Don’t expect those who come looking for the thrills to remember the dialogue. They probably won’t have liked a Tarantino film if they like their special effects big and they like the stereotypes and clichés that come attached to a fair chunk of modern cinema. But you’ll always find someone (like me) who watches one of his films & thinks one of the best scenes was “that bit where the two guys are talking about a burger”.

Anyway, here are some of the greatest bits of dialogue from Tarantino’s feature films.

Pulp Fiction: Does Marsellus Wallace look like a bitch?

Now if you’ve seen the film, how can you not remember this? It’s an iconic moment that helped turn Samuel L Jackson from an actor into a “motha-fuckin’ actor”. Asking a terrified guy if Ving Rhames looks like a bitch and then putting a bullet in him for replying “what” is quite simply brilliant and all it needed was Samuel L Jackson and a gun.

Pulp Fiction: Royale with Cheese

Ah, the Royale with Cheese. I’m betting everyone including me outside of France had no idea what a Royale with Cheese was until John Travolta helped clear the confusion. It’s a great piece of dialogue because it’s simple and what’s more it’s true to life. It’s the kind of conversation you yourself could have actually had at some point in your life, where you discuss why a different country has a different name for something.

Pulp Fiction: Ezekiel 25:17

Pulp Fiction again and Samuel L Jackson again. He got probably one of the best scripts out of any film because whatever comes out of his mouth during Pulp Fiction is golden. This time it’s his most famous dialogue (perhaps more of a monologue, preaching to the choir maybe) in the film and it’s so good and so impactual he says it twice. It’s the only bit of the Bible I know.

Reservoir Dogs: Intro conversation at the diner

The opening scene in Reservoir Dogs, in terms of character building and script writing, is fantastic for two reasons: one, it’s like watching a bunch of guys in real life actually having a conversation and yet it’s incredibly engaging and riveting and two, because Tarantino describing the Madonna song Like A Virgin to a bunch of men in extraordinary detail is confusing but strangely compelling. The scene from start to finish is a great opener and when followed by the even more memorable opening title sequence? Beautiful.

Death Proof: Kurt Russell talking to Rose McGowan in the car

I just chuckled to myself when I recalled the first time I saw this scene – purely because of my sister’s reaction when she saw it sitting next to me. It has a brutal ending but the chill factor that eminates from Kurt Russell’s voice while he’s speaking: that’s why it’s in this piece. It’s glorious but it’s gruesome.

Inglourious Basterds: Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) talking to his soldiers.

A film less glorious and a scene less gruesome, but a great piece of dialogue nonetheless. It centralised the trailers, it kickstarts the Jewish-American crusade and it introduces you to the squadron of merciless soldiers led by a rather excellent Brad Pitt who delivers his rallying speech with great conviction.

Inglourious Basterds: Hans Landa’s rat problem

The opening scene of Inglourious Basterds is fairly long and dialogue-driven, but if you get one reward from the scene it’s the introduction of the best character of the film speaking probably his most compelling piece of dialogue in the film. Hans Landa (Christopher Waltz) knows there are Jews under the floorboards, but since he’s not your average Nazi he cleverly strikes a deal with the man hiding them. The raw power of Hans Landa’s words and the way he dominates the opening scene with his little bits of dialogue is fascinating.

Kill Bill Vol 1: The scene where the stage is being set for the big fight and the camera pans and twists around the set to take in all the characters and their movements to the sound of Woo Hoo by the 5,6,7,8s, directly before The Bride sees Sophie Fatale in the bathroom. It’s a great little introduction to what becomes the most memorable part of both volumes.

Unfortunately the sound has been disabled but you get the picture. Watch the camerawork here: it’s enviable.

Inglourious Basterds: When Emmannuelle/Shoshanna walks out of her room and stands on the balcony studying the Germans below.It’s cleverly used because it sets the scene really well but it also invidivualises the key players in the rest of the film.

Death Proof: When Stuntman Mike drives his car into the girls’ car and Tarantino takes you through the crash from each of the four girls’ perspectives. The crash itself was an impressive stunt but when showing you what happened from each of the four girls’ perspectives: that was a touch of cinematic class from Tarantino, at the cost of shocking the audience when you see a leg fly across the camera. With the addition of one of the best songs on the soundtrack to build the scene up: this is one of my favourite pieces of camerawork from any film, never mind just Tarantino films.

