I hope you’ll forgive me writing to you like this, but I think someone needs to give you a smack, and I don’t see anyone else stepping up to the plate.

I saw “Death Proof” last night…your half of the “Grindhouse” project. And I will admit that it had its moments. Your goal was to recreate the kind of trashy exploitation film from the fifties and sixties you remember so fondly from your days as a video store clerk. And you certainly did. The cliché plot, the jump cuts, the splices, the scratched film print, the lurid film stock and cheap, porno film lighting…yup, you confirmed for all time that you can successfully take a huge budget and recreate the look of a movie that Roger Corman would have done at 1% the cost.

Yes, you did load it up with all your favourite little inside jokes, enabling all of us film show-offs out here to nudge each other and smirk knowingly - the Big Kahuna burger, the Red Apple cigarettes, the feet, music and a bright yellow jumpsuit cribbed from Kill Bill, the 360-degree circling shot cribbed from Reservoir Dogs, the “people in a genre film talking about classics of the genre” conversation…as a matter of fact, pretty much everything in the film that wasn’t a parody of sixties exploitation movies was a parody of Quentin Tarantino movies.

But Quentin, I have to ask you: why on earth would I want to see an artful, clever recreation of a really crappy movie I would never see in the first place?

If you don’t mind a friendly suggestion - take a break from making movies about movies. Do another Jackie Brown. Invent some new clichés of your own. You’ve already confirmed that your a clever guy and a great stylist. But you can do better than churning out smug pastiches of mediocre film. A superior smirk has its limits as an artistic stance.

Love to Uma. Still on for drinks Friday?

Yours,

Balb.