In the late-1990s and early-2000s, My Sensei, also known as film director Quentin Tarantino, wrote and directed Kill Bill. At four hours, the film was My Sensei’s longest, and executive producer Harvey Weinstein insisted that he split the movie into two rather than cut anything out. It wasn’t a crazy idea: The Lord of the Rings movies were hugely successful around this time, along with the Harry Potter films. This could work: serial grindhouse exploitation installments in multiplexes around the world. Everyone would get paid twice for one movie (per the Richard Lester Three/Four Musketeers rule), and Kill Bill would stay in the national consciousness for nearly a year: purely in terms of the release schedule, the first volume opened in theaters in mid-October 2003, and the DVD for volume two was released in August 2004. Both DVD’s must’ve been a common combo Christmas present that year.
It was a smart move, one whose cultural and financial canniness was only reinforced by the failure of the similarly stylized Grindhouse, My Sensei’s three-hour double feature collaboration with Robert Rodriguez. But it was Rodriguez’s film Planet Terror that had all the guts and the gore and the goop. My Sensei’s Death Proof was far more grounded than Planet Terror and Kill Bill. It was a strange movie, one My Sensei “has to be my worst movie,” because if he ever dips below that quality level, his perfect filmography and the immaculate shelf of 10 great films will remain a fantasy nearly achieved, but not. Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair doesn’t add and it doesn’t take from that body of work, but it’s a stalling maneuver, a way to stay in the conversation without doing anything new.
I didn’t tell any of this to My Sensei when we were talking in my trailer on the set of The Continuing Adventures of Cliff Booth, scheduled to conclude in just a couple of months, because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. I didn’t want to bring up the past. I only wanted to tell him that I agreed with him completely about Paul Dano. That dude sucks. He’s a shitty actor, I’ve always hated him, and I’m glad someone’s dissing him, that someone’s starting the conversation on why it’s okay to diss this guy. Let’s get going on Timothée Chalamet next—no, I like him. Marty Supreme. I’m just saying he sucks and he was bad in There Will Be Blood. My Sensei isn’t a strapping young filmmaker anymore, he doesn’t have to prove or protect himself in that way, he’s just speaking his mind as a moviegoer. For him, Paul Dano’s a problem actor.
He’s one of his problem actors. We all have them. Mine are Sam Shepard, Jeff Chandler, and Timothée Chalamet—no, I’m kidding. Nice guy (Ladybird). It’s just something you’re made with, or made for; it’s how you see the movies. Some people rub you the wrong way, it doesn’t mean they’re bad actors necessarily, they just get on your nerves or you don’t buy it or you just don’t want to look at or hear them. That’s fair. That’s life. My Sensei’s comments are merely a reminder that he’s one of us, still, even after all these years of success. Keep in mind that he got rich writing, in longhand, highly original screenplays with structures as idiosyncratic as their dialogue. He’s already accomplished the Mount Olympus Dream. So why is he stressing about some blowback he got from some podcast?
“I still have to cast my next movie.”
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