Pulp Fiction/Reservoir Dogs/Death Proof/Kill Bill Vol 1 & 2/Inglourious Basterds/True Romance/Jackie Brown/Sin City: Something Quentin is known for is the use of cameras in cars. Death Proof in particular revolves around cars so it makes logical sense but if you watch his films you’ll notice that several pivotal points in his films take place behind the wheel and you’re always there to witness it, whether it’s Vincent Vega’s trip to Amsterdam, Mr Orange bleeding in the back of Mr White’s car, Stuntman Mike scaring Pam & the girls at the beginning talking about Jungle Julia’s radio show or The Bride regained the use of her toe in the back of the Pussy Wagon.

Every time, the camera’s always positioned so you get the full feel of what’s going on. Racking my brain there are so many times a camera is used in a car – Butch driving his car into Marsellus in Pulp Fiction, the dialogue between Mr White telling Mr Orange how to rob a diamond store, Oren Ishii assassinating a guy in his car in anime style via sniper on a rooftop in Kill Bill Vol 1: you always get great pieces of dialogue or you see what happens in vividly glorious detail. Even Tarantino’s guest directed scene in Sin City is in a car – you know, the one with Clive Owen and a ‘dead’ Benicio Del Toro.

Non-diagetic sound is an important part of any film, whether it’s used or not. Sometimes it’s not given enough consideration. When it is though it’s sweet music to your ears. Quite literally.

Directors such as Haneke and Kubrick implement the sound of silence into their films because the effect of the film is greater without music, but others use music deliberately to full effect. It varies from director to director over what plays in the background but it would be hard to disagree that sound plays a vital part in cinematography.

Out of all the directors around I’d say Quentin Tarantino uses sound in his films the best and I’ve lined up a few of the best soundtracks of his films that show this. Yes, he never uses original scores but the way he uses the music he chooses justifies this.

Pulp Fiction:

Pulp Fiction deserves to be in every film collection but the soundtrack deserves to be in every music collection too. Mixing some of the best quotes in the film with some absolutely incredible songs hand-picked by Tarantino himself, the Pulp Fiction soundtrack is just brilliant.

Highlights include one of the most famous songs no-one knows the name of, Misirlou, Samuel L Jackson’s infamous Ezekiel 25:17 speech and Chuck Berry’s You Can Never Tell which is the song used for Travolta and Thurman’s iconic dance.

There’s a collector’s edition version of the soundtrack that features a 16 minute interview with Mr Tarantino himself as well as a few other tracks that didn’t make it onto the original soundtrack.

This soundtrack has to be in your music library. I think you should have it so much I’m linking you with the best price available. Can you really complain with £5 for the Collector’s Edition? I’m tempted just to buy it now so I can have the extra tracks.

Reservoir Dogs:

Tarantino’s first feature film brought with it possibly my favourite sountrack. While the film itself is a mini-masterpiece its accompanying music is a mix of some eclectic rhythm as well as a few more abstract choices to mix up the album.

Highlights include the likes of The George Baker Selection, Harry Nilsson, Joe Tex, Bedlam, Blue Swede and a marvelous track by Stealers Wheels. The compilation also features snippets of dialogue as well as bits of the radio presenter from KBILLY Super Sounds of the 70s, the radio station that plays in the background of the film at random points.

It’s a more niche soundtrack which favors unknown song choices but it’s a brilliant soundtrack nonetheless.

Kill Bill Vol. 1:

The film itself is the better of the two volumes and the soundtrack follows suit throwing at you some absolutely fantastic music in a bumper 19-track album with 3 different sound effects thrown in for good measure. 11 years on from Reservoir Dogs and Tarantino still couldn’t break his stride, bringing an absolutely fantastic film with one of my personal favorite scenes in any film, The Bride’s fight with the Crazy 88.

Featuring songs like Bang Bang by Nancy Sinatra, Run Fay Run by Isaac Hayes, Green Hornet by Al Hirt and Battle Without Honor or Humanity by Tomoyasu Hotei, Tarantino delivers yet another exceptional soundtrack.

