Quentin Tarantino is without doubt one of the most influential filmmakers of our time, and a personal favorite of mine. "Pulp Fiction" in my opnion is one of the greatest films and screenplays ever made. Roger Ebert and i agree, "Resevior Dogs" was nothing good. The Kill Bill series is excellent and "Inglorious Basterds" was good too. But "Jackie Brown" remains my second favorite of Tarantino's. This is a more mature Tarantino. Yes the f-word is constantly used like in most of his films BUT IT WORKS! that is the point, people really do talk like that. i have known people who really talk like that. It is a con, and a great one that is well presented and of course, someone is always conning another. The films opens up with the song 'Across 110th Street' by Bobby Womack which is the perfect opening and closing song.
At 2hrs and 30mins long, this crime epic is smart, bad-ass and knows what's goin' down. Jackie Brown is played in a phenomenal performance by Pam Grier who is the Queen of 70's Blaxploitation scene. she is so strong and manipulating but not belittling. she knows how to manipulate you through lying but not by browbeating. there are no real action sequences because there does ot need to be. There is hardly any blood in it at all. This is a definate homage to the early 70's blaxploitation films but like Woody Allen and Ingmar Bergman, Tarantino gets the Jack Hill films. There are not that many references to Kurosawa and Leone films as there are in Kill Bill/Pulp Fiction. He wants stright up blaxploitation but it's not a period piece; it takes place in 1995.
Grier is in a lot of trouble. She is a flight attendant who gets caught smuggling her boss' gun money on the airline she works for. the fed and cop that cought her decide to team up to find the arms dealer she works for, whose name they don't even know. So a choice is presented: tell the cop and fed about Ordell Robbie (the arms dealer played by Samuel L. Jackson) and get her freedom -except that if Jackson suspects she's talking about him, she's dead- or keep her mouth shut and serve time in jail. That's when she meets Max Cherry (Robert Forster)-her bail bondsman-, a late fifties, recently separated, burnt-out man, who falls in love with her. Then Grier comes up with a plan to play the feds off against Jackson and the guys he works with and walk off with their money and teams up with Forster. its all about choices and at times Grier is stuck between a rock and a hard place-but she never ever cracks under pressure. she is so cool and is able to keep her cool no matter if she is caught or has a gun to her head. thats what i love about her charater and Grier's performance. she played characters such as Friday Foster, Foxy Brown, Sheba Shayne, and Coffy but this performance obviously is the greatest one and i think she should have won the Oscar but she was not even nominated. her other films feature her getting into cat fights with other women and by the time the fight is over, all of the women have there shirts off. the violence was gratuitous, the nudity was excessive and tey were all about fighting pusher-men, pimps and drug-lords (trying to send a positive message out to the kids). I have seen "Coffy" and "Foxy Brown" which were junk and Tarantino knows how to take a pile of juck, recycle it and make something masterful. his type of filmmaking takes time and practice and a lot of movie watching: good and bad. when he was a kid, he would not just go to the regular old theater but go to the black part of town and watch the exploitation films where he ingested and immense amout of knowledge and inspiration. that is why all of his soundtracks are so damn good, he knows all about the music. he would not use just regular old Gladys Knight or The Temptations, he uses Willie Hutch, Brothers Johnson, Bloodstone, The Delphonics and Randy Crawford for his films. "Jackie Brown" could have been made in the 70's; it was that good.
Grier is in a lot of trouble. She is a flight attendant who gets caught smuggling her boss' gun money on the airline she works for. the fed and cop that cought her decide to team up to find the arms dealer she works for, whose name they don't even know. So a choice is presented: tell the cop and fed about Ordell Robbie (the arms dealer played by Samuel L. Jackson) and get her freedom -except that if Jackson suspects she's talking about him, she's dead- or keep her mouth shut and serve time in jail. That's when she meets Max Cherry (Robert Forster)-her bail bondsman-, a late fifties, recently separated, burnt-out man, who falls in love with her. Then Grier comes up with a plan to play the feds off against Jackson and the guys he works with and walk off with their money and teams up with Forster. its all about choices and at times Grier is stuck between a rock and a hard place-but she never ever cracks under pressure. she is so cool and is able to keep her cool no matter if she is caught or has a gun to her head. thats what i love about her charater and Grier's performance. she played characters such as Friday Foster, Foxy Brown, Sheba Shayne, and Coffy but this performance obviously is the greatest one and i think she should have won the Oscar but she was not even nominated. her other films feature her getting into cat fights with other women and by the time the fight is over, all of the women have there shirts off. the violence was gratuitous, the nudity was excessive and tey were all about fighting pusher-men, pimps and drug-lords (trying to send a positive message out to the kids). I have seen "Coffy" and "Foxy Brown" which were junk and Tarantino knows how to take a pile of juck, recycle it and make something masterful. his type of filmmaking takes time and practice and a lot of movie watching: good and bad. when he was a kid, he would not just go to the regular old theater but go to the black part of town and watch the exploitation films where he ingested and immense amout of knowledge and inspiration. that is why all of his soundtracks are so damn good, he knows all about the music. he would not use just regular old Gladys Knight or The Temptations, he uses Willie Hutch, Brothers Johnson, Bloodstone, The Delphonics and Randy Crawford for his films. "Jackie Brown" could have been made in the 70's; it was that good.
"Foxy Brown"
"Jackie Brown"
| Academy Awards, USA | |||
| Year | Result | Award | Category/Recipient(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Nominated | Oscar | Best Actor in a Supporting Role Robert Forster |
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