Quentin Tarantino

 Quentin Tarantino

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He's one of Hollywood's edgy directors, and you know him for his stylish violence.

Quentin Tarantino was born and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee on March 27, 1963. As a video clerk, he discovered his passion for film making. He was able to create films that were mainly independent, backed-up with smart dialogue and writing. Many are in the opinion that his trademark violence on-screen is one of the things that make him a film genius. He became an Elvis Presley impersonator on a TV series called, "The Golden Girls", thus beginning his career.

While working at Video Archives, which was stationed in Manhattan Beach, California, he studied and was able to accomplish his first ever screenplay. It was titled, "True Romance". This was finished in 1987. However, with his co-worker and soon-to-be director named Roger Avary, they decided to sell the script to fellow director, Tony Scott. He also wrote the script for the controversial film, Natural Born Killers, which would later be Oliver Stone's film. He didn't have enough financial assistance to aid him in the development, so he decided to sell to Rand Vossler, his partner.

With the money he earned from selling True Romance, he was able to create the classic heist film, Reservoir Dogs. Fortunately for Tarantino, Harvey Keitel went on-board with the project and was able to receive finances from LIVE Entertainment. Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and many more eventually joined in. The result was a cult classic film that provided unquestionable entertainment. Every glory has a price however. A number of movie-goers claim that Tarantino copied the film "City of Fire", which was a Hong Kong movie with similar premise as that of Reservoir Dogs. Luckily, this was later put to rest.

Later on, he wrote the screenplay for the phenomenal Pulp Fiction, which has John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson teaming up in fancy suits, with wrestler Bruce Willis and the enigmatic Uma Thurman on a hunt for a mysterious gold watch. With its original story and cutting edge use of interweaving story lines, Pulp Fiction became one of the landmark films Tarantino has given Hollywood and us. This also overshadowed one of the scripts he sold, which was the extremely violent Natural Born Killers. But before Pulp Fiction was released, another sold script was released - his first script, True Romance.

The successes of both Pulp Fiction and True Romance lead to Tarantino's later discovery of his talents, including the superb return of Travolta after his recent failure, Staying Alive. He later acted in some unknown and known roles alike. He is famous even in television. He even directed an episode of ER and All-American Girl. He was also a screen writer, director and actor to other famous films.

His next work was Jackie Brown, which reunited Tarantino and Jackson.  The story brought them on a smuggling adventure from America to Mexico, together with Pam Grier, Robert De Niro, Michael Keeton and whole lot more who joined in the production of the movie,the movie became a success. After that, he made a guest appearance in the TV series, Alias.

For some time, he remained silent and not much update was heard from him. When 2002 came, news quickly spread about his next full-length feature, Kill Bill. Separated into two parts, marked Volume 1 and 2, the films follow Uma Thurman as "The Bride" on the trail of her former mentor and his lethal group of assassins, who destroyed her wedding day, including everyone in it. Volume 1 is obviously inspired by Asian cinematography, while Volume 2 is all chit-chat and few action sequences. Regardless, both volumes are massive achievements for Tarantino. 

With the Kill Bill fiasco running loose, word spread out quickly that Tarantino would be a director in the remake of the slasher film, Friday the 13th and would even take part in Agent 007's new adventure in Casino Royale, but he didn't participate in either project. Instead, he teamed-up with long time friend Robert Rodriguez  in his adaptation of the gritty comic series, Sin City. With Sin City becoming a smash-hit, they united once more in the ultra violent film, Grindhouse. Tarantino directed the segment Death Proof in Grindhouse, wherein Kurt Russel goes on a Fast and Furious like face-off. Though his segment was praised, including Rodriguez's zombie epic, Planet Terror, audiences didn't understood that much, leading it to be released separately in the European regions.

    Tarantino then directed a war-time film, which featured two interweaving stories on each protagonist's plans to assassinate Adolf Hitler. One of the stories feature Brad Pitt in it. It quickly became a famous film yet again, courtesy of Tarantino.

After that, he released his latest film, Django Unchained. A western epic that remakes the original Django, it stars Jamie Foxx as a slave trying to rescue his wife from the vicious Leonardo DiCaprio. This film also has Christoph Waltz and Samuel L. Jackson reuniting again with Tarantino. A truly wonderful and darkly comic experience indeed, this film also became a massive success.

With so many impressive films to his name, Quentin Tarantino is considered one of Hollywood's most prominent and intellectual film makers of all time. Wonder what he'll do next time?