Reservoir Dogs
#27
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Originally posted by RyoHazuki
I pretty much disagree with everything you just said. A twist ending doesnt make The Usual Suspects a smart film.
I pretty much disagree with everything you just said. A twist ending doesnt make The Usual Suspects a smart film.
It is a "smart" film because the ending reveals the identity of Soze but doesn't change the story. For the most part the story is how the events unfolded except for Verbal changing the names of some involved to prevent incrimination of himself and yet at the same time clear himself of any wrong doing. Verbal controlled everyone in the film. It is only at the end we find out why he did this and why he did the deed in question himself. The ending is just as much as part of the story as the rest of the film.
What Verbal is doing would have to be done for the movie to make sense. Unlike a movie like Unbreakable. The ending is there more for shock than anything since it isn't needed for the film to make sense. It makes it more compelling but it isn't essential.
Last edited by DVDho78DTS; 06-11-04 at 01:05 AM.
#28
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Originally posted by DVD-ho78(DTS)
SPOILERS
It is a "smart" film because the ending reveals the identity of Soze but doesn't change the story. For the most part the story is how the events unfolded except for Verbal changing the names of some involved to prevent incrimination of himself and yet at the same time clear himself of any wrong doing. Verbal controlled everyone in the film. It is only at the end we find out why he did this and why he did the deed in question himself. The ending is just as much as part of the story as the rest of the film.
What Verbal is doing would have to be done for the movie to make sense. Unlike a movie like Unbreakable. The ending is there more for shock than anything since it isn't needed for the film to make sense. It makes it more compelling but it isn't essential.
SPOILERS
It is a "smart" film because the ending reveals the identity of Soze but doesn't change the story. For the most part the story is how the events unfolded except for Verbal changing the names of some involved to prevent incrimination of himself and yet at the same time clear himself of any wrong doing. Verbal controlled everyone in the film. It is only at the end we find out why he did this and why he did the deed in question himself. The ending is just as much as part of the story as the rest of the film.
What Verbal is doing would have to be done for the movie to make sense. Unlike a movie like Unbreakable. The ending is there more for shock than anything since it isn't needed for the film to make sense. It makes it more compelling but it isn't essential.
The ending doesn't really explain that much at all. All we basically know now is Verbal is Soze and he spoke with police. We don't know what happend to the other characters or anything.
#29
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Originally posted by RyoHazuki
Spoilers
The ending doesn't really explain that much at all. All we basically know now is Verbal is Soze and he spoke with police. We don't know what happend to the other characters or anything.
Spoilers
The ending doesn't really explain that much at all. All we basically know now is Verbal is Soze and he spoke with police. We don't know what happend to the other characters or anything.
I don't understand why you say this. As I said in my first post the ending explains the motive of Soze & who he is. It is part of the story. It doesn't change what happened during the film.
While we don't physically see Verbal killing Keaton, McManus, & Hockney we find out it is him. We find out why Verbal wanted on the boat & why he had help to get on it. Then going back further into the film we ourselves must put the rest of the story together. From Verbal arranging the police lineup & as to why he chose these criminals. Everything in the film serves a purpose to some degree.
#30
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Thread Starter
Originally posted by DVD-ho78(DTS)
SPOILERS
Unlike a movie like Unbreakable. The ending is there more for shock than anything since it isn't needed for the film to make sense. It makes it more compelling but it isn't essential.
SPOILERS
Unlike a movie like Unbreakable. The ending is there more for shock than anything since it isn't needed for the film to make sense. It makes it more compelling but it isn't essential.
#31
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I guess I should step into this conversation, but how can I explain what I liked about the film when it's obvious you didn't like it...and won't, even if I voice my opinion?
Reservoir Dogs isn't a flawless film, but it's great, one that I can watch over and over again.
And for anyone who says Tarantino 'borrows' from other films or that he's 'unoriginal'...show me another screenwriter/director that's COMPLETELY original at present time. You can't. Every idea has been done and redone, it's finding a way to make it fresh.
