffee.

its always kinda tragic when mentally retarded ppl get merked during a b&e ~ xpost i guess

uh, travolta was the main character, Pitt was a secondary character ... a better comparison would be Pitt in the closet vs. the kid that gets his head blown off in the car.

Uh the kid who has two lines? Yeah that's a great point of comparison.

everyone in BAR is retarded to a degree; there's a hierarchy of stupidity in operation

Who is the main character in BAR according to you guys btw? Cuz Pitt seems to get as much screentime to me as anyone does.

OK I like the Coen bros a lot but having just watched both Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown the other night I was reminded how much I really fucking love certain QT films so he's getting my vote.

both have made movies i like, both have made movies i strongly dislike. can't really choose. i guess i've seen more bad coen.

you could argue Linda Lipshitz is the main character of BAR; she has something she needs she gets through entering a new experience. Malkovich and Clooney are both villans who have fallen out of their "elevated" worlds and are killed by mundane existence. Pitt and the Manager are the sacrifical lambs.

I compared the two shootings because they were both semi-accidental splattery head explosions. Just on a technical level. It wasn't an "answer" to anything, it was a realization of maybe one reason I was feeling a greater humanness is a given Coens film. I don't know how it's "insincere" to have or mention this reaction, unless the idea is that anyone who differs from Alex's opinion must be doing so just to be difficult. It's just a random one of various details that create that reaction, for me. Like I said up top, I am one of those people who generally finds Tarantino's sensibility a bit hollow and garish, and it's aesthetic w/r/t violence is obviously going to be part of that.

^^ agreed.

"(I can't think of much violence in a Tarantino film that seems meaningful or human, as opposed to just a formal point, a convention of violence.)"

Just to going repost that. And yes the idea is that people who disagree with me are doing it just to be difficult. Glad to see you noticed!

I will admit that one of the problems with Tarantino now is that he's been doing the over-the-top exploitation thing for as long as he did whatever other thing he was doing pre-Kill Bill (let's call it the slightly more serious movie thing) so it might be hard to remember that there was a time when he lent the violence in his films a little more gravitas.

yes--reservoir dogs and jackie brown.

tons of gravitas in Kill Bill: wedding massacre, trailer park scene, Bill's death

I don't really like QT all that much and haven't seen Pulp Fiction for many years. The first time I saw it I was quite young and knew close to nothing about cinema. This ingenuity maybe accounts for my reaction to Vega getting shot; I found it a total headfuck the way that he had been a lead in a previous segment and then had been relegated to the role of dispensable goon, dying absurdly and ignobly. It really had an impact on me. I see it as definitely "jokey" but maybe there's more to it. I'm not sure how I would feel if I rewatched.

a lot of the gravitas seems forced in tarintinto but wtv I like his movies

I like barton fink way more than anything he's made tho so there's that

the ending of barton fink was so perfect

Once of the reasons why I think I like Death Proof best of the post-JB films is that the violent sequence in the middle of that film (no spoilers Captain) is so vivid and shocking and frankly cruel that it can't be just dismissed as novelty or joke-y. It's not necessarily enjoyable, but it's so jarring lends a real sense of seriousness to a movie that otherwise is fairly cartoon-ish.

"tons of gravitas in Kill Bill: wedding massacre, trailer park scene, Bill's death"

See I actually think most of those scenes are played fairly camp.

who says camp can't be serious?

like Fall/Dylan poll; I'm not voting. Pitting geniuses against each other is counterproductive.

Alex I'm still not sure what about that opinion -- my not seeing it -- merits being kind of a dick, but this would be way more fun if, instead of being jerky, you wanted to tell me stuff about how Tarantino's use of violence actual resonates with you on a human level!

xp Well I'm saying obv.

I, for one, get boners

I mean, it'd just be a better discussion and we'd get along better about it, right? :)

I think american cinema is going through huge exploitation phase, picking up around 10 years ago. Tarantimo would be one of the forefathers of "modern exploitation cinema" (I'm hoping it's through - at least the stuff without meaning). As people became desensitized via media like the internet... and the constant bad things that happen in the news... filmmakers tried to compensate by showing extremely risky, gross, sensitive material.

