Re: Movies

[Alan McKendree <amck@thenetdr.com>]

At 14:53 -0800 1/14/1999, The Who Mailing List Digest wrote:
>Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 09:01:01 PST
>From: "jim sigel" <drjimmy_mrjim@hotmail.com>
>Subject:
>
>I read an article a couple of years ago with Tarantino (writer/director
>of "Resevior Dogs", "Pulp Fiction", etc...) in Playboy and even though I
>love his movies, I now despise the man.  I'll tell you why.  Old Quentin

Reminds me of some lines from _To Kill A Mockingbird_:
"Old Hitler, he went into Poland..."
"*Adolf* Hitler, Billy.  One never begins a sentence with 'Old' anybody."
"Yes ma'am.  Old Adolf Hitler, he went into Poland..."

>was rambling about his likes and dislikes; his topics bouncing all over
>the place, and somewhere within his spiel, his makes it a point to say
>that he hates The Who.  He doesn't say why, he just says that he's "not
>afraid to say that the emporer has no clothes."

Looks like it's time for my biannual recounting of my post on this topic:

***
This [Playboy] interview [with QT] came out just before "Pulp Fiction"
premiered in Austin in October 1994.  Tarantino was present to introduce
the movie and discuss it afterward.  Having read his Who comment only the
day before, I went loaded for bear.  (I loved the movie, BTW, have seen it
3-4 times).  I was in the 7th row center of a packed auditorium and during
the question period, they called on me.  I stood up and said I had read his
recent statement, and first, I was a Who fan and I didn't care whether
anyone else liked the group or not.  (This got a few chuckles but no
fanatic applause (rats!).)  Second, if he thought that people said they
liked things because they thought they were supposed to like them, if I
told him I liked his movie how would he know whether I _really_ liked it or
was just saying that because I thought I was supposed to?

He said that his statement was a reaction against mindless group
stereotyping and mass movements (all men are supposed to love playing
football; hey, let's all watch _Friends_ on TV, etc.), and that he got
Who-ed to death in high school.  Reasoning backwards from his apparent age,
I infer that the '89 reunion tour was going on at the time, and yeah, he
probably did get a bellyful of all of his friends telling him HOW GREAT THE
FUCKING WHO ARE, MAN (not that they're not, of course), if he wasn't
already into them.  And truth be told, there probably _was_ a lot of
cool-show-du-jour faddishness around at the time.

So there's that.

Three months later, people I'd just met working on a film said, "YOU were
the guy who hassled Tarantino?"  They were thrilled; apparently seeing a
director get some shit when they're so used to giving it was enough to warm
everyone's heart :-)
***

Alan
Be sure to read _McKendree: A Burning Novel of Murder and Revenge_
by Douglas Hirt, ISBN 0-8439-4184-7  (available at www.amazon.com)