The 2010 movie Quentin Tarantino loves more every time he sees it: “It gets better and better”
Having seen more movies than the average cinephile, it’s a wonder that Quentin Tarantino can even find the time to watch his favourites more than once, never mind over and over and over again.
That said, it’s not as if he’s busy making that tenth and final film or anything, so he’s got more free time than usual, with the wait between Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and his swansong only getting longer, not that he’s definitely feeling the pressure of living up to the finite limit he’s set himself or anything.
It probably isn’t worth thinking about how many times he’s seen The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, which is the closest thing the two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter has to a definitive all-time favourite. However, he loved Sergio Leone’s epic from the first time he saw it, and those feelings have never wavered.
On the other hand, there’s an unlikely flick that he enjoyed on first viewing, but having revisited it three times since then, he’s loved it more each time. It might not be everyone’s interpretation of an indisputable cinema classic, but Tarantino nonetheless fucking loves Tony Scott’s 2010 action thriller, Unstoppable.
“It’s one of my favourite last movies of a director,” he explained. “I’ve seen it four times, and every time I see it, I like it more. Unstoppable is one of the purest visions of Tony’s action aesthetic; the two guys are great together, and it gets better and better. It’s one of the best monster movies of the 21st century.”
Unstoppable helped transform Chris Pine into one of Tarantino’s favourite modern-day actors, and to think, Denzel Washington had walked away from the high-speed genre picture over a pay dispute, refusing to work for a paltry $16 million instead of $20 million, before being convinced to sign on.
It’s definitely a good movie, if not necessarily a great one, although he’d obviously disagree, with the lean and mean running time ensuring that Unstoppable doesn’t have any fat on its bones. The setup is quick, the two leads board a runaway train, and then all hell breaks loose until they manage to slow it down.
Of course, Tarantino has always had a soft spot for Scott, dating back to the 1990s when the latter directed True Romance and then enlisted the former for uncredited rewrites on the Crimson Tide script, and that mutual appreciation only grows deeper on the Pulp Fiction creator’s part whenever he fires up the Top Gun architect’s cinematic swansong for its latest go-around.
Having seen Unstoppable more than once, it’s hard to say that it was a superior experience next time out. Then again, Tarantino has two Oscars, and he’s one of the most influential auteurs in modern Hollywood, so he’s vastly more qualified to speak on these kinds of things, not that anyone is obligated to agree with him.
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