Love him or hate him, it’s hard to deny that Quentin Tarantino is one of the most influential auteur filmmakers of the last 30-plus years. He claims that he will be retiring after the completion of his upcoming film “The Movie Critic” and while we have a hard time believing him, we thought now would be a good point to rank his filmography so far. To be clear, it has nothing to do with our love of feet.
Okay, I offer this only in the interest of transparency and to get ahead of potential accusations down the road. Yes, I am a foot fetishist. Yes, Quentin Tarantino is ALSO a foot fetishist, and as the internet loves to point out, his films often go out of their way to display women’s feet. That is NOT why I am rewatching all of his movies and ranking them. As I stated previously, the man is retiring SOON, so, as a critic, it would be weird of me NOT to rank his filmography up until now at this time. It’s just the logical thing to do, I bet all the critics are doing it.
It is possible to be a foot fetishist and watch a movie that sure, at times, caters to your kink, but also, SEPARATE from that, enjoy the overall artistry of the film. I am a professional, and my sexual predilections do not influence my decisions of what to write about or my objectivity as a critic. Okay? OKAY?! Okay. Now, let’s dip our toes into this ranking.
12. Four Rooms
Technically this is not a Quentin Tarantino movie—the film is an interconnected anthology with 4 different directors, but we decided to throw it on. Though early in his career, “The Man From Holywood” segment draws heavily on what would only become a more prevalent influence within the Tarantino oeuvre, ’70s television. It is inspired by adaptations of Roald Dahl’s “The Man From The South,” the tale of a high-stakes gambler who bets not with money, but with body parts. In the short, a finger is on the line, and that’s where the whole thing falls off the rails. Should have been a toe. No, not because I love feet, it’s because losing a toe would mess with your life day to day way more. Think about it, your whole balance is off! This is NOT because of my foot thing, stop going there. A toe would have objectively been the more cinematic choice, and for that reason ALONE, I rank “Four Rooms” last.
11. Reservoir Dogs
Yes, I know, this will be a polarizing opinion, but I simply do not hold “Reservoir Dogs” in high regard. While it shows the promise of a great genre filmmaker it just doesn’t quite deliver the way his later work would. It should also be noted that this movie does not contain any foot shots, which I acknowledge only to get ahead of any accusations that the absence of foot fetishism on display has influenced my ranking, and I assure you it has not. This is not about that. At all. I can’t help it if my objective critical take on an almost universally praised crime movie goes against the grain, and I assure you my opinion of the film would not be any different if it did contain a few toe shots. Unless of course said toe shots were done tastefully and artistically, and with Tarantino they always are, so yeah okay it might raise the bar a little, but in an OBJECTIVE way!
10. The Hateful Eight
Oh boy, I can just see the comment section now. “Hey, this guy is just ranking all the footless movies last!” Nothing could be further from the truth. “The Hateful Eight” was just a miss for me. Sure, it has a few things going for it. The cinematography is gorgeous. The Ennio Morricone score is hypnotic and sublime. Every performance in the film is superb, and the slow-boil plot is captivating, keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat from start to finish, which is particularly impressive because most of the action takes place in a single room. The film is extremely well-directed. All of the elements of a masterpiece are there, but there’s just something missing. I can’t quite put my foot on it. Oh, I mean finger. Hey, shut up! It’s totally normal to mix those two up!
9. From Dusk Till Dawn
This experimental collaboration yielded mixed results. Truth be told, the half of the film directed by Tarantino is the weaker of the two, honestly one of his least interesting efforts to date. Perhaps this is because Tarantino was more concerned with his acting performance in the film, which is the saving grace of the picture. The chemistry between Tarantino and Salma Hayek is magnetic. Believe it or not, they don’t actually exchange any dialogue! Trust me, I rewatch their scene almost daily. and not a word is shared between them. Pretty wild considering they are the most erotically charged couple in cinema history!
8. Death Proof
While Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s second collaboration wasn’t as commercially successful as they had hoped, “Death Proof” as a standalone film deserves higher praise. When Tarantino learned that Rodriguez made the baffling decision to have Rose McGowan actually lose a foot in his movie, he knew exactly what to do in “Death Proof” to balance out the “Grindhouse” double feature package.
