I really should check out Martyrs again. I didn't quite like it when I saw it, the first half was much more engrossing compared to what the second half became. I certainly didn't see it as one of the best foreign horror movies that it is often praised as. But then again, I had similar feelings about The Shining before rewatching it and really appreciating it
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Pulp Fiction (rewatch)
★★★★½
I didn't enjoy Pulp Fiction as much when I first watched, but by this third watch, it has now become one of my favorite Tarantino movies. Very much a refinement of the ideas in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction revels in the minutiae and mundanity of criminal life, those unseen moments that thrillers and action movies usually skip over in the lives of scumbags and lowlifes. A conversation between friends, a night out between assignments or a breakfast gone awry, and so on, turning what would be normally be reserved for exposition into colorfully revealing banter that tells us about these characters and their personalities. No one else does at as effortlessly as Tarantino
Reservoir Dogs (rewatch)
★★★★
A heist film without the heist, Reservoir Dogs has all the hallmarks of a Tarantino film without the refinements that would come with Pulp Fiction. The non-chronological story is there but the non-linear formula isn't as elegant as his future films. The chapter structure is there but feels haphazard, flashbacks happening in somewhat jarring fashion. But even with those growing pains, Reservoir Dogs' story of frazzled panicked aftermath and honor among thieves shines where Tarantino's movies always shine: a certain style permeating the movie, bursts and explosions of violence, and that rhythmic back-and-forth dialogue that tells you more about a character than any overt exposition ever could. From the opening diner small talk to the fiery clash of personalities amid bleeding bullet wounds, Reservoir Dogs mines a plethora of drama and tension from its premise.
Django Unchained (rewatch)
★★★★
In many ways, Django feels like Tarantino's most traditional movie. At the very least, it's probably his most straight-forward and crowd-pleasing one. Basterds may have more bodies dropped, but the blood splatters with reckless abandon throughout Django's quest of vengeance and bounty hunting. The references are there, the style is there, the thrilling loquacious conversations are there (particularly by Dicaprio and once again Waltz) but the movie is very much a straight Western adventure, with an easy-to-root-for hero and even-easier-to-hate villains. As a big fan of Westerns, I really like Django Unchained but it does feel like it's missing some of the greyness and grit of his other movies
The Hateful Eight (rewatch)
★★★★
Hateful Eight has lost some of its luster upon rewatch, at least when I'm watching so closely to Tarantino's other movies. In many ways, it's a successor to Tarantino's first film, reminding one of the trapped-in-a-room plot, lies and stories within stories, and harsh brutal men clashing heads and personalities of Reservoir Dogs.
Seeing all these personalities clash, the coiled rattlesnake tension underlining the movie from scene one, and the expectedly great dialogue that comes with all that, still makes Hateful Eight a great watch. But its claustrophobic den of wary distrust isn't quite as tense when you already know who's playing who, and the pay-off in the end just isn't as satisfying as the explosive culminations of Basterds or Django or Dogs, or the character-driven confrontations of Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction.
It's a meaner film too. Which makes sense given the plot and its titular group of violent characters, but it felt gratuitous in ways that Tarantino's past films didn't. Those other films were ridiculously violent no doubt, but even the most explosively bloody violence always felt like it had a foundation in the narrative or in the style of films that Tarantino was paying homage too. The massive battles and fountains of blood in Kill Bill harkened back to samurai films like Sanjuro and Sword of Doom, the flurries of lead and spraying blood of Basterds and Django calling back to the exploitation films that inspired them.
But the violence in Hateful Eight...just kind of happens, and at least one scene late in the movie felt like something that could have been cut entirely without hurting the pacing or plot; the violence and ridiculous amount of blood and gore that erupts feels almost incongruous compared to the rest of movie's dialogue-driven subdued tension.
