Tarantino can be dialogue heavy but the opening to Death Proof is just a total bore. I thought the action would never start.

With the violence in Reservoir Dogs some of it was vicious. The ear thing, for example, that was basically torture. The violence in that one seemed more mean spirited and cruel than in some other movies where it's either self defense or a means to an end.

As for the language, the use of profanity in RD seemed to be gratuitous, whereas in Jackie Brown (or True Romance, for that matter) it came across as a little differently. I don't know - RD was a good movie, but very unpleasant.

I don't mind violence in movies, I just thought there was an element of cruelty and viciousness that took it over the top in RD where in other movies it's just part of fight/battle scenes where even bloody violence with guys heads being lopped off makes sense. I'm not big on torture scenes that are graphic.

But, like I said, I loved Jackie Brown, thought Pulp Fiction was pretty good, loved Inglourious Basterds, and I'm looking forward to Django.

And I love samurai movies and good martial arts movies as well. (Sonny Chiba kicks ass!)

Well...the ear scene was a torture scene. Also...it's not really graphic. It's all what you make of it. I'd be pretty fucking mad and cursing wildly if shit like that went down, in fact..I'd be the guy to kill them all. Their cursing was fine.

Solid Snake, bringin the substance.

I heard so much about the ear scene in Reservoir Dogs before I saw it that when I finally did I was like...that's it? They didn't even show what he did. There are more graphic examples of torture in plenty of random movies (or even shows like 24). Never understood why this one stood out.

I like Kill Bill 1 a lot. I like parts of Kill Bill 2 but as a whole it's a "worse" movie. And it didn't need to be as long as it was. The movies could have easily been 2 hours together.

I rank Tarantino like this:

1. Inglorious Basterds
2. Kill Bill 1
3. Pulp Fiction
4. Jackie Brown
5. Death Proof
6. Reservoir Dogs
7. Kill Bill 2

probably because Blonde was enjoying it a lot and w/ the music.

I thought Kill Bill 2 was superior to the initial volume, but I'm in the minority there. Kill Bill Vol 1 oozes style but I think I like the idea of it more than I actually like it. I find individual elements to be great, but found a lot of the action scenes to be a bit boring and overlong and several scenes to be needlessly extended (any scene with Hatori Hanzo, the crazy 88 fight).

Kill Bill Vol 2 felt like the actual guts to the story, it had build up, character, wit, and a satisfying ending. It's the better overall movie, though it could stand a little additional editing. Kill Bill Vol 1 had a better soundtrack.

For me -
1. Inglourious Basterds
2. Kill Bill Vol 2
3. Pulp Fiction
4. Death Proof
5. Reservoir Dogs
6. Kill Bill Vol 1
7. Jackie Brown

They're all pretty memorable though, and that's more than I can say of most directors. But then I also always defended Death Proof because for some reason I was never bored by it, and I thought it was a pretty good deconstruction of horror movie motives, followed up by a good little gory scene, a fun chase, and a satisfying ending.

Back in the day, I used to like vol 1 a lot more than vol 2. Last year, I rewatched both and enjoyed 2 way more. Must be me getting old.

I too never bought the DVDs or the Blu-rays because of the TWBA thing. Though I'm considering it since the price is so low. I saw Vol. 1 numerous times, but still have only seen part 2 one time all the way through, I should see it again sometime.

My impression is that the violence in the Kill Bill movies is more cartoonish than in RD (relatively speaking). Is that an accurate impression?

Far more cartoonish.

I love Kill Bill as a whole story, but individually I think Part 1 is the strongest of the two. There's nothing as visually striking as the House of Blue Leaves fight in the snow.

Count me in as one who thinks Vol. 2 is just a smidge better than Vol. 1. I guess it usually depends on which you like more, anime and martial arts films or westerns and Italian horror films. That's kinda how I felt.

I'd personally rank QT:

Inglorious Basterds, Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction, Death Proof, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Kill Bill Vol. 1, Reservoir Dogs

I totally get the complaints about Death Proof, but I was probably in the minority and thought it was easily the better of the two Grindhouse flicks and this coming from a massive zombie movie fan. Yeah, it's all talky but the last 40 or so minutes are just outstanding.

Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction
Everything else

Kill Bill marked the end of my love for Tarantino. He got caught up in his own hype and lost any sense of restraint, and Mirimax capitalized on that at the expense of the fans. There are moments of brilliance in the Kill Bill films, but they are few and far between. There is simply not enough substance to justify the run time and spreading the story over two films.

