Quentin Tarantino, aglow with the buzz-borne light from the soon-to-be-released "Pulp Fiction," was sitting in a darkened theater with his producer/pal Lawrence Bender, enjoying a short-film festival. The short being screened was called "Curdled," and it was about a Latin woman working for a housekeeping service that specialized in cleaning up crime scenes for murderers and killers. I picture our hydro-cephalic hero QT laughing so loud he annoyed everyone in the theater, including the film's writer/director Reb Braddock.
But Braddock needn't have worried. Our fat-headed pop-culture savant got up from his seat when the short was over, sought out Reb and declared, full of his own ego and I can only guess Goobers, "Listen to me, Mr. Braddock, alriiiiiiiight? We're gonna take your short film and make it into a feature, okaaaaaaaaay? You'll write/direct and I'll produce, alriiiiiiiiiiight?"
And so the feature-length version of "Curdled" was born. I'm scarcely exaggerating this story because it is the version told by Quentin himself in the film's bonus material. Could any aspiring director refuse the offer of a then white-hot Tarantino? Could you? Unfortunately for us the feature is nothing more than the 10 min. short stretched out over an hour and a half. Which strangely feels like three hours.
Thrill as Nothing happens in slow motion. Watch the immediately-attractive Angela Jones (Butch's cabbie in Pulp Fiction) become less and less adorable as sheer boredom numbs your senses. Laugh at a one-joke black comedy that manages to kill the joke after twenty minutes. Rock to a movie so bad its writer/director Reb Braddock never wrote/directed anything ever again. At all.
What did we learn today? We learned that short films don't necessarily translate into feature-length. We learned that even Latin women need good story lines to hold onto our attention. And most importantly: If Quentin Tarantino ever approaches you in a theater with greazy fingers and a shlt-eating grin you need to evacuate the premises as soon as possible.
That's what Fire Exits are for.
GRADE: D-
But Braddock needn't have worried. Our fat-headed pop-culture savant got up from his seat when the short was over, sought out Reb and declared, full of his own ego and I can only guess Goobers, "Listen to me, Mr. Braddock, alriiiiiiiight? We're gonna take your short film and make it into a feature, okaaaaaaaaay? You'll write/direct and I'll produce, alriiiiiiiiiiight?"
And so the feature-length version of "Curdled" was born. I'm scarcely exaggerating this story because it is the version told by Quentin himself in the film's bonus material. Could any aspiring director refuse the offer of a then white-hot Tarantino? Could you? Unfortunately for us the feature is nothing more than the 10 min. short stretched out over an hour and a half. Which strangely feels like three hours.
Thrill as Nothing happens in slow motion. Watch the immediately-attractive Angela Jones (Butch's cabbie in Pulp Fiction) become less and less adorable as sheer boredom numbs your senses. Laugh at a one-joke black comedy that manages to kill the joke after twenty minutes. Rock to a movie so bad its writer/director Reb Braddock never wrote/directed anything ever again. At all.
What did we learn today? We learned that short films don't necessarily translate into feature-length. We learned that even Latin women need good story lines to hold onto our attention. And most importantly: If Quentin Tarantino ever approaches you in a theater with greazy fingers and a shlt-eating grin you need to evacuate the premises as soon as possible.
That's what Fire Exits are for.
GRADE: D-