3. Reservoir Dogs (1994)
Expectation: You can play free association all you like but there's only two words I'm coming up with here. 'Reservoir' and 'dogs'. We've already had
Dog Day Afternoon and
Un Chien Andalou; we're not falling for this again. On a mildly interesting sidenote, Forest Whitaker would later appear in
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai in 1999 and
Four Dogs Playing Poker in 2000; neither of which carrying much canine credentials.
Reality: Tarantino bursts onto the scene, all guns (and tongues) blazing with a shoot.- 'em- up heist film, minus the heist. The title, he explained, came from his mispronouncing
Au Revoir Les Enfants as ''the reservoir film'' and combining it with the latter part of 1971's
Straw Dogs. And, aside from Mr Blonde's tough-talking (Michael Madsen) ''Are you gonna bark all day little doggy, or are you gonna bite?'', that's the closest we ever get to any symbolic importance. Still, no one seemed to question it and Tarantino's trademark two-word title was born.