7. Kill Bill: Vol 1
There was a 6-year gap between the release of “Jackie Brown” and “Kill Bill Vol 1,” the largest gap in Tarantino’s filmography to date, but with this movie he proved he could still wiggle his big toe, creatively speaking. No, I didn’t make that joke because I’m a foot fetishist, it was right there. If you were writing a blurb about “Kill Bill’s” place in Tarantino’s filmography, you would have arrived at the same joke okay? This combined homage to revenge genre films and ’70s kung fu movies high-kicked the Tarantino name back to the forefront of conversation regarding the best directors in American cinema. Again, not mentioning kicks because of my foot thing, it came up organically. Okay fine, Uma Thurman’s feet are featured prominently in this film and it makes me so horny I actually get really dizzy, is that what you want to hear?! Fine!
6. Kill Bill: Vol 2
While the first Kill Bill movie showed us Quentin Tarantino still had it, Volume 2 showed us what he could do with it. Any other director would be hard tasked pivoting a kung fu revenge homage into a Western, but Tarantino does it here as seamlessly and effortlessly as Uma Thurman crushes Daryl Hannah’s eyeball with her bare foot. What? She does! Look I’m being objective here, okay? I graduated from NYU, I’m a professional film critic, and in my EXPERT opinion, Uma Thurman showing that eyeball it’s just a helpless worm under the weight of her foot’s dominant feminine energy is high cinema regardless of any foot-related sexual proclivities I may or may not but absolutely do have, end of story!
5. Inglourious Basterds
One of Tarantino’s greatest strengths is his casting. He is credited with revitalizing the careers of actors like John Travolta and Harvey Keitel. In this film, he propelled longtime television actor Christoph Waltz into international stardom. Waltz is truly menacing as Col. Hans Landa, a terrifying nazi with a Sherlock Holmes-like cunning. The moment he tells Bridget von Hammersmark “Put your foot on my lap” you know that she is doomed, and you can’t look away. Because of the tension. Not the foot. Doesn’t hurt! Certainly doesn’t subtract from the scene, in this foot fetishist film critic’s opinion, but that’s not why I’m pointing it out, it’s just a great scene.
4. Jackie Brown
If you know anything about Quentin Tarantino’s upbringing you know he grew up on ’70s Blacksploitation movies, so it must have been a dream come true for him to make a film starring Pam Grier and Bridget Fonda’s toe rings.
3. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Aside from the bombastic finale, this film is devoid of the violence and crime drama that became his trademark. This is a filmmaker fully realized, making the movie he wants to make—a love letter to ’60s Hollywood—unconcerned with our expectations, or our prudish notions regarding the sexualization of women’s feet.
2. Django Unchained
See? SEE?! I put “Django Unchained” all the way up at #2 even though it doesn’t contain a single sexualized shot of a woman’s foot! Believe me, I’ve checked several times. And don’t try accusing me of bumping it so high just to prove that my ranking has nothing to do with feet, it ranks high because of the undeniable quality of the film alone. Is it convenient for me that one of his objectively best films contains no sexualized feet? Yes. Do I also have a thing for horses? Sure. Does this movie feature a lot of strong powerful horses in all their equine majesty? Oh brother, you better believe it, but that has nothing to do with its place in my ranking either.
1. Pulp Fiction
Hey, it’s the obvious choice for a reason. “Pulp Fiction” is the crown jewel of the ’90s independent cinema boom, a cultural touchstone that will undoubtedly be discussed for decades to come. Perhaps a large part of what keeps “Pulp Fiction” in the conversation is the film’s central mystery, which is infamously never revealed. There are endless fan theories and speculations, but Tarantino to this day refuses to answer the question “Did Tony Rocky Horror give Mia Wallace a foot massage?” It’s like the box in “Barton Fink” or the briefcase in… oh, wait, the briefcase was also in “Pulp Fiction.” Okay yeah, now that I think about it, I guess that’s probably the more discussed thing.
