Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez are great friends in real life and frequent collaborators when it comes to the movie business; from Tarantino writing horror spoof From Dusk Till Dawn for Rodriguez to direct, to Tarantino paying Rodriguez a single dollar to score his blood-splattered sequel Kill Bill, Vol. 2, these guys have a great working relationship and for my money are two of the most creative writers/directors working in Hollywood today. Both directors burst onto the independent cinema scene in the early '90s with their debut movies: Tarantino with Reservoir Dogs, and Rodriguez with El Mariachi. Both films poised these previously unknown directors as the new darlings of 90's cinema. Though the '90s introduced movie-goers to lots of phenomenal directors, such as David Fincher and Christopher Nolan, it was Tarantino and Rodriguez's debuts which put independent cinema on the map and made it undeniably cool. Though both directors are known for including extreme violence in their films, they also introduced the idea of post-modern cinema, pastiche and making action packed films for incredibly small budgets. This has caused both directors to not only be respected by movie Fanboys, like myself, who adore the action packed set pieces and blood splattered scenes, but also by serious film critics who praise Tarantino's incredible writing style which consistently manages to create in-depth characters and dramatic scenes, and Rodriguez's one-man film crew style of filmmaking, which denotes creativity is most important aspect of filmmaking, not huge budgets. The reason I have decided to compare and contrast these two great forces of cinema is because although both their careers began at around the same time and under similar circumstances, as well as both men frequently collaborating with one another, these two directors actually end up creating completely different types of movies, which are written and filmed in completely different ways, and focus on very different themes. I therefore wish to compare and contrast both the slight similarities as well as the massive differences between these two great careers, with the aim of trying to see who the greater film-maker ultimately is. I will use certain categories for comparison, such as who had the better debut film and whose Grindhouse segment is better. Regardless of what the final outcome is, I wish to clarify that I am a massive fan of both directors; they have entertained and inspired me possibly more so than any other directors, and I have the utmost respect for both men and what they have done in their 20 year careers. Before we start I will say just to be safe, spoilers within...