Quentin Tarantino is the most influential American filmmaker of the past quarter century. A passionate lover of so many classic genres, Tarantino has spent 30 years re-inventing and combining those genres into modern films for modern audiences all while infusing a dialogue style never heard before and oft-imitated since. His movies are violent, loud, feature colorful language, and above all else, they’re just plain cool. Technically, his directorial debut was My Best Friend’s Birthday from 1987, but only 36 minutes of that project exists. His first official film was 1992’s Reservoir Dogs, and he wrote gangster True Romance and a draft of Natural Born Killers before hitting the stratosphere with Pulp Fiction in 1994.

With the recent release of Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Tarantino officially has 9 feature films he’s both written and directed on his resume (when we count Kill Bill as one movie, which they do on the poster for the Once). And since rankings and lists are always fun, I’m going to countdown Tarantino’s filmography in order from worst to best, along with a mention of each entry’s Best Moment.

Jackie Brown
Netflix | Amazon | Hulu | iTunes | Vudu | Xbox | YouTube
DVD | Blu-ray
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Starring Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton, Robert De Niro
Miramax Films
Originally Released: December 25, 1997

It was with great sadness to learn that Elmore Leonard died this week. The great American novelist contributed some thorough and comprehensive work that was both engrossing and entertaining. From 3:10 to Yuma to Get Shorty to Out Of Sight, many of the author’s publications got the movie treatment, some with mixed results.

In tribute to the writer, I decided this week to look at Quentin Tarantino‘s adaptation of the phenomenal book Rum Punch, retitled after the primary central character Jackie Brown.

Before jumping into the review, the first thing that I want to point out concerning Jackie Brown is the amazing soundtrack Tarantino uses for the movie. While the director has a reputation for outstanding music selection in his films, for me, Jackie Brown always stood out in many ways.

Not only does the music reflect the plot, the characters, and the setting magnificently – the movie also introduced me to some of the finest soul, funk, and R&B I’ve ever come across; and being a music addict, I have a somewhat sentimental attachment to Jackie Brown. For me, the soundtrack is so meticulously focused; it is reason enough for viewing the movie alone.

But Jackie Brown has so much more to offer than just the tunes.

I was about to start out this gift guide by writing some pretentious crap about the unifying power of cinema and television and how the greatest art form of the past century would make the perfect Christmas gift for that demanding loved one of yours, but then I put down the cough syrup and slapped some sense into myself.

But it is true that when you’re not sure what to buy someone as a present you can always surprise them with a fine movie or a boxed set of their favorite television series. Then as you sit back and watch their face light up with the joy of angels singing harmoniously in Heaven when they open the gift you can take a sip of spiked egg nog and let out a hearty Errol Flynn laugh because you are victorious and you didn’t even try.

That’s why we here at Geeks of Doom want to aid you in your soul-destroying quest to find that ideal DVD or Blu-ray if you’ve got the extra dough (and you drink silver chalices full of orphan tears), for that special someone in your life.