Quentin's List

Somebody asked Quentin Tarentino to make a list of the 20 most important movies of the last 20 years. So, in no particular order, he posts the list.

I saw the first movie on the list a week ago: "Battle Royale" by Kinji Fukasaku. Terrible.

Then I saw another movie: "Audition" by Takashi Miike. Even worse.

I guess I had a right to be suspicious: "Fight Club" and "The Matrix" are on the list, but "The Departed" is not.

I can be fair (despite the fact that I spent my time watching those awful movies): the list tells you more about the list maker than anything else. And if the list maker is a filmmaker then the movies are ones that are intriguing to that artist. Maybe they're inspirational, maybe they're future source material, but artistic merit takes a back seat. It's OK. Tarentino doesn't pretend to be a critic.

You can say the list is useful to help you understand the filmmaker, but what's the point? You'd just be travelling down Intentionality Lane, trying to figure out what's going on in sombody's head instead of looking at what's on the screen.