My Best Friend's Birthday (1987)

Truly Dreadful Film

Simply A Masterpiece

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Today, Quentin Tarantino's first film "My Best Friend's Birthday" might be silly or very poor in quality to some, but to others it is a perfect example of seeing how a great director was born, with a limited budget trying to make a small film without taking film lessons in film schools elsewhere. For the fans, this is a great chance to see a few things that makes us love Quentin and his films and that is his early uses of film references; pop culture references; those long and interesting, clever and funny dialogs.In its half hour more or less, unfinished or with the ending lost somewhere, "My Best Friend's Birthday" delivers short situations with a bunch of characters talking randomly but very funny stuff or getting themselves involved in some hilarious situation. But all of these small sketches takes them to Mickey's birthday (played by Craig Hamann, one of the writers of the film), friend of Clarence (Tarantino, playing the role later given to Christian Slater in "True Romance"), a friendlier and funny DJ of a local station, who holds our attention with his movie references like "Jailhouse Rock", "The Countess of Hong Kong" and "Dressed to Kill", and his ideas on Elvis, music and other things. Right there, in 1987, and you already have the Tarantino as his usual routine as we all know: fast talker, the way he uses the references and the music in the background (classic rock), and all. It's more like a comedy and the only instance of violence comes with a hilarious moment of Mickey fighting kung fu with a pimp and that's it. The rest of it is dialog after dialog and brilliant ones (my favorite parts are the "garlick gum" that made a guy cursing all the time and Quentin having a cocaine bad trip).Even without the ending and with a terrible amateurish cinematography, this is a good example of how someone can start in the film business but with very few at hand. During interviews about the amazing "Inglorious Basterds" Quentin said this: "Some people will like "Inglorious Basterds". Some people won't. But it was made with all the passion I've made everything with - except maybe my first film, which was probably made with more passion than I'll ever have again." Even if now, he disowns this little gem, barely talks about it, this statement, made when he already had given us classics like "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction", is a proof that even this almost unseen short film has a special place in Quentin's heart, something he'll never forget. And it was his first real experience behind a camera dealing and learning with all the pros and cons about what making a film really is.I enjoyed it and recommend. It's hilarious, funny, entertaining, very simple and with incredible moments. We can only look back and see how Tarantino got better and better with the time. 10/10

Okay, so its Friday morning, in the wee hours of the day. About 1:00 AM I'd say, when my awesome friend Kylee and I are cruising about YouTube in hope of finding rare gems of times long past. So we search for "Quentin Tarantino" and what do we find??? Why, Its "My Best Friend's Birthday". At first we were like "no way Jose, this has to be a joke, that can't be him....and then we were all...Holy Shizzy! Its him!" So we watched it and just totally ate it up. Its so cult classic awesome! We watched it and were like "For a piece of crap, this is pretty great!" It was really a good film, in my opinion. Well sure I mean so the sound wasn't up to snuff and the acting could be a little bit on the cheesalicious side at time, but it was still entertaining and thoroughly enjoyable! if you are a true QT fan, you gotta see this. I wish it wouldn't have burned. Well, almost.

We will never see this movie in it's full glory. The final reel of this movie was destroyed in a lab fire that broke out during editing and the only surviving parts were edited together to make this 34 minutes short movie. Still you never get the feeling that you're ever really missing any sequences while watching this movie.This is a Tarantino movie alright. It has some absolutely amazing dialog. The story isn't really about much but the dialog makes sure that this movie is an interesting enough one to watch. The line 'Your ass is grass, and I'm the lawnmower.', right before two persons get into a fight, is an absolute classic in my book and now actually one of my favorite movie quotes. The movie is interestingly told and divided in several different parts, in the same style as "Pulp Function". This movie would latter also form the basis for Tarantino's script for "True Romance".Real problem with this movie is that it lacks style. It's a very amateur like looking movie and it uses standard camera-positions and weak editing. Because of this not everything in the movie works very well, such as most of the comical moments and the weird kung-fu fight toward the ending. Tarantino's vision was obviously already present but he didn't had the right tools and persons around him to make the right movie he had in mind with it. Oh well, he eventually ended up alright with that!Probably only truly recommendable to Tarantino fans though.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

SPOILERS AHEADTo those who wonder how I discovered My Best Friend's Birthday, I found this video on ebay, and it was definitely worth the money despite the deteriorated quality of the copy. This is filmmaker Quentin Tarantino's first independently funded film, and from what was assembled (the film wasn't completed and this can be seen since a couple of plot points are left un-answered at the end of 40 minutes) I can tell that it was one of those well-intentioned (if slight) signs-of-things-to-come. Clarence Pool (Tarantino, with a full-on "Elvis Man" look) is a disc jockey at K-BILLY Radio (Reservoir Dogs' music conductor in a sense), and is planning to give his friend Micky Burnett (co-writer Craig Hamann) a call-girl for his birthday party (a story later re-used for True Romance). This is used as more of a signpost for the film to follow as the characters, in particular Clarence, go off on riffs of Dialog - the "I'd f*** Elvis" speech is in its first revelation - and it's often very funny. Even a kung-fu fight between Mickey and the call girl's pimp (Al Harrell) is executed with the similar sense of dark hilarity that has made Tarantino the pro he is now. Truth be told, the film isn't without its shortcomings for a budget of so little, and a couple of the scenes really don't work at all. Yet for what it's worth it's a small ruby of underground cinema.