I am not going to apologize for looking out for myself, I am all I’ve got. Ain’t nobody praying for me, ain’t nobody got my best interests at heart. If you strike, I strike, an eye for an eye, that’s the way of the warrior, ain’t nobody gonna do me dirty. If you ganging up make sure it sticks, a coma will only give me time to recover. Pull the plug on the machines. Atrophied muscles will get some activity and come back to life, then it’s death list five time, I am coming for your life. Don’t start wars you can’t finish, cyanide won’t save you from my wrath, I will leave no stone unturned, I will scour the earth for you and I will get my satisfaction. Death list five, if you are on the offense, make sure you get the job done if not I return with a counterattacking maneuver that will take you out, no apologies, no second chances, you’re dead. Coming for everything you love and value too, wipe off your wife and your kids too. Death list five, you’re fucking with the wrong guy, I can be psychopathic too. Revenge flows through my veins. I am petty, spiteful, I hold grudges, I never forgive nor forget and I am coming for your soul. Cause why care for somebody who won’t give you a second look. Why spare somebody who won’t get you off the hook? Why help somebody whose ambition is to get you shook? Death list five, I am death in the flesh, will break your spirit in dash, get you fired and leave you with no cash. Death list five, leave me alone, you don’t want to cross this line, it will get you crucified. I am a cannibal like the King Cobra, I eat my own kind. I will end you. I am not going to apologize for looking out for myself, I am all I’ve got, I will strike. Death list five, I choose violence, let’s beef, let’s fight.
I have loved movies my whole life. I remember when I was a kid aged about 8, I used to go to Kings Cinema located on 2nd Avenue, in Alexandra Township every week! Kings was the greatest place in the world and I am not even exaggerating, it was better than heaven, it was bliss! I don’t think I’d like heaven all that much, the thought of church all day, singing and worshipping for all eternity doesn’t appeal to me. Look thank you for saving me God, I appreciate it but could I checkout the service once in a while? I mean it’s heaven, give me a break. While heaven doesn’t appeal to me all that much, I wouldn’t mind being locked in King’s Cinema for all eternity! They played great stuff! For just R5 for kids and R7, later R10 for adults you got to watch TWO movies! One Kung Fu and the other one a Hollywood movie. The Kung Fu movies were the best! We were always so entertained, the crowd loved them! I am talking about Jet Li, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and all those other Chinese guys who kicked ass. It was always an experience, the movies were funny, they were always about revenge and honor, that’s when I fell in love with Cinema, I credit Kung Fu movies. I think that’s why I loved Kill Bill so much, it felt familiar like nostalgia, I even dreamed about it, I could not get the bride out of my psyche and she stayed with me until my late teenage years. I still can’t get over Kill Bill, it’s a masterpiece. I remember watching Shaolin Soccer and cracking up real good, the audience loved it. Shaolin Soccer was a King’s special, the posters inside the cinema were never removed, I remember it had a frame. All the other posters were changed and removed every week to advertise what was showing next week or in the foreseeable future except the Shaolin Soccer poster. It had that aesthetic, that feel, it described what King’s Cinema was all about. There was a program and when you purchased your ticket you basically agreed to spend your whole day at the Cinema. The box office opened at 12:30 pm and would sell tickets until 13:00 – 13:30 pm. After 13:30, the gates are closed and no one comes in the theatre. Once seated the first movie comes on, usually a Kung Fu movie that plays for 2 hours or so and then there is a recess, a little intermission so you can buy your Popcorn and snacks for the second movie – the main movie, what you came to the cinema to see, the big box office movies like Mission Impossible, Spiderman and Rambo. Hardly no one bought popcorn and snacks for the first movie but the stand was still open nonetheless. The Kung Fu movies were like preparation for the second movie but we loved them anyways, to tell you the truth, sometimes they were better than the big Hollywood movies. The second movie would play until like 17:30 to 18:00. So you would be in the cinema from 13:00 to 18:00 but it didn’t feel that way because time flew!
