For the past couple years, I\u2019ve toyed with the idea of doing a book on Jackie Brown<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the years, Quentin Tarantino\u2019s 1997 follow-up to his second feature\/pop-culture phenomenon Pulp Fiction<\/em> has become my favorite film from the man. Since I\u2019ve previously written about the movie<\/a> and its soundtrack<\/a>, I thought I could get my Glenn Kenny on<\/a> and drop a book which detailed the making of the film, chronicled the careers of Tarantino and Pam Grier \u2014 Jackie Brown herself \u2014 and gave my thoughts on the Blaxploitation genre that inspired Tarantino and made Grier a leading lady. I had a first chapter written and everything. (If anyone wants to read it, DM me.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, due to some medical and financial problems I had last year, I wasn\u2019t able to flesh it out. Since then, so many people have beaten me to the punch. Tarantino has just released his own memoir, Cinema Speculation<\/em>. (I tried to get an interview with him while he was promoting his Once Upon a Time\u2026 in Hollywood<\/em><\/a> paperback, but his PR people said he wasn\u2019t doing much press. He was probably at home, working on this.) The latest season of Turner Classic Movies\u2019 The Plot Thickens<\/em> podcast<\/a> is all about Grier and her years as a soulful screen goddess. Last Month, Netflix premiered Is That Black Enough for You?!?<\/em>, veteran film critic Elvis Mitchell\u2019s splendid, personal documentary on \u201870s-era Black cinema. And<\/em> I know several colleagues who\u2019ll be releasing books on Blaxploitation in the near-future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, it was a nice dream. I just wanted to pay tribute to a movie that is usually considered, at best, a minor slip-up in Tarantino\u2019s revered canon. If it wasn\u2019t for that out-there killer-stuntman movie Death Proof<\/em> (best known as one-half of the Grindhouse<\/em> double feature he did with Robert Rodriguez) that even Tarantino has called his worst movie<\/a>, Brown<\/em> would still be seen as his biggest disappointment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then again, after making a movie that was a literal sensation, taking in universal acclaim, an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and $214 million worldwide \u2014 not to mention setting off a wave of knockoff crime yarns featuring hip, gun-toting lowlifes (Vanity Fair<\/em> columnist James Wolcott once lumped them all together and called them \u201cscuzz films\u201d) \u2014 anything after that is gonna look inferior. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With Brown<\/em>, Tarantino got to do a movie that combined two of his biggest influences: Blaxploitation films and Elmore Leonard novels. Ever since Tarantino made it known he was a longtime fan of the late crime writer, his novels were becoming hot properties in Tinseltown. With Get Shorty<\/em> already adapted by Barry Sonnenfeld (starring Pulp<\/em> player John Travolta) and Out of Sight<\/em> about to become one of Steven Soderbergh\u2019s masterpieces (with a surprise cameo by Pulp<\/em> co-star Samuel L. Jackson), Tarantino set his sights on Rum Punch<\/em>, Leonard\u2019s 1992 tale of Jackie Burke, a middle-aged, white flight attendant and her plan to double-cross a gunrunner and the police. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Just as he revitalized the career of former \u201870s star Travolta when he cast him in Pulp<\/em>, Tarantino saw Brown <\/em>as a comeback vehicle for Blaxploitation queen Pam Grier. He made the flight attendant Black and gave her the titular name \u2014an obvious nod to her 1974 hit Foxy Brown<\/em><\/a>. Samuel L. Jackson, Robert De Niro, Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton, and Robert Forster rounded out the heavyweight supporting cast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clocking in at two hours and 40 minutes (Pulp<\/em> was 2:34), a length the Weinsteins tried to get him to trim, Brown<\/em> was Miramax\u2019s big, Christmas Day release. But after that opening weekend, it finished fifth at the box office. During the great winter of 1997, the multiplexes were cluttered with hits. As Good as It Gets<\/em> came out on the same day and came in at third. Titanic<\/em> and the Pierce Brosnan 007 installment Tomorrow Never Dies<\/em> dropped a week earlier and whipped both of them. Even Miramax was already rolling in dough with Good Will Hunting<\/em> and Scream 2<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Peter Biskind\u2019s indie-film tome Down and Dirty Pictures<\/em>, Miramax\u2019s resident enfant terrible<\/em> didn\u2019t take the whole thing well: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLike Madonna, his antennae were always tuned to the twitches of the zeitgeist, aquiver with each ripple of the culture. Although he always claimed to be and behaved as if he were making his films exclusively for himself–refusing to tailor them to suit the Weinsteins’ wishes or the comments scrawled on preview cards–he felt he had let down his fans.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It certainly made him stop doing book adaptations. Brown<\/em> was just one of several Leonard stories Tarantino planned to adapt. (The 1989 novel Killshot<\/em> was eventually made into a 2008 film \u2014 produced by longtime partner Lawrence Bender and directed by, of all people, Shakespeare in Love<\/em><\/a>\u2019s John Madden.) In Speculation<\/em>, he reveals that he considered doing another version of Donald E. Westlake\u2019s The Outfit<\/em><\/a>, which would once again star Grier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s unfortunate that people didn\u2019t go batshit over Brown<\/em> the same way they did Pulp<\/em>. It did seem like his most adult film to date. While Pulp<\/em> and his 1992 debut Reservoir Dogs<\/em> were savvy, stylish crime tales fueled by bloodshed and pop-culture references, Brown<\/em> is more of a dramedy about middle-aged losers on both sides of the law. Much like the book it\u2019s based on, the movie is basically about grown-ass has-beens and never-weres who are literally out to get rich or die trying. It\u2019s kinda fascinating that Tarantino was in his thirties when he made Brown<\/em>, already doing a film that lays out how much of a bitch getting old is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Tarantino eventually went on to make grandiose, genre-film fantasias of violence, revisionist history and a shitload of movie references, Brown<\/em> is practically a quaint character study. It was also his first attempt at a \u201changout movie,\u201d<\/a> which he would perfect years later with Once Upon a Time\u2026 in Hollywood<\/em>. As he told a table of critics on Charlie Rose<\/em> once<\/a>, he wanted to do a movie where getting to know the characters was part of the plot \u2014 just like Rio Bravo<\/em>, one of his favorite films. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, since this year marks the film\u2019s 25th-anniversary, it\u2019s been getting a lot<\/a> of<\/a> ink<\/a> as a misunderstood classic<\/a>, an unsung masterpiece<\/a>, etc. It\u2019s good to know that people are finally coming around, finally appreciating the simple pleasures of Tarantino\u2019s most mature \u2014 and most badass \u2014 work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/jackie2-1024x577.jpg\")
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Brown<\/em> ended up making $74.7 million internationally. Critics were mostly underwhelmed. Entertainment Weekly<\/em>\u2019s Owen Gleiberman, who just a few years earlier called Pulp<\/em> \u201cthe most exhilarating piece of filmmaking,\u201d was thrown off by Brown<\/em>\u2019s lack of fizz. (\u201cIt\u2019s like viewing Pulp Fiction<\/em> through bulletproof glass.\u201d) Tarantino also got criticized (mostly by longtime nemesis Spike Lee) for what was already becoming a constant in his movies \u2014 his excessive use of the N-word. (In fairness, unlike his previous films, it\u2019s only used by Black folk in Brown<\/em>.) Instead of a slew of Oscar nods, the only nomination it received was a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Forster. I\u2019m still infuriated that Grier didn\u2019t get the same welcome-back treatment Travolta got \u2014 yet another sad reminder of how little Black actresses were demanded and\/or respected back in the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n