Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Tarantino/Jarmusch: when critics fall out of love with auteurs.

For me, Quentin Tarantino descended from the relative recent heights of the KILL BILL duology to the fitfully effective DEATH PROOF (which I only saw in its shortened GRINDHOUSE version). And his new INGLORIOUS BASTERDS (a loose remake of a late-70s WWII exploitationer with Bo Svenson and Fred Williamson) is getting mixed responses after a Cannes Film Festival screening: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2009/may/20/cannes-film-festival-tarantino-inglourious-basterds

Re BASTERDS, I'm guessing Universal Pictures will insist on trimming the current near-2.5 hour length of the film--which may lead to some fascinating moments of Tarantino screaming and stomping around editing rooms like a man in a Godzilla costume on a miniature set of Tokyo.

The deadpan minimalism of Jim Jarmusch (which was shown at its best in STRANGER THAN PARADISE, DOWN BY LAW and MYSTERY TRAIN) has also been taking a series of baseball bats to the kneecap; here are two reviews of Jarmusch's THE LIMITS OF CONTROL--one from VARIETY fuddy-dud Todd McCarthy and the other from perpetual trend-chaser Peter Travers of ROLLING STONE:
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117940105.html?categoryid=31&cs=1
http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/25457986/review/27918907/limits_of_control

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