Tag Archives: Michael Madsen

The Set of 400: #56 – My Favorite Dog Acting a Damn Fool

Today! Because I’m not going to murder you in front of your child, okay?

Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003)

Directed by Quentin Tarantino (x5)

Starring Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu (x2), Vivica A. Fox (x2), Daryl Hannah (x3), Julie Dreyfus (x2), Sonny Chiba, Michael Bowen (x3), Michael Parks, Jun Kunimura, Michael Madsen (x2), David Carradine, Gordon Liu, James Parks (x2), Jonathan Loughran (x2)

Functioning both as a total outlier and as no surprise whatsoever, Kill Bill Vol. 1 is the rare samurai/kung-fu movie to make the list, while also being the fifth Tarantino film to do so. I remember saying after first seeing this in theaters that I couldn’t imagine going a month without watching it again for the rest of my life. Yes, this was almost certainly just drunken hyperbole, but that’s how madly in love I was with Kill Bill. It’s such a thrilling, adrenaline-fueled, blood-splattered revenge epic that you can’t help being sucked in to the crazy, topsy-turvy world of the film. I would also venture it has the best Tarantino soundtrack, which is possibly the highest praise this movie can receive from me, who wore out cassette tapes of Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs in the ’90s. From the perfect opening credits sequence set to Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang” to the 5, 6, 7, 8s wacko “Woo Hoo,” I think the only collection to maybe top this is Kill Bill Vol. 2‘s, but it is a very close contest.

My baby shot me down

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The Set of 400: #252 – My Favorite Stealers Wheel Musical Number

Today! Because for all I know, you’re the rat –

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Starring Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel (x2), Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Quentin Tarantino, Lawrence Tierney, Randy Brooks, Edward Bunker, Steven Wright, Kirk Baltz

And we finally get to some Tarantino! Reservoir Dogs was his first feature film, and the first one I saw, albeit when I was thirteen and obviously couldn’t know what was to come. Like everyone else, I thought it was pretty amazing, just super violent and complex with dazzlingly funny dialogue and terrific songs. This hyper-stylized, off-kilter attitude crime thriller managed to feel like something entirely new, while also firmly keeping a foot in the past history of the genre. It had flashbacks and flash forwards and characters lying to each other but where the audience already knew the truth, and that soundtrack! I had this tape in my old ’87 Firebird all the time when I was in college.

Available on eBay!

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