Quentin Tarantino Part I

Today is my Birthday.
So as a Birthday present to myself, I’m going to indulge myself and write about one of the very best, modern writer/directors, Quentin Tarantino.

2015 is said to be a huge year for movies.
We have already had Avengers: Age of Ultron, Mad Max has been revived brilliantly in Mad Max: Fury Road.
We have also been taken back to Jurassic Park with Jurassic World. As he promised, Arnie came back as the Terminator in Terminator Genysis.
Later this year, Rocky Balboa will be back training Apollo’s son in Creed. Plus the new Star Wars film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is released this Christmas.

Most of these big name films just bore me if I’m honest.
I mean, the whole world seems to be so looking forward to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. But me? I just couldn’t care less.

However there is one film released later this year that I simply can not wait to see.

The Hateful Eight.
Quentin Tarantino’s new flick.
I’m so excited and already looking to see if I can pre-book tickets as soon as I’m able to.
I do love me some Tarantino moving pictures.

So I thought while I patiently wait as the release date for The Hateful Eight slowly draws closer, that I’d look back on the man and his amazing career so far.

From Quentin Tarantino’s early love for films, to his breakthrough films of the early and mid 90s that cemented him as a genuine film-making talent, right up to today.

So please join me on my retrospective look back at one of the very best, modern writer/directors…and mediocre actors.
Or I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance…etc…

Born Quentin Jerome Tarantino on March 27, 1963. Quentin Tarantino had always had a great passion for films and film-making and often describes himself as the ultimate film nerd.
Seriously, this guy’s film knowledge makes him a walking IMDb, only more reliable.

Quentin engaged in his love for films by working the infamous Video Archives a VHS rental store in the late 80s. When he wasn’t working with movies, he was watching them instead.
However, as much as Quentin loved his simple life of working at the VHS store. He always wanted more and always had a passion to make movies…so he did just that.

Tarantino’s “first” film was called, My Best Friend’s Birthday.

What, never heard of the film?
Well that is probably due to the fact it was never a theatrically released film and more so just a few friends experimenting by making a movie together.
The film has never officially been released for one reason or another, one being the that it’s been said the last half the film was destroyed in a fire. But there have also been conflicting stories that say the second half was never destroyed in a fire, it was just never filmed at all. Either way, the film is not complete.
However the first half does exist and can be seen if you know where to look…like here.

Did you enjoy that?
Bad acting, below average camera work and direction. Yes, it’s not exactly high quality I know. But you can see Quentin’s style he would eventually become famous for, slowly emerging in this film. The dialogue is there, the characters are there, the homages are there.

But there is something else I wanted to point out about My Best Friend’s Birthday.
Does any of that film seem slightly familiar to you?
How about that scene where the character Clarence talks about how if he had to fuck a man, he’d fuck Elvis?
Maybe you have already seen a film with a similar scene, but with far better production values. Maybe that film was called True Romance?

Yep, True Romance is “technically” a remake of this no budget, friend made film.
Quentin Tarantino took his concept behind his first film, My Best Friend’s Birthday and turned it into his first ever full film script that would become True Romance.
He also wrote another film script Natural Born Killers.

Quentin Tarantino then sold both of these film scripts and the films were made into proper Hollywood productions with Tony Scott directing True Romance and Oliver Stone directing Natural Born Killers.

Quentin Tarantino was now a bonafide film script writer.
But he still strived for more and decided he wanted to not only write films, but direct them too.
With the money he made from selling his two scripts, he started work on his next script with the full intention of directing this one.

Reservoir Dogs: Tarantino’s first proper film as a writer and director hit the cinemas in 1992…and it hit them hard.

Reservoir Dogs premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1992 and later shown at the Cannes and Toronto film festivals. The film was a huge success when theatrically relased and has gone on to become a firm independent film-making milestone.
Quentin was an unknown and nobody trusted him to direct a full length feature film…but that soon changed after the release of Reservoir Dogs.

Quentin Tarantino went from an unknown to a known name overnight with the success that was Reservoir Dogs and his next film would only be even bigger.

Pulp Fiction: Was released in 1994 and made Quentin Tarantino the hottest name in Hollywood.
Many fans consider Pulp Fiction to be Quentin’s greatest work so far. I, myself have lost count of how many times I have seen the film. I recall a time where myself and friend, Paul would watch this film every Sunday without fail.

Pulp Fiction was a runaway success. A wonderful short story anthology that intertwine with each other leading to one hell of a great story full of amazing characters.

With now 2 successful films under his belt, Quentin Tarantino started to make friends in the film world. One such friend was another low budget and independent film-maker, Robert Rodriguez and they would team up for the next film.

Here ends part I, but coming up in part II we see Quentin and Robert join forces, as well as see Quentin’s career just keep on growing.