Jackie Brown (5 Stars)

After watching an underwhelming film in the cinema this afternoon, I thought it was a good idea to pick another film from my top 100 film list. What better choice than "Jackie Brown", currently in 34th place? It's an homage to the blaxploitation films of the 1970's, but let's be honest: were any of the blaxploitation films half as good as "Jackie Brown"? It's a classic, considered by many to be Quentin Tarantino's best film.

One small criticism I have is that the film needs to be remastered. Many of the scenes are slightly blurred. A film like this deserves to be presented in the best possible quality.

I like pictures of a beautiful woman when the camera is pointing up at her. It makes the woman look like a Goddess. And that's what Pam Grier is. She's a Goddess. She's a giant among women, beautiful and powerful.

Success Rate:  + 4.2

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Jackie Brown (5 Stars)

Quentin Tarantino has said that he'll only make ten films. So far he's made nine films, which means his next film will be his last. He claims that most directors end their career with poor films, and these are the films they'll always be remembered for. He wants to stop while he's at his peak. I think he has too little faith in himself. I could name many directors who have remained good after making many films, starting with Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg.

On the other hand, I think Quentin has already passed his peak. If you look at my top 100 films list, you'll see that it contains seven of his nine films. The two films missing from the list are his last two films, "Hateful Eight" and "Once upon a time in Hollywood". I'm not saying that they're bad films, but they're not up to the quality of his earlier films. "The Hateful Eight" lacks the detailed character development of films like "Jackie Brown", while "Once upon a time in Hollywood" seems to lack direction. Quentin himself says that "Death Proof" is his weakest film, but I strongly disagree. It could have been slightly improved by making the car chase longer, but I can't say anything else against it.

Today I watched "Jackie Brown" using the enhanced trivia track, a text commentary while the film is running. I don't want to write anything more about the film after reviewing it five times already, so I'll just talk about one thing in the text commentary:

"As Jackie is walking towards Max Cherry, the song playing is Natural High, performed by Bloodstone. Quentin Tarantino says this is one of the greatest soul ballads of the 1970's. According to Quentin, when white audiences hear this song, they think Max is falling in love with Jackie, but when black audiences hear this song, the audience is falling in love with Jackie".

I don't understand why Quentin thinks white and black audiences react differently when hearing the song. It doesn't make sense. It's obvious to me that the song is played to show Max is falling in love with Jackie at first sight. That isn't just because I'm white. And why does Quentin think only black audiences would fall in love with Jackie? I had a crush on her for years.

Success Rate:  + 4.2

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Lake Placid (4 Stars)

Betty White is dead.

Those are words that I didn't think I would have to write. There was already some media buzz about her upcoming 100th birthday on 17th January 2022. She didn't make it. She died yesterday morning at home. The cause of death hasn't yet been disclosed, except that it was natural causes.

She's had a long acting career, but I first became aware of her about 20 years ago when I saw reruns of "The Golden Girls" (1985 to 1992). I've never been a fan of American sitcoms, but the concept of four elderly ladies living together interested me. I wouldn't say that I found the episodes laugh-out-loud funny, but I found the old ladies sweet. Even then, Betty White stood out as the one who attracted me most.

A short time later I saw "Lake Placid" for the first time. Betty White has a small but important role in the film as an old woman who keeps giant crocodiles as pets. After a diver is killed she tries to cover up the existence of the crocodiles.

I'm sorry to say that "Lake Placid" is the only film in which I ever saw her, but I didn't forget her over the following years. Betty White remained active in social media, and I was always fascinated by whatever she had to say. What I liked about her so much was that she sounded so young. She always retained the playful attitude of a teenage girl. If I'd met her in a chatroom I would have guessed her age as 16.

One of her most famous quotes sounds like a joke, but it's actually true:

"Why do people say 'grow some balls'? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding".

Now she's passed away. She'll be missed not only by her family and friends, but by the millions of fans who've watched her from afar over the years. People like me.

Betty, we'll always love you.

It's sad to see the cover of the latest issue of People magazine. They jumped the gun.

Betty White
January 17, 1922 – December 31, 2021

Success Rate:  + 0.1

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Jackie Brown (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #41

This is an amazing film. I've written about it a few times, usually concentrating on Pam Grier. Today I'll do something different. In an early scene Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson) is showing his partner Louis Gara (Robert De Niro) a film featuring the guns he sells. This film, called "Chicks who love guns", is included in full in the Blu-ray's special features. Here's a small gallery of the girls in the film with their weapons of choice.