Yikes, we can already feel some fans glaring hatefully at their screen and questioning our wisdom. Honestly, this is an underrated and overlooked album, and clearly we’re just contributing to that by ranking it last. But it came out on the heels of “Obscura,” a record that just blew apart everything anyone thought they knew about extreme music, and the melding of OSDM with prog is great in some places, but lags in others.
Supposedly an EP, but its run time is longer than freakin’ ‘Reign in Blood,” and nobody ever complains that that’s not a full-length LP, so we’re stubbornly including it in the main ranking. As far as we know, this is the only metal concept album in existence to be focused on a medieval library in Baghdad that was destroyed by the Mongols in the 13th century. The composition of this album is just mind-blowing. The entire piece manages to somehow simultaneously be angular and linear, aggro and atmospheric.
Don’t mind us, we’ll just be hiding in the corner from the outraged prog-metalheads who consider this the Holy Grail of tech-death and can’t believe it’s not #1, or even in the top half. And look, you’re not wrong. This album kicks ass and is almost certainly the most IMPORTANT entry in the Gorguts discography. You know from the opening seconds of the first track that you’re in for a wild ride. Imagine hearing this for the first time when you thought Gorguts was pretty much a straight up death metal band. Your brain would melt. But we’ve got it a little lower because, legacy aside, it feels at times like an assemblage of incomplete ideas, a throw-riffs-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks sort of affair. At the same time, if you are even remotely interested in experimental music, and we don’t just mean experimental heavy music, this is essential listening.
It was a really tough call whether this should be #3 or #2. We went back and forth so many times, you can pretty much call it a tie. This album represents the beginning of Gorguts 2.0, with Lemay bringing a bunch of new musicians into the band…and man, he did not skimp on talent. NYC metal gurus Colin Marston and Kevin Hufnagel on bass and guitar? Perfect. There are some slightly uneven moments here, but the back half – actually, the final ¼ – absolutely slays. In fact, if we had to choose one side of one disc out of all of Gorguts’ records, we just might choose Side D of “Colored Sands.” It’s a tour de force; the other three sides are good, but not THIS good.
This album really hits the sweet spot. It’s ridiculously heavy, but the prog side of things is starting to come into play as well; there are some seriously complex and weird arrangements here. Total “Master of Puppets” energy. You can already hear the madness of “Obscura” taking shape, and music theory nerds can find plenty to dig into, but you can also put it on when you just wanna bang your head. The fact that Roadrunner dropped Gorguts from their roster AFTER they put out this absolute monster really makes you wonder about what was happening with music in ‘93.
Oh shit, you didn’t see this coming, did you? “But Hard Times,” you’re no doubt thinking, “isn’t that their straight-up death metal record? Why would you choose it over their more experimental stuff?” Well, while we acknowledge that “Erosion of Sanity” was a strong contender, the reason that “Considered Dead” gets the nod is simple: It’s a PERFECT straight-up death metal record. In fact, we’ll go you one better: It’s the best debut album of all the late ’80s/early-’90s death metal bands. We see you, “Altars of Madness” and “Scream Bloody Gore” and “Deicide” and “Eaten Back to Life” and “Slowly We Rot.” You’re all wonderful in your own way. But you’re all chasing silver. “Considered Dead” gets the gold. Congratulations, Gorguts. Now let us all rise for a rousing rendition of “Ô Canada.”
I mean look at these dang fluffballs! You’re trying to tell us these living breathing teddy bears pose a serious threat? Yes, they can be on the protective side, but who can blame someone for being protective of the person they love the most? Maybe I should have been a little more like a Chow Chow. Saw the signs coming. A Chow Chow probably would have noticed his best buddy Carl was acting weird. A Chow Chow might have raised an eyebrow when his wife started taking her phone with her to the bathroom every time. Whatever, this isn’t about me, Chow Chows are super adorbs is my point.
With a 600PSI bite and notorious proficiency as guard dogs, some people shy away from Dobermans. Well first off, we don’t train Dobermans to be guard dogs because they are inherently vicious, we train them because they are intelligent enough to be trained and perform a function. That intelligence can just as easily be used to form a wholesome, familial bond. Without attack training, they are total sweeties. Secondly, and I’m speaking from experience here, a 600 PSI bite is nothing compared to the pain of betrayal. That’s a pain only a human who is close to you can inflict. I took a vow on my wedding day, and to me that actually means something.
