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" Quentin Tarantino&amp;#039;s announcement last week on The Tonight Show that his next film will be a full-fledged Western should surprise no one \u2014 and not just because his prior film, last year&amp;#039;s Django Unchained, was itself a quite blatant homage to spaghetti Westerns. Tarantino&amp;#039;s entire career is heavily influenced by, and rife with references to, his beloved oaters, including classics by Sergio Leone (The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West) and John Ford (The Searchers). Even a quick glance back at his canon reveals that Tarantino has been making Westerns for some time, albeit often via stories that hybridize a variety of other genres as well, be they vigilante films, kung fu sagas, or war adventures. In anticipation of his latest venture, here&amp;#039;s a look back at some examples of Tarantino&amp;#039;s Western affections. Reservoir Dogs, &amp;quot;You Gonna Bark All Day, Little Doggy, or Are You Gonna Bite?&amp;quot;      Michael Madsen&amp;#039;s sadistic Mr. Blonde may be a modern-day psychopath, but his most infamous taunt \u2014 directed at Harvey Keitel&amp;#039;s gang leader Mr. White \u2014 nonetheless boasts a distinctive Western twang. From Dusk Till Dawn, Reaching the Titty Twister      Just as Inglourious Basterds&amp;#039; ragtag-soldiers-fighting-Nazis premise comes from countless &amp;quot;macaroni war films&amp;quot; (i.e., Italian knockoffs of The Dirty Dozen), From Dusk Till Dawn takes its setup \u2014 in which a group of misfits find themselves holed up in a remote building where they&amp;#039;re forced to repel hordes of deadly attackers \u2014 from Howard Hawks&amp;#039;s 1959 gem Rio Bravo, which would also form the basis for John Carpenter&amp;#039;s excellent 1976 Assault on Precinct 13. Kill Bill, Vol. 2, The Bride Meets Bill      Kill Bill Vol. 2, The Bride Vs. Elle Driver      In both The Bride&amp;#039;s (Uma Thurman) encounter with nemesis/baby-daddy Bill (David Carradine) on the steps of a church, and in her exit from a trailer after felling eye-patched adversary Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), Tarantino \u2014 in the image of a heroic figure framed by a doorway that opens to the vast, sunny American plains \u2014 directly references the signature image of John Wayne in John Ford&amp;#039;s The Searchers. Kill Bill, Vol. 2, The Bride Breaks Free from Her Coffin      As with Django Unchained, Kill Bill is full of musical nods to Westerns \u2014 and, specifically, to the peerless scores of Ennio Morricone. This is perhaps the best of them, with Tarantino lifting Morricone&amp;#039;s thrilling &amp;quot;L&amp;#039;Arena,&amp;quot; the theme from Sergio Corbucci&amp;#039;s 1968 Western comedy (starring Jack Palance and Django star Franco Nero) Il Mercenario.  Sukiyaki Western Django, Tarantino the Gunslinger      In case there was any doubt that Tarantino loves Westerns, he actually cameos in the opening scene of gonzo Japanese director Takashi Miike&amp;#039;s 2007 Sukiyaki Western Django \u2014 which, like Tarantino&amp;#039;s work, it itself a crazed hybrid of genre styles. Inglourious Basterds, &amp;quot;Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France...&amp;quot;      Inglourious Basterds&amp;#039; tagline &amp;quot;Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied France...&amp;quot; \u2014 which is repeated as the film&amp;#039;s opening title card \u2014 is an obvious and loving homage to Sergio Leone&amp;#039;s incomparable spaghetti Western epic, Once Upon a Time in the West.  Inglourious Basterds, Scalping      The Nazi-hunting Basterds&amp;#039; fondness for scalping their enemies is a clear nod to Native American wartime tactics. Yet it&amp;#039;s also another one of Tarantino&amp;#039;s many allusions to John Ford&amp;#039;s The Searchers, in which John Wayne&amp;#039;s vengeful hero scalps his Indian adversary Scar after their climactic showdown.  Django Unchained, The Django Theme Song      Django Unchained takes its title and protagonist&amp;#039;s name from 1966&amp;#039;s classic Django \u2014 as well as its title song, which is a direct port from Sergio Corbucci&amp;#039;s classic Franco Nero-headlined spaghetti Western.  Django Unchained, Mandingo Fighting      Leonardo DiCaprio&amp;#039;s evil slave owner Calvin Candie is introduced while watching a drawing-room bout of fisticuffs between two African-American slaves, a pastime he dubs &amp;quot;Mandingo Fighting.&amp;quot; That phrase is an allusion to one of Tarantino&amp;#039;s favorite films, Richard Fleischer&amp;#039;s 1975 Mandingo, about a slave forced to participate in bare-knuckle boxing. Django Unchained, Fritz (Roy Rogers)      While hat-tips to spaghetti Westerns abound in Django Unchained, one of its slyest Western references comes via Christoph Waltz&amp;#039;s bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz when he introduces his horse as &amp;quot;Fritz&amp;quot; \u2014 a name taken from William S. Hart&amp;#039;s famous silent-movie steed, who stands as the first horse to ever be named in the credits as a costar to his human companion. Follow The Culture Blog on RSS and on Twitter at @ESQCulture. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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