Pam Grier was Coffy, who hid razor blades in her afro while prepping for a catfight. She was Friday Foster, who managed to single-handedly unite the black leaders of America to take down The Man. She was, of course, Foxy Brown, who after getting raped and hooked on heroin ripped her captors’ eyes out and lit them on fire and then cut the bad guy’s boyfriend’s penis off and delivered it in a pickle jar. She is a certified badasses.
And Pam Grier’s Jackie Brown is also a badass, but not like that. Jackie is not a superhero. She lives the life of a normal person. She’s a flight attendant. She’s like the kind of lady who watched Foxy Brown and Friday Foster when she was younger and was inspired by those characters to become a confident, intelligent woman. Her biggest assets are her cool, calm, collected demeanor and her enviable street smarts. Jackie knows the score, but she’s not a superhero.
One facet of Tarantino's genius (or madness, depending on who you talk to) that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough is how even his coolest characters play the role of the badass in public, but are uncomfortable and nerdy underneath. Uma Thurman's Bride trains to be an unstoppable killing machine, but attempts to escape her deadly lifestyle by marrying a nerdy record store clerk, and even then is the more awkward conversationalist of the two. In Pulp Fiction, John Travolta and Uma Thurman can pose cool all night long, but they still go to the cheesy Gunther Toody's restaurant and they were the only ones dancing. Lame. All of Tarantino's memorable characters - Jules, Mr. Blonde, The Bride, Aldo Raine, Stuntman Mike – project an air of badassness in their own insulated universes. But it seems to me if you took them out of their respective elements they would flounder.
Interestingly enough, it’s in the Tarantino scripted, Tony Scott directed True Romance that Quentin tips his cards the most, actually showing us Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette’s progression from white trash loner comic store geeks to Bonnie and Clyde-esque folk heros. Tarantino makes his audience fall in love with his characters’ glamor, but slyly reveals the fatal flaws, the little thing that makes them less cool than they think they are. Here we have Pam Grier’s Jackie Brown wearing tacky sandals at the ending – Foxy would never wear tacky sandals – and flirting with the homely bail bondsman. Quentin has manufactured some of the coolest characters in the history of the movies, but they're all dorks underneath.
Jackie Brown played a formative role in the development of this website. One semester back in the ol’ college days, I found myself with a two and a half hour break between classes a couple times a week - not long enough to go to work, but just long enough for a movie. On top of that, my girlfriend worked at the local record store, giving me free ‘rental’ access to their rotating selection of used DVDs. Though my movie watching regimen was already drastically more intense than that of your average normal person, this regularly scheduled chunk of time provided me the opportunity to launch my viewing habits into the stratosphere. One of my first selections was Jackie Brown, the only Tarantino movie I had yet to see. I’d always been under the impression that it was ‘lesser Tarantino,’ whatever that means. Imagine my surprise when my eyes and ears opened up to this smart, lean, character driven piece of badass popcorn fun. Jackie Brown caught me by such surprise I watched it three times in two days. I might not have completely understood it then, but that was the moment that I became more than a passive movie fan. If I could love a movie so much as to watch it three times in a row, imagine what else I could accomplish with my hobby? I could finally work up the nerve to apply to Ain’t It Cool News’ Butt-Numb-A-Thon…and be accepted! Twice! The thought of seeing every movie ever made was no longer a daunting chore, but rather a challenge I would accept with vim and vigor. Why, I could start a movie blog! The pieces all started falling into place that one fateful afternoon when I popped in a used VHS tape of Jackie Brown.
Magic Moment: Ordell Robbie (Sam Jackson) has a proclivity toward Screwdrivers in this movie, which launched my own yearlong love affair with this badass drink. Don't forget: Badass mutherfuckers drink Screwdrivers.
-Ben
The Watching Hour is a weekly film series at the Starz Film Center, highlighting new and old cult, genre, or otherwise bizarro movies. Quite simply, The Watching Hour is usually the best thing to do in Denver on a Friday or Saturday night. From Giallo to schlock, Blaxploitation to Aussiesploitation, zombies to martial arts to who-knows-what, and everywhere in between. This is good ol’ rock and roll cinema spectacle. Not to be missed. (See the schedule, buy tickets, get directions, etc. here.)