Hitmen Movies to Kill For

Films about assassins can sometimes be trite, but every once in a while a gem comes out. The best flicks that capture these professionals don't just feature killing machines, but fully-fleshed with motivations they keep all to themselves. These characters are fascinating with their natural charisma and yet merciless nature when dealing with others. Characters like Vincent (Tom Cruise) and Anton Chiguhr (Javier Bardem) are oddities in cinema, but their unique behavior makes for compelling viewing.

Check out the rest of the list on GotchaMovies!

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Muses and Maestros: Thurman and Tarantino

Part of a continuing series about the most talented pairings of filmmakers today. On deck, Uma Thurman and Quentin Tarantino.

The players: Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman
The works: Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2

Uma Thurman has only appeared in three pictures with Quentin Tarantino, but when the two have worked together they craft quite unique characters. Mia Wallace, at first glance, seems like a trophy wife hanging on the arm of top gangster, but when Vincent (John Travolta) takes her out, she is surprisingly cerebral. Conversation regarding a rumored foot rub catches her off-guard and she reprimands Vincent and Jules for being more gossipy than a "sewing circle". Yet, those scenes all pale in comparison to the events that lead up to the infamous adrenaline shot. This is where Thurman truly shines.

Right up there in terms of popularity to Mrs. Wallace is, of course, The Bride. one of cinema's most famous heroines and for good reason. Thurman underwent an exhaustive physical regiment in order to play The Bride and the training paid off onscreen (particularly this sequence Ben analyzed). Few initially thought that Thurman would be able to hold her own against actors familiar with the kung fu genre, but doubters were silenced when the film debuted.

Best film: Thurman and Tarantino's first collaboration is the high mark that both will always be remembered for, and for that reason Pulp Fiction takes the cake.

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How Samuel L. Jackson Nearly Killed Everyone on Pulp Fiction

In a riveting Vanity Fair piece about the making of Pulp Fiction, there is an alternate universe look at a world where Samuel L. Jackson almost didn't play Jules Winnfield:

"The role of Jules Winnfield proved difficult to cast, mainly because Samuel L. Jackson was under the impression the part was his, until he found out he was in danger of losing the role to Paul Calderon. Jackson flew out to L.A. for a last-ditch audition with Tarantino. “I sort of was angry, pissed, tired,” Jackson recalls. He was also hungry, so he bought a takeout burger on his way to the studio, only to find nobody there to greet him. “When they came back, a line producer or somebody who was with them said, ‘I love your work, Mr. Fishburne,’” says Jackson. “It was like a slow burn. He doesn’t know who I am? I was kind of like, Fuck it. At that point I really didn’t care.”

"Gladstein remembers Jackson’s audition: 'In comes Sam with a burger in his hand and a drink in the other hand and stinking like fast food. Me and Quentin and Lawrence were sitting on the couch, and he walked in and just started sipping that shake and biting that burger and looking at all of us. I was scared shitless. I thought that this guy was going to shoot a gun right through my head. His eyes were popping out of his head. And he just stole the part.” Lawrence Bender adds, “He was the guy you see in the movie. He said, ‘Do you think you’re going to give this part to somebody else? I’m going to blow you motherfuckers away."

It's hard to imagine anyone but Samuel L. Jackson delivering the Ezekiel 25:17 speech. Everything about Jules is hardwired into Samuel L. Jackson's performance. A wise choice for Bender and Tarantino to cast him.

Still, it was good to see that Samuel L. Jackson took everything in stride even as far back as 1994. Fun guy, that Mr. Jackson. I hope he never finds out I'm the guy that scratched his Mercedes a few years ago...

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Grittiest Addiction Movies of All Time

(this post comes from Lily Reynolds)

Movies can either glamorize drugs, or show their destructive powers. For every Blow there is a gritty, hard hitting movie that shows the true cost of the drug lifestyle. It might be tempting for people to depict drug use as an adventure in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but gritty movies about the hell of drug addiction may prove to be the best way for cinema to convey what life is like as an addict. Some of the more famous drug movies include Pulp Fiction, Withnail and I, Scarface, A Scanner Darkly, Pineapple Express and Training Day. These six gritty drug addiction films take the perspective of the drug addict, some their relations and others the point of view of dealers and narcotics officers.

Christiane F

Perhaps less famous than the other movies on this list, Christiane F is the story of a young teenage girl in Germany in the 1970s. She is bored, yet fascinated by the disco scene. Despite being too young, she gets into one of the clubs and her descent into drug addiction, disco and prostitution begins. This is a tough movie, though best seen in its original German audio rather than the dubbed version.

Midnight Cowboys

Starring Dustin Hoffman, Midnight Cowboys was one of the original dark drug films of its kind. It is also famed for being the only X-rated movie to have won the Best Picture award at the Oscars. Made in 1969, Cowboys captures the life of a Texan who goes to New York for the big life, but gets stuck in a repetitive and seemingly endless cycle of drugs, prostitution and crime. Setting the template from which many have split, Midnight Cowboys nails the glamour, the temptation and then the awful aftermath of when the high fades away.

