I don't know why I even bothered to put this off.
The English Patient vs. Jackie Brown
The English Patient
Major Flaws: By far the biggest flaw was that I found Fiennes and Thomas' love story uninteresting and completely unsympathetic. I really could've used the percentages of minutes given to each of the two stories to be reversed. I am shocked that this one so many technical awards. The editing (both sound and visual) was fine and the cinematography was pretty enough to call it such but neither was remarkable or noteworthy. Is that really a problem? Well, if you don't care about the prevailing story, then the visuals must become paramount and they just weren't there. On top of that, I thought the pacing was poor, particularly in the early section before we are supposed to know that the patient is Almasy. Really, is it really a mystery? If you ever wonder why casting stars is not always the best idea, try creating a mystery around which character your scarred central character correlates to and then try slipping Ralph Fiennes by me. He is the patient as long as they don't kill him off before the events of the patient. The mystery never comes close to working and taking your time revealing just pushed me away from this film before the end of the first act. So from here, I had another 2 hours to deal with. I'll stop here, and I haven't even mentioned the myriad of political/ideological issues I have with it.
Major Attributes: I really liked Naveen Andrews in particular and his story with Binoche as a whole. Also, if their story had been the majority of the film, I would be able to say the cinematography was quite nice. But I can't. Also, the Colin Firth thing that Firth does worked pretty well here. Sorry, that's it.
Jackie Brown
Major Flaws: Well, I really like Elmore Leonard in film (apparently) but I do feel that sometimes I see his dialogue a bit more than the attempt at verisimilitude would wish I did. I wish Chris Tucker didn't draw so much damn attention to himself as a real person rather than a character (not that him being unendingly annoying wasn't helpful here). It didn't have as much going on in the cinematography as say Out of Sight did and I was disappointed in how pedestrian the look of it was.
Major Attributes: It's hard, in my opinion, for actors to fail when given broad caricatures and no one does here. I think Pam Grier did well in trying to play against her own persona from the 70s while also attempting a sense of the believable, but she wasn't great. It didn't really occur to me initially, but the fact that I bought Forester wholesale, as if he was a real-life bondsman hired to act, is a pretty good indication of his deft work here. Everyone else worked in their roles and entertained me (even if De Niro bothered me slightly). I really thought the editing here, unlike The English Patient, was a huge plus to the film and really controlled the release of a story which was just as long as Minghella's film but never dragged in the least and doled out installments that felt individually satisfying as the build to the whole. The space was controlled with the cuts, keeping the viewer moving through the sets and actively engaged in the storyline in as much as it should. To be more succinct, the editing always maintained the camera's perspective in a position that cooperated with the telling of the narrative. In addition to everything above and a few things not mentioned, this was also vastly entertaining.
Verdict: I won't explain myself, as most of you knew beforehand how this would go down. I'll just say this, really consider before you resurrect The English Patient Sean, because not only did it pale in comparison to Jackie Brown, but it was just a pretty mediocre film on its own.
Jackie Brown will fly again.