I loved how economic King’s was. For the day I needed just R12. That would be enough for the entrance, popcorn, juice and sweets (smarties). I would go there Saturday and Sunday and R24 would suffice, sometimes R20 for two days would do. But when I went with a grown-up I would get everything! I’d get Popcorn, Coca-Cola not Juice, a hot pie and sweets! Every time I had a hot pie and Coke was a great day! I remember the days like it was yesterday, the first time I went with my cousin and we watched Spiderman. The next time was with my mother and we watched X-men 2. Pie was expensive, it cost R7 and Coke was R5! My mother would give me the R12 to get me off her hair, she never complained. I loved the cinema, I’d go with my friends most Saturday’s, and on Sunday when they went to church, I’d go again on my own. I remember watching “Gladiator”, oh my lord, it was so epic! Like “Are you not entertained? Isn’t this what you came for? Spaniard! Spaniard! Spaniard!”. The audience in the cinema went crazy! Spaniard was our hero, when he died at the end, we felt an injustice like something was amiss, we hated the fact that Spaniard died but we understood, everything was stacked up against him and at least he killed the villian and restored order in the kingdom, it was a bittersweet ending. We loved movies with action, fighting and violence! The whistles would reverberate in the theatre and we actively cheered for the hero! Love scenes in the cinema were also cool but sometimes awkward and uncomfortable, most of the time you’d hear wooing. When the hero kissed the girl there was always an applause and whistles, we loved it! I also remember watching Troy, ah! It was such an awesome movie and the audience loved it. To tell you the truth, I’ve only watched the movie once, I forgot the plot but I remember the name of the movie and Brad Pitt was awesome! I watched a couple of Harry Potter movies at Kings but not “The Goblet of fire”, that installment I watched in the cinema at Sandton. When we watched “Passion of the Christ” everybody was emotional, the mood was tense and serious. You could hear sobs everywhere in the cinema. Even my friends didn’t talk to me, their gaze was fixed on the screen and they totally ignored my attempts to disturb them. It was strange and uncomfortable, even my friends cried for Jesus. I didn’t like “Passion of the Christ”, it had a lot of subtitles and I got bored following through the story, I didn’t understand what it was about. Still I remember that day vividly because everyone in the cinema was crying for Jesus and I felt guilty because I didn’t cry. I finished the day thinking I was going to hell, thank you for the feelings of guilt and shame Mel Gibson, fucken asshole. Mission Impossible 3 was awesome, that’s your definitive King’s movie in terms of engagement with the crowd, it had the audience going crazy in a lot of scenes! Tom Cruise didn’t disappoint, he did the impossible. I have two movies that could rival Mission Impossible 3, that’s “Cradle to the grave” and “Romeo Must Die”, reason being Jet Li, the hood loved Jet Li! His movies always filled up the cinema, Friday, Saturday and Sunday! Jet Li was the ultimate hero and he would beat the bad guys clean, everyone in the cinema cheered and whistled him on. He had a strong crowd. Kings was an experience, for me it was a place where I went to be myself. I relaxed, I laughed, I cheered, I rested my feet on seats, I interacted with the stories, I fell in love with cinema, it is my whole childhood. I spent a lot of my life in that cinema and I watched a lot of movies. Thank you King’s for everything!
I have been a Quentin Tarantino fan all my life. From “Reservoir Dogs” all the way to “Once upon a time in Hollywood”. Admittedly, my first Quentin Tarantino film was “Kill Bill” in 2005. I remember the day like it were yesterday. It was on a Friday and it was playing on M-Net. The next Friday, M-Net would play “Kill Bill: Volume 2”. I watched both of them and my life was changed forever. It was film-making I had not seen before. The visuals blew me away, they were exceptionally great. They had a tendency to linger in your mind long after you had watched the movie. So clearly, I always remembered the “Pussy Wagon” and that epic yellow Bruce Lee jumpsuit that the bride was fighting in. That yellow jumpsuit is so iconic, it is memorable, it is imprinted and permanently engraved in the fabric of film – it is amazing creativity and vision from Quentin Tarantino. The fight on the snow between “Cotton-mouth” and “The Bride”; the atmosphere was so smooth and quiet – it was full of serenity and “Cotton-mouth” was in all-white complimenting the snow. The contrast in that fighting scene is amazing because it ends in blood and death. The anime scene on is something that hasn’t been done in film before. It is so epic! He incorporated Japanese taste and culture into the film. The film is surreal. It is a blend of different traditions and cultures infused into this one craft about revenge. The music, the Samari sword fights, the characters, the gore violence, the awesome dialogues, the authentic creativity and the underlying chaos that manifests itself when you least expect it – Quentin Tarantino knocked “Kill Bill” out the park. “Kill Bill” is cinematic excellence. It is an experience you will never forget. It is supremely entertaining!
