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Influential films that are a bit rubs really

Started by Desirable Industrial Unit, April 18, 2018, 01:19:05 AM

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Funcrusher

#30
Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on April 18, 2018, 07:26:21 PM
i think it's supposed to be an example of a good tarantino 'inspired' film

Although in practice it's a fairly faithful adaptation of Elmore Leonard, who is an influence on Tarantino.


Funcrusher

I was making more of a point than just 'it was a book'.


Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Elmore Leonard is, of course, an anagram of James Ellroy. This is how L.A. Confidential wound up getting made.

Funcrusher

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on April 18, 2018, 07:56:55 PM
in both your posts about it?

My first post was just referring to fred just randomly posting 'Get Shorty' or rather 'get shorty' with no other context .

no other context apart from the preceding posts about about tarantino inspired films

it is an adaptation of a book though, meaning that it can't possibly have been inspired by or greenlit because of the fashionability of Tarantino in the mid-90s

Funcrusher

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on April 18, 2018, 08:03:27 PM
no other context apart from the preceding posts about about tarantino inspired films

it is an adaptation of a book though, meaning that it can't possibly have been inspired by or greenlit because of the fashionability of Tarantino in the mid-90s

It's the first time I've ever seen it referred to as Tarantino influenced. At the time most of the coverage focused on it being the first Leonard adaptation that did justice to the source material after numerous duds. I guess Travolta's in it.

itsfredtitmus

i remember reading a guy ritchie interview where he said he was a really influenced by get shorty which is funny

Quote from: Funcrusher on April 18, 2018, 08:09:26 PM
It's the first time I've ever seen it referred to as Tarantino influenced. At the time most of the coverage focused on it being the first Leonard adaptation that did justice to the source material after numerous duds. I guess Travolta's in it.

It would not have been made unless Tarantino had made that kind of material fashionable and worth throwing the money and resources at. It's very much a film of that moment. There's always a reason why certain books are selected for adaptation in certain contexts. The potentially self-referential qualities of Leonard's book made it perfect for adaptation into the sort the post-irony crime film that ruled the 90s (a film about films). Travolta's presence is indeed a big giveaway in this respect.

itsfredtitmus

fuck i wanna watch snatch and get shorty now

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on April 18, 2018, 08:18:09 PM
Travolta's presence is indeed a big giveaway in this respect.
Buzby will probably be along shortly to correct me, but I believe his casting as Chilli Palmer was independent of his Role in Pulp Fiction.

MattD

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 18, 2018, 08:59:32 AM
I'll (half heartedly) stick up for the first one. Paul Greengrass' ones are indeed cack, though. Just potboiler action pap - with inept action scenes.

I'd agree with the Bourne films - I didn't get any joy from that, but the tension of Captain Phillips is immense in my opinion.

Funcrusher

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 18, 2018, 08:30:09 PM
Buzby will probably be along shortly to correct me, but I believe his casting as Chilli Palmer was independent of his Role in Pulp Fiction.

Without doing some deep info trawl I have no idea when 'Get Shorty' started development relative to Tarantino's rise. It only came out about a year after 'Pulp Fiction' I think. I've never personally thought of it as Tarantino influenced.

MattD

As for Quentin Tarantino, he's just a one trick pony, with all his films extremely shallow with flimsy characters and unnecessarily violent.

Quote from: Funcrusher on April 18, 2018, 08:35:29 PM
Without doing some deep info trawl I have no idea when 'Get Shorty' started development relative to Tarantino's rise. It only came out about a year after 'Pulp Fiction' I think. I've never personally thought of it as Tarantino influenced.

reservoir dogs was '92 so that's the flashpoint

NoSleep

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on April 18, 2018, 08:18:09 PM
It would not have been made unless Tarantino had made that kind of material fashionable and worth throwing the money and resources at.

That's the equivalent of saying Alien was "influenced" by Star Wars. Star Wars simply made it easier for the writers to get their script accepted at that time.

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 18, 2018, 08:30:09 PM
Buzby will probably be along shortly to correct me, but I believe his casting as Chilli Palmer was independent of his Role in Pulp Fiction.

That could well be true, but it would have been a bold choice considering how unbankable Travolta star had fallen pre-Pulp

Funcrusher

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on April 18, 2018, 08:37:02 PM
reservoir dogs was '92 so that's the flashpoint

His reputation took a while to build after that. I remember being at a screening of Danny Cannon's 'The Young Americans', probably in '93 and Tarantino was in the audience and asked a question in the Q&A and he wasn't really a celebrity at that point, in fact I couldn't remember his name.

fair enough, that's actually quite a cool story

Quote from: NoSleep on April 18, 2018, 08:38:46 PM
That's the equivalent of saying Alien was "influenced" by Star Wars. Star Wars simply made it easier for the writers to get their script accepted at that time.

Not a great example, as those two properties are clearly distinct in a way that these literate post-irony crime films tend not to be

also i would draw a distinction between 'inspired', which was the term originally used, and 'influenced'

NoSleep

The thread is allegedly about "influential" films is what I was referring to.

