The movie Quentin Tarantino called the “equivalent of a bird shitting on your head”
Through his nine movies to date, Quentin Tarantino has shuffled through a series of disparate themes seamed by a characteristic thread of dark comedy, exaggerated violence, and a returning ensemble of top-flight actors who never fail to bring colour to the scripts. From 1800s revenge epics to satirical studies of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Tarantino always finds a way to keep his fans on their toes.
Born in 1963, Tarantino had the privilege of growing up during the early rise of legendary filmmakers such as Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg. These cinematic luminaries played a vital role in shaping Tarantino’s artistic sensibilities; taking his favoured aspects of each hero, he’s fought his way to the top.
Instead of attending film school, Tarantino picked up all he needed during an early career occupation. When he was 22, Tarantino secured his first full-time job at Video Archives, a store in Manhattan Beach, California. As explained in several interviews, he didn’t become a cinephile because he worked there.
With rampant movie consumption, Tarantino figured out the dos and don’ts of filmmaking and rapidly formed his own idea of what makes a movie great. In episodes of his Video Archives podcast and various interviews, Tarantino enjoys reeling off film suggestions, but as a consummate critic, he also names a few titles to avoid.
In his 2022 book Cinema Speculation, Tarantino remembered some of the cinema visits of his youth as moments that shaped his ambition. He recalled one particular evening when he attended the cinema with his parents, uncle and babysitter, who were on a double date. A double bill of Robert Altman movies was on the menu, and Tarantino was not amused.
“The evening was not a success,” Tarantino remembered. “Not only did they not like the two movies, my stepfather and uncle proceeded to bitch about them for days after. Brewster McCloud is one of the worst movies to ever carry a studio logo, and that’s fully acknowledging Altman also made Quintet for a studio as well. Quintet is just terrible, boring, and pointless.”
Continuing, Tarantino returned to Brewster McCloud, unleashing the full force of his witty scorn. “But Brewster McCloud is the cinematic equivalent of a bird shitting on your head,” he said. “Nevertheless, it’s kind of amusing imagining my parents, and my young uncle, and my seventeen-year-old babysitter buying a ticket to Brewster McCloud and expecting to see a real movie.”
Released in 1970, Brewster McCloud is a black comedy that follows the story of a young man who lives in a fallout shelter. The titular eccentric begins to build a pair of wings with which to fly away. Things take a turn, however, when he becomes a suspect connected to a series of murders in the local region.
Watch the trailer for Brewster McCloud below.
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