Thoughts on Kill Bill Vols 1 and 2, and other things

[ksmith]

These were my first Tarantino films. Are they representative? The violence struck me as realistic yet comic book at the same time. Yes, I read about the movie background and some of the inspiration. But does Tarantino take the same approach in his more realistic work?



(Vol 2) The fact that Beatrix went straight for Budd's front door bothered me. Would a skilled fighter do that? She must have seen him pause before going into his trailer, and she would have known his style. Did she really think she possessed the element of surprise? It undercut all the info indicating she was the best of Bill's killers.

Sword on a plane. Sword worn in the open when walking through a hotel lobby. Really? I laughed.

BB was being groomed for the life, wasn't she? I'm glad Beatrix got to her, though I wonder if she got there in time.

Elle's death. So gruesome, and so well-deserved.

The scene in the coffin got under my skin. Fear of immobility or a touch of claustrophobia on my part, maybe.

Poor David Carradine. Every time I saw him, all I could think of were the rumblings of how he died. Rule the 1st--when engaging in autoerotic asphyxiation, always have a spotter, or no one will look at your movies the same way ever again.

I liked O-Ren, even though she was a baddun.

Comments

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen either of the _Kill Bill_ movies because I decided they'd be too violent for me. But I did see Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown -- and I can't say that *any* of those was actually realistic. They were all high-key and a bit comic-book-like.

I liked Jackie Brown the best, because of the acting by Robert Forster and Pam Grier. In Pulp Fiction, I thought the opening and closing segments were quite good, because they were more nuanced and interesting, and disliked the others.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I like Pam Grier, too. Jackie Brown is on my TBW list.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

My biggest annoyance with Kill Bill (both vols) was that it really didn't need to be a four-hour movie (when you add both halves. It was supposed to be one film, but was split because Tarantino couldn't bear to cut any of it). There was a lot of self-indulgence in there. Also, while there are slightly clever moments of dialogue, much of it is trite.

The best moment, imo, is when O-Ren cuts off the gang-boss's head. Her little speech afterward is priceless. Lucy Liu was awesome.

The thing to remember about KB is that it was conceived as a tribute to every form of Asian action cinema. Much of it is set-pieces paying specific tribute.

Reservior Dogs leaves me a little cold. I'm not terribly interested in the characters; the dialogue is good but not more than that; and the story leaves me completely unsatisfied, with one of those nihilistic endings where none of what you watched has any point at all. What carries it is the acting, particularly Harvey Keitel and Tim Roth.

I never saw Jackie Brown. One of these days I should remedy that.

From Dusk 'til Dawn is peculiar. It starts out as one movie and turns into another. The beginning is more in common with Reservior Dogs in the level of violence and unsympathetic criminal characters. The opening scene has good dialogue, but for a while after that it gets too violent even for my taste. (The violence is subtle and done in flashes, which makes it more effective and awful.)

The second half of the movie it turns into a vampire horror-comedy. I actually find this half very entertaining. The dialogue is witty, and George Clooney is extremely nice to look at. (For those of the opposite persuasion, there are many half-naked women and an extremely sexy Selma Hayek.) The ending kind of peters off to nothing, but at least some of the characters are still alive and you get some idea of how they've been changed by the experience.

I enjoyed Death Proof very much. My review of it is here. (http://barbarienne.livejournal.com/112941.html)

Pulp Fiction is one of the most brilliant films ever. The twisted-timeline structure makes it more interesting (and on repeated viewing the chronological order of events is clear). The events are ludicrous and operatic in their exaggeration, but it is called Pulp Fiction so anyone who doesn't expect that going in doesn't know what those words mean.

The acting is great. The deaths are logical and contribute to plot; none are gratuitous. Character arcs actually go somewhere, with good guys triumphing, bad guys redeemed, and other bad guys taking down even badder guys. You can empathize with these characters, even the criminals (which are most). These people are interesting and you have many hints of their backstories and lives outside the events of the film. Even minor characters have more life than the few minutes they interact with this story.

But best of all is the dialogue. It crackles with wit and is unique to each character. The things they talk about, how they say what they say, how their conversation changes depending on who they're talking too--it's a master's course in how to create good dialogue. (Which is why the triteness of Kill Bill is doubly frustrating. How can this be the same man who wrote Pulp Fiction?)

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite scenes was one of the shortest. The look on the diner guy's face when he sees Beatrix appear out of the dark and head toward his diner, trailing clouds of grave dust.

Agree about Lucy Liu and awesome. That whole section with GoGo and the Crazy 88. The bizarre girl band. That lovely snowy landscape.

IIRC, I think Dusk til Dawn is based on a Joe R Lansdale work. The story was stolen, but I'm not sure if Lansdale was ever able to recover anything.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

I have been known to delay things such as getting a burning dinner off the stove just so I can see the freshly-dug-out Beatrix say, "May I have a glass of water, please."

The "bizarre girl band" are the 5.6.7.8's, and they're a real band that Tarantino apparently heard over a store's speakers while he was in Japan. I first heard their music in 1998 on a visit to Japan, when one of their songs was played in a dance club I went to.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Heh--I even commented on your review. I still haven't seen that movie, but I really should.

[afraclose.livejournal.com]

The thing that gets me about Tarantino is that his stuff is so terribly self indulgent. If you've ever watched him in an interview, that quality just seems to be part of his character.

I love the Kill Bill movies--they're the only ones of his I can stand, and maybe it's because of that triteness in which I know it's not supposed to be all serious. I still kind of wish there was a third one, so we could see what happened to the characters that didn't kick the bucket.

Love (most of) the soundtrack, too. Not much of a fan of the 5,6,7,8s, though...

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I especially enjoyed the Vol 2 soundtrack. I loved the slow version of She's Not There.

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure any of Tarantino's films qualify as 'realistic' - Kill Bill's probably the most over-the-top, certainly, but all of his work is very much self-consciously referencing other media, not reality.

(Hmm - now that I think about it, though, there is a difference between Kill Bill and his other works; KB's his only film where we really are meant to see the protagonist as a skilled fighter - all of his other films, it always seemed to me the main characters were out of their depth to one degree or another...)

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's where he, at least imo, tripped up. I still can't accept that skilled fighter Beatrix would have been taken down by Budd. OTOH, an out-of-their-depth character would have been.