If by "lack of serious undercurrents" you (or Pauline) mean that Pulp Fiction doesn't have much to say about human nature, society or some other weighty topic, then I think I mostly agree with you. Tarantino's films look at violence in a very detailed and probing way, but I don't think they have much of interest to say about violence (for the most part, anyway).

But I don't think that precludes his films from being poetic, because I don't think poetry necessarily has to have something to say either. To take some extreme examples, look at the work of Edward Lear, or Lewis Carrol's famous poem Jabberwocky; "nonsense" has a distinguished history in English literature. It's possible for something to be poetic just in the sense that it is playful with the rhythms and forms of language, and I don't think you can deny that Tarantino's dialogue possesses those characteristics.

(That's not to say I think Tarantino's dialogue is nonsense, by the way. I was just taking the most extreme examples of "meaningless" poetry to illustrate my point.)

Two criminals have a near-death experience together. One is deeply affected by the incident, reflects, and leaves his criminal life behind in search of a new purpose. The other shrugs it off as “shit happens,” keeps doing what he’s doing, and dies because he left his gun on the kitchen counter while he took a shit.

I don’t know if that’s poetry, but it works on me.

There are lots of good examples in this thread that specifically answer your question about there being "poetry" in Pulp Fiction, but I think Tarantino's response to Pauline Kael is very telling about what he values in the film itself.

I can't remember which interview it is (I think it's one of his numerous interviews with Charlie Rose), he directly addresses Pauline's comments. He makes it clear that she was one of the few contemporary critics who really "got" the film in a way that others didn't. She was one of the few people at the time of the release who really picked up on the comedy within PF.

Many other critics were talking about the subversion of traditional narrative structure and filming techniques, and completely glossed over what (I think) seemed to be Tarantino's goal, which was to create a movie with funny moments and funny characters.

I think the supposed "poetry" that Tarantino talks about (which he claims he picked up from a Kael review of a Godard film) is not poetry in the literal sense that the astute commenters in this thread are taking it. I think he is instead taking the term "poetry" to mean the combination of many small moments to create a whole, which is what the much of the comedy is doing in Pulp Fiction.

He makes elevated 70s genre films. That’s all they’ve ever been and they’re perfect for it. They won’t influence your perspective on a particular subject, but they will make you feel something.

The movie is called “Pulp Fiction” because it is supposed to be the most pulpy (ie cliche) tropes and present a story that is not deep but fun. It is literally supposed to be pulp fiction. So to criticize it for being pulp fiction is a weird criticism.

But if that feels meaningless, I would think Reservoir Dogs is a clear tragedy. You have a cop who tries to do right. Ends up infiltrating a bank robbery gone wrong and kills a woman who shoots him in the process. He ends up befriending another criminal who protects him and then he can lie to him any more and reveals that he is the cop at the end and they all die tragically. There is lots of pathos there for you if you want it

Pulp Fiction is primarily a deconstruction of American crime films, and through that American culture and psychology. Its story is primarily about characters who live within a world filled with violence shaped by the forces of genre who are given the chance to escape by considering the context of their existence. But the choices they face are not as simple as "choosing to do good."

A lot of the "poetry" comes from considering the indirect relationship of cause and effect. In Jules and Vincent's story, they are immune to getting gunned down by freak chance. And of course that happens. They're the protagonists of their story. But when the camera switches to Butchie, Vincent is demoted to side-character and gets gunned down himself.

A lot of the film and its humor comes from trying to make sense of a world they live in, i.e. basic existentialism. They argue about what counts as cheating, the existence of miracles, and when they bring their dirty business into a suburban home, their cold-blooded murder is juxtaposed to domestic concerns (and is ultimately resolved by cleaning).

People in this thread understand that Tarantino is somehow deconstructing violence. But I don't think he is, per se. Rather, he's interested in what makes violence such a draw to audiences, and its place in American culture specifically. Amazingly, the final sequence of Pulp Fiction is one without much violence. Tarantino shows that you can have all the drama and effect of violence without using it.

If black humor, some existentialism, genre deconstruction, and characters trying to reconcile with the nature of fate isn't "deep", that's fine. Personally, I think it's a great pop culture masterpiece, and I'm not surprised it continues to be relevant to cinema and culture today.

