Quentin Tarantino has earned his name, Total Film named him the 12th greatest director of all time. He has won an Academy, a Golden Globe ,BAFTA and the esteemed Palme d’Or Awards, while also being nominated for an Emmy and a Grammy.

Not bad for a guy born in 1963 in Knoxville, Tennessee, and a son of a health care executive /nurse, and a musician.

His heritage stemming from, Italian American from his father and Irish and Cherokee Native American Indian.

He has directed some of the 90′s most watched films such as Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill and Jackie Brown.

His debut to films was after dropping out of school at the age of 15 and with his childhood friend Adam Olis, began making movies in his backyard.

One popular film Death Proof was written as well as Directed by Tarentino. It stars Kurt Russell, Zoe Bell, Rosario Dawson, Rose McGowan, Jordan Ladd, Vanessa Ferlito, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Tracie Thoms and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

It centres around a psychopathic man who stalks young women before takig to murdering them in staged car accidents using his “death proof” stunt car.

It was released Theatrically in the States as part of a double feature with Planet Terror by Robert Rodriguez. IT was also released on DVD outside the States.

It is a film paying tribute to muscle cars, slasher films and exploitation, popular back in the 1970′s.

Inglorious Basterds

Along with a slew of bodies, the latest tour de force Inglorious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino starring Brad Pitt and Diane Krueger piled up over $37.6 million at the domestic box office over the weekend. Overseas the movie earned an estimated $27.5 million. The film will open up in 42 more countries in the coming weeks.

The movie has polarized Tarantino’s critics. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times calls it “a big, bold audacious war movie,” and applauds: “For once, the basterds get what’s coming to them.” Claudia Puig in USA Today, however, is among those heaping praise on the film. Tarantino’s “tall tale, with its tense and jangly pacing,” she writes, “is immediately riveting.”

Many critics are not won over. Joanne Kaufman remarks in the Wall Street Journal that “nothing about the emotionally unmoored Inglourious Basterds adds up. Whether it’s parody, farce or a fever dream is anyone’s guess.” Nonsense, contends Michael Sragow in the Baltimore Sun. “The only hope for Inglourious Basterds is that audiences will embrace it the way the Broadway crowd did ‘Springtime for Hitler’ [in Mel Brooks's The Producers]: because it’s so bad they think it’s good.

Where Tarantino really may have slipped up however, is with his public relations with the Jewish Community. The national Jewish Daily Forward calls it “Jewish revenge porn.” In Connecticut’s Jewish Ledger, Michael Fox writes that since the film doesn’t pretend to be historically accurate, “there’s no percentage in railing against [it] as blathering, self-indulgent drivel.” Nevertheless, he writes, Tarantino’s plot amounts to “pages and pages and pages of amusingly pointless dialogue. Tarantino’s riff on Nazis and Jews may amuse and satisfy less mature audiences. For those with a deeper and fuller understanding of the Third Reich and the Holocaust, particularly one gleaned from sources other than action movies, it is shockingly superficial.”

The movie features protagonists who scalp German soldiers, beat them to death with baseball bats, carve swastikas into their foreheads, and commit suicide bombings. Jonathan Foreman in Britain’s Jewish Chronicle writes, “There is something about the idea of inspiring holy terror by mutilation, decapitations, etc. that inevitably evokes today’s real-life masters of cruelty and demoralization by atrocity, al-Qaeda.”

The sudden increase in web traffic was tracked and displayed by Google just hours after the morning show aired, featuring the Flat Belly Diet cookbook by Prevention Magazine.

Screen shot of Google Trends, a search trend monitoring site provided by Google – CLICK THE IMAGE TO SEE IT LARGER (Opens in new window)

Prevention Magazine holds the #2 & #3 positions in Google for the term “The Flat Belly Diet” as well as the highest paying and most visible Pay-Per-Click advertisement.

This means that when millions of people saw The Morning Show and then flocked online to find out more information; Prevention Magazine was there to give them that information and to sell them copies of their cookbook.

This is a classic example of internet technology complimenting mass media.

Michael Vick

Yesterday’s announcement that the Philadelphia Eagles had drafted Michael Vick is shaping up to be this year’s biggest NFL sideshow. In 2007 Vick was convicted of conspiracy and running a dog fighting operation, sentenced to 23 months in federal prison and suspended indefinitely by the NFL. But after serving his time and being released from home confinement on July 20, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell conditionally lifted Vick’s suspension.

Opinions are all over the map ranging from crying fans to praise from the Humane Society. Whatever their opinion, most indicate that this will pose a serious PR challenge for the Eagles.

Humane Society of the U.S. President & CEO Wayne Pacelle said that he “doesn’t expect widespread protests and sees it as a good thing that Vick wound up in Philadelphia.” Pacelle: “It’s a city we’ve been looking at very closely because it has a major dogfighting problem. So Vick’s landing there has the potential to turn around the issue. This gives us a big boost” (L.A. TIMES, 8/14).

ESPN has reported that a majority of Eagles fans are upset with the move. ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio said fans at last night’s Patriots-Eagles preseason game “were absolutely numb” after hearing of the signing. “They were in a state of shock, and there was a lot of anger almost immediately,” said Paolantnio. “People were just streaming out. A woman was crying. Families were leaving saying they’re going to sell their season tickets.” The reaction from fans has been “visceral, and there’s a lot of anger.” Paolantonio: “I’ve been listening to sports talk radio, and it has been overwhelming with easily 90-95% negative against this move” (“Mike & Mike in the Morning,” ESPN2, 8/14).

According to Phil Sheridan of the Philadelphia Inquirer the Eagles are “taking an enormous risk … with their shocking decision” to sign Vick. Sheridan: “All that’s at stake is everything owner Jeff Lurie and head coach Andy Reid have ever said about what the franchise stands for. … Vick deserves the chance to return to his chosen profession. Just not here.” Reid is “asking the millions of people who follow the Eagles, who spend their money on tickets and sweatshirts and invest their hearts as well, to share his faith in Vick,” and that is “asking too much.” It is going to be “very difficult to watch this guy without thinking about those dead and tormented dogs” (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 8/14).

What does this mean to veteran Eagles quarterback Donavan Mcnabb? “I pretty much lobbied to get him here,” McNabb said. “I believe in second chances and what better place to get a second chance than here with this group of guys. … He’s no threat to me, not for Kolb. We had the opportunity to add another weapon to our offense.”

Sources: Sportsbusinessdaily.com, ESPN.com, Associated Press