*Spoiler Alert - You have been warned!

Quentin Tarantino lost me a long time ago.  The first scene of his I ever saw was the scene in which the names are assigned in Reservoir Dogs, and Mr. Pink is trying to talk his way out of his alias.  Based on that scene, I assumed the movie was a comedy.  Out of nowhere and completely original.  Later, Pulp Fiction came out and blew everybody away.  Not only is the narrative cut and pasted together in an interesting and original way, but the language was harsh, shocking, and hilarious.  The dialogue was great, the action and/or plot was great, the characters were great, the aesthetic was great.  To my own surprise, it's the one early Tarantino I never revisit.

Jackie Brown was disappointing at first, but has long-since become one of my favorite Tarantino movies.  Kill Bill is a masterpiece.

Then Death Proof happened.  Too much talking, too much waiting, too many feet, not enough pay-off.  I have watched it a few times since it came out, and have learned to appreciate it as a throwback and/or homage to 70's car-chase movies.  The car scenes are great.  But it was the first time I walked out of a Tarantino movie genuinely disappointed (the Robert Rodriguez half of the Grindhouse double feature is one of my all-time favorite movies though.  That guy is probably a lot of fun to hang out with).

It's been downhill ever since.  Inglorious Basterds is rambling and self-indulgent, though the first scene is a perfectly-acted-and-written masterpiece.  The movie isn't unwatchable.  I don't hate it.  It was my first introduction to Daniel Brühl, who I really liked in 7 Days In Entebbe.  Him and Rosamund Pike are great in that film.  The scene toward the end where she's talking into a dead phone at the airport is one of my all-time favorite pieces of acting.  But Inglorious Basterds forces you to stop suspending your disbelief, in ways that are self-conscious and annoying.  The worst is when the Christoph Waltz character laughs at the German actress' excuse for the cast.  I don't remember the context entirely, but it's a comic-book-grade departure from the reality of the film, which is one of my criteria when judging a flaw.  And Brad Pitt's self-consciously-fake Italian accent is probably supposed to be funny.  I think Tarantino is funniest in scenes like the alias-distribution scene in Reservoir Dogs.  That's him being funny.  Outside of that over-the-top ridiculousness, he should probably stick to dry, subtle humor, like the way Samuel L. Jackson talks to Chris Tucker while trying to get him in the trunk in Jackie Brown.  That is, if he wants his talents to shine without being obstructed by the looming specter of postmodern self-referential self-consciousness.

Then the white guilt starts creeping in.  Every time I see white guilt, I instantly have one foot out the door... if your name is Quentin Tarantino.  If your name isn't Quentin Tarantino, the instant you push your fake, self-flagellating religious guilt on me, I'm walking past the popcorn and clicking the unlock button on the key fob before I even leave the theater.  I have the same vibe as the Marines in Aliens, as they're loading into the APC driven by Ripley after getting attacked by the aliens for the first time; "we are lea-ving!" 

But white guilt has crept into Tarantino's work.  First with the slave movie, which does have a great slaveowner part played to pitch perfection by Leonardo DiCaprio, and a fantastic performance by Samuel L. Jackson, who lost me a little while ago himself.  And while I liked Jamie Foxx in Ray, his real-life racism creeps in between the lines in Django Unchained, and I can't stand it.  I just want to tell him to cry in his paycheck and get over himself.  Dear Jamie Foxx, you're not Marlon Brando.  Marlon Brando was notoriously difficult and despised by other actors at different points in his career, to the point that he had a 10-year break after Mutiny On The Bounty due to people not wanting to work with him.  He was in semi-forced partial-retirement until The Godfather.  His co-stars on Mutiny hated him.  And I think his hubris shines through in that film; he's infinitely watchable as an actor, but there's something definitely wrong with his take on Christian whatever-his-name-is as the leader of the mutineers.  And I'm not talking about putting the gratuitous spin on the character by making him into a "fop."  Which is a bad choice, in my opinion.  But he's also moody and depressed after the mutiny, which just pisses me off.  Follow through, dude.  Do your duty, or don't.  But don't do both.  His ridiculous moodiness isn't a "complex" character trait; it's a flaw.  If you want to watch a good Mutiny On The Bounty, watch the one with Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins.  That's a good movie.  We'll get to Mel Gibson later.  But for now, back to Tarantino.

Django Unchained makes another postmodern mistake early on by adding a line about leaving Texas and/or Mississippi and heading to "more enlightened" climes.  California, presumably.  Another flaw, one which is based in fantasy, like many of the beliefs and/or opinions produced in California.  Apparently, Tarantino has crossed the line, and is no longer interested in telling great stories, however shocking they may be to certain sensibilities, but now feels the need to patronize large swaths of his audience in the process.

