Four Rooms
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| Four Rooms | |
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| Directed by | Allison Anders Alexandre Rockwell Quentin Tarantino Robert Rodriguez |
| Produced by | Lawrence Bender |
| Written by | Allison Anders Alexandre Rockwell Robert Rodriguez Quentin Tarantino |
| Starring | Tim Roth Madonna Valeria Golino Jennifer Beals Antonio Banderas Bruce Willis Quentin Tarantino |
| Music by | Combustible Edison Esquivel |
| Cinematography | Rodrigo García Buillermo Navarro Phil Parmet Andrzej Sekula |
| Editing by | Margie Goodspeed Elena Maganini Sally Menke Robert Rodriguez |
| Release date(s) | 1995 |
| Running time | 102 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Four Rooms is a 1995 anthology film telling four stories set in a Los Angeles hotel on New Year's Eve. Tim Roth stars as the principal character of the frame tale; he also takes part to a greater or lesser degree in the four stories, which feature Bruce Willis, Quentin Tarantino, Antonio Banderas and Madonna, among others.
The movie was directed by Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino with each of them directing one segment of the film. Original music by Combustible Edison.
Tagline: Twelve outrageous guests. Four scandalous requests. And one lone bellhop, in his first day on the job, who's in for the wildest New year's Eve of his life.
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[edit] Synopsis
[edit] Honeymoon Suite - The Missing Ingredient
- Written and directed by Allison Anders
The segment introduces the lead character, Ted the bellhop, who is working alone in a hotel on New Year's Eve. As the tale begins, Ted assists a number of unusual women transport their bags up to the honeymoon suite. In the course of doing so, he learns that they are a coven of witches, brewing a potion to reverse a spell placed on their goddess 40 years ago. In order to create the potion, each witch must place an ingredient into a large cauldron during a ritual. However, one of the witches has failed to obtain her ingredient, which is revealed to be semen. Fortunately, the witch, Eva, knows exactly where to obtain such a reagent, and so is given the job of seducing Ted in order to allow their plans to succeed.
[edit] Room 404 - The Wrong Man
- Written and directed by Alexandre Rockwell
Ted is contacted for room service, but due to a mix-up on the part of a drunken guest, is given the wrong room number, room 404. Upon arriving at the indicated room, he finds himself in the middle of fantasy hostage situation between a husband and wife (played by Jennifer Beals, the real-life wife of director Rockwell at the time). The husband, either as part of the drama or in reality, angrily believes that Ted (or "Teddy" as he refers to him) is having an affair with the wife. At gun point, Ted is forced to participate in the scenario, with no knowledge of what is real and what is part of the fantasy. Eventually, Ted escapes, but as he does so, another man enters the room under similar pretenses, and the whole situation apparently begins to repeat. This suggests either that the newcomer was supposed to be involved in the first place, or that the entire drama is somehow cyclic in nature.
[edit] Room 309 - The Misbehavers
- Written and directed by Robert Rodriguez
A husband and wife (Antonio Banderas and Tamlyn Tomita) plan to go out to a New Year's Eve party with their two children before they decide they would have more 'fun' leaving the children in the hotel. Ted is paid $500 to keep an eye on the children by the father, who gives them the stern warning not to misbehave. As Ted is responsible for the entire hotel, he is unable to actually stay in the room with the children, but instead instructs the children to amuse themselves by watching television. After Ted leaves, the siblings quickly begin to squabble and proceed to both explore and vandalize the room, exploding a bottle of champagne in the process. The children call Ted on the phone to ask for milk and cookies, at which point he delivers them stale crackers and attempts unsuccessfully to put them to bed. After being summoned back to the room once more, Ted stumbles into a scene of mass chaos, and finds the source of the terrible odor in the room, a dead prostitute stuffed under the mattress.
[edit] Penthouse - The Man from Hollywood
- Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino
Near the end of the night, Ted is called to the penthouse, which is currently being occupied by the famous director Chester Rush and his friends. Ted is asked to deliver a block of wood, a doughnut, a ball of twine, three nails, a club sandwich, a bucket of ice and a hatchet ("as sharp as the devil himself"). After getting acquainted, Chester offers to give Ted $1000 if he is willing to take part in a challenge between Chester and a friend. The challenge is that Chester's friend can light his Zippo cigarette lighter ten times in a row (without fail). If he succeeds, he wins Chester's car, but if he fails, he loses his pinky finger. The twisted game is inspired by a 1960 Alfred Hitchcock episode, "The Man from Rio." The Hitchcock episode is derived from, "Man from the South", by Roald Dahl. Despite Ted's initial reluctance, he is eventually convinced to participate, taking the role of an impartial "hatchet man". In the end, Chester's friend fails on the first try, and the movie ends with the credits rolling as we see the frantic rush of Chester and company running to get the friend to a Hospital as Ted calmly walks out of the room with his money.
[edit] Trivia
- In "The Misbehavers" the woman dancing on the TV is Salma Hayek.
- The role of Ted was written with Steve Buscemi in mind.
- While the children are watching television in The Misbehavers, the first image seen on the television is a scene from Robert Rodriguez's short film Bedhead.
- "The Misbehavers" and "The Wrong Man" take place at the same time. This is proven by the phone call received in Room 309 being half of the phone call initiated by the little girl in Room 404.
- At the beginning, when the A Band Apart logo appears (which contains four of the characters from the film Reservoir Dogs), the Mr. Orange character transforms into Ted, which is an inside joke due to the fact that both characters were played by Tim Roth.
- In Tarantino's part "The Man from Hollywood", Tarantino's character asks Tim Roth's Character "What was I talking about?" in which Roth's character answers. In Reservoir Dogs Tarantino's character asks the same question in which Roth's character answers.
- Neither Bruce Willis nor his character are ever mentioned in the credits of this movie, due to the fact that Bruce Willis did not get any kind of salary for the movie which was against the rules of the artist-union.
| The films of Quentin Tarantino |
|---|
| Directed: My Best Friend's Birthday • Reservoir Dogs • Pulp Fiction • Four Rooms • Jackie Brown • Kill Bill • Grindhouse • Inglorious Bastards • The Vega Brothers Written: True Romance • Natural Born Killers • From Dusk Till Dawn |
