Check out the ego on Quentin Tarantino (emphasis mine):

Our original idea was to do a horror double feature. The genre I wanted to tackle was slasher films, because I’m a big fan of late-’70s, early-’80s slasher films. The only thing was, what makes them so good is the genre is so rigid. And I had an idea about a guy who kills girls with his car as opposed to a machete, and I put it in a slasher-film structure. Other than the big car moments, though, my thing could be a Eugene O’Neill play. These girls just talk and talk and talk. If it wasn’t for the car stuff, I could do my thing on stage. more>>

Apparently, Eugene O’Neill’s work is just “talk and talk and talk” – as long as you have a lot of talking, your work is as good as a Eugene O’Neill.

It’s interesting how Tarantino is aware of the biggest fault I have with Death Proof, but sees it as a good thing.  I think at this point he’s so surrounded by sycophants willing to praise his screenwriting abilities and “ear for dialogue” that they’re unwilling to tell him when it goes on for WAY too long and stalls the movie in its tracks.  Yes, Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs had lots of dialogue, but that doesn’t mean that Tarantino’s dialogue is always appropriate for the scene or the plot.

Also – playwrights may be able to take any given subject matter and turn it into great theater (as Arthur Miller did to an average salesman), but I doubt a Pulitzer will ever be awarded to a story about “a guy who kills girls with his car as opposed to a machete.”