Quentin Tarantino's Favorite Films of the 21st Century (So Far)

Quentin Tarantino's been talking recently, and much of the response has turned on his opinions of a few particular actors...But what about his actual selections?

#20. West Side Story (2021) I still have yet to see this (or the original!), so I have little opinion on it except it seems to me part of the string of films Spielberg did just to appease the Hollywood establishment while he tried to figure out his continued relevance.

#19. Cabin Fever (2003) I greatly respect Tarantino as a director, but I am also very aware that our tastes are not exactly the same.  I'm just not really a fan of the horror genre, so while I know this has a pretty well-established reputation, I've never seen it.  I'm glad it helped catapult Eli Roth's career, though.

#18. Moneyball (2011) Back in 2011 my life kind of fell off the rails, so I didn't catch up with this one until later, somehow convincing myself in the meantime I couldn't possibly be really missing that much.  I was wrong.  It's probably one of the highlights of Brad Pitt's career.  It's crazy, because I'm a fan of baseball, and the A's, and Yuuuke (the Greek God of Walks!), and Brad Pitt!  So I'm glad I came around on it.

#17. Chocolate (2009) Until his list I hadn't even heard of this one, but having looked it up, not a surprising pick for the director of Kill Bill.  

#16. The Devil's Rejects (2005) Never seen it, never will.  But anyone who's familiar with Tarantino, again, shouldn't be surprised by such a selection.

#15. The Passion of the Christ (2004) When I compiled my most recent selections for best of the century and all-time, this was a very difficult cut, because I do believe it's one of the best films ever made, and some later permutation will probably include it, so I'm glad he's got it on his list.

#14. School of Rock (2003) Another famous movie I have yet to see, arguably still the defining film of Jack Black's career.

#13. Jackass: The Movie (2002) There are movies that are easy to take for granted, since many of us remember that there was, of course, the TV show before it, and sequels, but it really is worth remembering something like this.  

#12. Big Bad Wolves (2014) Another of what must be considered very much his deep cuts.

#11. Battle Royale (2000) One of the true cult classics of the new millennium, very easy to take for granted, and another unsurprising selection for the director of Kill Bill.

#10. Midnight in Paris (2011) One of the movies I also truly adore, and I love how Tarantino frames how it helped him appreciate Owen Wilson.

#9. Shaun of the Dead (2004) I am very much aware that this is one of those movies I take for granted, and I suspect a lot of people do.

#8. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) I confess to still be baffled at how much love this one's gotten since its release, and I suspect that'll never change.

#7. Unstoppable (2010) Anyone who knows what kind of movie Tarantino enjoyed in the '70s shouldn't be surprised to see this particular selection.  Another easy to take for granted, but I remember enjoying it upon release.

#6. Zodiac (2007) Another film that can get lost in the shuffle...I think Tarantino's whole point with all this is how lost in the shuffle anything that might've previously stood out has become in recent Hollywood's rush to celebrate basically anything that doesn't look like classic Hollywood.

#5. There Will Be Blood (2007) Tarantino's thoughts became instantly notorious when he criticized Paul Dano in this, which I instantly sympathized with, since I thought at the time Dano was horribly miscast, and ruined the whole movie, so while Tarantino thinks Dano tempered the results just below the classic it's otherwise been embraced to be, I thought it bumped the film well outside contention.  I've never seen Heaven's Gate, but given its notoriety, I would naturally assume it couldn't really be very different an experience.  The ironies of the present age, I guess.

#4. Dunkirk (2017) Christopher Nolan has so thoroughly dominated much of what I consider the best filmmaking of the past quarter century, for me Dunkirk was comparative minor fare, given the likes of Memento, The Dark Knight, Oppenheimer.  But I'm glad Tarantino has him in the mix.  

#3. Lost in Translation (2003) In the twenty-odd years since its release, somehow became yet another of the films whose impact has dulled.  In earlier eras, this would've been impossible.

#2. Toy Story 3 (2010) Another of the movies whose reputation just baffles me...I always figured this one needlessly rehashed everything that worked better in the first two, and it was only the illusion that it "rounded out the story" that made it seem special.  But in that analysis it cheapens the achievements of them, reducing the experience to literally the least important element from them: Andy.  I mean, if these movies aren't about the toys, what are they?  So that's why I was glad when the fourth one made that all the more obvious by finally including one a kid actually made.

