DEFINITIVE, UPDATED Ranking of Quentin Tarantino Movies

People of the Internet: I just saw Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It's pretty ok for the most part, the setting and cinematography are great, of course, and it really makes you long for the days without traffic (i suggest a drive through Northern Maine and New Brunswick.) Brad Pitt is just about perfect and DiCaprio is fine. There are some great scenes especially on the TV Western sets. However, it's way too long, too many ideas are repeated and scenes take twice as long as they need to. Also, as always my appreciation of the film is lessened because it's shot by someone with the sensibility of a 12 year old psychopathic foot fetishist. The Bruce Lee scene is worse than even I thought it would be, and the off-putting over the top violence played for laughs that began with the Gimp still isn't funny. Also, this is the second Tarantino movie in a row I've seen in a theater where half the crowd literally laughed and cheered while women got their face beat in, which seems...problematic? Also, everyone was laughing at the buffoonery of the "Bruce Lee" character, which could've made more sense if the character was not supposed to be Bruce F'n Lee. Kentucky Fried Movie did that 10 times better.

Anyway: Here is my DEFINITIVE, UPDATED list of Quentin Tarantino movies ranked:

1. Reservoir Dogs (Is Keitel/Roth the only believable human relationship in his catalog?)
2. Jackie Brown (Soundtrack and cast are his best)
3. Pulp Fiction (While I liked it in the theater, it launched a million bad movies and probably doesn't hold up. The gimp scene is indefensible. but Sam Jackson...is very defensible)
4. Inglorious Basterds (First 20 minutes are magnificent, but the Jew revenge fantasy...ugh)
5. Once Upon a Time in the West (Would rather the whole movie be about shooting the TV Western, that was fun and interesting with earned pathos and a great character arc.)
6. Django Unchained (slavery revenge fantasy that is also 1 hr too long. The Don Johnson/ Jonah Hill kkk scene is funny.)
7. The Hateful Eight (No one left to tell QT no, apparently. Undistilled sadism, rips off The Great Silence while removing political context. Bruce Dern wasted)
8. Kill Bills (feels like one long pointlessly sadistic QT wet dream)

Definitive Ranking of Wes Anderson movies: UPDATED

People of the Internet: Isle of Dogs is a movie that is stunning to look at, but without much soul (for a movie about dogs!) Also, the American exchange student storyline needs to be cut. 50% better movie without the Greta Gerwig Character. UPDATE: I just saw the French Dispatch. I enjoyed it. Anderson's use of meticulous detail in every frame means there's always something interesting going on, even if the thread connecting the pieces of this anthology film is unclear. I think by deeply diving into small, intensely crafted vignettes Anderson aims to illuminate something larger about humanity; restating the argument for his overarching methodology since Rushmore. He may not always be successful, but his films are usually entertaining, and never boring.  Here is the definitive list of Wes Anderson movies from best to worst:

1. The Royal Tenenbaums
2. Rushmore
3. Asteroid City
4. Grand Budapest Hotel
5. Fantastic Mister Fox
6. Bottle Rocket
7. The French Dispatch

7.5 (american express commercials)
8. Life Aquatic
9. Moonrise Kingdom
10. Isle of Dogs
11. Darjeeling Limited

 

UPDATED Ranking of Coen Brother's Movies

My UPDATED list of Coen Brother's movies ranked as of this moment:

1. Miller's Crossing
2. Fargo
3. Raising Arizona 
4. Inside Llewyn Davis
5. Barton Fink
6. A Serious Man
7. The Hudsucker Proxy
8. The Big Lebowski
9. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
10. Hail Caesar!
11. Blood Simple 
12. True Grit
13. O Brother Where Art Thou 
14. No Country For Old Men 
15. The Man Who Wasn't There
16. Burn After Reading

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17. Intolerable Cruelty*
18. Ladykillers*