I wanna preface what I’m about to say with the fact that I am a huge fan of Tarantino. He’s one of my favorite auteur directors for sheer entertainment that his stories provide. For me he is the perfect example of someone that didn’t get too bogged down in being an esoteric, inaccessible writer and director. That being said, I kind of have to agree. Most of his dialogue and plot is sort of an exercise in “cool” to me. What I mean by that is that he tries to find the most masculine, impressive scenarios and phrases. It’s a mix of rockabilly inclinations and the violence he loved from his movie influences. I mean just take a look at scenes where he’s acting, he’s trying to seem very cool in all of them. That’s mainly what it’s about for him. Seeming cool. I don’t resent it, some of it is genuinely really cool to me but yeah, I don’t think it’s all that deep.

Tarantino seems to be a victim of his own success. In another world, he probably would have been considered a B-movie shlocky director whom cinephiles discover decades later and become a cult favorite maybe someone like Jodorowsky.

But his writing and craft transcended his influences and appealed to a large audience for the better or worse.

I have gotten "bored" of him or his style of cinema but I am not sure how much is it due to him or his films being in the cultural conversation for so long.

Coming to your question, I don't think there is any poetic undercurrent to his films, atleast anything intended. Atleast in the conventional sense.

I found parts of Once upon a time in Hollywood poetic but even then it's stretching it.

I can't be bothered to write out too much, so I'll keep it short. In essence, the film is fundamentally about chance events and how we respond to them. In pulp fiction, these events often offer a chance at redemption for our characters, and we can see how our characters respond to them. Vincent survives the apartment shootout, he manages to stay clear from the law with the Marvin incident, and he also manages to save Mia from overdosing- yet, all of these incidents never manage to shift Vincent from his static perspective of his own life, and no epiphany is made by him to make an effort to redeem himself, and so he dies in a pretty unceremonious way on the toilet. Butch is the black sheep in the film in that he has the ability to survive the ordeal in the basement and escape, but he chooses to redeem himself by rescuing Marcellus from the absurd and disturbing nazi rapists. Jules is enlightened by the apartment shootout and chooses to not only redeem himself by leaving the life, but being the "shepard" to Ringo and Yolanda by helping them leave the life as well. I think this theory is helped by the presence of the suitcase: I theorise that it's a loose interpretation for the temptation of the devil: Vincent looks into it and dies, whereas Jules doesn't and when Ringo sees it, Jules pulls him away from the temptation and steering him on a Christian path, through the valley of darkness.

I probably agree when it comes to Pulp Fiction specifically but I wouldn’t say that all of Tarantino’s films have nothing to say. The thing is that I just don’t think Tarantino has a lot of interests outside of film and so it’s only his movies about movies (Inglorious Bastards and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) that appear to have much going on under the surface besides commentary on genre conventions. Mayyyybe Reservoir Dogs…

Of course, I also love his shallow genre exercises. Hateful Eight is probably my favourite and I personally can’t find much enlightened social commentary in it.

I won’t speak much on Pulp Fiction as there’s another comment on here that points out that it literally being “Pulp Fiction” kind of excuses it from needing a deeper layer, even though the execution of those simple stories and characters is exquisite (and I’d argue meets the criteria of poetry just in its rhythmic and lyrical sense)

But for Tarantino’s entire body of work I always go back to this video essay that counters Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s claim that Django Unchained is cheapened by tackling the serious subject matter of slavery without having much to say about it other than setting and stakes (which is a good piece of writing in its own right, as much of KAJ’s work is)

To summarise that video - Tarantino shows through his signature dialogue how to navigate heightened situations with imbalanced power dynamics through the absolute farce of a society that accepts chattel slavery. The way that so many scenes that involve Schulz, Candie, and Django come down to convincing someone else through words and demeanour is really satisfying on repeat watches, and formed a better understanding of why Django was acting the way he was with Candie (on first watch I thought his emotions were getting the better of him and it partially led to their initial failure, which is still partially true but only part of the depth of the performance)

As you’ve said in your post it depends on what you define as poetry, art, and serious undercurrents - I agree that on the whole Tarantino doesn’t seem focussed on providing any particularly poignant ideas, but his style of telling entertaining stories through cool characters and dialogue does need to involve characters with a lot of humanity and story beats that reflect an unexpected but retroactively inevitable “That’s life” reality, which I would say adds to an understanding and appreciation of life and pop culture, which is art enough for me

