Quentin Tarantino is the latest guest on “The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast,” where he started unveiling his list of the 20 greatest movies of the 21st century so far. The Oscar winner revealed his No. 20-11 picks: Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” (#20), Eli Roth’s “Cabin Fever” (#19), Bennett Miller’s “Moneyball” (#18), Prachya Pinkaew’s “Chocolate” (#17), Rob Zombie’s “The Devil’s Rejects” (#16), Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” (#15), Richard Linklater’s “School of Rock” (#14), Jeff Tremaine’s “Jackass: The Movie” (#13), Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado’s “Big Bad Wolves” (#12) and Kinji Fukasaku’s “Battle Royale” (#11).
The latter pick should come as no surprise to Tarantino fans, as the director has regularly included Fukasaku’s 2000 dystopian action movie on lists of his favorite movies over the years. The film, based on Koushun Takami’s novel of the same name, centers on a group of student in junior high school as they are forced to fight to the death by Japan’s totalitarian government.
Tarantino noted the similarities between “Battle Royale” and “The Hunger Games,” the book and movie franchise started by author Suzanne Collins. The films more or less share the same plot set-up, which is why Tarantino can’t believe the “Battle Royale” team did not sue Collins.
“I do not understand how the Japanese writer didn’t sue Suzanne Collins for every fucking thing she owns,” Tarantino said. “They just ripped off the fucking book! Stupid book critics are not going to go watch a Japanese movie called ‘Battle Royale,’ so the stupid book critics never called her out on it. They talked about how it was the most original thing they’d ever fucking read. As soon as the film critics saw the film they said, ‘What the fuck! This is just “Battle Royale” except PG!’”
Tarantino revealed he was one of the first people to see “Battle Royale” as he was a friend of director Kinji Fukasaku. Tarantino was in Japan doing preliminary scouting for “Kill Bill” at the time when Fukasaku invited him to a private screening of the film he’d been working on.
“I had no idea what the fuck I was about to see,” Tarantino said. “And holy fucking shit! I don’t even know what I saw. It was so wild… three months later I was at the Seattle Film Festival. They were going to be showing ‘Battle Royale’ at midnight. Nobody had seen this in America yet. I got to the midnight screening and that was one of the most exciting screenings as I waited for the movie to start. I knew what they were going to see. This is going to deliver more than they even know! They are not prepared for how this is going to deliver. To have that knowledge was power.”
Elsewhere in the podcast, Tarantino praised No. 20 pick “West Side Story” for being the movie that “revitalized” Spielberg as a filmmaker. Tarantino added: “This is the one where Steven shows he still has it. I don’t think Scorsese has made a film this exciting [this century].”
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Tarantino called No. 13 pick “Jackass: The Movie” the film “I laughed the most at these last 20 years. I don’t remember laughing beginning to the end like this since Richard Pryor… As I was making ‘Kill Bill’ I thought this movie was so fucking funny I had to show it to the crew, so we found a print, and we watched the movie and just died.”
Listen to Tarantino’s interview on “The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast” here. The director will reveal his official top 10 movies of the 21st century on the next podcast.
From Variety US