Come anticipate Kill Bill with me

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed
Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (1362 of them)
Nate the Cynic: "I bet they changed it to black and white because the blood and the SFX looked too unconvincing in color"

Nate the Dork: "HOLY FUCKING SHIT HE'S BRINGING IT RAGING BULL STYLE"

nate detritus (natedetritus), Saturday, 11 October 2003 19:32 (twenty years ago) link

S1utsky: "meh"

s1utsky (slutsky), Saturday, 11 October 2003 19:45 (twenty years ago) link

but then a couple seconds later with the silhouette scene:

S1utsky: "yeh"

s1utsky (slutsky), Saturday, 11 October 2003 19:45 (twenty years ago) link

I hate it when you try to post something and it fucks up and you lose your whole post.

hey that black and white part was obviously that Sword of Doom reference I was talking about it isn't inexplicable !@#$#@!$@

I just heard that there's like an "easter egg" after the end credits, so now I'm pissed I didn't stay for them. Did anyone see it? Could you descibe it to me?

Dan I., Saturday, 11 October 2003 19:55 (twenty years ago) link

THAT SILHOUETTE SCENE WAS FUCKING INCREDIBLE TO ME.

Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Saturday, 11 October 2003 19:56 (twenty years ago) link

i was thinking that perhaps the black and white was for an R rating. (honestly tho it hardly seemed more violent than a monty python skit at that point)

what genre was the vernita green scene supposed to represent?

ryan (ryan), Saturday, 11 October 2003 19:58 (twenty years ago) link

Ryan, my friend made the same point (about ratings), but then jones said it was in the original script. I don't know what to believe anymore.

Dan: yeah, how great was that!

s1utsky (slutsky), Saturday, 11 October 2003 20:05 (twenty years ago) link

Okay, I guess it turns out that the "easter egg" was a misunderstanding cause in the version that they originally showed the critics they had the airplane scene at the end after the credits, but now of course it isn't. So nevermind...

Dan I., Saturday, 11 October 2003 20:09 (twenty years ago) link

Oh, and in case anyone's interested, here's an early version of the script. A lot of it has been changed, obviously, but a lot of it is also the same. Obviously this would completely SPOIL it for you, so don't read these SPOILERS if you don't want to know what's basically going to happen (I mean, besides the stuff that we already know will basically happen).

here: http://www.bol.ucla.edu/~alexward/script.htm

Dan I., Saturday, 11 October 2003 20:24 (twenty years ago) link

Actually let me just post one tiny little non-spoily excerpt from that that relates directly to what we were talking about earlier: "This could be the opening shot of a Texas zombie movie."

Dan I., Saturday, 11 October 2003 20:35 (twenty years ago) link

OMG, I somehow forgot about the silhouette scene. Amazement seconded, and thirded. Did the first shot of that sequence briefly remind anyone else of Prince's video for "Kiss", or am I just nuts?

adaml (adaml), Saturday, 11 October 2003 20:46 (twenty years ago) link

Big meh. I'm disappointed. How many times is an otherwise well-choreographed fight ruined by overmanaging editor? GOOD ACTION NEEDS CONTINUITY.

Leee (Leee), Saturday, 11 October 2003 20:54 (twenty years ago) link

Thanks adam! I knew it reminded me of some music video, but I couldn't remember which one.

Dan I., Saturday, 11 October 2003 21:14 (twenty years ago) link

what genre was the vernita green scene supposed to represent?

Pam Grier blaxploitation, supposedly (though I am disappointed with the lack of razors hidden in her hair)

nate detritus (natedetritus), Saturday, 11 October 2003 22:05 (twenty years ago) link

Uma & Daryl Hannah had cool hair.

movie is worth seeing, but not the greatest that was released this year.

Kingfish (Kingfish), Sunday, 12 October 2003 00:02 (twenty years ago) link

Okay, this is really geeky of me but:

Bud = Zombie
Elle = Western
Bill = "suspense" of all things.

Sorry.

Dan I., Sunday, 12 October 2003 01:04 (twenty years ago) link

Saw it last night. Wife and I both loved it. My wife is Japanese and she giggled through most of the Japanese language scenes because the acting was so hammy (in her words). It's basically an over-the-top, funny, violent comic book movie - if you believe that "funny" and "violent" can coexist. If not, avoid. My fave stuff, though:

1) GO-GO! She steals the movie, IMHO, and her duel scene with The Bride is the highlight of the final big fight sequence.

2) The rockin' handclap/kick/synth(?) track that played as the anime O-ren Ishii was rooftop sniping. If this is a RZA track I just want an entire cd of this type of shit. If it's not RZA -- who is it?

: related note : I was surprised at the non-Wuness of the incidental music. Really simple yet suspenseful use of sounds with nary an MPC beat in sight.And that Morricone music *swoon*!