What I love most about Quentin Tarantino movies is the professionalism. The characters are usually professionals that need to do a job and as such “morality” is exempted in the equation. Every action is justified. Quentin Tarantino doesn’t want you to morally judge his characters. There is no hero in a Quentin Tarantino movie instead he shows you different perspectives of different characters. To communicate this he uses nonlinear storylines and gives the characters in his movies more or less the same screen time. In this way there is neutrality for the professionals who serve as characters in his films. The story on “Reservoir Dogs” follows professional criminals who plan a heist, among them is a police officer who is undercover. The duality of the character of the professional criminal/police officer is the underlying chaos that gives the story its texture and the unpredictability and uncertainty of the plot – it is a texture that gives the story a feeling of “anything can happen”. We also see this type of double-agent play on “Jackie Brown” when a middle-aged flight attendant woman serves as a mole for his criminal boss and also as an informant for the police so that they can apprehend this criminal boss. Jackie Brown strategically plays both parties and in the end, walks away with a lot of money. The duality in the characters of Quentin Tarantino is a common feature in all his films. Again, we see Butch, a promising boxer on the highly acclaimed sophomore movie “Pulp Fiction” win a boxing match despite the fact that he was paid big money to lose. The match was rigged and Butch makes more money from bets. Something that makes his boss big Marcellus Wallace go on a manhunt to catch Butch and kill him. We also see this duality on “Inglorious Basterds”, Django Unchained” and “The Hateful Eight”. These characters are not what they say they are.
Further what makes a Quentin Tarantino movie unpredictable is it’s historical inaccuracies. Quentin Tarantino has a knack for changing historical events and telling his side instead. On “Inglorious Basterds”, the basterds kill Adolf Hitler in the premier of “Nation’s Pride” to end WWII. He over-stimulates the plot and adds his homemade spices. This he does for the sake of the viewer, to entertain and create an experience. He doesn’t mind letting the viewer know that we are watching a movie with characters in it. He is over the top and believes violence creates a better cinematic experience. So, in his movies more often you will see violence just for the sake of violence. Violence with no relevance or use to the plot of the story. A perfect example of this mindless yet entertaining violence can be seen on “Kill Bill” and “Django Unchained”. However, the thing that makes a Quentin Tarantino movie is the dialogue. The dialogues of his characters are unconventional in the sphere of film-making. They are often long, free-flowing and have nothing to do with the plot of the movie. They are entertaining, funny and reference a lot of popular culture as seen on “Pulp Fiction” when we are introduced to Jules and Vincent for the first time in that iconic “Royale with Cheese” dialogue. The opening scene of “Reservoir Dogs” when the professional criminals talk about “Like a virgin” and “Tipping” is the best thing you will ever experience on a movie. In his dialogues, Quentin Tarantino explores social conventions and ideologies – he is provocative, philosophical, engaging, thought-provoking and humorous. At heart, Quentin Tarantino is really a fan of films and movies. He approaches a film with the intent to dazzle and blow you away. He is a genius who can spin anything. This is seen on “Django Unchained” when the slave, flips the script around and becomes the hero who kills evil white men for money. Django also rescues his enslaved wife and literally blows-up the plantation. “Django Unchained” is a perspective we hadn’t seen when it comes to the subject of slavery. It was fresh, daring and exquisite. It was a different narrative, a perspective that was out of the box – it was a typical Quentin Tarantino movie. The characters were all professionals of their trades; a bounty hunter, a seasoned slaver and the house nigga. “Django Unchained” was grand and bold. It incorporated everything Tarantino, it had a Western theme, professionals, double agents, unpredictable and underlying chaos, gore violence, great dialogues and awesome soundtracks.
Quentin Tarantino draws his inspiration from other movies. He states that he copy’s from other movies. From camera angles and techniques to Western stand-offs. To movie sets in other movies to the costumes. His genius comes from the fact that he is obsessed with movies and the subject of film-making. Being obsessed, he incorporates what he loves from other movies to his to elevate them to greatness. All his films generate a cult-like following because of the fresh air they bring to the world. He always seems to resuscitate the film world with every release. The release of “Once upon a time in Hollywood” makes me sad because it’s almost time for him to close the curtains. His next movie will be his last. It’s hard saying goodbye to a legend, to a genius. The world is not ready, I am not ready. I wish we had more time. But it’s fine, at least I have all your movies. They have brought me so much happiness in the past and because they are classics, I have no doubt that they will carry on doing the same in the future. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything Quentin. Thank you for sharing yourself and your genius with the world. Thank you for giving us classics. Thank you for making me love movies. You started everything for me. I know creativity because I saw a Quentin Tarantino movie when I was 9.
antakalipa 