I'm hoping that American Pie won't reappear again and again... and for the record why the hell do some people get a kick out of showing others 2girls1cup?? I watch it and say nothing cept "this sucks. why am I watching this crap. change the channel. you like this crap?"
exploitation is literally a wanker eating crap "American Pie 3"... at least John Waters knew how to do it right (even if his movies were low budget and the cameramen were shabby).

I mean it's a movie. On some level all movies are campy. Or at least can be turned camp through satire.
give us examples of noble, pure gravitas in fiction film!

xxp How can I argue with a smiley face?

I dunno with a knife maybe

milo & otis xp to sexyd

when that one clown dude in andrei rublev got all quiet and sat down after performing had gravitas to me

then again that movie was boring as fuuuuuuck

Look some scenes of violence are campier than others and I don't think any of those scenes have any particular emotional weight.

For example in the wedding massacre: you know that everyone else dies and Tarantino does nothing to make you feel anything in particular for any of them in the short b&w sequence before their death. Plus all the violence takes place off screen. Short of one or two screams, he's not exactly doing much there.

"I'm pregnant"

Death Proof also worked for me along the construct/verite-person line, bobbing in and out of awkward/ornate dialogue (I thought the 2nd group was a bit more palpable, esp. Zoe Bell playing a version of herself), but after the scene Alex brought up, the OTT punchline at the end felt both genre-pleasure jokey but also too invested to be merely hollow. There was almost a feeling of trashy for-kicks material being 'resensitized' somewhere in there.

xp CONGRATULATIONS!

resensitized -- that's a cool concept

There is no point in Burn After Reading at which Brad Pitt shoots himself, is the confusion. But Shakey, this:

lolz well then I'd say the main difference is the Coen Bros scene sucked because I couldn't tell what happened

The first part of DeathProof was so banal and glib, I fell asleep. This is actually making me curious to see the whole thing.

both are terrible, coens somewhat less so, voted for them

tbh one thing that annoys me about the coens is their misanthropic tendencies--the truth is that most days, if were going around killing characters, id rather have characters who im not invested in die, especially if theyre dying more or less at the whim of their creators rather than in service to the narrative

challenging

x

p

xxp i.e. i prefer having some extra die in the backseat of the car--especially because that action serves as an important turning point in the plot--than have a character who actually feel vaguely affectionate toward get shot in the head for no discernible reason

yeah but isn't that basically saying that you'd prefer your violence more hollow and jokey than "human" and affecting?

im not really being clear--im saying id prefer that no one die, but if people have to die, id rather them die for a reason

I think his point is that he prefers his RANDOM violence that way, yes.

he gets shot in the head because he was dicking around with highly-trained fucking assassins!

so if were going to have people die just because the directors have a death wish, lets make them extras so i dont have to spend the whole movie feeling mad about it

haha yeah, it was pretty quick, Shakey, though I'm surprised -- remember how Clooney talked early on about how he was a marshal and the draw-and-shoot impulse was just an automatic reflex? hence the suddenness. plus then he goes around talking about how he shot someone! haha maybe you weren't enjoying it and had partly checked out already.

(xpost - as far as discernible reasons I guess I agree with the "sacrificial lamb" reading above: yeah it's kinda bleak and misanthropic, I guess, the way all this death -- including the most decent character in the whole thing -- is basically in the service of one woman's quest for cosmetic surgery)

yeah! and it bugs me!

lolz well then I'd say the main difference is the Coen Bros scene sucked because I couldn't tell what happened

it's pretty obvious what happened!

that feels way more "hollow" to me than the stylized tarantino violence

all this being said i dont really know if i prefer coens to tarantino. just that burn after reading is my least favorite coen bros movie largely because of what feels like such hollow, needless, violent misanthropy

it is about the CIA, after all

I felt sincerely bad for Frances McDormand's character dealing with the automated customer service phone system.

xp and the fitness industry.

I mean those are two hollow, needless and violent groups of misanthropes right there

burn after reading is my least favorite coen bros movie largely because of what feels like such hollow, needless, violent misanthropy

― fleetwood (max), Friday, August 21, 2009 6:02 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

^^^^ real talk

I read it as tragic, but I think I'm in the minority on really liking that one.

I'm having fun trying to match up films between the two -- does Inglorious Basterds get to be the counterpart of O, Brother.. or is that the Kill Bill ones?