3) The orange skies fake ass airplane scenes.

Good movie. Can't wait to see it again.

Jay Vee (Manon_70), Sunday, 12 October 2003 14:27 (twenty years ago) link

I don't think there was any Morricone music. You might be thinking of Bernard Herrmann ("Twisted Nerve" -- the one with all the whistling) or Luis Bacalov (Bacalov:Morricone::Gap Band:Parliament).

nate detritus (natedetritus), Sunday, 12 October 2003 14:52 (twenty years ago) link

I walked past the Empire LS on Friday eve, and there were lots of ladies outside the 'Kill Bill' opening night also dressed up in yellow tracksuits - it was one of the greatest things I've ever seen

Andrew L (Andrew L), Sunday, 12 October 2003 15:06 (twenty years ago) link

Gogo was played by the chick who did Chigusa in Battle Royale

Kingfish (Kingfish), Sunday, 12 October 2003 15:53 (twenty years ago) link

Wouldn't it be nice if, in the year of 'shock and awe', an American director made a film which wasn't 'the most violent movie ever' or 'the ultimate film violence desensitizer'?

I will chop up violent people with a machete or bang their heads repeatedly in a door.

Momus (Momus), Sunday, 12 October 2003 18:58 (twenty years ago) link

(I stayed for the music credits. There was one Morricone track -- but much more Bacalov.)

jaymc (jaymc), Sunday, 12 October 2003 19:25 (twenty years ago) link

Oh. I was just going by the soundtrack, and if there was a Morricone song listed in the credits, I was too busy going "OH SHIT YES, BIXIO-FRIZZI-TEMPERA*" to notice.

*those who own Beretta 70 will understand my dorkery.

nate detritus (natedetritus), Sunday, 12 October 2003 19:40 (twenty years ago) link

Wouldn't it be nice if, in the year of 'shock and awe', an American director made a film which wasn't 'the most violent movie ever' or 'the
ultimate film violence desensitizer'?


but its the only thing the world still loves us for! well, that and our pizza pies. and our, how you say, yankee doodle mutherfucker cheeseburgers.

scott seward, Sunday, 12 October 2003 19:50 (twenty years ago) link

yankee doodle mutherfucker cheeseburgers

That sounds like the best Applebee's menu item ever. Eatin' good in the neighborhood!

nate detritus (natedetritus), Sunday, 12 October 2003 19:58 (twenty years ago) link

"Wouldn't it be nice if, in the year of 'shock and awe', an American director made a film which wasn't 'the most violent movie ever' or 'the
ultimate film violence desensitizer'?"
This reminds me of an interview with Iranian director Abbas Kairostami on the dvd for "Taste of Cherry," He talks briefly about being on a film festvial panel with Tarentino. Kairostami apparently appreciated Tarentino's films above most violent American entertainment because the director "removes the tension from violence."
Tarentino's film sets a new standard for cinema violence during an actually violent cultural politcal era but isn't their something to the idea that since his film is also a richly plotted revenge tragedy, we're being asked to laugh at the absurd circularity of back and forth combat? It seems like there's plenty of American films that ignore the bloodiness of the world.

Theodore Fogelsanger, Sunday, 12 October 2003 20:13 (twenty years ago) link

David Thomson on that very subject here: http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/film/features/story.jsp?story=451658

For what it's worth when I went to see it for a second time today (to sort out my conflicting thoughts on it) two jackasses brough their 10-12 year old sons and i thought that was pretty horrifying. I doubt they can appreciate the irony of the violence.

ryan (ryan), Sunday, 12 October 2003 21:07 (twenty years ago) link

i doubt that i could appreciate the irony of all those steve mcqueen, charles bronson, and clint eastwood movies that my dad took me to when i was 10-12. oh wait, there wasn't any irony. i know i had a hard time trying to figure out richard pryor's vibrator routine when my dad took me to see his first concert movie when i was a kiddie.

fyi to momus-kill bill has a great eyepatch scene.

scott seward, Sunday, 12 October 2003 21:22 (twenty years ago) link

ha! yeah i dont know. i saw lots of shit when i was that age too. but when they start talking about raping comatose women i started to squirm.

ryan (ryan), Sunday, 12 October 2003 21:24 (twenty years ago) link

although granted many adults are about as emotionally developed as 12 year olds anyway so maybe my concern is simply irrelevant!

ryan (ryan), Sunday, 12 October 2003 21:25 (twenty years ago) link

The B&W thing was a little inexplicable.

Yeah, well, it was a last minute change, I believe. Check the original teasers and trailers, and you may be able to see at least one or two quick cuts that are in color there that were b/w in the film.

...

I'm sorry, but this film just flat out sucked. I'm not even going to go into detail, because all I have to say is this - I was not engaged at all on any level whatsoever in any sort of emotion, experience, suspense, enjoyment (or distate, for that matter). It just felt totally flat, empty, and dull. Actually, fuck that, I'm not apologizing. This film sucked, and I do really only say this about once a year, but
"I WANT MY TIME BACK!"

Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 12 October 2003 21:26 (twenty years ago) link

i see your point Girolamo - and maybe my fascination is really me wondering "is it REALLY that empty?" - but i get off on shallow cinematic masturbation, for one thing, and im not totally sure it is a waste of time. it has certainly made me think a lot!

ryan (ryan), Sunday, 12 October 2003 21:33 (twenty years ago) link

TS:

Wouldn't it be nice if, in the year of 'shock and awe', an American director made a film which wasn't 'the most violent movie ever' or 'the ultimate film violence desensitizer'?

vs.

"Wouldn't it be nice if, in a time of racism, sexism, Republicanism, and general assholishness, a 'cool kids' magazine didn't gleefully rejoice in these things, in the name of supposedly 'desensitizing' us to them?"

Sam J. (samjeff), Sunday, 12 October 2003 21:33 (twenty years ago) link

(ha ha, i'm just kiddin')

Sam J. (samjeff), Sunday, 12 October 2003 21:34 (twenty years ago) link

Girolamo- i couldn't possibly have a more opposite reaction. you felt it was flat, empty, and dull whereas i felt it was fat, filled to bursting and quite entertaining. it was even silly and colorful and dopey and raucous. maybe you don't like movies that are strictly entertainment? some people need more to chew on, i suppose. or a plot that is longer then a sentence or two. that's understandable.

visually too, it was quite lovely. and i enjoyed the music as well.

scott seward, Sunday, 12 October 2003 21:34 (twenty years ago) link

"Wouldn't it be nice if, in a time of racism, sexism, Republicanism, and general assholishness, a 'cool kids' magazine didn't gleefully rejoice in these things, in the name of supposedly 'desensitizing' us to them?"

That thesis was, I believe, disproved.

Momus (Momus), Sunday, 12 October 2003 21:40 (twenty years ago) link

I don't think there was any Morricone music. You might be thinking of Bernard Herrmann ("Twisted Nerve" -- the one with all the whistling) or Luis Bacalov (Bacalov:Morricone::Gap Band:Parliament).

Hmm. The music I'm thinking of was during the "sword presentation ritual" with the whistling, with Edda Dell Orso (sp?) type singing - sounded just like something out of a Leone western. I need to check out this Bacalov feller. Any recommendations?

Jay Vee (Manon_70), Sunday, 12 October 2003 23:02 (twenty years ago) link

Yahoo AP reports list it as the big moneymaker for the weekend at US $22M.

Kingfish (Kingfish), Sunday, 12 October 2003 23:07 (twenty years ago) link

ugh. When I saw it a Mexican family was there that included three or four little boys, probably aged 6-13. Every once in a while one of the kids would say something in a sort of loud voice, but since it was in Spanish I don't know if it was along the lines of "Woah, cool!" or "Mom I'm scared!"

Probably not a good thing though; little kids shouldn't be watching all that violence!

Dan I., Monday, 13 October 2003 00:05 (twenty years ago) link

That thesis was, I believe, disproved.

Oh Momus you're so cute when you're full of it!

hstencil, Monday, 13 October 2003 00:28 (twenty years ago) link

shouldn't we start another thread where people who have seen it can ramble on with full spoilers and not surprise poor unsuspecting folks who plan on seeing it, say, next week?

In fact I'm going to do that right now!

TOMBOT, Monday, 13 October 2003 01:12 (twenty years ago) link

And this about sums it up - I couldn't agree with this review more. (Ally's response: "People still read the San Francisco Chronicle?")

WARNING: minor spoilers

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/10/10/DD25088.DTL&type=movies

Bloody 'Kill Bill' slices through endless combat
Mick LaSalle

"Technically, you shouldn't believe any review of Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill: Volume 1" that you've read so far because the film world's auteur du jour decided just this week to make last-minute tweaks in the film coming out today. He didn't finish tweaking until Thursday. On the other hand, it would take more than a few days and a few tweaks to turn this mess into a cohesive product.
To be fair, Tarantino never asked anybody to take him seriously. But critics did anyway and set him up for the fall that he is about to take with "Kill Bill: Volume 1," a 90-minute orgy of endless sword fights, multiple severed limbs and gushing blood. It boggles the mind that after six years of silence, all Tarantino has to offer is this garbage.

I say this with no glee. There was a time when Tarantino seemed like the most promising filmmaker of his generation. And of course, he still has talent.

He has flair. He knows where to place a camera and how to maximize tension and take moments to the extreme. But with "Kill Bill," we realize that his flash and panache are in the service of absolute emptiness. This puerile, ugly fantasy is the sad but unmistakable product of a consciousness not worthy of serious attention.