Reservoir Dogs isn't a flawless film, but it's great, one that I can watch over and over again.
And for anyone who says Tarantino 'borrows' from other films or that he's 'unoriginal'...show me another screenwriter/director that's COMPLETELY original at present time. You can't. Every idea has been done and redone, it's finding a way to make it fresh.
#33
DVD Talk Hero
Originally posted by cross
Not to take anything from QT or RD, but I think the "gun pointing" scene was actually QT borrowing from Leone. So your idea about other films using this particular scene from RD is not giving credit where credit is really due.
Not to take anything from QT or RD, but I think the "gun pointing" scene was actually QT borrowing from Leone. So your idea about other films using this particular scene from RD is not giving credit where credit is really due.
oh and regarding the ending.
Spoiler:
#34
DVD Talk Gold Edition
Mr Pink does live. He says that he's been shot but you can hear him being cuffed if you listen closely enough. Plus, I think on his version of the DVD, the insert says he's the only one to survive.
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I thought Resevoir dogs was good but nothing great. I must be one of the only people who didn't like Pulp Fiction. I never saw Jackie Brown, and i really liked Kill Bill. So i have mixed feelings for Quentin's movies... although i can't deny he is a great director.
Ferret
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#36
RD is still one of my favorites. I remember picking it up from the video store shelf on the way home from school. I don't think I blinked the whole time. The film made great use of cinematography to build tension even though it was mainly a dialogue-driven film. It was very unique compared to the other films at the time. It also had one of my favorite ensemble casts. They may not have all been well-known actors, but I couldn't imagine anyone else playing those roles. I became a huge Harvey Keitel fan after this and went on to check out several of his films.
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I agree with most except for the music I didn't care about. I think my problem with him is that I need more then good directing acting and dialogue. I need an interesting plot to wrap my mind around. I just don't care about the characters in his films so I don't really end up in awe over his films.
The brilliance of the music in "Dogs" and every Tarantino film to date is that it almost becomes a character in and of itself. Music plays an integral role in the construction of any Tarantino sequence.
An example occurs when Michael Madson turns the radio to "Stuck in the Middle with You," walks out to his car to get a jug of gasoline, and returns to the werehouse. If you notice, the music is blaring ONLY inside the warehouse and gradually softens as Madsen goes through the door to his car. Once outside, the music is gone and then gradually returns as he walks back into the warehouse. Tarantino uses the music to separate the torturing of the cop from the outside world. It heightens not just the suspense, but the madness of Mr. Blonde.
As for the ending of film:
The brilliance of the music in "Dogs" and every Tarantino film to date is that it almost becomes a character in and of itself. Music plays an integral role in the construction of any Tarantino sequence.
An example occurs when Michael Madson turns the radio to "Stuck in the Middle with You," walks out to his car to get a jug of gasoline, and returns to the werehouse. If you notice, the music is blaring ONLY inside the warehouse and gradually softens as Madsen goes through the door to his car. Once outside, the music is gone and then gradually returns as he walks back into the warehouse. Tarantino uses the music to separate the torturing of the cop from the outside world. It heightens not just the suspense, but the madness of Mr. Blonde.
As for the ending of film:
Spoiler:
Last edited by zooiiks; 06-17-04 at 10:46 PM.
#40
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Weird. I really liked Reservoir Dogs and I didn't care either way (just blah) for any of the other Tarantino films. KB2 was probably my next best of his, but nothing really special.
To each his own, yet again.
To each his own, yet again.
#41
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Originally posted by tanman
I thought that the ending of Unbreakable was just as essential to the story as Usual Suspects.
I thought that the ending of Unbreakable was just as essential to the story as Usual Suspects.
#42
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Of course this would end up in people comparing it to other movies, but The Usual Suspects?
Two different formulas entirely.
(Post #500 baby!!)
Two different formulas entirely.
(Post #500 baby!!)