Point taken.

I went to see the overlong Old West snow epic about the hateful douchebags who all kill each other over the course of 30 or 40 hours (in real time), because it was something to do with my girlfriend after we smoked some weed.  I passed out in the theater during the early, interminable snow scenes.  We were stoned, but I was like, it's cold, I get it.  40 hours of snow and wind and some boring talk between some guys in a horse-drawn carriage.  Did your editor pass out as well?

The time was literally better spent sleeping.

Then they get to the cabin and it's probably supposed to be like a 21st-century Hitchcock, with all the whodunits and mysterious plot twists.  But, as the title suggests, it has no love, except, perhaps, if the name of the director is a clue, for itself.  Hateful people, killing each other for 30 hours (in real time.  It's like a documentary of loathing), and.... this is what you have to say, Quentin Tarantino?  You have the audience of the entire world in the palm of your hand, and The Hateful Eight is what you have to say?  I'm insulted, bored, and, again, disappointed.  Am I really supposed to be impressed by the simplistic alliteration in the title and the idea that it's a "witty" departure from "The Magnificent Seven" (nudge my side, see how clever and knowledgeable I am, wink wink wink)?  Do you think we're retarded?  Am I supposed to care who poisoned the coffee, enough to follow the Byzantine plot around in circles to....where again?  Hateland?  To watch Kubrickian quantities of film sacrificed to the gods of self-absorption at the Temple of Douche?  Great, thanks.  Oh and don't forget, there's even more white guilt in this movie than in his movie that takes place during SLAVERY.  If Tarantino is a creep, this is the film in which he makes an entire movie about his creepiness, taking his audience for granted in the meantime.  "Of course they'll come see it, I'm Quentin Tarantino."  We'll see, dude.

There is one moment of hilarious brilliance in the entire film, when Samuel L. Jackson expresses his disbelief that the other guy would throw his lot in with the Jennifer Jason Leigh character, and says something along the lines of "you're on the same side as that diabolical bitch," or something like that, but he says it in SLOW MOTION, and with such hilarious incredulity, and in SLOW MOTION...  It's the only time during the entire film where I remembered why I like Tarantino, and it made me laugh out loud in the theater.

I haven't seen the 60's-era movie about movies and actors in, yep you guessed it, Hollywood.  Another period piece?  Yep.  Yawn.  For the first time, I had ZERO interest in going to see a new Tarantino film.  It took him almost 15 years, but he finally lost me.  For a while, I have been secretly rooting for him to stop making period pieces and rejoin us in the present day.  Kill Bill is a masterpiece.  But he continues to play around in the past, and says things about how "his first 10 movies are the ones he's going to be remembered for," like he's planning the world's reception of his career after he's dead and/or old, like some ridiculous despot.  Abhorrent.

But Kill Bill is a masterpiece.

Now that we got that chore out of the way, let's talk about truly great filmmakers, who aren't in love with themselves and their own reflection, but who make great movies and always have.

I'm talking, of course, about Mel Gibson and Clint Eastwood.

In a nutshell, Mel Gibson makes wide-angle cinematic masterpieces with strong characters and heart, and Clint Eastwood makes cinematic close-ups of great characters. 

Both directors know how to tell a great story.  Mel Gibson zooms the camera out so that the entire historical landscape is visible, and he takes the time and money to actually hire real extras, instead of blocking them in a computer bunker in the Valley like the Lord of the Rings guy.  Clint Eastwood also makes real movies, but instead of zooming out like Mel Gibson, he focuses tightly on the world in which the characters live.

I'm not talking about actual camera angles.  I'm talking about the overall perspective of the films.  Mel Gibson makes wide-angle cinematic masterpieces; Clint Eastwood makes epic Polaroids.

Braveheart, The Passion of The Christ, and Apocalypto are all grand-scale films that could easily be screened in a canyon.  A Perfect World, Mystic River, Gran Torino, and Million Dollar Baby can all fit in your pocket, and yet they're not disposable.  You wouldn't put them in with all the other coins.  They stand apart, but they fit in your pocket. 

Apocalypto doesn't fit in your pocket.  You'd have trouble fitting it in a moving van, yet the characters are all real, and we care about all of them.  Even the ones we hate, like the Mayan soldier who leads the pursuit of Jaguar Paw, has real moments of personal interaction with his son.  We know he's a good father who does his duty and who has clearly distinguished himself as an honorable and productive member of his society.  And yet he decimates regional populations for slaves and/or sacrifices to some demonic sun god.  That's his job, at least for the time being.  But he loves his son and excels as a soldier, and we know it.  We believe his pain and fury when he's dying on the booby-trap, hanging there helpless and enraged.  He's not a caricature, or a cardboard cutout.  He's a real man, and we can relate to aspects of him and may even want to emulate certain characteristics.  He's a man's man, a leader, and good at what he does.  He's a real person.