*I've only seen the bottom two once, years ago

Top 10 Movies of the 2010s

In honor of the late Sam Ike, here’s the undisputed Top 10 movies of the 2010s (that I saw), the 10 next, and some honorable mentions. If a movie is on this list that means I thought it was great, something that really struck me as different or new, left me thinking about it for days after, or was just really friggin entertaining. If it’s not on this list, that means I either forgot it or it wasn’t great; hard to tell, really

1. Inside Llewyn Davis
2. Paterson
3. Mother!
4. Florida Project
5. Get Out
6. Margaret
7. Moonlight
8. Killing of a Sacred Deer
9. Inherent Vice
10. Ida

The Next 10: Annihilation!, Boyhood, Edge of Tomorrow, I am not Your Negro, Manchester by the Sea, The Master, Melancholia, Parasite, Roma, Stories We Tell

Honourable Mentions: A Marriage Story, Before Midnight, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Cold War, Death of Stalin, Dogtooth, Ex Machina, The Favourite, First Reformed, Go For Sisters, Grand Budapest Hotel, Her, If Beale Street Could Talk, Inception, The Irishman, The Lobster, Mad Max: Fury Road, Midsommar, OJ Made in America (not really a movie, if it was it would be in my top 10), Phantom Thread, Sorry to Bother You, Into the Spiderverse, The Trip, True Grit, Twin Peaks - The Return (also not really a movie) Under the Skin, Us, Winter’s Bone, Widows

David Lynch Films: The Undisputed Rankings

People of the Face: In the midst of quarantine, a gentleman's mind turns to David Lynch, America's greatest independent film maker / weird painter of rotting meat. Below is my undisputed ranking of David Lynch films.

1. Mullholland Drive - I look at this movie as the apotheosis of all Lynch films that came before, synthesized into a nearly perfect gestalt. Is gestalt a word? Oh, crap am I becoming a Joe Rogan pseudo-intellectual? A bit of the Eraserhead abstract existential terror, the thematic coherence and barely hidden corruption beneath the American dream of Blue Velvet, the fractured reality of Lost Highway, the puzzle box aspect of seasons 1,2 Twin Peaks, a hammy Sting in a loincloth. The cowboy. A few of the scariest scenes I've ever seen on film. Don't go behind that dumpster, friends. Club Silencio. This movie is an all-timer, and if you want to shoehorn the images into a coherent narrative, it totally works that way too!

2. Blue Velvet - Rented this movie on VHS tape from Bohn's hardware in downtown Mount Airy, MD, which is the right way to see it the first time. Did I walk around screaming Dennis Hopper's lines at college parties? Maybe, I was very popular. Kyle Maclachlan begins his incredible journey as David Lynch surrogate, the Hardy Boy with a hankering for sado-maschosim. Sets the table for Twin Peaks, one of the most innovative and influential series in the history of TV.

3. Eraserhead - Insidious Kafkaesque imagery. Not really a pick-me-up, I'd say, but will stick with you like a unsettling leech of mystery. The menace in the sound mixing, eventually brought to Twin Peaks, did anyone do that before Lynch?

4. Inland Empire - Every Lynch movie contains existential horror, but this one may be the peak Lynch existential horror flick. Also contains a sitcom of people in rabbit suits? And Laura Dern screaming her head off. Do not watch late at night.

5. Lost Highway - Now feels like a dry run for the structure of Mulholland Drive. Sexy sax player Bill Pullman! whose personality literally fractures the film under the weight of his actions. Patricia Arquette is unforgettable as muse/victim/unstoppable force...to me, anyway, cause I haven't forgotten her and I haven't seen it since it came out.

6. Wild at Heart - Remember back when Nicholas Cage was gonna be the best actor of his generation? Moonstruck, Leaving Las Vegas, Raising Arizona, and this crazy smashed glass version of the Wizard of Oz. Willem Dafoe, the man who played jesus in two movies just before (most believably in Platoon) returns to his true aspect as the devil. Laura Dern has entered the game, my friends, and she has not left it yet.

Never Seen: Elephant Man, The Straight Story
Disappointing: Fire Walk With Me
Dune: Dune
It's a great TV show, not a movie: Twin Peaks: EVERY season.