There’s no telling when we’ll see the next film from Quentin Tarantino, but the filmmaker has become quite chatty as of late with regards to what 2013 had to offer by way of new films and comic book movie news. Last week, Tarantino revealed a list of his top 10 films of 2013 so far, and the compilation was unsurprisingly a grab bag of everything from indies to blockbusters; in addition to pics like Gravity and Frances Ha, the filmmaker included This Is the End and The Lone Ranger. Many were a tad disappointed that Tarantino didn’t elaborate on any of his choices, but now the director has decided to comment on his list, specifically focusing on his criticisms of The Lone Ranger. While he was at it, he also chimed in on the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman.
Tarantino defended his decision to put The Lone Ranger on his Top 10 list:
“The first forty-five minutes are excellent…the next forty-five minutes are a little soporific. It was a bad idea to split the bad guys in two groups; it takes hours to explain and nobody cares. Then comes the train scene—incredible! When I saw it, I kept thinking, ‘What, that’s the film that everybody says is crap? Seriously?’”
Tarantino went on to say that he did have some issues with the Gore Verbinski epic:
“That being said, I still have a little problem with the film. I like Tonto’s backstory—the idea that his tribe got slaughtered because of him; that’s a real comic-book thing. But the slaughter of the tribe, by gunfire, from the cavalry, it left a bitter taste in my mouth. The Indians have really been victims of a genocide. So slaughtering them again in an entertaining movie, Buster Keaton style… That ruined the fun a bit for me. I simply found it…ugly. Making fun of this, when America really did it, it bothered me…That doesn’t stop it from being a good film but they could have done without that.”
One might say Tarantino is being a tad hypocritical given that he used slavery as a backdrop for an entertaining movie in Django Unchained, but the director waved off that criticism:
“I didn’t make Lone Ranger…that’s two different things. I did an examination of America. I tried to juggle with different things and, frankly, I think I did it better than them,” he said. “I don’t know, let’s just say that it was ugly. And violent. And boring. And it happens right in the middle of the film’s bad part, anyway. [laughs]“
The director went on to expand on a few of his other choices, calling This Is the End “the funniest film of the year by far,” saying Frances Ha reminded him of a Paul Mazursky film, noting that The Conjuring is the first James Wan movie that he’s liked, and saying Jeff Wadlow “wrote and directed [Kick-Ass 2] with a real auteur approach.” Moreover, the Top 10 list that Tarantino provides in the French publication swaps out Fruitvale Station for Gravity.
The ever-talkative Tarantino also weighed in on the “Ben Affleck as Batman” debate, saying he’s pretty ambivalent on the casting:
“I have to admit that I don’t really have an opinion. Why? Because Batman is not a very interesting character. For any actor. There is simply not much to play. I think Michael Keaton did it the best, and I wish good luck to Ben Affleck. But, you know who would have made a great Batman? Alec Baldwin in the ’80s.”
Baldwin was reportedly in the running for the Batman role in Tim Burton‘s first film (as was just about every actor at the time), but obviously the part went to Keaton. Hopefully Tarantino releases a full Top 10 list at the end of the year after he’s seen the rest of what 2013 has to offer. There’s still no word on what Tarantino’s next film will be, but if he sticks to the schedule he’s followed in recent years, we might see the pic as early as 2015.
