Image Credit: ©Miramax/Courtesy Everett CollectionĪs an adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s 1992 novel “Rum Punch,” the characters in “Jackie Brown” are by definition not Tarantino’s original creations. "Jackie Brown" - Jackie Brown (Pam Grier).It’s a sick, terrifying beast of a character. Waltz and Tarantino hold you in Hans’ gaze and make it impossible to get out. Any scene where Hans Landa enters the room, all your attention goes to him. He knows is and is delighted by that fact, and that’s why he’s one of Tarantino’s best characters. What makes him so terrifying is that he unquestionably is. Hans wants every character to know he is the smartest, most cultured and most compassionless person in the room. Part of Hans’ evilness is Waltz’s devilish grin and shark-like smile (here’s a character who is genuinely enraptured by his job to exterminate Jewish people), and part of is the obtuse monologues Tarantino gives the character that put terror and comedy into one sickening blender. What makes an iconic movie villain? Look no further than Hans Landa, the ruthless and despicable Nazi officer who dominates Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds.” As played by Christoph Waltz in an Oscar-winning performance, Hans is so menacingly verbose and ruthless that his terror knows no bounds. Image Credit: ©Weinstein Company/Courtesy Everett Coll / Everett Collection "The Hateful Eight" - Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L.“From Dusk Till Dawn” makes an excellent case for Clooney as a drive-in feature leading man, a winning asshole that’s all smarm and charm. Pink in “Reservoir Dogs.” That drive helps keep him alive, even after a drink at Mexican strip club The Titty Twister turns the crime movie into a vampire gore-fest at the midpoint. It helps that Richie is a much worse dude, and, in comparison, Seth is just as focused on being a professional as Mr. I’ve got six little friends and they can all run faster than you can”) while possessing enough flair to dare you not to root for him. Yet Clooney steals the show as the endlessly charismatic robber, chewing on perfectly hard-boiled dialogue (like when he tells a hostage: “Don’t you ever try and fucking run on us. One of the best to ever deliver Tarantino dialogue was George Clooney when he played the ice-cold bank robber Seth Gecko in “From Dusk Till Dawn.” Robert Rodriguez directed this Tarantino script, which also co-starred Tarantino as Seth’s loose cannon and sexually-deviant brother Richie. Image Credit: ©Dimension Films/Courtesy Everett Collection "From Dusk Till Dawn" - Seth Gecko (George Clooney).Candie’s alternate joy and indifference in his introductory scene, as we watch two Black men fight each other to the death for his amusement, tells us all we need to know his subsequent execution of a runaway slave further unsettles us while encapsulating his horrifying, regressive value system and his manipulation, vindictiveness and plain old pettiness as their transaction for Broomhilda concludes makes him loathsome - and wonderfully so, a proper villain you can fully enjoy hating, while admiring the care, thought and commitment involved in creating him. Tarantino had shepherded Leonardo DiCaprio to some of his career-best performances, but the arguable best of the best of those is as Calvin Candie in “Django Unchained.” He is the white whale (so to speak) who Django must conquer in order to get back his beloved Broomhilda, and DiCaprio makes him exactly as oily, entitled, menacing, and ultimately inhuman as the character needs to be in order to keep audiences holding their breath. Image Credit: ©Weinstein Company/Courtesy Everett Collection "Django Unchained" - Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).The role requires a complete panorama of reactions, anchored by a toughness and capability that makes his convincingly frightening, and Russell delivers the goods, allowing the audience to delight in watching a sick-minded bully get his comeuppance. But we also get to see him as a goofy boomer among millennials, chowing hungrily down on nachos a seductive gentleman caller preying upon a young woman’s insecurities to score a free lap dance a skilled driver initially outmaneuvering the stunt women he targets for his next collision and then, an injured, cowering mess tearfully apologizing for trying to kill them. Kurt Russell has always been an extraordinarily versatile actor, but seldom has that versatility been exploited so fully in a single role than as Stuntman Mike in “Death Proof.” As his namesake implies, the stunt man has cultivated a twisted fetish from his chosen vocation by menacing and eventually murdering young women with his 1970s Chevrolet Nova.
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