Kill Bill

Sorry guys. Making you look at David Gest's plastic head-substitute and then not blogging for three days? Is that the fine service you've come to expect from J&BB? I think not. John's having another week of hell with grading and I'm still moping around. Seems like a good time for our big announcement: I'm pregnant, due in May. Hence all the queasiness. I've been having that variant of morning sickness which in-the-know people call "the whole fucking day sickness". I don't recommend it. I've been eating fine, because I'm still hungry, just revoltingly nauseated. Don't tell me that doesn't make any sense, because I'm way ahead of you. Obviously it could be worse; some women can't keep food down at all. But, things could always be worse; I mean, someone could be making me watch that dying mom movie with Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts, right? (Gives me the cold robbies, as Pogo would say.)

Instead, John and I snuck out to see Kill Bill last weekend. I really liked it, although it is a strange movie. I have zero patience for the people who bitch and whine about Tarantino and say he's a no-talent hack addicted to shock tactics and cheap thrills. There is such a being in Hollywood, and his name is Jerry Bruckheimer; I strongly recommend that those with spare opprobrium look there for a target. Tarantino is obviously a great director, the proof of this being that he has directed a number of great movies. He's also an annoying, hyper, nerd -- but so what? Just because everybody ripped him off badly and we got tired of third-hand pop culture-infected dialogue and casual, humorous violence is no reason to blame the man. And I find objections to his violence strange, anyway. He is fascinated by violence, to the point of what might be called directorial sadism. Granted. But is this fascination worse than the casual disregard for bodies displayed in the average action film? Kissing in front of a nuclear blast in True Lies? Leering at the tits on a female corpse in Bad Boys 2? Even people who were disgusted by Peckinpah's Wild Bunch had to look anew at the bloodless crumpling of a gunshot victim in an old-timey Western and see something false about it. People do awful things to each other, and when they do, blood gets everywhere. Which brings us to Kill Bill.

It was beautiful, and it was very funny, although less so than his other movies, simply because so much of thier humor came from the dialogue, of which there tends to be less when everyone is busy getting their heads cut off. It did suffer from the defect of not being about anything, but seemed to be making strenuous efforts to transvalue that into a virtue, in which it was partly sucessful, I think. John and I are divided about it in one respect: I am partially withholding judgment until the second half comes out, since we don't actually know what's going on yet, in some sense. John thinks it should retain the awful crystalline purity of just never telling us what the deal is and remain a unexplained revenge vehicle. We'll see. It's also true that I spent my formative years laughing my head off as Chow Yun-Fat shot fifty people in various ways in a single scene, and I love Japanese movies where the hero is posessed by a demon and becomes so deadly with the blade that in the end a mob has to drive him into a fire, since an infinite number of armed men have already been sliced to bits. Maybe, if you don't like that kind of thing, you won't like Kill Bill either.

Comments

[Timothy Burke]

Congrats!

Glad someone liked Kill Bill. Tarantino isn't my cuppa tea for some reason--there's a meanness in his violence, which might be what distinguishes it from Bruckheimer et al. I think of it this way: Bruckheimer was the kind of kid who liked to set off M-80s for fun; Tarantino was the kind of kid who liked to set off M-80s that he stuck in the anus of the cat owned by the old lady up the street. But he's definitely got a cinematic gift, no doubt about it. I'm glad he exists and does work, it's strictly a matter of taste that I don't enjoy his flicks.

[baa]

Wow! I am amazed -- *amazed* -- that you liked this flick. And I say this as a great fan of QT's first three (Jackie Brown: underrated).

So let me take it from the top.

1. No emotional impact. Who are these people? Why do we care about them? The evil aussie from Enter the Dragon was well realized by comparison to Lucy Liu. My attachment to Thurman's character was analogous to that generated for a protagnist in stick figure kung fu. Also,was I supposed to care about the 30 minute "craft a samuri sword" vignette?

2. Dumb cinema tricks/monumental self-indulgence. Sorry, but the bleeping of the Bride's name: tired. So too were the 'feature presentation' graphic, introducing sonny chiba as 'special guest star.' There's cool irony, and then there's being weak masquerading under the guise of homage. I would group in the same category the fake-looking exterior shots of the airliner. I don't care that they look fake on purpose! It's lame!

3. Lack of humor. "Silly rabit, tricks are for kids?" That sounds like my 12 year old cousin imitating QT, not actual QT dialog you'd put in a movie. Give me a funny line! Any funny line?

4. Moving from super violent (good!) to gross (bad!). Example: the vaseline bottle. I didn't need that.

[Carlos]

Congratulations! Doesn't the government of Singapore have to give you a fruit basket and free cable now?

"Kill Bill" is one possibility for the Xtreme Babysitting/Hiatus From the Danube Whirlwind World Tour. "And you will *know* my name is *wubba wubba* when I wubba wubba wubba wubba! How big? SO BIG!"

Hm. Or not.

C. - XB.

[ogged]

Congratulations.

[Realish]

Strangely, I agree with both Belle and Baa. Perhaps KB Part II will resolve this strange bipolarity.

Oh, and congratulations on the baby! I (well, my wife) just had my first two months ago, and damn, I just can't imagine having two. My exhaustion- and love-o-meters are both maxed out.