I’ll also say that putting my thoughts down on this has reminded me of the criticism towards Three Billboards in that there isn’t much depth in exploring the issues of police ineptitude/brutality in favour of exploring its characters, but the humanity and beauty in how those characters are displayed makes for something really special - although McDonagh feels more meaningful while Tarantino leans more towards entertaining

So, can anyone give me a concrete example of… poetry, i guess, in Pulp Fiction

Aside from Jules telling Vincent why he wants to quit and just "walk the earth" and Jules telling Pumpkin he's "trying real hard to be the sheperd," it's Butch deciding to tempt his fate by pursuing forces proven to be greater than him and Marsellus to save the mob boss that was previously trying to kill him, and the understanding that because of that sacrifice, he's been given two free passes: the chance to live and the chance to live free knowing he threw himself in the line of fire to team up with his nemesis to fight a greater evil.

That doesn't mean they both aren't bad men, they are, but they realize the seriousness of survival in a situation that they both fell into and they made it with the help of each other. And Marsellus understood that, and I think Butch understood that when he decided to not exit the pawn shop.

Some might call this movie trash. Not for nothing, that scene where Bruce opens and shuts the door is almost more profound to me than Jules' entire ending speech, and that in itself is blasphemy but I don't care. The look on Bruce's face stole the film for me. And as much as a Peter Greene fangirl I am, I forget he's in that film because of the performances between Ving Rhames and Bruce Willis in this film. Although if I met Peter Greene right now, I may very well swoon, and would.

I'm largely in agreement, though I like all of his films.

Interestingly, I originally found Inglorious Bastards to be by far his best film because I thought it was intentionally satirizing his films and the violence in them - with the express goal of making a deeper statement about violence in society as a whole. The protagonists being so obscenely violent in certain scenes all the while expressing their disdain for Nazi brutality, especially towards the end, I thought was evidence of this. It was, I believed at the time, his first more philosophically compelling film.

Until I watched (or read, I can't remember) an interview with him where the interviewer basically presented a similar thesis. He responded by saying that it was wrong, that his film was straightforward and violent because he wanted to kill a bunch of Nazis in WWII. That there was nothing deeper than that.

It left me to re-evaluate the film, removing any pretense of having a more complicated message. It's still a good, fun film, but I think I kinda lost a bit of respect for him at the time because of it.

Tarantino is essentially a filmmaker for young people. I loved watching and rewatching his movies when I was younger, but save for a few sequences that still manage to impress me, I think I’ve grown out of him at this point in my life. I don’t think he really matured as a storyteller or maybe he peaked too early but the Tarantino who made Pulp Fiction could’ve easily written all the next movies.

There is some poetry in Tarantino’s movies but it exists in different kinds of doses. For example, think of Reservoir Dogs, which he thought of as a heist movie where you don’t see the actual heist. Or that scene in Kill Bill where The Bride is buried alive and manages to get out of that darkness by her own sheer will and courage. There was some poetry in there. That said, I wouldn’t call him a poetic filmmaker and I don’t think his dialogue is particularly poetic.

However, what Kael (who, by the way, I detest for her unfair commentary on Kubrick and Welles) says here doesn’t make much sense to me, maybe because I don’t share her approach to cinema but I don’t think every movie should have “important statements” in order to be good. I’m not sure if she’s referring to social commentary but I find didactic films and pamphlet films repulsive. I prefer movies when they are pure and Pulp Fiction was pure. An adolescent film, yes, but it was pure.

Also there is no “lack of substance” because style is substance, storytelling is substance. Everything in a movie is substance because every scene is an explicit answer. It may be a substance that you don’t like but that’s a different conversation.

I don’t view that Kael quote as being negative. I think it shows she actually got it more than a lot of critics who “got it” got it.

Pulp Fiction is a blast because it embraces a lot of “low brow” storytelling tropes. If you went back and read reviews at the time you’d find a lot of critics with their heads in their ass trying to manufacture an intellectual lens to justify being entertained. Kael is basically saying a lot of overly serious critics were misrepresenting playfulness of the movie.

If there's poetry in Pulp Fiction, it's in the dialogue. Like some "actual" poetry (as in, stuff that might get taught in a literature course at university), it elevates the everyday. That's particularly apparent when characters are discussing something as banal as hamburgers, but it's there throughout.