Kill Bill doesn't really have a good Coen Bros comparison, does it? The first part is maybe Crimewave and the second part maybe No Country For Old Men?

all this being said i dont really know if i prefer coens to tarantino. just that burn after reading is my least favorite coen bros movie largely because of what feels like such hollow, needless, violent misanthropy

totally agree with this btw ... obviously I wasn't payin close enough attention to the Pitt-gets-shot scene (cuz my memory is that Clooney didn't even have his gun drawn? eh who cares) but yeah in general the movie was just irritating

I think that Coens and Tarantino can both be irritating in the same way ... I didn't find Burn After Reading as enjoyable or worthwhile as Raising Arizona or Barton Fink, which I felt did more to humanize the characters.

btw im a total hypocrite w/r/t this stuff... ultimately im only calling the coens movie misanthropic because they actually created characters i was enough invested in to care when they died. so: credit where credits due.

affecting violence perpetrated on minor characters: the bystanders being shot in Pulp Fiction. That is sort of a stomach turning bit for me (but then that kind of thing always hits pretty hard for me as in, say, The French Connection when that random woman with the baby carriage is shot).

blood simple blows the shit out of every other coen film and makes tarantino movies look like farrelly brothers...not that I don't enjoy a qt flick now and again.

qt: teenagers
cobros: twentysomethings

Raising Arizona or Barton Fink, which I felt did more to humanize the characters.

this strikes me as really odd - Raising Arizona is nothing but wall-to-wall white trash caricatures, its really quite cruel. I enjoyed it as a teenager, but on recent viewings not so much. And in Barton Fink everyone is a horrible monster! (with possible exception of Judy Davis)

they're both hit and miss -- and more miss than hit recently -- but the bottom line for me is that no coens movie ever jazzed me up the way reservoir dogs and pulp fiction did. plus tarantino didn't get an oscar for a humdrum adaptation of a dopey book. advantage quentin.

I know I'm just sayin you could level it at the Coens too - particularly for stuff like Hudsucker Proxy or Miller's Crossing

― go Nick go! Scrub that paint! Scrub it!! Yeah!! (Shakey Mo Collier)

prob my two fave Coens if I'm honest, so this one is tuff

Shakey, do you honestly think that the main character is a horrible monster?

no coens movie ever jazzed me up the way reservoir dogs and pulp fiction did

this rings true

reservoir dogs completely rearranged the map like no other "indie" since... well, since sex, lies, and videotape, anyway

Shakey, do you honestly think that the main character is a horrible monster?

nah just a smug idiot who needs some to get flannery o'connor on his ass

"Shakey, do you honestly think that the main character is a horrible monster?"

It's a self-hating jew, sarahel. ;)

thing, ahem.

I found him sympathetic, tbh

I think calling him a horrible monster is a bit uh harsh, but I don't think he's particularly sympathetic (or likeable) either.

tarantino even at best has never made anything that isn't just goofy jokes/pastiche/violence, and fine I enjoy plenty of that.

but coens at least have some emotional wallop to what they do. still reckon blood simple is lightyears clear of anything else done by either..

Shakey, do you honestly think that the main character is a horrible monster?

?? The whole point of the movie is that he's a horrible monster that doesn't listen to other people! He's a smug, self-absorbed, talentless hack who thinks he's a genius and better than everybody else - the scene with the sailors where he gets his ass kicked while screaming about how his uniform is "the life of the mind" says it all. He rants about how the "common man" is so important, but he treats the actual "common" people he meets like shit. He idolizes a drunk, violently abusive fraud (whose wife he screws)... the guy is awful.

don't get the blood simple love--it's an average indie crime movie.

yeah I've fallen asleep during it several times. It was pretty great the first time tho I'll admit. The shooting-the-guy-through-a-wall thing was so good they used it twice.

local garda i'm going to take a swag and say you didn't catch reservoir dogs or pulp fiction on first run

call all destroyer otm in re blood simple though i'm not sure what indie crime movies even existed pre plus DAN HEDAYA

I guess I found him tragically delusional and socially incompetent, but by no means a monster.

indie crime movies

Gun Crazy

Killing of a Chinese Bookie

Blood Simple is just so intense...I watched it one night without even knowing what it was, at the time was in a big mental hole due to illness and stuff, and it just blew me away. it's just so atmospheric, I v seldom feel anything like the way I feel when I watch that flick. have seen it several times since, watched it twice in a row a few weeks back. so yeah prob too big a fanboy to have a rational view on it!

