15th Anniversary
Lionsgate Films | 1992 | 100 min | Rated R | Region A (locked) | Feb 06, 2007
Four Perfect Killers. One Perfect Crime. Critically acclaimed for its raw power and breathtaking ferocity, it's the brilliant American gangster movie classic from writer-director Quentin Tarantino. They were perfect strangers,...
Director's Cut
Warner Bros. | 1993 | 121 min | Unrated | Region free
| May 26, 2009
Runaway lovers Clarence and Alabama (Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette) play a dangerous game when they
come to possess a suitcase of mob contraband. They head for Los Angeles, where they'll sell the goods and
begin a...
Lionsgate Films | 1994 | 154 min | Rated R | Region A (locked) | Oct 04, 2011
An inside look at a memorable community of criminals. Prizefighter Butch Coolidge has decided
to stop payment on a deal he's made with the devil. Honey Bunny and Pumpkin are a couple of
young lovers and small time thieves who...
Lionsgate Films | 1997 | 154 min | Rated R | Region A (locked) | Oct 04, 2011
Jackie supplements her meager income as a stewardess by smuggling cash into the U.S. for
gunrunner Ordell Robbie--until the day an ATF agent and an L.A. cop bust her at the airport.
The cops pressure her to help them bring...
Miramax | 2003 | 111 min | Rated R | Region free
| Apr 26, 2011
Four years after taking a bullet in the head at her own wedding, The Bride emerges from a coma and decides it's time for payback... with a vengeance! Having been
gunned down by her former boss Bill and his deadly squad of...
Miramax | 2004 | 136 min | Rated R | Region free
| Apr 26, 2011
Having dispensed with former colleagues O-Ren Ishii and Vernita Green, the Bride resumes her quest for justice. With those two down, she has
two remaining foes on her "Death List" to pursue — Budd and Elle Driver
— before...
Weinstein Company | 2007 | 114 min | Not rated | Region free
| Dec 16, 2008
In Quentin Tarantino's 'Death Proof,' Austin's hottest DJ, Jungle Julia, sets out into the night
to unwind with her two friends Shanna and Arlene. Covertly tracking their moves is Stuntman
Mike, a scarred rebel leering from...
In the first year of the German occupation of France, Shosanna Dreyfus witnesses the
execution of her family at the hand of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa. Shosanna narrowly escapes
and flees to Paris where she forges a new identity...
Note: This box set contains previously issued standalone releases coupled with two new discs of bonus content. See below for links
to our already existing reviews of the films. The bulk of this review will deal with the exclusive supplementary content.
Can it really have been twenty years since Quentin Tarantino first burst upon the mainstream film consciousness with Reservoir Dogs?
Tarantino's oeuvre remains one of the most fascinating (perhaps the most fascinating) of any auteur of his generation,
and he certainly seems poised to join the ranks of the most distinctive writer-directors of all time, if he hasn't already. This nicely packaged
new box set collects eight of Tarantino's films (mostly but not exclusively directed by him) along with a couple of discs of new and semi-new
content. Those who haven't been rabid completists of the standalone releases may well want to check this new collection out, as it offers a
relatively inexpensive way to attain an instant collection of some of the most memorable films of –well, the past two decades.
This new box sets provides eight previously released titles along with two discs of bonus features (see below). I
personally did not have all of the films in this set in my personal collection, but I can confirm that the ones I do
have are identical to the releases in this set, although it should be noted that some bonus content, like the digital copy of Inglourious
Basterds that was included in that film's two disc release, is not included here. For Blu-ray.com's reviews of these
individual films, go to the following links:
For assessments of the video quality of the individual films, along with screenshots from each of the films, please go to the review links provided
above.
The bonus content is all encoded via AVC with either 1080p or 1080i transfers (see specs in the Supplements section for details), mostly in
1.78:1 (some archival footage is in 1.33:1, while the Django Unchained Trailers are in 2.35:1. Video quality here is about what you
would expect. Those of you who have seen the Critics' Roundtable supplements on standalone releases like Jackie Brown will know
exactly what the unedited version on the first bonus disc looks like. Colors are very nicely saturated and clarity is decent, as is fine object detail.
The documentary on the second bonus disc has some variable quality due to its use of archival footage, but the contemporary interview
segments look just fine. The Jackie Brown Q&A is pretty soft looking by comparison, while the Django Unchained trailers look
very sharp and well detailed.
For assessments of the audio quality on the individual films, please see the review links above for further information.
All of the supplementary material features only lossy Dolby tracks (most 2.0, with the trailers in 5.1), which are fine for low scale talking head
outings like the bulk of these are. Fidelity is fine and dynamic range is minimal, except in the trailers, which have some decent range.
For the supplementary material contained on the individual films, please see the review links above for further information. This box set does
include two bonus discs of exclusive content, including:
Bonus Disc One
Critics' Corner: The Films of Quentin Tarantino (HD; 4:50:44). It's a little odd that Lionsgate included
these as a bonus, since large swaths of at least some of these discussions have been included as supplementary
features on standalone prior releases (and in fact are contained here on the individual film discs included in this set).