Funcrusher

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on April 18, 2018, 08:44:38 PM
fair enough, that's actually quite a cool story

I was reminded of it today (it was at a crime festival in Nottingham called 'Shots In The Dark') because I saw a dvd of 'The Black Windmill' in Sainsbury's, which I must get as I've never seen it, and I remember that his question was a long rambling thing naming various British noir films including 'The Black Windmill' and 'Get Carter', and given his accent I remember thinking 'this must be that 'Reservoir Dogs' guy. I assume 'Reservoir Dogs' must have been screening there with a directors Q&A as well.

Quote from: NoSleep on April 18, 2018, 08:50:33 PM
The thread is allegedly about "influential" films is what I was referring to.

i'm talking in the context of a sort of sub-conversation about 'tarantino inspired' films

Quote from: Funcrusher on April 18, 2018, 08:50:44 PM
I was reminded of it today (it was at a crime festival in Nottingham called 'Shots In The Dark') because I saw a dvd of 'The Black Windmill' in Sainsbury's, which I must get as I've never seen it, and I remember that his question was a long rambling thing naming various British noir films including 'The Black Windmill' and 'Get Carter', and given his accent I remember thinking 'this must be that 'Reservoir Dogs' guy. I assume 'Reservoir Dogs' must have been screening there with a directors Q&A as well.

having had a quick look at the box-office returns of Reservoir Dogs, it would make perfect sense that he was still carting the film around festivals. it wasn't exactly a smash, it turns out

Funcrusher

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on April 18, 2018, 08:56:21 PM
having had a quick look at the box-office returns of Reservoir Dogs, it would make perfect sense that he was still carting the film around festivals. it wasn't exactly a smash, it turns out

It had this slow burn - I remember someone I knew who was doing an MA a little later than that and and their supervisor suggested them doing some gubbins on Freudian narcissism in 'Reservoir Dogs'. At a certain point it replaced 'Blade Runner' as the ultimate in hip pop culture for academics and other pseuds. I remember enjoying 'Reservoir Dogs' as a decent noirish crime flick, and then subsequently becoming utterly sick of hearing it being cited as the greatest thing ever ever. Success really spoiled him.

greenman

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on April 18, 2018, 08:45:54 PM
Not a great example, as those two properties are clearly distinct in a way that these literate post-irony crime films tend not to be

also i would draw a distinction between 'inspired', which was the term originally used, and 'influenced'

Although I do think there was some back and forth between Starwars and Scott's sci fi films of that era in terms of visuals, the 77 film really introducing the idea of a used dirty space age which Alien furthered.

buzby

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on April 18, 2018, 08:30:09 PM
Buzby will probably be along shortly to correct me, but I believe his casting as Chilli Palmer was independent of his Role in Pulp Fiction.
Quote from: Funcrusher on April 18, 2018, 08:35:29 PM
Without doing some deep info trawl I have no idea when 'Get Shorty' started development relative to Tarantino's rise. It only came out about a year after 'Pulp Fiction' I think. I've never personally thought of it as Tarantino influenced.
It was reported in Variety in July 1993 that Get Shorty was going to start filming at the end of the year, and at that point DeVito himself was going to be playing Chilli Palmer. It eventually started filming in January 1995 with Travolta cast in the role. Pulp Fiction was released in October 1994, so Travolta was probably cast based on the success of his portrayal of Vincent Vega (for which he was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar)

DeVito and his wife co-funded Pulp Fiction through their production company Jersey Films,, and DeVito was an Executive Producer, so they would have had inside knowledge that it was going to relaunch Travolta's career (he got $140k for Pulp Fiction, and $5 million for Get Shorty).

In interviews at the release of Get Shorty, Leonard stated he was a big fan of Tarantino's style of writing dialogue, and he was working on the adaptation of of Leonard's Rum Punch, which he was also going to direct. It was eventually released as Jackie Brown in 1997

Sin Agog

Caught its sequel Be Cool on Netflix a few weeks back.  I wish it worked.  Can vaguely remember the book being alright when I read it on a Leonard spree (along with about 30 others) in a couple of weeks.  But it does'ne.  It does'ne at all.  It's a movie consisting entirely of smug cameos from QT refugees and self-referential allusions to sequels, with nothing else to chew on at all.  Even The Rock with his hair grown out does nothing for it.

Citizen Kane.  Big ol' newsreel of a film, which skips straight to the most sentimental scenes in this Hearst-alike's life without ever warranting the audience's emotion by showing the in-between moments.  Feels very much like a work of juvenilia, where this young dude had to prove he was a real grown-up man by cramming in everything he knew into this one piece, without the grace and space to pull it off.  Orson Welles nailed all those subsequent noirs, though.  May throw on The Stranger now, actually.  Oh, and F for Fake is totally inspired coming from a guy knee-deep in his 60s.

the science eel

Quote from: Sin Agog on April 18, 2018, 11:46:55 PM
Citizen Kane.  Big ol' newsreel of a film, which skips straight to the most sentimental scenes in this Hearst-alike's life without ever warranting the audience's emotion by showing the in-between moments.  Feels very much like a work of juvenilia, where this young dude felt like he had to prove he was a real grown-up man by cramming in everything he knew into this one piece, without the grace and space to pull it off.

That's actually not far wrong.