#43
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Originally posted by tanman
I just don't care about the characters in his films
I just don't care about the characters in his films
I love the movie. I saw it when it first hit the video shelves so maybe that's got a little to do with it. I know sometimes when I watch a movie that's been out for a long time that is considered great, and I hear so much about, my expections get so high that the movie just can't meet them. One that immediately jumps to my mind is Taxi Driver. I saw this for the first time about a year ago and was pretty much bored to death.
I'm in the middle of the Tarantino thing. I don't hate him or love him. I enjoy his work. I loved Pulp Fiction & True Romance. Really dug Dusk Til Dawn. Enjoyed Four Rooms. Jackie Brown was ok. I haven't seen Kill Bill 1 or 2.
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Originally posted by Rypro 525
actually, qt said on the true romance commentary, that he got the idea from the john woo movies.
actually, qt said on the true romance commentary, that he got the idea from the john woo movies.
#45
DVD Talk Gold Edition
I just saw City on Fire the other day, and although there are some similarities, they're very differen't films. They deal with characters very differently and the world is just very different. There certainly is an obvious influence in RD (some scenes very similar) , but I'd hardly call it a remake.
CoF is much more emotional and has a definite main character. RD is spread out much more, and is more fun and slick.
I will say that I enjoyed the hell out of City on Fire, but I perfer RD. I think it's just a better heist flick.
CoF is much more emotional and has a definite main character. RD is spread out much more, and is more fun and slick.
I will say that I enjoyed the hell out of City on Fire, but I perfer RD. I think it's just a better heist flick.
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Resevoir Dogs was a good film but not a totally great film. It is definately a guys movie and with the sharp dialog makes you feel like your their with the gang during the aftermath of the robbery.
I think Tarantino's best early film was True Romance and not sure why Resevoir Dogs gets to be the favorite while True Romance is always on the backseat.
I know that Tarantino didn't direct True Romance, but he did write it, so I consider it to be part of his work.
I think Tarantino's best early film was True Romance and not sure why Resevoir Dogs gets to be the favorite while True Romance is always on the backseat.
I know that Tarantino didn't direct True Romance, but he did write it, so I consider it to be part of his work.
Last edited by Shroud; 06-20-04 at 11:17 PM.
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I don't know, I found True Romance to be merely okay, while Reservoir Dogs in my opinion was a really good film, though it didn't live up to the hype seemingly surrounding it. Loved the dialogue - definitely some classic stuff in there.
#48
DVD Talk Hero
i think honestly, true romance is tarantino's most accesible movie. while its dialogue driven like all of his other movies, there's more extreme violence then his other's (excluding kill bill, but thats over the top anyways) and its his only flick where it is told in chronological order all the way.
#49
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Re: Reservoir Dogs
how is it that QT, who never stops talking, keeps Tom Waits auditioning for RD a secret for 25 years?
and why the hell hasn't he cast him for some other part to date?
and why the hell hasn't he cast him for some other part to date?
#50
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Re: Reservoir Dogs
Interesting, turns out there was a 25th anniversary screening the other night. Found some other interesting nuggets.
http://variety.com/2017/film/news/7-...gs-1202403659/
http://variety.com/2017/film/news/7-...gs-1202403659/
7 Things You Don’t Know About ‘Reservoir Dogs,’ as Told by Quentin Tarantino and the Cast
Mr. White, Mr. Orange, Mr. Blonde, Mr. Pink, Mr. Brown: They all reunited for the 25th anniversary retrospective screening of “Reservoir Dogs” at the Tribeca Film Festival April 28. Cast members Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi and writer-director-actor Quentin Tarantino all got together to reminisce after the 1992 movie screened to a packed house at the Beacon Theater. Here are seven fun facts they revealed.
