Quentin Tarantino Begins His March Madness at New Beverly Cinema

With his birthday falling on March 27^th, actor/writer/director Quentin Tarantino plans to celebrate the month of his birth at New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. This is the same theater he saved from becoming another Supercuts. The theater just released its calendar for March, and it includes a number of exploitation classics, some animated movies that Walt Disney would never have made, and several other films that are not currently available on DVD. Many of these are very rare, and it is highly unlikely you will see them anywhere else.

Quentin ended up making a surprise appearance at the New Beverly on March 1^st to introduce the first double feature of his month of programming: "Crack House" and "Redneck Miller." Now "Crack House" was one of the myriad releases from Cannon Films during the 1980's, and it follows young lovers Rick and Melissa whose relationship gets torn apart when Rick's brother gets shot to death by a rival gang, and he quickly rejoins the gang he left for a better life to avenge his senseless murder. Of course, that all goes awry and Rick gets sent to prison while Melissa falls in with a drug dealer and gets hooked on crack cocaine.

Quentin described "Crack House" as being very, very special to him as it came out in 1989, the last year exploitation movies played in movie houses. From when he was young, he talked about making a list each year of the ten best exploitation movies that came out. Among the number ones he awarded throughout time included George A. Romero's "Day Of The Dead." "Crack House" got the very last exploitation movie of the year award from Quentin before these lists became obsolete for him.

With exploitation movies, Quentin said we were all attracted to them through their "50-ness of juvenile delinquentness." Basically, these films were the bad boys of cinema, the ones that didn't follow the rules nor did they ever apologize for being trashy entertainment. From the 50's onward, exploitation cinema succeeded in reflecting the juvenile delinquents of each passing decade. But when it came to the 80's, these same movies suddenly became unwatchable because, as Quentin correctly pointed out:

"The 80's were one fucked up decade!"

But "Crack House" is one of those rare 80's exploitation flicks that gets better as it goes along. Even Quentin admitted how shocked he was to find that he "gave a fuck" about these characters that might seem like stereotypical bad boys to everyone else. The "Pulp Fiction" director also acknowledged the terrific "guest star" cast which includes Richard Roundtree (the original Shaft) as a no-nonsense cop, and all time football great Jim Brown as a vicious drug kingpin.

Tarantino's brand of March Madness at the New Beverly will culminate in a week long showing of "Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair." This is the combined version of both films into one single movie that screened at the Cannes Film Festival, and which has never been seen before in the United States. At four hours long, there was no way New Beverly was just going to show it two nights of the week! However, as I write this, all advance tickets for each night are now sold out (NOOOOO!!!). You're best bet is to get to the theater really early in the hopes that you can get in through the standby line.

In any event, here's to a month of great, unabashed entertainment at the New Beverly Cinema!