From Dusk Till Dawn: Film Trilogy (1996-99)

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

Dir. Robert Rodriguez

Two criminals on the run take a few hostages and head for Mexico. Seth Gecko (George Clooney) is smooth and calm under pressure. His brother Richie (Quentin Tarantino) is a trigger-happy prick who needs protecting from his own impulses.

It's a movie of two uneven halves. For a while it's an edgy crime flick with some Tarantino-penned dialogue. It doesn't go anywhere particularly interesting, but there's at least the feeling that it might.

The latter part of the film, however, has no such aspirations. Instead, it goes all out to please fans of a very different genre.

I'll say no more, to avoid further spoilers, but the direction it takes will either float your goat or it won't. My goat was thoroughly sunk, but credit to the creators for trying something so outrageously divergent.

Grindhouse (2007)

Grindhouse (2007)

Dirs. Robert Rodriguez + Quentin Tarantino

If you're aware of what the Grindhouse pairing was and just want to read thoughts on the films themselves, then you can skip direct to the text below the cut. For anyone else, I'll attempt to give some background on the genre and project.

The term 'grindhouse' is believed to have been coined in America to describe a movie theatre that screened mainly trashy B-Movies and exploitation flicks, a no frills venue that might have less than stellar hygiene practices. It was the hooker-and-motel for 'cult' film lovers, or even the equivalent of a quick grope behind the diner with the local skank. But sometimes that skank was all you really needed from life.

Directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino each made a film in the spirit of those cheap exploitation flicks and screened them as a double feature back-to-back. Well, in the US they did. In Britain they were split up and to see both we had to buy separate tickets. It sucks, but in reality I don't consider either film worth seeing. The real downside of the split is that we were denied the fake trailers for nonexistent films that were shown between the two flicks.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Grave Danger (2005)

CSI: Grave Danger (2005)

Dir. Quentin Tarantino | Season 05, Episodes 24 + 25

I don't usually watch Crime Scene Investigation, it's not the kind of police/crime drama that I enjoy, but I made an exception for the Grave Danger episodes because they were directed by Quentin Tarantino. I'm not a QT fan-boy, either, but I was curious to see if he could make me care about a show that I otherwise disliked.

The short answer is no, he didn't, but it was okay overall and the level of bullshit coincidences and deux ex machinas wasn't as overblown as I feared it would be – that is, once it was explained to me by an actual CSI fan that one of the characters had a specialised interest in something that was instrumental in the team solving the case.

I don't know if the regular characters were respected and/or faithful to how they usually are in the standard weekly episodes, but anyone familiar with the director's work will be able to spot his trademarks, such as the overly-staged scenes, the round the table dialogue, and people toying with guns while chatting; there's even a victim in the trunk of a car and a sly QT nod to other filmmakers (including Eli Roth and Lucio Fulchi, although classifying Roth as such is a kindness at best, a misnomer at worst).

The Quentin Tarantino Collection (2011)

The Quentin Tarantino Collection (2011)

Number of discs: 6  |  Running Time: 625 minutes (combined)

I may get around to rewatching (or in some cases watching for the first time) QT's later films, or I may not, but until then have this, a collection of five features put out by Lions Gate Home Entertainment housed in a cheapo, flimsy cardboard box.

That's the actual box art on the right, with QT looking moody. Perhaps someone accused him of mass plagiarism prior to the photo being taken?

Every time I see it I wonder if it was a conscious decision not to have the cover art for the films in the order they were released or did someone screw up?

Of that order, the first two I'm very pleased to own, and if they weren't included I'd have bought them separately. The next one I'm mostly indifferent to. The final two I don't care for at all, even though I'm a fan of many of the things that inspired them.