Lots of people told me I am an idiot or I am just misguided and owe to myself to see this marvelous homage to 70s Hong Kong decapitation-genre movies, and lighten up dude! Fine. IÕm not opposed to violence in movies or games, so I went. I didn't really want to give Tarantino any (more)money, and for good reason. For all the ÒartÓ in his movies, theyÕre about nothing more than degradation. Of the audience, the characters, the actors, and anything that isnÕt yet spattered with blood, spit or shit. ÒReservoir DogsÓ was on TV the other night, and I hadnÕt seen it in a while. There he was in the opening scene with that interminable monologue about Madonna, and it now sounds so forced, so precious, so Quentin. ItÕs like the dialogue he wrote for ÒCrimson TideÓ - it clangs on the ear. It jumps up and down and demands attention. Listen to me, listen to me! IÕm a clever boy who knows the distinctions between Silver Age Jack Kirby ÒSilver SurferÓ comic books and the latter artists whose work will always stand in their shadow! None of this matters, but I know the difference and you donÕt, and that makes me matter.
In the trailer thereÕs a fight sequence - yeah, that really narrows it down - between The Bride and some other woman who IÕm sure dies in a way thatÕs spectacular, well-shot and edited, and contains 298 references to other such deaths in mid-60s Thai ÒBattle RoyaleÓ precursors whose actors were drawn entirely from Bangkok brothels, etc. The fight is interrupted when the child of UmaÕs opponent comes home from school. The women have to hide their weapons behind their backs. Hah hah! Go up to your room, mommyÕs busy. Then Uma kills mom.
Hah hah! It rocks! Awesome! The way she stabbed her, and that soundtrack!
But now the little girl has no mommy.
Dude, itÕs just a movie.
Okay, so then itÕs okay if Uma goes upstairs and cuts the little girlÕs head off?
Well, no -
Why not? ItÕs just a movie.
The other woman was bad. She deserved it.
Yes, Òbad.Ó A complex moral position in a Tarantino film. HeÕs really wrestled with the definition of Òbad,Ó hasnÕt he.
One of these days heÕll make a movie where the hero kills a kid. And if it gets cut from the final release, heÕll hang on to a copy so he can run it in his home theater, and sit in the middle of the room with a bucket of popcorn in one hand and his personal pink crayola-stub in the other.
If you saw it and liked it, fine; matter of taste. I know others have a completely different take on this sort of movie, and see it from a different perspective. I donÕt think youÕre eeeevil. ItÕs one thing to watch it and get it.
ItÕs another thing entirely to want to make it. To sit upright in bed at 5 AM and think: of course, of course! While the heroineÕs in a coma, sheÕs repeatedly raped! IÕll set the scene to ÒThe Hokey Pokey!Ó What makes it worse is knowing that if QT ever used mob money to make a film and fell behind on the payments, he would be shrieking like a gored pig the moment they started to bend his pinky back.
tarantinos skill comes from his ability to write dialogue that isn't always plot driven....most films fail to do that....thats what makes some of his films good to watch because people actually talk about shit like that in real life...
take for instance the conversation Jules and Vincent have in the car in pulp fiction, one moment they are talking about burgers, foot massage etc, the next minute they are blowing apart five stupid kids, they had a job to do, but weren't going to spoon feed the ideals of the plot to the audience before doing the deed.
Haven't seen Kill bill, but i want to, im definetely not going to the cinema to see it, i've seen enough movies that i've been really dissapopinted with recently, ie: Terminator 3, Freddy vs Jason, Matrix Reloaded...
on re-reading your post it does seem somewhat that you see Tarantino as gratiutous...at some points i agree but its this gratuitiousness that maes him as a film director, life is blatant and horrible so he takes basic outlandish plot devices such as Kill Bill and uses the nasty way society works as a canvas to place his characters....I really don't think he's writing stuff to entertain, but to comment on how we all percieve violence, I certainly don't think he is doing it for some sick sexual thrill....Just look at what Romero did in Dawn of the Dead...
A_White_Pony
Lake Forest, CA
March 2003
OCT 15, 2003 11:45 PM