I love Tarentino films, Reservoir Dogs is my least favourite.
Saying that....I've not seen it in about 10 years, I might see it differently if I watched it now.
There's a flawed genius to the film that I like. Viewing it again after a while, the dialogue seems klunky in parts and slightly too stylised but you cannot disagree that it was a breath of fresh air when it was released. It has a unashamedly amateur feel to it which heightens the action sequences and lifts the film to its iconic status. A film made with instinct by the director which sadly seems to have deserted him recently.
Another excercise in ripping off, sorry homage to earlier films. This time The Taking of Pelham 123, Ocean's 11, City on Fire and whatever else Tarantino thought he could get away with. The movie world consider Tarantino to be a genius though so my opinion is not altogether very popular.
It seems that any film that is a critical commercial success or has the Hollywood stamp has to get ripped apart on RAB by snooty moviegoers who think they have an "acquired taste". Strange how these very people won't elaborate on why they hate it.
But anyone who dismisses the legendary Reservoir Dogs as mere overrated tosh isn't really worth paying attention to.
I tend to think it's the popcorn brigade who tenRAB to dismiss it, us film snobs are the ones who tend to see the film for what it is: a good film that was a breath of fresh air at the time.
Although it's not my favourite film of all time (plenty of others deserve that place), on the wall above my computer, I have the Reservoir Dogs movie poster, which should indicate my vote on this topic.
Tarantino is a God-like genius ! Without wishing to sound too pretentious (I know, too late for that ), I think that RD is one of those films that you had to see on its original cinema release to appreciate how good it is. Back in '92, it revived a genre that had long died out in mainstream western cinema and he pushed the limits of how realistic you could make on-screen violence (set in the 'real' world, as opposed to say fantasy or horror), so if you watch it for the first time now - after countless 'homages' from Tarantino wannabees - it's lost its sense of how original it was for the time. Yes, he also ripped off several films, but he doesn't deny that; he positively revels in it - that's what auteurs do. He messes with the chronology to great effect - consider the sequence where Mr White is relaying the 'comode story'; that's a flashback within a flashback within a flashback within a flashback ! - practically invented Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth and Michael MaRABen and made film soundtracks cool and marketable in their own right. In his debut film !
If you say so. I was thinking in terms of songs from a film soundtrack being used for aRAB, parodies, cover versions etc as a direct result of the film making them 'cool' again. If the Goodfellas s/t did the same before RD, I'll take your word as I can't think of any examples from it.
Yes, that's why I specifically wrote '..revived a genre that had long died out in mainstream western cinema...'