If I was Vitaly, I would rather say now: this is all off topic, this belongs to a topic called "Victims, Talents and People who don't pay attention" ... come on guys, this is pathetic, I have seen much more elegant discussions than this one

For the record; I love the less is more approach. I embrace it, practice it and preach it.

ps...and after watching the dude playing a guitar with one string....well, why would someone play a one string guitar when they can play with 6 ? That's like having a gh4 and using lensbabies ! I don't think this accurately describes the intended point. I think apefos's real point is better described by cocteau's metaphor, which really states that the quality of art shouldn't be limited by the cost of the medium. It's interesting to listen to tarantino rave on about the faults of digital cinema when he himself raved about hi8 as an alternative medium when it first came out . This is what fame does. Makes you protect your winnings. Sad that tarantino hasn't made a good film since pulp so he's become like one of those court composers in vienna who, after they win their coveted position, show they really had no lasting talent, or at least didn't have the inner courage to continue challenging the accepted aesthetic. So, as an alternative, he attacks the medium which is threatening his vaulted position.

Apefos's point should be well headed by every photographer. The fascination with the tools is a blackhole...and an excuse. A $500 camera today does 10x more than a $10,000 camera 10 years ago.

...saw it Matt. Thought it was just a typical crime story, whereas reservoir dogs revolutionized screenwriting and pulp fiction maintained the screenwriting genius, and also revolutionized timeline editing, jackie just told a conventional story , like many others. Sorry imho.

And of course , if tarantino wasn't such a braggart big mouth, then those 2 films would have been enough to put him in the hall of fame. But ...he keeps opening his idiotbox ! His recent retirement....ah , is that another connection...was seen as good news to most cinephiles.

@ Adam_Mercier

you are right now technologicaly speaking, we can achive prety much anything looking like film from 2 years ago, cheap cheap cheap.

@apefos

dont play poor child on this one, you are grown man. No one wants to destroy nothing. Grow is a personal experience, and how you took on things afect how you tech to others. carefull

I got an idea lets get some popcorn and drag this out to page 4. You are all pieces of shit. But please don't get angry at me, I simply have the only opinion worthy here and your feeble minds are too shallow to understand the true meaning of what it means when I call you all pieces of shit. I hope you can take time to figure it out. I give you first clue in this picture.

let me explain something. I did another read in my first post, and there is a word that can be not so good. I said "do not feel humiliated" and I perceived this can be a bad word. I was trying to say what I was feeling when I saw that one string guy: Oh my God, he just have a broken guitar and one string and he got my attention, I want listen he singing more and more... and I found myself maybe in a wrong way spending time developing patches instead of doing videos. I feel myself like an idiot... contamined by GAS. And another thing, I am much more a technical instead of artist. My soul is technical, not artist. It is good to have good gear, but there are things more important... and to be honest I do not feel I am good in such things. Maybe I need courage to try without fear of fail. Maybe try to slowly modify my soul to fell like an artist, to think like an atrist to live like an artist instead of technical...

@apefos You just need something to say, an idea, to make a film. I think your journey into the technical side of GH2 hacking could make a great short film. Obsessed technical perfectionist determined to succeed where others give up or criticise, creates mayhem gobally by upsetting internet forum users and creates change in the way contemporary films are made. I'm serious man! Write a screenplay, gather your friends, load your best hack & make it! I think it would be a great little topic.

Re: Reservoir Dogs - the only thing that film "appropriated" was the gangster ethos of the Far East criminals as depicted in hk and Japanese b movies. That's it. Which is absolutely fair play and something that happens in all art from all eras and all countries, people are inspired by a style and make their own take on it. RD was not a remake of any specific film, formal or informal - if anyone claims otherwise, ask them to name that film... and they won't be able to - any film they name will be laughably different. People simply repeat what they read "Tarantino inspired by HK movies" and misunderstand that it means an actual remake.

That said, RD is not revolutionary - but it is brilliant on many levels. The specific use of music, the camera work, the narrative visualization ideas (bathroom sequence!) were all brilliant, although not necessarily novel - perhaps the dialogue being so in-your-face forward was somewhat novel for the times. It was brilliant at being a low-budget extremely entertaining flick designed to launch a career - and it did that fantastically. I am in awe of that. But I also objectively don't claim it to be "revolutionary" - just a really, really, really well-made flick.