1. Tom Waits auditioned.
Tarantino let this tidbit slip as he discussed the casting process. “We had the casting director from ‘L.A. Law,'” the director recalled. “A lot of really wild people came in and read the parts. Tom Waits came in and read. I had Tom Waits read the Madonna speech, just so I could hear Tom Waits say those lines. And actually, other than Harvey, he gave me one of the first profound compliments on the script. No one had ever told me my work was poetic before.” (Roth, Madsen and Chris Penn all got their parts through those L.A. auditions; Buscemi came aboard after a round of casting in New York.)
2. Tarantino wanted to stage “Reservoir Dogs” as a play.
Keitel brought up this factoid as he recalled the film’s unusually long rehearsal process. “We had two weeks of rehearsal, which is unheard of in Hollywood,” he said. “We actually almost went to four, because Quentin thought at one time about doing a play.”
3. Madsen had never done his “Stuck in the Middle With You” dance until the day they shot the scene.
The most iconic moment in “Reservoir Dogs” is unquestionably the scene in which Madsen’s character, Mr. Blonde, tortures a captured cop (Kirk Baltz), cutting off his ear after doing a little dance to the jaunty tune of Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle With You.” That dance was entirely spontaneous, it turns out. “You never made me do it in rehearsal, because I was so intimidated by it,” Madsen reminded Tarantino at the panel. “I didn’t know what to do. In the script, it said, ‘Mr. Blonde maniacally dances around.’ And I kept thinking, ‘What the f–k does that mean? Like Mike Jagger, or what? What the f–k am I gonna do?'”
4. Madsen eventually got his inspiration from James Cagney.
The actor didn’t even practice his big moment at home. When it finally came time for him to shoot the big torture scene, he found inspiration in an unlikely source. “I heard the music, and I said, ‘Oh, f–k, I better do something,’ and I started thinking about Jimmy Cagney,” Madsen said. “I remembered this weird little thing that Jimmy Cagney did in a movie that I saw. I don’t remember the name of it. He did this crazy little dance thing. It just popped into my head in the last second. That’s where it came from.” They only shot the scene three or four times, and the first shot of him breaking into that dance is the from the very first take.
5. Tarantino took a cue from the Coen Brothers.
The director said he had always intended for “Reservoir Dogs” to be more than a genre film. He was particularly intrigued with the idea of casting Roth because the British actor had some real art-house cred after his breakout work in 1990 films “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” and “Vincent and Theo.” “You were like this budding art-film superstar,” Tarantino told Roth at the panel. “And I didn’t want ‘Reservoir Dogs’ to be a straight-to-video genre movie. I wanted it to be a genre-based art film, like ‘Blood Simple,”” he added, referring to the Coen Brothers’ 1984 film.
6. Most walkouts in a single screening: 33.
Creatives relished when the movie made audience members flee during festival screenings. “I started counting the walkouts during the torture scene,” Tarantino said. “33 was the largest walkout.” He added that he had thought that at least everyone would be able to sit through it when it screened at the Sitges Horror Film Festival, where they had just shown Peter Jackson’s gore-soaked early film, “Dead Alive.” “I thought, ‘Finally, I’ve got an audience that won’t walk out.’ Five people walk out of that audience — including Wes Craven! The f–kin’ guy who did ‘Last House on the Left’! My movie was too tough for him?”
7. One of Tarantino’s favorite memories from the film didn’t happen on set.
During the panel, Tarantino reminisced about one of his favorite moments making the film, which happened at a cast dinner at Keitel’s house after the cast had spent two weeks rehearsing the material. “I really realized that gosh, a lot of the pressure was off my shoulders cinematically,” he said. “These guys were so perfect in their parts; they were so vibing with each other; they so understood the material. I thought, ‘F–k, if I just keep this movie in focus, I’ve got a movie. Anything else I bring to it will just be frosting. The cake is here. ‘”
Mr. White, Mr. Orange, Mr. Blonde, Mr. Pink, Mr. Brown: They all reunited for the 25th anniversary retrospective screening of “Reservoir Dogs” at the Tribeca Film Festival April 28. Cast members Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi and writer-director-actor Quentin Tarantino all got together to reminisce after the 1992 movie screened to a packed house at the Beacon Theater. Here are seven fun facts they revealed.
