Learning from Movies: Jackie Brown

Two years after Barry Sonnenfeld successfully translated Elmore Leonard’s Get Shorty to the big screen, Quentin Tarantino brought us Jackie Brown. Both are 86% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, but the Quentin Tarantino fan-base jacked up the approval on Jackie Brown to 78%.

That seems fair, since he was MGM's first choice to direct Get Shorty.

What can you learn from a movie about gun-runners, crack-heads, bank robbers, and other low-lives? Find out after the break.

• I don’t know where 110th Street is, but I think I believe I belong on this side of it.
• The TEC-9 submachine gun’s marketing material actually calls it “the most popular gun in American crime,” like the manufacturer is proud of that.
• The Killer had a forty-five, so they have to have a forty-five. People learn from movies.
• If you got out of jail four days ago, you probably shouldn’t be smoking crack in the living room of a gun smuggler.
• Everybody’s looking for that one big score.
• If you’re going to work with criminals, you better have a “doing time kind of disposition.”
• If you’re getting away with it, then more power to you.
• A bail bonds office is not a bar. You don’t run a tab.
• You smoke too much of that shit, that shit gonna rob you of your own ambition.
• You don't choose whether or not to get old, but you choose how you deal with it.
• Half a million dollars will always be missed.
• There's only three reasons why you can't make your court date. One, you're in a hospital. Two, you're in jail. Three, your ass is dead.
• You can tell any story you want, as long as you deliver the goods at the end.
• That's what Winston does. He finds people who don't want to be found.

You can't blame anybody else for something you did.