The villagers are all great as well.  The scene when the big oaf known as "Blunted" makes eye-contact with his mother-in-law while being dragged off toward the sacrificial mount is genuinely painful and beautiful to watch.  They don't get along in the beginning of the film, but after their village has been raided and decimated, they have a connection that they didn't know they had, which they took for granted, and which they now miss dearly.  They have a real love for one another.  They are from the same people, which is now the only thing they have to hold onto in this hostile, foreign, and deadly environment.  We miss their world as much as they do.  We mourn its loss.  We are as helpless to change it as they are.  We feel like we could weep, if it wouldn't disgrace us any further.  And all of this is done without a trace of sentimentality.  Masterful.

The moments on the sacrificial mount are among the best and most beautiful segments of film I've ever seen.  The high priest in particular, is gleaming with malignant, believable evil.  His laugh while he's high on the power trip he has over the people below him is actually frightening.  He's scary.  His face, his blood-soaked hands, his green makeup, his sharpened fingernails are like the rotten demon-corpse his laugh circles around like so many flies.  The Mayan royalty around him, and the demoniac inhaling the smoke from the freshly-burned hearts of the sacrificial slaves, are all horrifying and believable.  The morbid festivity of the crowd is like another character in the film.  Heads are bouncing down the stairs of the altar.  People are dancing at the foot of the steps with nets to catch them.  Everything is dyed with bright-yet-dark primary colors.  It is beautiful, striking, and creepy.

Even the extras are great.  The Mayan chicks laughing amongst themselves like teenagers at the mall, except in full Pre-Columbian regalia, dyed and pierced in a way that is beyond foreign to even the most well-traveled Westerner, are the kind of detail that makes a film truly great.

The Gibson-esque revenge story is also perfectly executed, and exactly what we want to see.  Jaguar Paw's escape from the Mayans and subsequent return to his family is actually satisfying.  There's nothing cheap, vulgar, patronizing, stupid, or gratuitous about it.  Even his pursuers are real characters.  No NPC's in this film.  Even the henchmen are real people. Most of them are scared, and talking about "bad omens" while they chase Jaguar Paw under orders from their superior, reluctantly, yet without hesitation.

There's even an epic shot of some Conquistadors landing on the beach, complete with a monk holding a cross. 

Apocalypto is one of the best films ever made.

Clint Eastwood, on the other hand, makes close-up character studies with great plots and real, believable people.  His most-recent films in particular, are in themselves a study of this tendency.  Sully, Richard Jewell, 15:17 To Paris, and The Mule are all extreme close-ups of real people, that also happen to be great movies.  Surprisingly, even.  I wondered how an interesting, nevermind compelling, movie could be made about a 2-minute flight, or a 2-minute fight on a train.  I was genuinely uninterested in Richard Jewell until I saw it. 

American Sniper is a little more zoomed-out in its scope, which is the only reason I don't include it on this particular list.  Cry Macho is probably his most personal close-up yet, teaming up again with the writer from Gran Torino to make yet another beautiful character study about, well, let's just say some real people.

A Perfect World and Gran Torino are timeless classics with a close-up feel.  When Walt Kowalski tells the gangbangers to "get off my lawn," we share his righteous indignation.  We share his disrespect for baby-faced "holy men," his sneering contempt for wiggers, and his inability to get drunk on a constant supply of beer.  We are with him when he fixes the washing machine in the basement, even if we're not mechanically inclined.  We want to borrow a roofing hammer from somebody, or better yet, to lend one.  And we hate the idiocy around Walt as much as he does.  But most of all:

We are cheering like family when Toad finally gets the badass car at the end of the film.  We are glad to see the spoiled granddaughter get her comeuppance.  We are in total agreement with the caveat that Toad doesn't deface the work of art with spoilers or painted flames.  We love the view of the mechanical marvel driving past the lake in Detroit, as the credits start to roll. 

We are just as involved with the characters in Gran Torino as we are with the characters in Apocalypto, yet we have seen nothing of the wider cultural context in which anything has happened.  Perhaps this is because Gran Torino takes place in the present-day, and it isn't necessary to show us where we are, like it is in Braveheart and Apocalypto. 

Where Tarantino films are all set in his imagination, and he changes historical eras like other people change their desktop wallpaper, so that each film is just a different setting for all the same shortcuts and icons,

Mel Gibson and Clint Eastwood still make films about real people. 

And even if you haven't seen Apocalypto yet, and I have ruined it for you, I'm telling you, I haven't really ruined it. 

Watch Apocalypto now.