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Hi, I'm Sidney. I'm a personal trainer and Miss Orange County finalist, and this is my Tec-9. The popular Tec-9 is designed after the Russian KG-99 submachine gun. It boasts 32 rounds of 9 mm firepower and can spit bullets at a rate of 700 rounds per minute. Made in America, the Tec-9 is most often used by police SWAT teams and military personnel. Because it's both compact and lightweight, the Tec-9 acquires its target with ease, making this little brute the perfect choice for home defence. I love my Tec-9.

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Hi, I'm Cindy. I'm a student and a part-time actress, and I'd like to show you my Steyr AUG. AUG stands for Army Universal Gun. A primary design emphasis behind this weapon was for use from vehicles. Talk about versatile, it goes from a 223 to a 9 mm carbine with no tools. The Steyr AUG is a snap to use.

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I'm Gloria. I'm a full time model and actress. You might remember me from "Girls just wanna have guns". This is the famous AK-47. With over 50 million manufactured in ten countries, the AK-47 is the most popular assault rifle in the world. This is the Chinese model. You can tell by the extra rivets running through the metal struts. Nothing gets between me and my AK.

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Hi, I'm Brittany. I'm part-time actress, dancer and model. This is the Italian Beretta model 12S. It shoots 500 rounds of full metal jacket 9 mm Luger at 1270 feet per second. At 10 pounds it's really heavy for such a small gun, but the weight and balance really reduce muzzle rise during firing. I've never held anything that felt so strong and confident.

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Hi there, I'm Tammy Jo. I'm an exotic dancer and a calendar girl for a national chain of tyre wholesalers. This is the Mossberg 500, a 12 gauge pump-action shotgun. It's made in America, just like me. It holds five shells in the magazine, one in the pipe and can fire a round as fast as I pump the slide. It's got an 18 inch standard chunk barrel and weighs in about six and a half pounds dry. The Mossberg comes in handy when you don't have much time to aim and you've got plenty of close range stopping power. You'll love the thrill of having this much raw power in your hands.

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As in Quentin Tarantino's last two films, there's a scene where people look into a car trunk. There's a similar scene in "Death Proof".

Success Rate:  + 4.2

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A Simple Plan (4½ Stars)

It's difficult to allocate this film to any specific film genre. Wikipedia calls it a neo-noir crime thriller. I don't think that's an accurate description, but I'm unable to make a better suggestion. It's a treatise on human nature and the way people are affected by greed.

On New Year's Eve the brothers Jakob and Hank Mitchell (pictured above), together with Jacob's friend Lou Chambers, are driving in the thick snow of Minnesota. Their car hits a tree when they swerve to avoid a fox. The fox is carrying a chicken, obviously stolen from a nearby farm, so they follow it into the woods to shoot it. They find a crashed plane, almost covered by the snow. The pilot is dead, and there's a bag containing $4.4 million dollars in cash.

The three men discuss the morality of keeping the money for themselves. It isn't stealing if the owner's dead, is it? Taking money from a dead man is a victimless crime. Besides that, only drug smugglers carry such large amounts of money by plane, so by taking the money they're making sure it's not put to bad use, meaning they're doing the community a service.

Hank is the most cautious of the three. He says that he'll keep the money at home until spring to see if anyone comes looking for it. If not, he'll divide the money into three, and they should all leave town. Suddenly becoming rich among their friends and neighbours would raise suspicion.

They swear to one another not to tell anyone, not even their wives, but they can't keep a secret. Hank and Lou tell their wives. Jacob isn't married. It's fascinating to see how money changes people. For instance, Hank's wife Sarah starts out by saying the money should be given to the police, but after seeing it with her own eyes she's determined to keep it to make a new start in their married life.

Lou is impatient. He's unemployed and deep in debt, so he wants his share of the money immediately. Jacob can wait for the money, but he doesn't want to leave town, because he's lived there all his life. Problems are caused by the stress of the money. Friends and families begin to argue. They act stupidly. Early in the New Year Hank is forced to kill to keep the money secret. The pressure is driving all three men mad.

