Premiered at the Sundance Film Festival January 21,1992
Plot(Spoiler Alert)
Six criminals who hardly know each other get busted after trying to do a heist. One of them is suspected of ratting them out. They stay at a warehouse until this situation is taken care of.
Blaine: Quentin Tarantino said that he could have been a criminal if he wasn’t a filmmaker. Before Quentin Tarantino became the popular filmmaker we all know today he worked at a video store. Ever since he was a kid, Quentin has always been a moviegoer. He studied film by watching movies. One day Quentin was moving around different genre films in their display and he was moving around a few heist movies. After that all Quentin could think about were heist movies. He rented a lot of heist movies and watched them all. It made him want to write a script for his own heist movie. Quentin didn’t have a lot of money at the time. He couldn’t even afford a car. All he had were these scripts he had written himself. While the script for “Reservoir Dogs” was in works, Quentin met a filmmaker named Scott Spiegel and he showed him the script for “Natural Born Killers”. As Scott was reading through the “Natural Born Killers” script he was asking himself why this hasn’t been made into a film. Scott felt that Quentin should make money out of something he is passionate about and so he introduced Quentin to producer Lawrence Bender. Lawrence would visit Quentin at his apartment to see him working on the “Reservoir Dogs” script. Quentin would show Lawrence the pages he had written and Lawrence thought the way Quentin wrote them was really well done.
Lawrence told Quentin he could get him some money for the “Reservoir Dogs” script. Quentin was so desperate for money and wanted it right away. Lawrence told him to be calm and just be patient. Quentin sold the rights to another script he had written called “True Romance”, but he didn’t get payed that much for it. Quentin felt that he could finance “Reservoir Dogs” himself with the money he made from “True Romance”. After three and half weeks, the script for “Reservoir Dogs” was finished and Quentin had an urge to direct it. Miramax loved the script and agreed to finance the movie. So the next thing to do was to put together an ensemble of actors. Casting actors for “Reservoir Dogs” was very exciting for Quentin Tarantino because once the copies of his script went out, a lot of actors wanted to be apart of something as well written as this. Each actor who auditioned to be in “Reservoir Dogs” Quentin recognized from a movie he had seen. The casting director was good friends with Harvey Keitel and he had been wanting to work with young and new directors since the 80s because he believed there was new talent out there. Michael Madsen wanted to play Mr. Pink and he told that to Quentin when he met him. Michael auditioned as Mr. Pink right in front of Quentin, but he didn’t like it. Quentin felt that Michael was more suitable as Mr. Blonde. In the script it said Mr. Blonde would be torturing a cop and cutting off his ear, but it never said he would be dancing while doing it. It was something Quentin kept in his head until the day they were going to shoot the torture scene. It was unexpected for Michael when Quentin told him he was going to dance to the song, “Stuck in the Middle with You”, while torturing the cop because it wasn’t in the script. Michael couldn’t understand why Quentin wanted him to dance until he gave a demonstration of how it would look. Michael thought it looked cool after Quentin showed him. That scene became an inspiration for people’s imaginations because it was an iconic scene.
Quentin wrote the part of Mr. Pink for himself because he was also going to act in “Reservoir Dogs". A lot of actors Quentin had met with auditioned for the part of Mr. Pink. One of them was Steve Buscemi and Quentin had seen him in a couple a movies and knew what a great actor he was. Quentin also felt that Steve could fit in with the ensemble he had put together so far. Quentin tested Steve out by talking smack at him and Steve nailed it. Quentin was so impressed that he gave the Mr. Pink role to Steve. And Quentin would play Mr. Brown (a small part).
Tim Roth had gotten the script and after reading the first twenty pages of it he knew he wanted to be apart of something that was so beautifully written. Tim has trouble when it comes to auditioning for a movie. Tim felt that the best way to get a job in a movie is for the director and casting director to take a look at the movies he has done in the past and see him act in those movies. He didn’t want to read any parts of the script. Tim Roth was challenging for Quentin Tarantino and Quentin knew a guy like him was right for this project, but he wanted to test him out first. Quentin tried to bribe Tim with a sandwich and a beer at a bar and Tim still wouldn’t read for him. Finally, Tim Roth was a little drunk, Quentin wrote some lines down on beer mats and had Tim read them.
Quentin never went to film school, but he didn’t have to because he was already a gifted writer, had a passion for movies and knew exactly how he wanted “Reservoir Dogs” to look. Watching movies was Quentin Tarantino's education and his inspiration. While they were shooting “Reservoir Dogs”, Quentin was nervous thinking he wasn’t doing a good enough job because it was his first directorial debut. Plus he thought he would get fired any day, but Lawrence Bender kept telling him to calm down and that no one was going to fire him. The actors loved the script and these characters so much and they did whatever they could to make Quentin Tarantino happy as he was directing the movie. “Reservoir Dogs” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 1992 and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize, but lost it to “In the Soup”. “Reservoir Dogs” did however become the most talked about film during that festival. And after “Reservoir Dogs” expanded into other theaters, rumors spread about it and how great it was. Quentin Tarantino’s career changed forever after that.
My rating on “Reservoir Dogs” is four and half out of five stars
Music
Parodies
The Simpsons
Blaine: Quentin Tarantino was offered to do the voice of himself, but he passed because he didn’t like the line about violence. He did give them permission to have a Simpsonized version of him on the show and to make fun of him. I think Quentin would have guest voiced if it wasn’t for that line. Quentin was wearing an “Itchy and Scratchy” shirt when “Simpsons” creator Matt Groening met with him in person to ask if he’ll guest voice on “The Simpsons”. Dan Castellaneta, who does the voice of Homer and tons of other characters on the show, did the voice of Tarantino.