I'd say I got Pulp Fiction first run, maybe R Dogs around same time. I loved them both then but I was like, 15. I dunno, they don't seem particularly 3 dimensional anymore, prob cos of the entire generation of similar art that they came up with.

I think he's first three movies are pretty rich. Way more than just pastiches.

Reservoir Dogs is a very good twist on City of Fire, way more interesting take than The Beat My Heart Skipped's on Fingers, for example.

Which I also like btw.

huh, ILX branching out

"don't get the blood simple love--it's an average indie crime movie."

it's not very cutesy, which satisfies the heart's desire for non-cutesyness. jardim's haircut probably was too cute to qualify "no country" for this.

"huh, ILX branching out"

huh, Morbs being snide

nothing cute about that haircut don't kid yourself.

Coens.

"Jardim."

watched city of fire on netflix a few months back while weeded out and wrote up some kinda of crazy email about how fucking OTT and awesome it was, but i wisely deleted it

anyway, i'm picking QT even if only for jackie brown, because i will stan for that flick for all time

It's morally wrong for me to vote in this poll since I've never seen a Tarantino movie but my love for Los Coens is so great that I can't imagine the experience changing my vote. Have seen all the Coen brothers movie thru/including Intolerable Cruelty and there's not a bad one in the bunch, really -- but more than that, their movies are good in so many different ways, which seems very hard to pull off -- i.e. the kind of can-you-keep-looking-at-it violent style of Blood Simple is mastered and then never returned to, as is the indie zaniness -- was indie zaniness ever better than this? -- of Raising Arizona. "And when there was no crawdads to be found.. We ate san'." To be able to write lines like that and then to put such lines aside forever is a kind of creative self-restraint nobody else has.

Like I said, not a bad one in the bunch, but maybe there are two -- Barton Fink and Big Lebowski -- which don't achieve their goals, partly because I don't think they ever clearly elucidate their goals. That they are so enjoyable to watch despite this fact merits further praise.

those are really weird choices for 'don't achieve their goals'! (imo)

I mean in some ways, I think the big lebowski probably transcended the goals the coens had for that movie

yeah, they wanted it to be obnoxiously venerated by stoners JUST a lil' bit.

^^^ probably not far from the truth

OK, if that was the goal I concede the point.

i am gonna watch pulp fiction tonight as soon as i am done eating dinner.
never seen it before!

O_O wow!

that is insane to me

i saw that PF in the theater, w/my parents, at age 13

they'd seen it the week prior, and loved it

the pre-film conversation to prep me for the gunshop was pretty lol, esp since my mom's favorite, most-quoted line from the movie was "bring out the gimp"

samuel l jackson is pretty ott.

OK, if that was the goal I concede the point.

*sigh* Missed my point, huh? Lebowski is obnoxiously venerated by stoners to heights undreamt of by an army of megalomaniac directors.

cuz it made me think, yeah who the fuck writes and directs their own movies after the first couple years of their careers anymore...?

The Dardenne brothers. Furriners don't count right?

James Gray.

Wes Anderson. PT Anderson. Roy Andersson (damn, there I go again).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKTiwCez6Zs

Like I said, not a bad one in the bunch,

CRAZY TALK!

Funny how after all these years Reservoir Dogs now looks like a Coen bros film.

One big contrast: Tarantino has an obvious affection for all of his characters. The Coen Brothers, on the other hand, have borderline contempt for everyone, both on screen and perhaps in the audience as well. They're pretty cold, cynical fish, which isn't a dis but definitely does affect their output. I do love how they followed their big Oscar break with one of their least consequential flicks, though, which is another parallel to Tarantino (follow their own muse and all that).

I'm curious about the upcoming one, since it's apparently loosely autobiographical (well, about their dad) and features none of their usual actor ringers. I have a friend who is their cousin, and he told me that once you meet their weird dad both they and their movies make total sense.

one of their least consequential flicks

nuh uh. Everything after Raising Arizona and before The Man Who Wasn't There is pretty inconsequential.

I think Josh meant "least consequential" in a good way (which I agree with).

