#2 - QUENTIN TARANTINO

Director/screenwriter/actor/producer Quentin Tarantino was perhaps the most distinctive and volatile talent to emerge in American film in the early '90s. Unlike the previous generation of American filmmakers, Tarantino learned his craft from his days as a video clerk, rather than as a film school student. Consequently, he developed an audacious fusion of pop culture and independent art house cinema; his films were thrillers that were distinguished as much by their clever, twisting dialogue as their outbursts of extreme violence.

In 1994, Tarantino's status was elevated to major film icon. Pulp Fiction won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival that May, beginning the flood of good reviews for the picture. Before Pulp Fiction was released in October, Oliver Stone's bombastic version of Natural Born Killers hit the theaters in August; Tarantino, who wrote the screenplay for that film, distanced himself from it and was only credited for writing the basic story. Pulp Fiction soon eclipsed Natural Born Killers in both acclaim and popularity. The film expertly captured the skill, wit, and violent temperament that is now associated with all Tarantino movies. Made for eight million dollars, the film eventually grossed over 100 million dollars and topped many critics' top ten lists. Pulp Fiction earned seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay (Tarantino and Avary), Best Actor (John Travolta), Best Supporting Actor (Samuel L. Jackson), and Best Supporting Actress (Uma Thurman).

In late 2002/early 2003, hype soon started to build around his fourth feature, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003). A kinetic homage to revenge movies of the 1970s, Kill Bill featured Uma Thurman as a former assassin known as "The Bride." Waking from a five-year coma after her former comrades turned her wedding day into a frenzied bloodbath, The Bride vowed vengeance on both the assassins and her former boss, Bill (David Carradine). Easily one of the best films of 2003, Vol. 1 epitomized Tarantino's fascination with violence. However, instead of presenting a kind of violence that should strike fear into our hearts, Tarantino managed the trasnformative feat of presenting violence as an artform. Riveting visuals in an ultraviolent landscape gracefully recalled the kung-fu genre, and even drew parallels with the great director Stanley Kubrick.

What's next for Tarantino? Watch out for Inglorious Bastards, scheduled to be released in 2006, about a group of American soliders during WWII who manage to escape a Nazi execution squad.