Popcorn is bringing Tarantino to Leeson Street, with a selection of the director’s films screening at the Sugar Club from the 29th to the 5th of September.
Four films with the unique Tarantino stamp of violence, pop culture references and overwritten dialogue that shouldn’t work at all but does have been chosen to be screened for the next week. The Sugar Club is promising pizza, gourmet popcorn, cocktails, beer and more for their Tarantino week and tickets are available from Usheru now. See the films that have been picked out below.
Reservoir Dogs
Kicking off Tarantino Week on Monday 29th August at 8.00pm is his directorial debut, Reservoir Dogs. Showing the before and after of a heist gone horribly wrong, the film launched Tarantino into prominence as well as inspiring a decade of independent films focusing on crime and trying to imitate the repartee of the Dogs (with varying levels of success).
Most Tarantino Moment: Mr. White gets stuck in the middle with a tied-up cop, brutally torturing him in a scene that even actor Michael Madsen had difficulty finishing. That we see so little of it really doesn’t help.
Cameo Status: The director acts on the sidelines as Mr. Brown, who isn’t much of a getaway driver but has strong opinions about the music of Madonna.
Inglourious Basterds
Wednesday 31st August will see a showing of Tarantino’s take on a WW2 movie. Seen by some as Tarantino’s masterpiece, the film follows various characters; scalp-hungry soldiers of questionable morals, a revenge-seeking cinema owner and of course, Christoph Waltz in his iconic performance as crafty Hans Landa, as they all converge on an end to the war that’s rather different to what you remember from the history books…
Most Tarantino Moment: The standoff between Nazis, Basterds and a Brit in an underground tavern, arguably the best showcase of Tarantino’s skills of drawing out nerve-wracking tension before sudden, violent release. RIP, Nazi balls.
Cameo Status: Tarantino lays low in this one, keeping his ‘acting’ contribution to one of the Basterd’s many, literal scalps. Friend Eli Roth takes the mantle of director-acting-badly this time.
Kill Bill Volume I and Volume 2
Get set for a long one, as the epic two-parter is put together starting from 6.00pm on Sunday 4th September for one long tale of revenge. Tarantino mashes several exploitation genres of the 70s together as a team of deadly assassins turn on one of their own when she tries to get out, properly spoiling her wedding day and leaving her for dead. But the Bride didn’t die and sword in hand, she embarks on a path of revenge with one ultimate goal: Kill Bill.
Most Tarantino Moment: References stacked on homages stacked on references as the Bride, dressed in Bruce Lee style garb, takes on the whole Crazy 88 gang (and the anime-tastic Gogo Yobari, schoolgirl with a mace) with her sword in order to get to the deadly O-Ren Ishii.
Cameo Status: Keep your eyes peeled during Volume 1 and you may be able to spot Tarantino as one of the many members of said Crazy 88 gang cut through by Uma Thurman.
True Romance
Patricia Arquette and Christian Slater star as outlaw lovers Alabama and Clarence, who stumble on to a bag of cocaine and then go on the run, heading to LA to try and sell the coke and avoid the mob it belongs to. Tony Scott directed the film, adapted from a Tarantino script just as he was starting to make his way in Hollywood. True Romance wraps up Tarantino Week at the Sugar Club on Monday 5th September at 8.00pm.
Most Tarantino Moment: The dialogue of True Romance is Tarantino all over, particularly coming from the mouths of acting greats Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper in the film’s ‘Sicilian Scene‘. It’s been described by the man himself as one of his ‘proudest moments’.
Cameo Status: Tony Scott saves his cameos for actually talented actors like Brad Pitt or James Gandolfini, so True Romance keeps its Tarantino strictly on the page. 1993 was a far cry from the dodgy Australian accent of Django Unchained.