Requiem for a Dream

Requiem for a Dream does not just follow one person’s battle against drug addiction, but shows the spectrum of addicts from the young to old. The movie is directed by Darren Aronofsky of Black Swan and The Fountain fame. It's not just about heroin, but covers the less famous pills out there.  A complete no-holds-barred look at violence and prostitution, but where Requiem differs from other movies is its banal look at addiction with Sarah (Ellen Burstyn).

The Basketball Diaries

It is not just playboys (the subject of  glamorized drug movies) or the poor who succumb to drugs. As many sports stories have shown with steroids, drugs are rife in sport. The Basketball Diaries follow Jim Carroll’s descent from a budding basketball player to a drug addict. Even as he became a great player and part of a great team, his demons were massing inside of him. Carroll’s drug problem started young, at 13, and the movie follows him playing basketball, fighting addiction, his fall from grace, jail time and his attempts to fight back and reclaim some part of the life he had.

Trainspotting

It is possible to argue that Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting covers both the highs and lows of the user. The movie certainly glorifies them at first, but this is a movie about heroin addiction and this is an addiction that rarely ends well, especially on the screen. The hardest to bear parts of Trainspotting come when Renton (Ewan McGregor) goes cold-turkey. The film proves that getting opiates out of your system is not an easy thing to do and the he tries many times while his friends descend into ever deepening spiral.

Pure

Most movies have been about the drug addicts themselves, but with Pure, the story follows the impact of drug addiction on a young child. This is perhaps the harrowing point of view it could have possibly taken. Even more so than the descent of an addict or the effect on a spouse. The movie’s lead, Paul, is small boy with a mother addicted to heroin. He spends most of his time looking after her and his younger brother. Paul fights with all his limited strength and knowledge to stop his mother from killing herself with the drug, even when he knows he will probably lose.

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Tarantino XX Collection Hits Today

Tis the season for hoarding items, armed combat and sleeping on sidewalks for gifts. This deal however requires no hoarding or sleeping on a sidewalk. The revered filmmaker is always controversial, but if someone in your family is a big cinephile, this gift is high on their list. All eight of Quentin Tarantino's films (Inglourious Basterds, Death Proof, Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2, Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction, True Romance, Reservoir Dogs) available in one box-set for the first time.

On top of all of those films, other entertaining features include:

Critics Corner 

The Films of Quentin Tarantino In-depth critics' discussion piece exploring Tarantino's films that redefined cinema and the impact of one of the most influential writers/directors of our time.

20 Years of Filmmaking
Take a look at Tarantino's career from the beginning, with interviews from co-workers, critics, stars and master filmmakers alike as well as a tribute to his greatest collaborator, Sally Menke. 

Jackie Brown Q&A: A Film Independent at LACMA Event 
Quentin Tarantino, Robert Forster, and Pam Grier reunite for an intimate and enlightening discussion about Jackie Brown. Moderated by Elvis Mitchell, renowned film critic and curator for Film Independent at LACMA series. 

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Quentin Tarantino's Movie Universe Is All Encompassing

So it turns out that Quentin Tarantino's movie universe requires an almost insane amount of work. Per a discussion on Reddit, all of Tarantino's films (Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Inglourious Basterds) are all interconnected. How nice it must be to live in a world where Hitler got offed in a movie theatre.

As it turns out, Donny Donowitz, ‘The Bear Jew’, is the father of movie producer Lee Donowitz from True Romance – which means that, in Tarantino’s universe, everybody grew up learning about how a bunch of commando Jews machine gunned Hitler to death in a burning movie theater, as opposed to quietly killing himself in a bunker.

Because World War 2 ended in a movie theater, everybody lends greater significance to pop culture, hence why seemingly everybody has Abed-level knowledge of movies and TV. Likewise, because America won World War 2 in one concentrated act of hyperviolent slaughter, Americans as a whole are more desensitized to that sort of thing. Hence why Butch is unfazed by killing two people, Mr. White and Mr. Pink take a pragmatic approach to killing in their line of work, Esmerelda the cab driver is obsessed with death, etc.

You can extrapolate this further when you realize that Tarantino’s movies are technically two universes – he’s gone on record as saying that Kill Bill and From Dusk ‘Til Dawn take place in a ‘movie movie universe’; that is, they’re movies that characters from the Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, and Death Proof universe would go to see in theaters. (Kill Bill, after all, is basically Fox Force Five, right on down to Mia Wallace playing the title role.)

What immediately springs to mind about Kill Bill and From Dusk ‘Til Dawn? That they’re crazy violent, even by Tarantino standards. These are the movies produced in a world where America’s crowning victory was locking a bunch of people in a movie theater and blowing it to bits – and keep in mind, Lee Donowitz, son of one of the people on the suicide mission to kill Hitler, is a very successful movie producer.

Sound good?

(Courtesy: Collider)

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