Shut your raggedy-ass up, and sit the fuck down!

While everyone else in the room is getting in a dizzy tizz over Quentin Tarantino's new Movie Grindhouse, (yes, I know it's a double bill with Robert Rodriguez sharing Director's credit...) I got to thinking; What is my Favourite Tarantino movie?. Which of his films, when all is said and done, can I go back to and enjoy as much now, as the first time I watched it?. I have to say, for my money, that would have to be Jackie Brown.

Jackie Brown was Tarantino's 5th time in the ring as a Movie Director, only this time the subject matter was drawn from a Elmore Leonard novel "Rum Punch"; Tarantino had, by this point, written Reservoir Dogs, Natural Born Killers & Pulp Fiction, and was carving a very plausible reputation as the Zeitgeist of the '90 film industry. It seemed, whatever he had a hand in, turned to gold...

Re-writing the novel into screenplay is always going to change the plot in some ways. That Tarantino manages to retain the essence of the story whilst altering some of the plot only magnifies his talent.

Also interesting is his casting: using A- Lister's such as Deniro & Keaton in smaller parts, whilst handing over the leading roles to veterans such as Pam Grier & Robert Forster, just shows a man at the top of his game, with laser like accuracy, he nailed every single part perfectly.

But what I like more than anything else about Jackie Brown, is the pacing. Tarantino has the ability to turn up the heat (reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill Vol's 1&2, Natural Born Killers), but here we're seeing an obviously more pensive view through the lens. Every shot is allowed to slowly unfold onto you. this is not like many other films of it's time, crashing and shouting all the way to the end without much to say. Damn it this film has depth, soul even.

And if you think you know what the film is "about", look again. There are at the very least four story lines occuring all at once, every bit as complex as say, The Godfather, or No Way Out or Glengarry Glen Ross. As the pace is so perfectly kept, you're almost seduced into believing that all these stories are one and the same thing. Like I said, look again.

I'm very exited about Grindhouse too. It seems that in the last fifteen years that I have become so interested in film, Tarantino has been an imminent force, every now and again back on the radar with a new box of tricks. Grindhouse, no doubt will expertly reinvent a genre that many didn't even know existed. No doubt there will be the obligatory Grindhouse copies in the next 18 months or so. No doubt Tarantino will be asked to dissect every frame of his new film.

But I wonder if this signifies another kind of departure. Jackie Brown was probably the most mature of him first five movies. People will pick their favourites, but none could deny that the characters within Jackie Brown are "real" enough to care for, can we actually say that of any other character, in any of his 4 films before?

The Story, the Script, the Dialogue, the Characters, it's all here: Jackie Brown is hard to beat.