The Coen Brothers, on the other hand, have borderline contempt for everyone, both on screen and perhaps in the audience as well.

this is a pretty dumb generalization to make imo

Raising Arizona is a rather loving film (and, counterintuitively, their best).

do they have contempt for T L Jones and Kelly Macdonald in No Country?

maybe what josh was trying to say is that tarantino's characters are better vehicles for vicariously experiencing his movies, while the coen's characters are too "quirky" to invite such easy identification?

i mean, that's the best i can make out of josh's statement because otherwise he's saying the coen's have 'borderline contempt' for marge in fargo and norville in hudsucker, which is a dangerously crazypants assertion

I think he's just overgeneralizing.

the coens dont have contempt for all of their characters but they certainly have contempt for a lot of them. tarantino seems to like everyone in his movies.

i'm not convinced. plenty of their characters come across as unsympathetic, but their flaws are recognizably human. a lot tarantino's characters are more recognizable as archetypes than as humans.

The Dardenne brothers. Furriners don't count right?

James Gray.

Wes Anderson. PT Anderson. Roy Andersson (damn, there I go again).

as I said upthread: they're the only ones who have done it in the 90s/00s w/ a pretty constant level of mainstream popularity (and PT Anderson comes closest but not really)

The Dardenne brothers. Furriners don't count right?

L'enfant had a script?

Seriously ppl, ALMODOVAR

Claire Denis

Manoel de Oliveira (at age 102 or whatever)

tempted to go with tarantino even though the coens' career is richer because the coens have already (occasionally) moved into the joyless nihilism of late-period auteurs and I have a hard time imagining Tarantino ever getting that sour.

would definitely take the coens first six movies over qt's, though. and i'd be surprised if i liked inglorious more than lebowski.

and putting frances mcdormand in everything >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> putting quentin tarantino in everything

woah sorry for the ee cummings homage

(IB SPOILERS)

quote from other tarantino thread got me thinking w/r/t the earlier conversation here about tarantino and violence

The other moment in the movie that I'm probably the most cinematically satisfied, where it's exactly the way it was in my head, and I almost can't believe that it got nailed to such a degree was the sequence in the projection booth, between Shosanna [Melanie Laurent] and Frederick, the music, the slow motion, the effect of the camera coming up and seeing this almost twisted Romeo And Juliet tableau on the floor, as the film reel continues to go on and they manage to still be alive, even though we see they're dead and they live on in film, I... - I'm sorry, I don't mean to get enraptured in my own fucking work, but (laughs)... That is the moment that I go 'Oh my god!'.

vs.

this is just an explanation of exactly what I'm talking about, so I'm not sure what your thrust is. One movie does something as a kind of offhand joke, the other uses something similar as a much more human/meaningful point. (I can't think of much violence in a Tarantino film that seems meaningful or human, as opposed to just a formal point, a convention of violence.)

first quote summarizes tarantino's perspective on movie death/violence super-well, I think! which is, basically: 'these are characters in a film - as such, they are more immortal than real life people. if they happen to die in the movie, you don't have to get emotionally involved...' - this happens a lot in IB - most of the hero Basterds get killed and the movie gives practically zero weight to that.

the emotional weight / humanism of the films is always in the dialogue rather than what physically happens to the characters. like, first scene in IB - the moment where they actually shoot at the floor is possibly the least affecting part of the scene.

'meaningful' violence/death is the cheapest/easiest narrative tool. (wanna make a movie sadder? have a good guy die at the end.) so it seems weird to critique him for toying w/ alternative paths.

i did think that in IB it was interesting how most of the tension and pathos revolved around whether the nazis were going to get what they deserved, and not what happens to the protagonists. pretty much every one of the good guys was on a suicide mission at the end and that was never even discussed.