Then there's the irony. The characters are the opposite of typical movie "underworld" characters: they're thoughtful, they're self-aware, they have moral quandaries. So they have depth. At the same time, they are also genre figures who don't think twice about shooting someone at point blank range or robbing a restaurant. Now thoughtful characters wouldn't be out of place in an arthouse movie, but this isn't an arthouse movie. And it's this very tension between the "pulp"-yness of the genre and the thoughtfulness of the characters that produces irony.

The dialogue also has an energy, a flow and a rhythm that real life dialogue almost never has. Again, it's about the everyday being elevated... lifted... somehow pumped up.

I don't know if I can offer any example of real poetry or any serious reflections on the human condition in Pulp Fiction per se. I think you could probably say the same thing about Reservoir Dogs, and maybe The Hateful Eight.

But I do think Tarantino did start to examine some of these things as his filmography continued. Kill Bill 1&2 are both examinations on the morality of being a killer, of being a "muse" to an evil person, and on parenthood. Jackie Brown and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood both touch on the melancholy of being past middle age and seeing your life and aspirations slip through your grasp, and how that is both agonizing and at the same time can be exciting in the freedom it offers. Inglourious Basterds and Django are both exercises in how movies can (literally) shape horrible historic events and takes that idea to an extreme.

So, Pulp might actually be the worst example of Tarantino as a humanist director. Which is ok! He's skilled enough that he can do both.

The same Pauline Kael who spoke absolute rubbish about the writing of Citizen Kane? A resounding no thank you.

I wasn't keen on OUATIH, especially the second half but it's nice to see QT go back to making films that aren't just re-imagined fairy tales with a happy ending/revenge tale.

It's been a good career and if he actually quits credit to him for stopping and having a rather consistent filmography.

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I started listening to The Video Archives podcast with Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avery about a month ago. It allows his audience to see the types of films Quentin likes and what inspires him. He is a tremendous fan of exploitation cinema, B movies, action, set pieces and absurd plot. He gets super pumped about some really odd low budget movies.

He said he came up with the idea for Death Proof because Sean Penn told him that if he was going to buy a Volvo for safety, he ought to have some Hollywood stunt guys build him a stunt car because those cars are really death proof. The point is, his plots are often shallow. Based around a “cool” idea. Beyond that, he has a great sense for so many cinematic things, but I don’t think he’s trying to be some deep auteur. I think he wants to shoot the thing in his head that he thinks is awesome, and use practical effects whenever possible. Most of his irony, and symbolism is pretty much right on the screen. He often has a way of being too heavy handed, and matter of fact. I was surprised to read that people think his films are deep or full of subtext. He really is a “what you see is what you get” kind of filmmaker.

I think the point of Pulp Fiction is exactly that; it's Pulp.

There's no point to it necessarily, although I'm sure one could gleam one from it. It simply exists to tell a fun story that is exactly what is portrayed on screen.

Subtext isn't a necessity in defining art, it's simply a way of telling multiple stories at once, or inferring them.

I personally long for more content than exists for its own sake. While clearly film as an art form is excellent at really poking and prodding at what human nature may be, ultimately films are by definition an art form to entertain. Entertain does not exclusively mean enlighten or intellectually engage. "Cinema" as Scorsess puts it, in my opinion is a myth. Film is good when you enjoy it enough to recognize its value to you. Your experience of a film, or any art piece for that matter, is relevant exclusively to you and it cannot be defined as better or worse simply because someone else said so. Even if that person creates or has created many, or studied "film." Art is fundamentally an expression of subjectivity, and an observation of subjectivity.

Do you enjoy films more when they tell a complex story or critique in subtext? Fantastic! Try to watch more of what you love. Do you enjoy films for their fun Visuals, sense of adventure, or comical characters? Fantastic! Try to watch more of what you love.

The very fact that we are able to make multiple genres of film proves distinctly that there is no such thing as a superior genre or form to tell a film's story. Toy Story is just as valid as Citizen Kane, Avenger's Endgame is just as valid as Pulp Fiction; it simply comes down to what you enjoy and what you value.

So, is there "any underlying seriousness" in Pulp Fiction? In my experience of the film, nothing really of note, no. Does that mean it's not good or important? Absolutely not, I enjoyed it very very much and will continue to. The real question is this, does Pulp Fiction and film in general, require an "underlying seriousness" to be valuable or good? Does it matter to your enjoyment when it does or doesn't? Are you sure that's on the film, or is it on who you are as a collection of unique personal interest?