The acting is excellent by all of the main characters, but the one who stands out is Billy Bob Thornton as Jacob. He was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor. Unlike Hank, a college graduate, Jacob is simple minded and socially awkward. Hank might have the greater intelligence, but Jacob has a strong conscience. Initially he was tempted to keep the money, just like the others, but when people begin to die he says the price is too high and he wants to give himself in to the police. Hank persuades him not to, because all three would be arrested, so he refrains in order to protect his brother.

Despite its critical acclaim, "A Simple Plan" was a box office failure. Not enough action? Too much psychology? Or maybe it's just that the film hits too close to home. It exposes the viewer's greed, a side of himself that he likes to deny.

Success Rate:  - 1.0

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Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness (4 Stars)

This is my sixth horror film in November 2019. It's questionable whether it qualifies as a horror film. It's more of a medieval action comedy. Its main claim to being a horror film is that it's the third part in the Evil Dead trilogy. There's a progression in the trilogy. "Evil Dead" itself is a pure horror film. "Evil Dead 2" is a horror film mixed with comedy. "Army of Darkness" is a comedy film with occasional touches of horror.

"Army of Darkness" is often referred to as "Evil Dead 3", but its real name, based on the opening credits, is "Bruce Campbell vs Army of Darkness". That's a strange name, mixing an actor's real name with the mythical characters in the film. Most people shorten the film's name to "Army of Darkness", and I'll do the same.

Once more the recap is bad, although it could be argued that the final scene of "Evil Dead 2" is the weak link that needs to be removed. At the end of "Evil Dead 2" Ash (Bruce Campbell) fell from the sky and slew a monster, causing everyone to kneel at his feet. In the recap he just falls from the sky. That's it. He's accused of belonging to an enemy army, so he's made a slave.

Another problem in the recap is that Ash is once more shown going to the cabin in the woods alone with his girlfriend Linda. I praised the second film for finding an actress who looked similar to Linda in the first film. Unless you're paying close attention you'll hardly notice it's a replacement. The actress playing Linda in this film's recap doesn't look remotely like the first two actresses.

I can still imagine that it's possible to edit all three films together, using only the original footage, to make a logically cohesive complete film without any contradictions. All you need to do is remove the recaps and the final scene of "Evil Dead 2". Has nobody with any weight in the film studios ever thought about it?

After winning the trust of his captors, Ash is sent to retrieve the Necronomicon, because this book is the only way to defeat the evil demons that they call Deadites. They seem to be less powerful than they were in the first two films, and they need assistance from an army of skeletons.

In the second film we see a drawing of Ash in the pages of the Necronomicon. These pages must have been drawn after the events of the third film. Maybe they were drawn as an addendum to the original book, which would explain why the pages were separate.

Incidentally, "Army of Darkness" was the first film I ever bought on DVD. It was a good choice. The first film I ever bought on videotape was "Plan 9 From Outer Space". The first film I ever bought on Blu-ray was "Red Cliff".

Success Rate:  - 0.1

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Jackie Brown (5 Stars)

Here is Pam Grier in the title role flipping through her LP collection before finally picking an album by the Delfonics. Music plays an important part in this film, just as it did in Quentin Tarantino's first film, "Reservoir Dogs".

We don't just hear the music playing in the background, the Delfonics are mentioned by name several times. The gun salesman Ordell Robbie expresses surprise when he finds out that the bail bondsman Max Cherry listens to the Delfonics. I'm not sure why. Does Ordell think Max is too old, too square or too white to like their music?

The scene of Jackie Brown in her apartment is the only chance we get to see Pam Grier's bare feet. I would have liked to take a closer look. To make up, the film offers several close ups of Bridget Fonda's feet.

Feet, alcohol, keys and jewellery. There must be a hidden message.

Let's take a closer look at the feet. Perfectly formed toes.

Almost all of Quentin Tarantino's films feature close ups of feet, but I believe this is the closest view we get. I'll point out the bare feet in my next reviews of his films. I posted a few screenshots in my review of "Death Proof", but I'll make an effort to show all the feet in my upcoming reviews.

Despite not seeing much of her feet, the film is an ode to Pam Grier's beauty. I used to have a crush on her when I was younger. Here are a few photos that will show you why.

She's stunning, isn't she?

It's difficult for me to say which one of Quentin Tarantino's films I like most. They're all so good. "Jackie Brown" is a contender for the top spot.

Success Rate:  + 4.2

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