But it is also QT's best film IMHO. I personally don't like Pulp Fiction - I think it's gimmicky and cheap in many ways and no, not revolutionary, although well-made overall, well-cast and with good use of music (both strong points of QT as a director).

Jackie Brown - a fantastic idea, and an OK film, much better than PF, but also pretty badly flawed which is unfortunate... could have been brilliant on the level of RD, but missed the mark. QT's second best film, IMHO.

And that's it for QT, IMHO. The rest of his work has nice touches here and there, nice scenes here and there, but basically it's all downhill.

Bottom line - everyone has their opinion, and that's mine. I still respect QT and I continue to just marvel at what an amazing thing RD was... designed like a perfect weapon, did its job of launching QT's career. I saw an interview with QT once, where he said that when he knew the film would get made, he was taking a ride in his car along Sunset late at night, and was on top of the world, knowing that his life had just been changed forever. He was right, of course, and it's all because of the brilliant design of RD. It's one of the best designed movies to start a career that has ever been made, if you want to launch a career being a relative unknown, with no money. Who among us, could ever match such a design for a career launch as RD? I reckon nobody on this board (and I'm including myself, even though I'm an extremely arrogant person otherwise). So before you knock QT, you must acknowledge the brilliance that was RD as a launching pad for a career in Hollywood.

Hey, hopefully this thread can turn into an interesting discussion at the end :)

Kubrick often shot his films with no more than 3 people. Maybe because of "less is more" or his alleged Aspergers. "described as an inability to understand how to interact socially." Studio execs who visited his sets thought the production was shut down!

This is not B-grade. Iron Monkey directed by Yuen Woo Ping, he was also action director for "The Matrix" Unlike Hollywood action movies, HK action sequences are shot one camera with no storyboarding allowing them to improvise action. ..... Get the HK version. not the American release. The Butcher Brothers version ( Weinstein) i.e. Dragon Dynasty removes the original music which weakens the impact of the action scenes. Some scenes are also cut.

A Touch of Zen is a 1971 Taiwanese wuxia film directed by King Hu. The film won significant critical acclaim and became the first Chinese language action film ever to win a prize at the Cannes Film Festival, claiming the Technical Grand Prize award.

Yes, of course I've seen that comparison many times, but while you can see the inspiration, it's hardly a remake and the video pushes the comparison way beyond what is warranted - the whole robbery being shown versus NOT shown, sorry is not the same thing AT all. So too with other elements, though yes, there are scenes that are clearly similar. But you can't cite themes like inside man, police undercover agent and so on as unique - there were literally thousands of movies with such themes. At most you can say is that some scenes were very clearly imitated - which I can agree with (even if the execution is different like night and day).

Anyhow I don't think it takes anything away from RD or QT. I would never claim that RD was revolutionary - quite the contrary, I do agree that except dialogue elements, there is nothing even novel about that film, but it's a brilliantly put together package. And still QT's best film, IMHO.

Hey guys, this is a far more interesting discussion - don't you think? Especially related the beginning of this thread. Here's how I'd connect it - and I mean it sincerely. Clearly RD was designed as a career launcher on a very low budget. QT got lucky to get Keitel, because it became a fantastic resource to push the whole thing - but now my question to everyone here is this:

We know QT was prepared to make the movie with Bender any which way he could. Assuming he never got lucky to get Keitel, don't you think it was still a brilliant script to DO FOR LITTLE MONEY? In other words, it's the same problem many of us face today - how can YOU or ME (me - I'm broke), make a feature without outside financing, that's good enough to launch a career. Like, could you make a cheaper RD-kinda movie (without Keitel etc.). Obviously I don't mean remake of RD, but a film that can launch a career. On no money. Today, it's easier than ever, gear is cheaper than ever (here is a tie-in with OP's point) - you could make a film on an iPhone, and we have access to way more gear than that. But it all comes down to what you film.

Challenge: GO MAKE A RESERVIOR DOGS QUALITY MOVIE ON NO MONEY AND LAUNCH YOUR CAREER! Is it possible? The OP would say "Yes!". What do you say?

I think people are too hung up on making narrative. Narrative is more or less dead. All ideas have been used. But there's whole schools of aesthetics that don't require getting harvey on board before you shoot. The works of godfrey reggio for example, or bill viola. Of course , what people really want isn't to create a genius work of cinema, it's to be famous ...like QT. Of course....look what it did to him !