Tarantino's directorial debut

My Best Friend’s Birthday, Quentin Tarantino’s directorial debut, is a black and white amateur film produced for $5000. Apparently, the original cut was 70 minutes long, but a fire claimed all by 36 minutes, which have since been making the rounds at various film festivals.

It’s Mickey’s Birthday and his girlfriend just left him, so that’s when his friend Clarence shows him a birthday he’ll never forget.

[djm]

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Awesome! Fiscal, thanks so much for that! You can clearly see his talent for dialogue and soundtracks so early on in his career. Good stuff!

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It's certainly his work "Your ass is grass and I'm the lawnmower"

Always entertaining

I actually thought that was a horrible line. Hasn't this been available for a long time? I know I've at least seen some of that before. I think it's just now making the rounds online because I "StumbleUponed" it last night too.

I think it's a great line. Not because it's incredibly clever or beautiful or anything, but because it's kind of witty, very bombastic, but feels just enough like what someone might actually say to another to feel natural, without the boringness that most completely "natural" speech would inevitably have. It's not "if you shoot me in a dream you better wake up and apologize," but it's in the same -- dare I say? -- ballpark.

Awesome work from Tarantino, great soundtrack and a suprisingly likeable performance from Tarantino himself.

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I'm with you, AP, horrible line. Lazy and cheesy, it sounds like it belongs in a crappy tv show/movie. Which is, of course, exactly where it is.

I never really understood this myth that Tarantino writes 'realistic dialogue'. On the contrary, he writes highly stylized dialogue. The quote Yoda gave is a great example of this. Well crafted, highly stylized but completely unnatural.

Well, "realistic" is relative. As I mentioned earlier, genuinely realistic dialog would be boring. A better comparison would be not to compare it to real-life conversation, but other movie conversations.

There's a difference, I think, between dialogue which is stylized and dialogue which is contrived. Lots of movie dialogue feels distinctly made-up, whereas I think Tarantino's feels more like an exaggeration or twisting of reality. Less of a fundamental change, I guess.

That said, I don't know if most people like his dialogue for its alleged realism, regardless. They like it because it's funny, a bit skewed, and it takes every topic equally serious.

I know what honeykid means because that's all you ever hear from the artsy crowd that likes Tarantino. "Ooooh the dialogue is so real man." just so they can act like their lives are more exciting and fast paced. What I like about it is that it's all relevant even though the topics may be WAY off from what's going on onscreen. For example, the whole hallway Steadicam scene in Pulp Fiction right before they get the briefcase; some people might think they should skip the talking and burst in to do their movie business but the whole point is to show their attitude towards their job. It also builds the relationship of Jules and Vincent but they're just talking about the appropriateness of foot rubs. The actual conversations are realistic (laid back and usually about nothing significant) but the situations they're used in and the pacing are very stylized.

As far as the lawnmower line being "realistic," I've heard people say that since I was a little kid, which I think pre-dates this film. How can a phrase real people really use be anything other than "realistic?"

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But that line's not original, Mikey. I've heard it in a number of films, as I'm sure many others here have, too. I've also heard in IRL and, when said, it sounds like it belongs in a crap, cheesy film, which is probably where the person saying it heard it.

Well, then you have to pick the complaint: either it's unrealistic, or it's completely realistic to the point of not being clever or amusing.

You accuse it of being cheesy like it was unapologetically unintentional, it's hilarious, no one said it was THE LINE of the film

Hey, it's just a lazy, crappy line. It's cheesy as in cliched. Let's not get precious about it.

I agree on the lazy and cheesey parts of the discussion, and I've never found that phrase particularly clever or amusing. More embarrassing, actually. Can't you think of something better to say?

I've never seen the film in question, so how it relates in context I can't speak on. I was just observing that people really say that and said it before this movie, so that would at least make it somewhat realistic, IMO.

I'd say the argument that it's unrealistic and realistic is because no pimp would say it in a serious attack on someone but if the characters were 12 year olds playing then it would be realistic. Just because someone said it in junior high doesn't mean it's realistic for everyone to say. It's pretty obvious it was meant to be clever (which is why the pimp, not known for saying that phrase, says it) but it just comes across as lame. If anyone else put that in their movie they would be called bad impersonators of Tarantino.