These discussions offer critical analyses of all the films in this set. Elvis Mitchell moderates, with other participants
including Scott Foundus, Stephanie Zacharek, Tim Lucas and Andy Klein. They start with Reservoir Dogs, talking
about whan an unexpected experience it was at the time, including its use of non sequiturs and pop culture
refernce. Some of the film's more gruesome elements are also mentioned. Pulp Fiction is lauded as a master
filmmaker, even if Zacharek still doesn't like it very much. She feels its success is due to marketing and that the film is
too self-conscious for its own good. Jackie Brown turns out to be one of the favorites of the bunch, including
Mithcell. Lucas was especially impressed by the film's use of older actors who really hadn't been given many
opportunities to really shine in their later careers, like Pam Grier and Robert Forster. Kill Bill turns out to be Andy
Klein's favorite Tarantino movie, and he talks about how it's cobbled together from elements from a hugely disparate
assortment of other films but which never seems blandly derivative. Klein continues to talk about the strong female at
the center of Death Proof. Zacharek is kind of funny talking about not being able to assess whether Tarantino's
violence turns off women since she loves violent films so much. Lucas avers that Inglourious Basterds is a film
about language, mentioning how ironic it is therefore that the title is misspelled. Foundas discusses the film's odd "once
upon a time" set up, contrasting it with the typical World War II "based upon a true story" approach. True
Romance is covered as Tarantino's first produced screenplay. Lucas mentions the film's emphasis on comic books.
While this is an okay assemblage of these round tables, it's also full of useless blather like "yeah, that was a really great
moment" or "what a fantastic character!" There is some salient analysis here, but it tends to be on the chatty, pop
culture side of things, which is perhaps a propos considering it's Tarantino, after all.
Bonus Disc Two
Quentin Tarantino: 20 Years of Filmmaking (HD; 2:13:21) is a fantastic career retrospective that starts with Tarantino's early
screenwriting attempts (there's a funny anecdote told by Lawrence Bender where he met Quentin and didn't believe that he had written
True Romance, which Lawrence had read and loved). The early if controversial success of Reservoir Dogs gave Quentin
something approaching carte blanche, though Robert Rodriguez imparts that Tarantino was actually kind of insecure about how
Pulp Fiction would be received. Stacey Sher compares Tarantino to Roger Corman, at least in his desire to keep things on a tight
budget. If Reservoir Dogs raised awareness of Tarantino (if also simultaneously raising a few hackles), Pulp Fiction completely
opened the floodgates, and there is some really good content about the whole "wave" of independent film that seemed to follow in the wake
of Tarantino's success. Pam Grier and Robert Forster on hand in very vocal appreciation for the opportunity Tarantino provided both of them
when their careers weren't exactly totally on fire. What probably won't surprise some who love the director's eclectic approach in his films is
the overwhelming knowledge Tarantino possesses about world cinema. Several talking heads here discuss Tarantino's seemingly
inexhaustible love of all sorts of films, from chop socky to Golden Age Hollywood classics. One person jokes that Tarantino bought a screening
room with a house attached. There's also a fantastic tribute to Sally Menke, Tarantino's longtime editor. Tarantino tells a great anecdote at
an award ceremony about Menke's work on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Jackie Brown Q&A: A Film Independent at LACMA Event (1080i; 32:15). Elvis Mitchell hosts Pam Grier, Robert Forster and
Quentin Tarantino himself. There's nothing really earth shattering shared here, but there's a very obvious and visceral camaraderie between
these three that just as obviously translated into the film experience. Tarantino is very charming and quite funny, if also a bit manic,
throughout this.
Django Unchained—Coming Soon (HD; 10:43) is a collection of trailers for Tarantino's next project, including:
There are quite a few people who can't stand Tarantino for one reason or another: he's too self-conscious, he's too arch, he's too derivative,
he's too original, he's just too. And in a certain way, all of those epithets are true, but they don't really address the central issue that
Tarantino is one of the protean creative forces in film, one with a completely unique and distinctive voice. In a world of cookie cutter
entertainments and prefab moviemaking, I'll take Tarantino's particular brand of genius happily, despite its excesses. This set has a number of
superb films along with some excellent bonus content. Highly recommended.
One of the week's most highly anticipated Blu-ray releases is also one of its most notorious: Heaven's Gate. In distributing director Michael Cimino's epic follow-up to his Academy Award-winning The Deer Hunter, the Criterion Collection is giving viewers a chance ...
Lionsgate and Miramax have officially announced that they will release Tarantino XX: 8-Film Collection. The collection contains eight films chosen by Tarantino to illustrate the first 20 years of his career, featuring the films that helped define his early success, ...
Tarantino XX: 8-Film Collection Blu-ray, Forum Discussions