1. Tom Waits auditioned.
Tarantino let this tidbit slip as he discussed the casting process. “We had the casting director from ‘L.A. Law,'” the director recalled. “A lot of really wild people came in and read the parts. Tom Waits came in and read. I had Tom Waits read the Madonna speech, just so I could hear Tom Waits say those lines. And actually, other than Harvey, he gave me one of the first profound compliments on the script. No one had ever told me my work was poetic before.” (Roth, Madsen and Chris Penn all got their parts through those L.A. auditions; Buscemi came aboard after a round of casting in New York.)
2. Tarantino wanted to stage “Reservoir Dogs” as a play.
Keitel brought up this factoid as he recalled the film’s unusually long rehearsal process. “We had two weeks of rehearsal, which is unheard of in Hollywood,” he said. “We actually almost went to four, because Quentin thought at one time about doing a play.”
3. Madsen had never done his “Stuck in the Middle With You” dance until the day they shot the scene.
The most iconic moment in “Reservoir Dogs” is unquestionably the scene in which Madsen’s character, Mr. Blonde, tortures a captured cop (Kirk Baltz), cutting off his ear after doing a little dance to the jaunty tune of Stealers Wheel’s “Stuck in the Middle With You.” That dance was entirely spontaneous, it turns out. “You never made me do it in rehearsal, because I was so intimidated by it,” Madsen reminded Tarantino at the panel. “I didn’t know what to do. In the script, it said, ‘Mr. Blonde maniacally dances around.’ And I kept thinking, ‘What the f–k does that mean? Like Mike Jagger, or what? What the f–k am I gonna do?'”
4. Madsen eventually got his inspiration from James Cagney.
The actor didn’t even practice his big moment at home. When it finally came time for him to shoot the big torture scene, he found inspiration in an unlikely source. “I heard the music, and I said, ‘Oh, f–k, I better do something,’ and I started thinking about Jimmy Cagney,” Madsen said. “I remembered this weird little thing that Jimmy Cagney did in a movie that I saw. I don’t remember the name of it. He did this crazy little dance thing. It just popped into my head in the last second. That’s where it came from.” They only shot the scene three or four times, and the first shot of him breaking into that dance is the from the very first take.
5. Tarantino took a cue from the Coen Brothers.
The director said he had always intended for “Reservoir Dogs” to be more than a genre film. He was particularly intrigued with the idea of casting Roth because the British actor had some real art-house cred after his breakout work in 1990 films “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” and “Vincent and Theo.” “You were like this budding art-film superstar,” Tarantino told Roth at the panel. “And I didn’t want ‘Reservoir Dogs’ to be a straight-to-video genre movie. I wanted it to be a genre-based art film, like ‘Blood Simple,”” he added, referring to the Coen Brothers’ 1984 film.
6. Most walkouts in a single screening: 33.
Creatives relished when the movie made audience members flee during festival screenings. “I started counting the walkouts during the torture scene,” Tarantino said. “33 was the largest walkout.” He added that he had thought that at least everyone would be able to sit through it when it screened at the Sitges Horror Film Festival, where they had just shown Peter Jackson’s gore-soaked early film, “Dead Alive.” “I thought, ‘Finally, I’ve got an audience that won’t walk out.’ Five people walk out of that audience — including Wes Craven! The f–kin’ guy who did ‘Last House on the Left’! My movie was too tough for him?”
7. One of Tarantino’s favorite memories from the film didn’t happen on set.
During the panel, Tarantino reminisced about one of his favorite moments making the film, which happened at a cast dinner at Keitel’s house after the cast had spent two weeks rehearsing the material. “I really realized that gosh, a lot of the pressure was off my shoulders cinematically,” he said. “These guys were so perfect in their parts; they were so vibing with each other; they so understood the material. I thought, ‘F–k, if I just keep this movie in focus, I’ve got a movie. Anything else I bring to it will just be frosting. The cake is here. ‘”