Cinemagic Is Presenting a Screening Series Dedicated to Quentin Tarantino and His Influences

The series, which runs March 22-28, pairs three Tarantino films with “City on Fire,” “Bande à part” and “The Dirty Dozen.”

Pulp Fiction (IMDB)
By Bennett Campbell Ferguson

Turns out the Hollywood Theatre doesn’t have a monopoly on Quentin Tarantino-centric events.

From March 22 to 28, Cinemagic will present a screening series dedicated to Tarantino and his influences, showcasing not only Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Inglourious Basterds (2009), but three films that inspired them.

That includes the Hong Kong action flick City on Fire (1987), which influenced Reservoir’s Mexican standoff. It’ll be followed by Godard’s Bande à part, which informed Fiction and provided the name of Tarantino’s production company (Bande also received a memorable shoutout in Bernardo Bertolucci’s underrated The Dreamers).

Finishing up the festival is Robert Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen (1967), which provided the narrative framework for the World War II revenge saga of Basterds (though Aldrich’s film has noticeably fewer flamethrowers than Tarantino’s).

2024 has already been a big year for Cinemagic. The theater has continued to cement its reputation as a hub for fans of kaiju movies, while continuing to work on a lobby expansion project.

Tarantino, meanwhile, is gearing up to shoot the supposedly final film of his career, starring his Basterds and Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood star Brad Pitt. It’s called The Movie Critic, which this reviewer (who is not at all biased) believes to be the greatest title in the history of cinema.

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