(sorry, more spoilers i guess)

these are characters in a film - as such, they are more immortal than real life people. if they happen to die in the movie, you don't have to get emotionally involved...

yeah, this is precisely what I mean about violence in his films seeming like a formal point -- a convention of the medium, to be played with -- more often than it seems to refer to the world or to violence itself, or even to have a sort of purely narrative weight. I don't object to that on any huge moral grounds, and it's not uninteresting, but it does often present to me as garish, in his hands. I don't know how articulate I can be about it, but it winds up feeling (to me) a bit like a comedy built entirely on antic mugging and slapstick. (which is probably not the best analogy, given that Coen films do so much stylized antic mugging and near-slapstick!)

in that case I think we're on the same boat w/ your first sentence and w/r/t *what* tarantino's doing, we just have different responses to it

yes, totally -- that's why my first post was like "I'm one of those people who don't go for it," etc.

btw I'm not super-deep in the Coens' catalog but I have never read their style or writing (or their love of stagy, stylized goons and grotesques) as being misanthropic or contemptuous toward the characters; it usually feels more to me like they're genuinely (maybe even generously?) interested in these very-exaggerated types, and enjoy peopling a world with them alone. (I would feel different if the films tended to present a straightforward good/normal type wandering around among goons and fools, but they seem pretty egalitarian on this front.)

also: I'm surprised so much of the talk in this thread is about BAR (I guess cause it's the most recent)

imo the best comparison point would be Big Lebowski

w/ the Coens I really think it depends on the character/film. BL is a good example of them genuinely liking basically all their crazy characters, BAR is a pretty good example of the opposite.

^^^ otm

yeah, but its not like the crazy characters are jerks or at least they're not defined as crazy against the more relatable norm characters, in BAR, the general assholishness of all the characters doesn't grow out of their oddness but both are symptomatic of the world they're interested in creating. maybe?

actually I think BAR is the perfect example of crazy characters 'defined as crazy against the relatable norm characters' w/ the CIA guys shaking their heads and wtf-ing

CIA guys were kinda crazy too iirc

crazy in the 'lol CIA so serious' sense, but they were clearly the perspective that you were supposed to relate to, no?

they were casually and off-handedly disposing of bodies and sorting through murders like it was watercooler conversation -- I don't think we were meant to experience that as good or normal or super-relatable!

No choice for Sylvia Plath?

or, well, let's not even get into the "meant to" part -- I'll just say I certainly didn't. possibly I had a minority reaction to that movie in general, but I didn't find it to be contemptuous toward those characters at all; they all have their charms, and I think there's a scene somewhere where the viewer is probably going to empathize pretty deeply with each of them.

unless that viewer is Shakey Mo

the only guy I really felt any empathy for was the hapless gym owner that gets shot at the end. since he was the only character who wasn't a completely self-absorbed, dangerous moron. I guess there was a bit of empathy for Malkovich as well but his insane bitterness made that a little difficult.

it's true, the Jenkins character is the one who's a huge cut above in decency, which in this context makes him seem practically saintly.

there's a larger thing I want to say about how characters like these operate, but I'm not sure how to get at it. I guess I do find it somehow human and sympathetic to take certain types of characters and exaggerate them in this way -- e.g., yes, the way you relate to Malkovich's predicament but he takes it to this grotesque level of insanity, or the way you can really relate to the fact that McDormand wants her surgeries, but her single-minded determination goes from seeming kinda admirable to being this small-minded shallow thing that brings down everyone she meets. so I never feel like the characters are being played as awful, contemptible human beings, just ... highly exaggerated ones.

a lot of their characters (Coens) seem like people out of weird-but-true news stories, like the Taco Bell finger lady.

xpost - (which seems like a common thing with Coens -- people with these small human needs or characteristics, stylized and exaggerated, that come into conflict in ways more dramatic than the smallness of the original thing would suggest. I usually like that, especially in some of the common types they use, like the small determined person who plods around single-mindedly after one specific thing, or their whole love of happy-go-lucky charming smooth-talking types.)

imo the only way I feel tarantino "loves" all his characters is the way a imaginitive 8 year old "loves" his action figures

is that supposed to be a critique?

elmo otm.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

sheesh.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_cXJpYUj3CY8/RoFODYxIrkI/AAAAAAAAAp4/p42I2IFqjT4/s400/0626_tarantino_toes.jpg

I think I forgot to vote, but I guess it didn't make much a difference.

how many minnesota natives are on this site again?

784

today we are all minnesotans

Saw the new Coen trailer today, looked promising, ie nothing like the work of a puerile foot-fetishizing masturbator.

oh man, not a masturbator!!!

on film, I mean.

haha

'a serious man' v 'inglorious basterds'?

serious basterds

good question. the big jew movies.