#1. Black Hawk Down (2002) Here's where it's most obvious that Tarantino is thumbing his nose to the establishment with his list, since the critics never saw any value in it.  Me, since I actually went to school with the younger brother of one of the victims (who wasn't featured in the movie), I was never able to even consider dismissing it, and to my mind, represents the bewildering nature of warfare perfectly.

So it's certainly not my list, but it makes sense for all the reasons Tarantino compiled it.  At some point there will be fresh takes on this era, and I figure he's pretty well close to the mark on how history will reckon it.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

rating: ****

the story: A former TV star's bid for career resurrection intertwines with the life of Sharon Tate.

review: A week after seeing it I'm still processing Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.  Sometimes I'm instantly in love with a Quentin Tarantino film (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained), other times I'm not sure how devoted I'll be (Jackie Brown, Hateful Eight, even Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs).  The two-volume Kill Bill is sort of in-between, although the second one is closer to instant love.

But of all his movies, Once Upon...is probably closest to Jackie Brown, which was Tarantino's first taste of languid, of just letting his filmmaking speak for itself rather than splashy violence (Reservoir Dogs) or splashy stars (Pulp Fiction) do the talking (along with the characters, naturally).  Once Upon takes its tone from Margot Robbie's Sharon Tate, who today is best known for being horribly murdered at the behest of Charles Manson.  Tarantino has stated that he wanted Tate to exist apart from that narrative.  In fact, Once Upon... becomes his second film, after Inglourious Basterds, to deliberately rewrite history, in allowing Tate to avoid her fate, and it's in that regard that the film reaches its highest note and possibly the note on which the entire movie will ultimately be judged.

But Robbie's Tate isn't really the star of the movie.  That honor falls to Leonardo DiCaprio, who's featured as the former TV star, a fictional character, who has been struggling to find meaningful roles.  His TV show was a western, and by the time we catch up with him he's being cast in his latest guest spot in another one, and as Tarantino presents it the material becomes a movie-within-a-movie, something I wish he'd done with Django Unchained (as a flashback-of-sorts for the Brunhilda myth), which for some viewers might be a needless tangent, but it helps put the character in context, how he views himself, and thus how everything would turn out for all the characters if we followed their narratives equally.  Metaphorically, you understand.

Just below DiCaprio is Brad Pitt playing his former stunt double, now personal assistant.  After, oh, about a decade of sliding toward irrelevance and being best known for his relationship with Angelina Jolie, Pitt's performance in Once Upon... is almost akin to Travolta in Pulp Fiction, a giant reminder of his considerable talents, the full impact of his charismatic screen presence.  He's got the best scene, too, a fight with Bruce Lee that becomes better as it builds, which is interesting for Tarantino, who usually accomplishes the bulk of his work with words.  It's another subtle evolution of his filmmaking mastery.

Among the supporting players are Al Pacino (allowing himself a rare character role), Bruce Dern, and Kurt Russell, who's probably in the best sweet spot of his career (previewed, in some ways, by Death Proof, with a great spotlight in Hateful Eight).

But the ending is the real selling point.  As I said, Tarantino allows Sharon Tate to cheat fate.  In doing so, he probably allows Tate's husband, at the time of her death, Roman Polanski a reboot as well.  Polanski at one time was known simply as a brilliant director.  He was just coming off his breakthrough film, Rosemary's Baby, at the time, and would later direct Chinatown and The Pianist, but his career was forever tarnished by a rape charge he chose exile from America to avoid prosecution over.  Is it reasonable to assume Tate's death played a role in the sequence of events that led to this fate?  Is Tarantino saving two lives here?  That's how I choose to view it, anyway.

Giving Tate the focus, rather than Charles Manson, is itself a noteworthy choice on Tarantino's part.  It takes the power away from Manson, who entered virtual cultural immortality as the result of ordering Tate's murder, and Tate herself became just a name.  In effect, Tarantino is addressing two major sins, and offering a chance at correction, that've haunted Hollywood for fifty years, which is noteworthy in and of itself at a time when Hollywood has been playing a moral authority.  Is it a direct criticism?  Will Hollywood even care, come the Oscars next year, or merely be flattered, as it tends to be, when presented as subject matter?  If it gives Tarantino his long-deserved Academy recognition, all the better.

Perhaps, in time, I'll better understand how much I appreciate this one.  For now I'll be a little cautious.  But like all Tarantino's movies, it won't be easy to forget.  Not by a long shot.  Yeah....