My personal highlight is the 10 and a 1/2 minute extended version of Santa Esmeralda’s Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood which features midway through. It’s a rousing song with an instrumental section that is second to none and it typifies the album’s excellence. It’s a must-buy.

Death Proof:

While the film itself isn’t the biggest around and isn’t Tarantino’s best (here’s a review of it) the soundtrack is awesome, showing off Tarantino’s music knowledge in fine form.

A very memorable scene in the film features one of the women and an absolutely brilliant song by The Coasters called Down In Mexico. It’s so good, Paolo Nutini sings a version of it at some of his gigs.

Other excellent tracks such as Baby It’s You, Jeepster, Staggolee, Hold Tight, Riot In Thunder Alley and an annoying infectious song by April March called Chick Habit feature throughout the 16-track strong soundtrack and mixing the songs with a few quotes from the film makes up yet another astounding Tarantino soundtrack.

If you don’t like the film you may still like the soundtrack and that applies to all of the soundtracks.

Here they are:

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

This game was the reason I purchased the original XBOX. I was originally a major Sony fan playing the Playstation and the Playstation 2’s great selections and I refused to believe that Microsoft could produce a competitive console. This was true until one evening at my uncle’s house when I first played Morrowind. Instant conversion! I don’t think I touched another Sony title until my very recent purchase of a PS3.

The first attraction to this game was the water. The ripples, the raindrops, the realistic mirror like beauty. I could not believe the realism of the graphics. Following the revolutionary water was the open ended freedom the game offered. Like no other game I ever played this one let me play as I wanted to. The first person perspective created an immersion that captured me. I was never bored because I could just wander through the vast landscape and stumble onto something fun to do.

Though it had some glitches, they were quirks I came to love (and exploit – like a little byway I discovered at the very beginning of the game. When you first start and you just get off the boat, instead of going through the office to talk to the bald guy go toward the tree at the left corner of the office and jump through where the wall touches the building. For some reason the game does not connect and you can leap right through to run free in the world without documents or anything! If you are caught stealing or murdering anyone they won’t fine or arrest you because technically you haven’t been released yet. This exploitation is only useful to collect and gather everything in Seyda Neen before you are released from the Census and Excise Office. Make sure you do not keep the goods you gather on your person before you speak with Socucius because it will disappear. It is a safe bet to stash the goods somewhere so when you do leave the office you can grab it all again).

Morrowind’s incredible depth has become the standard I judge all games by. To me, games are only worth their value in cash if they can match or top Morrowind.

Needless to say I played this game for years. I played several different characters and beat every quest offered. I collected almost every piece of treasure and overmaxed my stats to create an invincible avatar. Those were the days. I haven’t found a game that has topped my love for Morrowind yet. Oblivion came close, but a comparison between these two is an article all its own, a “Battle of the Elder Scrolls,” if one will. Maybe another time.

For now, if I was ever marooned on a desert island I would definitely want to play Morrowind.

Civilization IV + all Expansion Packs

Another defining title in my career as a gamer is the Civilization series. I first entered Sid Meier’s world through CIV III, one of the best computer games I own. Its successor, with all of its expansion packs, is one of the most complete games ever made. There are so many different outcomes to every sitting and so many different options for victory.

Civilization IV entered a whole new level with its fantastic game play. The conquest, conversion, diplomacy and culture of CIV III was expanded and improved in CIV IV. The last expansion, Beyond the Sword, added the corporations feature which prolonged the games life in a major way. Originally, once you reached a certain age and a certain tech level your civilization pretty much reached its zenith and you had to ride out the rest of the turns unless you won a victory condition. The corporations added a new arena in the latter stages of the game. Fans of the series will understand what I am talking about.

CIV IV is another sandbox styled game that never gets boring. Its replay ability and freedom make it one of my favourite games. Easily, CIV IV’s “one more turn” appeal would help me escape my doom on the island.

These are my favourite two games ever. I’ll always remember the time I put into playing each of them and they will always be the grade to which other games are compared to. If I was stuck on a desert island, I would want to be playing Morrowind and CIV IV.