Tarantino's Best Costumes

by Cláudio Alves

Despite some misgivings regarding this year’s highly unimaginative Best Costume Design line-up, there's much to rejoice about that Oscar category. One of the biggest reasons to celebrate is Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood's deserved nod for Arianne Phillips’ designs. As it happens, this is the first time any Quentin Tarantino film has been nominated for this particular award. Considering the director's ability to create memorable images and influential bits of cinematic iconography, this is somewhat preposterous. Better late than never.

Still, to shed light on the many costume delights of Tarantino's colorful oeuvre, here's a list of the ten best costumes in this director's films…

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Soundtracking: Tarantino's Best Song Cues

by Chris Feil

A new Tarantino film brings with it a new batch of expected side dishes: takedowns, hyperboles, talk of Oscar potential. As for the content of the film itself, Quentin Tarantino never fails to deliver a distinct musical prowess along with the zippy dialogue and ironic violence. A dancing Leonardo DiCaprio and a groovy Margot Robbie from the trailers already promise that Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood will be no exception. Before we get to that film, let’s look back at the best song cues from Tarantino’s films...

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Tribeca: Relating to "The Wolfpack"

The Tribeca Film Festival 2015 kicked off this week and we'll be bringing you our screening adventures. Here's special guest Joe Reid on a buzzy documentary...
 

I thought a lot about Yorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth during Crystal Moselle's Sundance winning documentary The Wolfpack, now playing at the Tribeca Film Festival. How could I not? The Wolfpack tells the story of the Angulo family, including the seven siblings whose extreme home-schooling meant they were rarely permitted outside their modest Lower East Side apartment. That kind of forced isolation of children is always going to make me think of Lanthimos' dark comedy.

Knowing the premise, you might expect the Angulo kids to end up as warped as those kids in Dogtooth, but they're decidedly not. They speak about their unusual childhood with uncanny emotional intelligence and articulation. And the more you watch The Wolfpack, the more you might want to chalk it all up to the power of the movies.

The dynamite opening to the film sees the Angulo boys' filmed reenactment of Reservoir Dogs (1992), complete with costumes, props, and honestly? Some pretty decent line-readings. You immediately get a sense of how long the boys have had to perfect this production. It helps when you're never allowed to leave your home. These boys are no mere dabblers; they're movie fanatics, with hand-drawn movie art papering their walls; with lists at the ready ranking their personal favorites. They're shown transcribing Pulp Fiction, studying Blue Velvet, poring over Scream. I found myself leaning forward, relating so hard.

More...

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Rebel Assignments: Film Directors + Madonna

David Fincher winning an MTV Movie Award for Se7en (1995) he was already an MTV darling at the Music Video AwardsA reader by the name of David recently asked which direct we wished would do a video from Madonna's "Rebel Heart". Given that David Fincher, now a reknowned auteur, came to fame via some of Madonna's best, it's a great question. More movie directors really ought to moonlight with music videos intead of just graduating from them. It's a unique form, basically both a musical and a short, that gives directors the chance to work faster and looser and play with ideas that they maybe couldn't risk in a feature without a test run.

Successful directors ought to donate their services at least once to either an upcoming band they want every to haer or a legendary artist whose work has meant a lot to them. So we're assigning a director to each Madonna song on her terrific new record "Rebel Heart" in order to pretend we've been gifted a video album specifically for Madonna fans and cinephiles alike.

It's a Venn Diagram niche, sure, but go with it.

Since the first track and first single "Living for Love" already got a fine toreador and minotaur themed music video -- and it's good if minimalist --  we should leave it be.

No no no. Scratch that.

"LIVING FOR LOVE"
Recreated by Gus Van Sant
We're completists. So we gotta try for the whole album. Gus Van Sant likes a good experiment and he can't just do a traditional "remake" so how about a shot-for-shot reinterpretation with a few inserts as he is prone to do. Madonna likes a good rolling cloud as much as the next Guy Gus (see Frozen/Ray of Light)

"DEVIL PRAY"
Assigned to Lee Daniels
This song sounds conservative but its lyrics are straight up messy mixing drowning metaphors, spiritual yearning, religiosity, the devil and a list of hallucinogenic drugs. So I think the only proper guide is the current king of absolutely fascinating messes, Lee Daniels. Look at the performances he got from Mo'Nique, Kidman, Oprah, and Taraji. Please get your hands on Madonna, you crazy beautiful man, and shake her up!

more assignments follow...

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Monologue: "Like a Virgin"

Having revisited Tarantino's love of little piggies and Jackie Brown's Best Shots we end the Tarantino 50th Birthday festivities at the appropriate place given the director's love of circular plotting: The Very Beginning. When Quentin Tarantino was, essentially, a nobody, he was still Quentin Tarantino. Long before he was training his camera on knives and hands threatening Jamie Foxx's upside down junk in Django Unchained, he had the balls to open his debut feature with a monologue about big dicks... or Madonna's suggested love for them in her then 8 years old hit single "Like a Virgin".

This is the very first shot of Reservoir Dogs (1992).

Over the black of the credits Mr Brown (Quentin Tarantino) has introduced his thesis "The entire song is a metaphor for big dicks." more...

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