After two movies I walked away without taking anything significant from the films. It basically spent 3.5-4 hours glorifying revenge. I saw it around the same time as Oldboy, which totally blew Kill Bill out of the water in half the time. Oldboy portrayed revenge as all-consuming and self-destructive, it was beautiful, disturbing, and thought provoking, because there was a compelling story to back up all of the violence and virtuoso direction. Kill Bill just felt like Quentin patting himself on the back for 4 hours.

He's an excellent director, he really knows how to mesh music with striking visuals, but until he starts focusing more on substantive stories, he's wasting my time.

Pulp Fiction
Reservoir Dogs
Inglourious Basterds
Kill Bill V1
Kill Bill V2
Inglourious Basterds
Jackie Brown
Death Proof

This is how I rank his movies, Jackie Brown is not one of my favorites, but everytime I watch it, it grows a little more on me, did not like Death Proof at all. The things that I like Tarantino movies is the blood and gore and the cartoonie feel of the movies.

Would any of you consider True Romance to be a, "Quentin Tarantino Movie?"

The direction is somewhat different from what Tarantino may have done, but the story and the dialogue are pure Tarantino.

And if you did consider it one of his movies (kinda, sorta), where would you rank it among his films?

I don't consider TR a QT movie. He would have changed the ending and I think it would have been a stronger film. I still like it a lot though.

That's accurate. RESERVOIR DOGS' violence is disturbing. It's messy, not fun. KILL BILL VOL 1's violence is spectacular and exciting and way over-the-top, inspired by kung fu, anime and samurai movies. I love KBV1. I saw it four times on the big screen and multiple times on DVD, including the Japanese cut. It's my favorite Tarantino movie and one of my favorite movies of the 21st century.

Oh, and btw, I think of TRUE ROMANCE as a QT movie also.

No I would not. Tarantino has a different directing style than Tony Scott.
Tarantino most likely would have used different music, different editing style and a different cast & crew.
He would have put homages to every "lovers on the lam" film from Breathless to Badlands to The Getaway to Zabriskie Point, etc....

Inglourious Basterds far surpasses KB1/2. I think it's his best work by far. KB1/2 are fluff.

I think Tarantino still films violence effectively and doesn't go for 'cheap laughs for desensitized minds'. The violence in Inglourious Basterds was pretty intense and powerful when it did hit, like in the opening sequence among others. It was brief, but intense and handled wonderfully in my opinion.

Kill Bill Volume 1 definitely has cartoonish 'fun' violence, but that was fine for that films tone and it worked. Volume 2 went for a more restrained take, and the few bits of explicit violence, namely the 'eye' sequence had a harsh brutal quality to them that wasn't 'fun' to view and you could tell the character was in extreme pain despite the character being evil. And that's a pretty effective moment, even if I still don't like Volume 2 completely.

And while I was mixed on Tarantino's Kill Bill films(namely Volume 2) and Death Proof and thinking he was losing his skills. I was completely blown away by Inglourious Basterds, which is both a very mature piece of work, as well as quite hilarious when it needs to be and was just entertaining and gripping from beginning to end. So I think he hasn't let it all go to his head just yet, and stills has the skills to tell a story his way without pandering to a fan boy crowd.

And Tarantino still did use dark humor in violent scenes in his earlier films. But not all the violence was 'funny', but some moments in a few scenes were played for laughs.

For example, the 'Marvin' scene from Pulp Fiction was played for laughs despite the grim violence that happened(. It was situational absurd comedy of the darkest variety, but it worked. So you can't tell me Tarantino never had that dark sense of humor to violence in his earlier films compared to his more recent films. Sometimes the violence is deadly serious and grim, and sometimes it's used for darkly humorous effect. He is always pushing buttons with the violence in terms of how audiences react towards them. So I don't think he has changed in that regard.

Tarantino is a pro when it comes to bringing gravitas to scenes. Even when it came down to Sin City, he directed one scene, and that turned out being one of the most memorable scenes (in part because Clive Owen's character starts speaking his narration, instead of narrating it, and in part because it was Benicio del Toro, with a gun lodged in his forehead, and Owen in a car.).

Well, I took a chance and I bought KB 1 & 2 in a blu ray double set (the two movies in individual packages shrunk wrapped together) at Target for only $14.99. I figure If I don't like them I can always ebay them for at least $10 (and probably get my $15 back).

I don't know when I'll get a chance to watch them, but I'll post what my thoughts are.

I'm still curious as to where you would rank True Romance among Tarantino's films (as in, how good is it relative to the films he HAS directed)?

I'd rank them like this...

Jackie Brown
Inglourious Basterds
True Romance
Pulp Fiction
Reservoir Dogs

Now that's all I've seen so far, and while I'll definitely catch Django in the theater my thoughts on Tarantino are incomplete at this point.