Even the latest Django Unchained is very clearly based on the original Django. While the films are good they are all based on previous films.

Didn't mind IB, but none of his films have had the level of involvement you got with 'Dogs or 'Fiction.

Kill Bill is better than Pulp Fiction in my opinion, it has become one of my favourite films. It gets better with every viewing, even the talky bits in Part 2.

Every film is based on a previous film. It's Quentin however who understands this most; the homage, knowledge of the genre - Tarantino is a modern Sergio Leone, who was a western Kurosawa, who was a modern William Shakespeare.

It all leads back to The Bard

Actually it all leads back to greek myths but the point stands, there are few if any new stories in any generation .

I'm not sure Tarantino would like being described as 'a modern Sergio Leone' though. For his time, Leone was very much a 'pulp' director, churning out films on a budget to meet studio demands. It's only in hindsight that his work is seen as artistically valid or worthwhile. He copied Kurosawa partly due to artistic merit, but partly because he knew Kurosawa's films were good but little known in the west, so he could get away with copying them.

Not that Leone wasn't talented of course, he definitely was. But he wasn't an auteur, he was a director doing a job he was being paid for. He admitted this in several interviews.

And when does 'a homage' become 'copying something because you have no new ideas of your own' anyway? How many of Tarantino's films haven't been 'a homage' to somebody else's work? How much is he standing on the shoulders of giants and how much is he just phoning it in doing rehashes of other people's films?

And does that, in fact, matter when you're very good at it and people enjoy your work?

Well i didn't say it didn't go any further than Shakespeare, but he was the collector of stories of his time, before that The Canterbury Tales, Brothers Grimm, Beowulf, Arthurian Legend. They're all human stories, homo sapiens are the same now as they always were; driven by instinct, desire, fear, jealousy. I think everything is done while standing on the shoulders of giants, which is another way of saying that recurring, mutual human experiences have been feeding and influencing popular culture, religion, science and politics for as long as there has been organised human civilisation.

Good art is subjective, but to me it is only worth something when it remixes the ideas of others within the limits of a genre. Take away those limits and allow an artist to 'do whatever the [LIFTED] they like' and you end up with paintings of a can of beans selling for millions of dollars; The Emperor's New Clothes. And yes you can describe those clothes in incredibly convincing and passionate terms, but there's still '[LIFTED] all there' if you choose not to buy into it. The great pieces of art introduce you to a discipline; Miyazaki is a classic example of a genre artist who has re-defined what the genre means, explored what the genre and he as a person is really good at, and he has honed his work until it contributes something very worthwhile to the society that consumes it, a cathartic exploration of human nature, in my opinion perfected in Whisper of the Heart (there I go choosing the one Miyazaki film that isn't technically a Miyazaki film). It is Ennio Morricone who made Leone's films masterpieces, but it is because the films were stripped down to the basics to be made within restrictions, which meant the explosions had to be replaced with human psychology, exploring grey areas of morality with pathos and beauty. He was no hack, he was an artist, and it sounds like he was a humble one at that. No artist creates 'original' work, originality is an illusion created by the fact that the sources of inspiration are not widely known, a marketing ploy to make you think that you are buying something unique and novel that no one has experienced before.

In a way therefore, with Leone and Tarantino, directors who made films celebrating the work of others, by wearing their influences on their sleeves, they are demonstrating an honesty and understanding of their craft that many "auteurs" are either in denial about, or simply ignorant of. Even if Leone was unconscious of what he was doing, as you say, it shouldn't detract from the value of his art - he was doing everything that good art requires.

http://www.shockya.com/news/2012/12/30/ ... unchained/

AKA the over-rated imply each other is over-rated.

The use of the N word needs to be in context and appropriate. I have only ever used the word in a joke but would never use it to describe anyone. In a film it can be offensive, but that can be used to show how offensive it was. Though this should define when it can be used. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iau-e6HfOg0

Am happy for it to be used in an historical setting eg US slavery, civil rights etc. Django is from that era so in theory should be acceptable. However, context is important too.

I wonder how it would compare if you adjusted for inflation or cost of living.

It would still do pretty well I think.


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http://m.hollywoodreporter.com/news/geo ... ged-408012

She'd found his lack of commitment disturbing

And what attracted you to the Billionaire George Lucas?