At first glance, Boxers look like big dopey goofballs, and that’s because they are big dopey goofballs! Yes, they are strong dogs with a lot of energy, but they also have a lot of love. You’ll want to properly train them from a young age if you want to add one to your family, but if you do, your family will have one of the sweetest, most loyal companions in the world. Loyalty. Man. That’s hard to come by these days, isn’t it? Like, you think you know a guy, you open up to him about your problems and what does he do? He weaponizes that information and stabs you in the back that’s what. Again, not trying to make this about me, I’m just saying when a boxer lets you vent to them at least they don’t have ulterior motives, unlike Carl.
Wow, racist much America? Labrador retrievers, who often happen to be black, are essentially the same breed as golden retrievers, but while the latter is widely regarded as a big dopey sweetheart, the former gives some people pause. I honestly feel sorry for those people sitting on their porch eyeing black labs with suspicion while meanwhile, behind their backs, their so-called best friend is opportunistically taking advantage of the fact that you and Beth have hit a rough patch just to bang in a Motel 6! Or, like, whatever, something more universal than that.
These are extremely misunderstood pups. Maybe it’s their wolf-like appearance that freaks people out, but you can’t judge a book by its cover. My parents adopted a Husky by the name of Snowpaw, and he’s just about the sweetest guy I’ve ever met. Every time I go over here I look into his pale blue eyes and I see a beautiful soul, totally incapable of betraying my trust and seducing the woman I love. Sure, they have strong survival instincts, but who can fault them for that? When the chips are down, when the love you’ve come to take such comfort and security in is suddenly swept out from under you like a tablecloth in a magic trick and you’re left with nothing but the shirt on your back, that’s all you can do—survive.
It’s ironic that we call certain breeds “bullies” when we’re the ones who bully them! Sure Bullmastiffs are big, intimidating, and could seriously hurt you if they wanted to, but they don’t want to! Usually, they just want you to throw a ball or give ’em belly rubs! Actual instances of bullmastiffs attacking humans are extremely low, and that’s something to celebrate in a world where even the person you love and trust the most can succumb to the advances of a snake in the grass pretending to be your friend. I mean that metaphorically, I’m not just talking about Carl. He is a snake though. You hear me, Carl? You’re a fucking snake!
Unlike their cousin, British bulldogs, these guys were bred for farm work and as a result, they are incredibly muscular. I’ll admit I was once almost knocked to the ground by an American bulldog, but only because he was excited to see me, and he caused me no further harm other than trying to lick my dang face off! I’ll tell you what a real knock to the ground is—having a guy you’ve considered a brother for over a decade, someone you planned to get a matching tattoo with at one point, “accidentally” send dick pics to your wife after you opened up to him about the romantic problems you two were having. Where’s Carl’s muzzle? If a condo association was all like “Yeah, you can have friends here, but not Carl, because of the risk involved,” that I would understand, but American bulldogs? Nah, leave ’em alone.
German Shepherds make up a large percentage of dog attacks, but that statistic is skewed by the fact that they are favored by the military and law enforcement. Again, the same intelligence that makes them highly trainable can make them sweet, loving additions to your family. They do tend to be territorial, but sometimes an animal is within its rights to be territorial. That was my wife you bastard.
My WIFE Carl! How the fuck could you do this to me? To us?! Does the sanctity of marriage mean nothing to you? What about the sanctity of friendship Carl?! You destroyed two relationships in one moment of passion, I hope it was worth it you piece of shit! What was I doing again? Oh yeah, rottweilers. They’re great.
Coming in number one, the most misunderstood and unfairly maligned breed on the list, the pit bull. Call them velvet hippos, call them land seals, but don’t call them dangerous! Remember, dog fighting is a human invention, and when they aren’t raised to be attack dogs a pitbull is one of the sweetest and most loving creatures on God’s green earth. I’m fostering a pity right now, and no matter how much I wave a picture of Carl’s dumb fucking face in front of him and say “Kill!” all this guy does is wag his tail and demand belly rubs. Maybe I would have better luck training an attack cat?
