Reservoir Dogs (1992)

So, remember yesterday when we were talking about how covering A Clockwork Orange feels like a monumental task due to how iconic it is?

Well, basically copy and paste that onto this.

Tarintino’s first feature is every bit as iconic as Kubrick’s 1971 masterpiece and changed the film industry forever with his blend of pop culture-obsessed gangsters, nonlinear narrative style, and a cast of a bunch of unknowns who would go on to have illustrious careers.

All of that is off of a 1.2 million dollar budget.

This film falls into a rad category of films to come out of the 90s wave of Sundance features by first-time directors working on small budgets making a name for themselves.

Other films include Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi, Richard Linklater’s Slacker (technically it’s It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books, but let’s be honest it’s Slacker), and Kevin Smith’s Clerks.

While we love Kevin Smith and his career (yes even Yoga Hosers), none of these first features are able to reach the heights this film hits.

Reservoir Dogs is a representation of a bygone era when you could make a movie on the cheap and it could actually make an impact and launch an auteur's career.

This is the scene that made Tarantino a star, the emergence of a great auteur, the first time we get a full-faced look at the style of one of the kings of style.

Between the earworm that is George Baker Selection’s ‘Little Green Bag’, those matching suits with the all-black sunglasses, and the choppy slow motion, this is the scene Tarantino’s entire career stems from.

While we’re on the subject, what makes this shot look the way it does?

Well, it’s an effect created when you shoot something at the regular 24 fps and then slow it down to 12 fps.

Interestingly, this is actually pretty backward from how we do slow motion.

You see, slow motion was originally created by a priest in the early 20th century when he wanted to film something with a frame rate of 48fps as opposed to 24fps.

He played it back at 24fps, slowing down the images and causing you to see more frames at the same rate, thus stretching out the amount of time seen.

But all of this combined leads to one of the most iconic shots in cinema and the start of an incredible career, despite the fact it’s just a bunch of schlubby dudes (and stone-cold hunk Steve Buscemi) walking from a restaurant to a car.

Quentin Tarantino is in an episode of The Golden Girls.

Seriously!

There is an episode of The Golden Girls in which Quentin Tarantino plays a Rockabilly era Elivs impersonator.

Tarantino talked about the experience in an interview with Jimmy Fallon:

 “Before I did Reservoir Dogs, I had a very unsuccessful acting career [...] One of the jobs I did get — and not because I did a wonderful audition but simply because they sent my picture in and they said, ‘He’s got it!’ — was for an Elvis impersonator on The Golden Girls.[...] It became a two-part Golden Girls. So I got paid residuals for both parts. And, it was so popular they put it on a Best of The Golden Girls, and I got residuals every time that showed. So I got paid maybe, I don’t know, $650 for the episode, but by the time the residuals were over, three years later, I made like $3,000. And that kept me going during our pre-production time trying to get Reservoir Dogs going.” (Link to that clip here)

Guess Tomorrow’s Film