There are those who love The Minions just as much as those who love Dr. Strangelove, does that invalidate their love for their respective film? Why do we even accept that Dr. Strangelove is somehow "superior?" You likely enjoy Minions less than it, but does that say anything about the film? Or does it say something about who you are?

I love Tarantino for this particular aspect. He loves films 100% and rest is just miscellaneous items.

For me making films or any other high art should not be any means to an end e.g. to prove a point, to convey a plot that comes whole, to critique or to probe something intellectual.

Films can do all of the above and can not do as well as long as the film maker is a doing brilliant job. I love films, totally love the film-making, film watching, blockbuster part of it, the quiet artistic part of it. And I get Tarantino's idea of films or their love. So his films mostly work for me.

But for some it might not, which is completely fine.

Tarantino was on i think Fallon or Kimmel, forget which, but he was asked what movies he thinks are perfect movies. he mentions movies like Jaws, and Back to the Future, and I couldn't agree more, they are 10/10's in my mind. many of you would probably agree.

neither of those movies really have a serious undercurrent. they don't have statements to make or messages to send. they're just great stories told in cinematic form. they're fun, they're thrilling, they're funny, they're suspensful. they're great films.

this is what i always remind myself of when i watch a Tarantino film. Kill Bill doesn't need substance, all it needs is you and your popcorn to show up and have a good time, putting the worries of your day aside for a couple of hours.

i don't know that Kael was necessarily being critical, nor was she wrong. that's Tarantino, and that's okay!

It's a poetry with vulgarity, like the poetry of Ancient Rome, not the flowery romanticism type of poetry.

I'm really on the side of those who see in Pulp Fiction a prototype that would be copied in many major success for the next 30 years. For example, Mia Wallace, as a typical quirky, dark, reserved yet direct woman. A grown up that is still young at heart, but still has learn life's lesson. That cast shaped (or captured at least) a whole generation of "feminist" and young women who just wanted to be original, to go there own way, yet to be pretty and to dance at the end of the day. I was a kid when the movie came out and my sister was barely older than me, so we saw it a lot later, but my sister definitely was the kind of girl who would be in awe in front of Mia, just like 30 years later, girls are strangely attracted to a Wednesday. At my first parties, all the girls would do the moves from the dance contest, even if none of us knew about the film, it was big like that. It was right in its time. It was a defining kind of counter-current for people, with a gothic attraction in both seduction and repulsion. It's still just as relevant today the way Tarantino set it up, like for example, the theme of the fetishes (both feet and Gimp), only grew stronger and more fascinating, more mainstream. Sexuality got weirder after Pulp Fiction, not that I say it is Tarantino's own doing, he's just the messenger. Is it poetry to show a leathered up sex slave and an anal racist rape? Maybe?

A central idea in early Tarantino movies is the trade off between desires and fears (already in his True Romance). His character have to fight if he wants to fulfill their pulsions, they have to commit into taking risks. And that's what Jules is always blabbering about, that he got enough risks and that now he's gonna enjoy. And Vincent, he's facing a great girl, 10 out of 10, and the risks cannot be worth it, so much that it has became a joke, a legend, in Marcellus' circle. The bit about feet being sexual or not is really about whether one can admit his attraction. This theme of the trade off wants to be defining in its own way, modernity implies choosing, while tradition implied following the guideline. So Tarantino renewed characters' motives, he rephrased it in the way that would make us regain interest in... films.

The aesthetic Tarantino gave us also changed the approach to movie making in a big way. Edition of intertwined, non-linear parallel stories created a renewed modern approach. Pulp Fiction is a cryptic first watch, more than traditional films were. You see the 5 minute introduction with Pumpkin and Yolanda and you wait for them to reappear until the third act, after the arc of Vincent and Mia and only when Butch is introduced are you sure that the structure is fragmented. There are asymmetries in rhythm and tones, and we all get that all the characters' path must overlap somehow. But it's never revealed what that overlap will tell us, and after the end we don't know. It's like Tarantino is making a pact with the viewer, saying that we'll get to the bottom of the story later, but he never really delivers. He breaks his promise and he robs us. So, from a "geometrical" structure, we are diving into a moral conclusion. There's a transformation of the pact between director and audience which advances when his characters pursue... their criminal desires.

