Reservoir Dogs
First viewing (Gasp!). After all this time and all the talk, I wasn't exactly coming to it with a clean, unbiased perspective. Even though I had expected the violence, it was still a bit hard to take, and even though I had expected the pop culture dialogue, there was still a bit too much of it for my taste. I was surprised by how many flashback scenes there were, but I thought they didn't detract from the tightness of the script too much, but rather fleshed out the characters nicely. And the characters and performances were the strongest aspect of the film for me, especially Keitel and Roth. Overall, maybe a 7/10 for me, and I'm not sure if I'd prefer it to Goodfellas or not.
I just watched this for the first time, too, last week. Figured I'd better work my way through those of Tarantino's films I hadn't seen so that I can have an informed opinion - I have to watch only
Death Proof and
Inglorious Basterds still, but I have a hard time imagining that those last two films will change my feelings up 'til now -"Tarantino's films just don't appeal to me" - but I'm still going in open-minded.
As for
Reservoir Dogs, sounds like I had a similar experience, Emiliana, though I may perhaps have known less about it than you did and I think I maybe enjoyed it less than you did. I knew beforehand that there was an "ear scene," but that's about it - I didn't really even know the basic premise of the film; I avoided, until now, reading the
RD write-ups in the 90's brackets. While I can appreciate the structure, the soundtrack, the camera work, the editing, the performances (except Tarantino's - wow, that was painful) - while, in short, I can appreciate Tarantino's talent, ultimately, I just did not have a fun experience with
Reservoir Dogs. About halfway through the film, right around the ear scene, I thought to myself, "Am I supposed to be enjoying this?" I think the only moment of catharsis I felt was right after the ear scene -
you know, when Mr. Orange shoots Mr. Blonde - but then I was sort of immediately irritated because I was made to enjoy and so desire that bit of violence. And maybe I am supposed to fall down and worship Tarantino for his skill in manipulating my feelings in that way, but honestly, it just pissed me off. Like you, Em, the violence overall was just hard for me to take - I guess I just can't really enjoy a film if the violence has no larger purpose that I can see. All I can feel is a kind of gleeful sadism behind it - I may be totally misreading it, but that's how it felt. Also, what smirnoff said and what roujin said (being quoted by smirnoff)
here in the 90's Brackets resonates with how I continue to feel after I watch Tarantino's films: "while Tarantino is busy getting his jollies, I'm stuck trying to reconcile what's just throwaway amusement, and the rest of the film! . . . Maybe I never was supposed to do any more than enjoy a Tarantino film for the neverending string of cool, just like I was never supposed to actually care about the story in a porno. Watch it, have fun, that's it. There are times when I'm happy to have fun right along with his films, but there's a lot of time when I'm looking for more and it's not there." As smirnoff said, there are times I do just have fun with what Tarantino's doing, but overall, his content just feels very thin to me. Maybe as I continue to enjoy the craft of and history of filmmaking more and more, as I have been doing over the couple of years I've been listening to Filmspotting and as I've been learning so much from all of you, I'll come to appreciate Tarantino more than I do now. I truly hope that's the case. For now, it's a mostly unrewarding slog.