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Wednesday, October 22, 2003
KILL BOB
A Review of Kill Bill
Tarantino is probably a household name by now (at least among action movie viewers). Yet somehow Kill Bill is only his fourth outing as a director. This one is not as engrossing as his previous works. This is partially because the dialogue is definitely not up to his full potential.
By the way, his view of crime as a 9 to 5 job seems to be his leitmotif. All the bad guys and many of the good guys in his films seem to be professional criminals. Even some of the bad guys that you wish were good guys so you wouldn't feel so guilty about liking. He treats crime not so much as a final act of desparation but as a career choice with benefits and 401K and all. In Kill Bill the crime of choice is assasination. The protagonist (played by gangly, but not in a plain way, Uma Thurman) is a former assasin from a group of assasins known as DIVAS. It's an acronym that I won't insult you by spelling out. Apparently you should read the fine print because once you are a DIVA there is no backing out.
In Tarantino's trademark non-linear timeline storytelling we discover that not only did the protagonist try to retire but had the audacity to try to wed. And while in a family way to boot. The eponymous yet never shown, except for a pair of boots and hands, Bill (David Carradine) leads his team of DIVAS to the ceremony and kills everybody in sight. Including Uma hereafter referred to as the Bride. Lo and behold the bride is still alive yet not kicking. Comatose don'tchaknow. Also by the way, watch out; we see Thurman's bare feet in this. I am not saying she should have gotten a foot double, but it is a little disconcerting when she lights a cigarette with her toes.
Now the movie begins. It is a samurai revenge flick set in modern times. Tarantino has taken a comic book (big surprise there) and brought it to the big screen. Everyone in the film is a comic book character. That is to say, exaggerated and usually with a gimmick. Even the violence of which there is plenty is exaggerated. Which is why it is OK to laugh at it. There is no emotional connection to it any more than a three stooges fight. But, boy, if Moe ever beheaded Curly and eviscerated Larry with a katana I would laugh my ass off.
Don't get me wrong, I dug the fight scenes. The problem comes from getting from one fight scene to the next. Tarantino uses these rather drawn out moments to basically show off how much he knows about foreign cinema, genre cinema, and 60's and 70's TV shows. He also does this in much of the fighting scenes as well. For Tarantino, the line between homage and plagiarism is a very pale grey one. Try to spot all the references. It is like what Moulin Rouge would be if it were about martial arts instead of music and buggery. I am also not sure what to think about taking a four month intermission waiting for volume two. I know it was a studio decision but hell, they let Costner get away with crap. Another side observation; I think the one original idea for this flick is that every badass in this movie is on a revenge kick because they witnessed someone they loved being assasinated right in front of them. The Bride is out for revenge against the DIVAS one by one. She even kills one of her targets right in front of the daughter of the character (played by Vivica A. Fox) Next on the list is O Ren Ishii. O Ren's character (played by Lucy Liu) has a scene depicting her witnessing her parents' violent demise. It is almost some sort of allegorical warning that revenge begets revenge. I half expect there to be a reference to Abel in Volume two, except I don't think Tarantino is that deep.
So to wrap up, go see this if you want to see a movie so violent that Sam Peckinpah would look at it and get a hardon. Don't go see it if you are expecting Shakespeare or even Tarantino's usual patter of dialogue. Did I like it? Yes. Will I pay to see volume two in a theatre? Probably not.
Monday, October 20, 2003
A Simple Hook
Gerald liked the house he rented. He liked the older
couple he rented it from. It wasn't big, but being a bachelor, Gerald felt that the medium sized two bedroom house was enough room for him. He had never even been up into the attic. He really didn't own a lot of furniture.
He had heard the noises before. The sounds above him, seemingly coming from the attic. The noise sounded very much like someone scooting a chair away from a table. He knew they were coming from the
pipes and water heater.
He sometimes heard the noise in the mornings, before going to work. Most people showered in the mornings and with all the neighborhood bathing it was bound to affect the water pressure and cause his house to make noise.
Sometimes late, late at night he would awaken as if a loud noise had startled him from sleep. He would lay back and listen for another telltale noise before drifting back to sleep. It wasn't a new house, it surely
would creak quite a bit.
Then one day when Gerald was just about to leave for work, he heard a noise come from the attic that was unmistakeable. Someone coughed.
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
HAMMERTIME!
My girlfriend works for one of the local water districts (no names, please). She was telling me about a memo everyone in her office received. Everyone in her office is either a secretary or an engineer of some type or an administrator. Yet they all received this safety memo. It was a memo regarding the correct and safe use of hammers. That's right hammers.
Apparently one of the ditchdiggers that they had hired was too lazy to go back to the truck and retrieve the stevedore-thingy tool used for lifting up manhole covers. So this guy sticks the point of a pickaxe into one of the holes of the manhole cover and begins banging on the other end with a hammer in an attempt to pry it up. Then the hot metal on metal action produced a spark that hit him right in the eye. He had to get medical attention, insurance guys are involved, the boss had to right up a report. You get the picture. Thus was born the safety memo on hammers.
I almost wish I could be the supervisor for just that day. "Let me get this straight. I have been called in here to have a safety meeting on the use of hammers? .......Hammers? Other than a pointed stick, perhaps the oldest implement known to humankind and I have to have a safety meeting on it? It's a stick with a heavier end and it's befuddled some of you. What mesozoic period are we hiring you people from?"
Remember kids, always hammer away from your own face!
Sunday, October 12, 2003
My mom said the funniest line she has said all year. I was at her house just hanging out and fooling around on the internet. I was checking out a site talking about alleged accounts of Disney putting naughty words or designs in the backgound of their publications and movies or low spoken naughty lines in their movies.
We've all heard of these almost urban legend like stories. The Genie in "Alladin" says "Take your clothes off.", etc. I personally think most are a bit like interpreting the lyrics of "Louie Louie". Everyone seems to hear what they want to hear.
I came to the account of a naked/ bottomles Jessica Rabbit in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit". I was accessing the culpable scenes and called out to my mom who was in the other room, "Hey Mom, want to see Jessica Rabbit naked?".
She said, "Who?". After I explained she asked how such things are known. I explained that there are people out there watching Disney movies frame by frame looking for just such things.
She called out, still from the other room, "Oh. What do you call such people? Religious fanatics?".
Pause.
"Or sexual perverts?".
By the way I used to work as a scenic painter. I worked at a studio that did a lot of work for Disneyland. I personally worked on a giant prop for an attraction located at Disneyland Tokyo. It was a giant shield that was bas reliefed with what was supposed to look like the word "Sindbad*" coming out of clouds. I swear there were few swirls of clouds that looked more than a little phalic. Scrotes and all Baby!
*For some reason Disney insisited on spelling it this way with a "D".
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