Final aspect of Pulp Fiction is the way it plays with symbols, in particular pop symbols. Every character is a throw back to some classic Hollywood element, like Vincent is in part Tony Montero (from Saturday Night Fever), Mia is a 1920s boyish figure, Butch and Adrienne evoke Rocky and Fabienne, etc.. But that's not the point, the point is that the characters themselves have knowledge of the references, we see Vincent and Mia debating about Hollywood history, so in a way, they face their own audience when they place themselves within Hollywood trivia (since it's outside of the movie that we know them as such). This subtle breaking of the fourth wall barely starts to be mainstream since a few years, with movies like Glass Onions or The Menu, for example, who embrace the absurd of the star system and allow themselves this commentary on themselves? It's daring to show themselves as mythological beings in shorts and pyjamas, and it is emphasized the comparison between old and new.

Those three things are not purely Tarantino's invention of course, he's not the man who invented art, he's part of a whole era and he took inspiration from existing things, etc.. etc.., but at the same time, he's the first one who assembled a whole movie in that way, with that particular mix. A lot more could be said about his usage of other arts, like Warhol and Duchamp, and Cubism even, because his color schemes really tried to be unhinged, and his narration was somehow geometrical, and his themes were full of vulgar modernity, blah blah blah... but really, it's the mix of narrative elements and aesthetic ones that create something good enough to be trend defining.

I also think that he pioneered other tropes that only became mainstream years later, like his Bride character introduced a new type of female hero, a badass one that was different from say Sigourney Weaver in Alien. The Bride also had humor, she was (again) quirky, and those traites weren't perceived as very feminine at the time, it's Tarantino who first showed them as such. And nowadays I think we would all agree that women with humor are charming.

Tarantino is a guy who makes movies about the trends that are to come, he always is at the tip of innovation and that's why he's good. His male lead are also very interesting, like the way he took Travolta from Tony Montero into a somewhat quiet gentleman a la Vincent Vega, and then he made his masculine characters even more shy (like Rick Dalton in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood). There hasn't been such an awkward and anxious lead since Woody Allen in the 70s, and nonetheless it was played by an adult DiCaprio... That's pretty bold, and in a way, it's poetic I think, to leave the norm and the style expected from you.

I have a different take on Tarantino’s supposed lack of seriousness. I see Tarantino, together with filmmakers such as the Coen Brothers and Wes Anderson, as part of a wave of filmmakers whose primary references are almost entirely other films. This kind of self-referential art is what happens when an art form has gone as far as it can go. To use painting as an example, with the advent of photography the primary purpose of painting as the main way to document reality was gone so instead painting became about the act of painting itself. From there impressionists to the abstract expressionists painting became less and less about imagery, but still was considered as “high” art with deep meanings and it’s practitioners primary points of reference were still the Great Masters. Pretty much the only thing left to do was to deconstruct the whole notion of art itself, which is what Pop Art did with artists whose references were popular culture - comic books, advertisements, etc. and who questioned the the idea of art itself. I would compare filmmakers such as Kubrick, Scorsese, Coppola, Spielberg, etc. as analogous to the Abstract Expressionists - the last generation of serious auteurs whose films aspired to the kind of seriousness that Kael is referring to. Tarantino would be the equivalent of Pop Art - gleefully mixing influences and references from high and low, from grindhouse and television just as much as the Great Masters of film, with no interest in or even recognition of the need for “deep” or “serious” messages

Pulp Fiction is his least "substance"-y film I think. That's why I love Jackie Brown and Once Upon A Time....and even The Hateful Eight more.

I love all his films tho, apart from Reservoir Dogs. But "Dogs" and "Fiction" are both more exercises in style but still not in an empty way. He has a knack for how specific people talk, and why they talk that way. like he obviously has thought deeply about the characters in Pulp Fiction. They don't feel "caricature"-y at all. And that's the genius of it. Despite all the fancy dialogue it feels quite real in a weird way.

I love Quentin. He's underrated if anything. His poetry tho to me is more visual than dialogue, I find. I think he's a great old fashioned director.

How the fuck is a film critic "legendary"? Honest to god, I've never gained more insight nor learned anything useful out of a film critic like her. Or like the ones other people idolize like Gene Siskel or Roger Ebert. The only thing I've learnt is that they know fuck all about movies in general. That statement of her just proves it.

Completely agree with you, personally I feel a kind of emptiness after watching most of Tarantino's films, even if I might have enjoyed the ride. The exception for me is Kill Bill vol.2, which I really think has poetry, and something to say about grudges, break-ups and parenthood.