In fairness, since no critic, including myself, saw the final version of the film, I'll go back for a second viewing after the movie opens.

The film -- really half a film -- takes its inspiration from the kung fu movies of the '70s and the Japanese and Hong Kong action extravaganzas of the '80s and '90s. Perhaps that in itself should serve as a clue. Tarantino's inspiration is coming secondhand, not from life but from fantasy, and from other people's fantasies, to boot. Once it was possible to assume that Tarantino's pop culture references were an ironic critique on the barrenness of media-age culture, but there's no mistaking it now: Tarantino's work is not a commentary on the barrenness. It is the barrenness.

Yet all would be forgiven if he at least turned in a decent kung fu movie. He doesn't. Instead of something kinetic and fast-paced, we get a ponderous wallow in gore. Originally conceived as one movie, "Kill Bill" is being released as two films, but "Volume 1" does not play like a discrete entity. Scenes are allowed to go on forever, as if to stretch this installment to feature length. And then it doesn't really end; it just stops. At least it does stop.

Uma Thurman's blood-covered face fills the screen in the movie's first shot.

She plays the Bride, an elite assassin whose wedding has been interrupted by her former associates. They've come and killed all her guests, and now her former boss, Bill (David Carradine), is there off camera to finish her off. As he shoots her in the head, the screen goes black. It's a disturbing opening, but it's also arresting. At this point, there's still hope.

"Kill Bill: Volume 1" is essentially a revenge saga. The Bride wakes up after a four-year coma, and just as soon as she can get her atrophied legs moving, she starts working her way down a list, killing people. In that way, the movie is like "A Chorus Line": The story doesn't move forward but sideways,

with each character getting a turn.

When the Bride shows up at the door of one enemy (Vivica A. Fox), the camera, as in an Asian action film, moves in for a pair of ominous close-ups as the soundtrack blares. It's an amusing touch, until we realize that Tarantino isn't making a parody but a bloated American tribute. The '70s- sounding soundtrack is cranked just into the zone of distortion, to replicate how it might have sounded in a small, empty theater 30 years ago. It's an authentic touch, but it's also 90 minutes of very loud, very bad music.

The movie is full of similar indulgences, including a tedious sequence about the making of a sword, and, even worse, a dull expository sequence, in which we find out how an American-born woman, Cottonmouth (Lucy Liu), became head of a Japanese crime syndicate. It's rendered as a Japanese anime, with lots of cartoon blood. Mainly, though, the movie is about combat -- with scenes of Thurman kicking with her long legs and holding a sword with two hands, as the bodies pile up in a circle around her.

Heads, arms and legs are cut off, and the blood gushes as from a shower. These dismemberments are not isolated incidents but the substance of the film, a blood-running motif. The centerpiece is a ridiculously overlong and grotesque scene in which the Bride, in pursuit of Cottonmouth, kills and dismembers scores, maybe hundreds, of people. The scene must go on for 30 minutes. It feels even longer.

As the body count mounts, and the blood soaks the floor, "Kill Bill" gradually begins to seem like a deeply neurotic expression hiding behind a screen of genre convention. Among Tarantino's many women with swords, we get Go Go (Chiaki Kuriyama), a 17-year-old in a Catholic school uniform who is Cottonmouth's lethal bodyguard. Whose delicious fantasy is this? And when steel nails penetrate her brain, and her eyes fill with blood, is that supposed to be funny? Or cool? Or arousing?

Let's just call it pornography. And let's just admit it's indefensible."

Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 13 October 2003 01:55 (twenty years ago) link

http://www.theasc.com/magazine/oct03/cover/images/image2b.jpg

Nicolars (Nicole), Monday, 13 October 2003 02:20 (twenty years ago) link

ha ha!! that guy's review is funny. when did they let my granny start writing for newspapers. sigh, i was really kinda let down by the lack of blood and limbs in the climactic scene. but it was still pretty cool. not peter jackson chopping-zombies-down-with-a-lawnmower cool, but cool nonetheless.if people don't like exuberant over-the-top action movies that's fine. they sound like humourless scolds when they write reviews like that though. i liked the one radio review i heard by a guy who writes for Slate. he quoted david denby's hand-wringing review in the new yorker where he says: "i felt nothing. no joy, no anger...blah, blah" and this guy went on to say: "well, i felt something. I felt glee!" that about sums it up for me! so lock me up already.

scott seward, Monday, 13 October 2003 02:32 (twenty years ago) link

So this is the first movie Mick LaSalle's seen in the last year and a half?

TOMBOT, Monday, 13 October 2003 02:51 (twenty years ago) link

I stopped even trying to reason with that person's review when the phrase "bad music" came up.

nate detritus (natedetritus), Monday, 13 October 2003 02:51 (twenty years ago) link

I lost him at "auteur du jour"

s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 13 October 2003 04:24 (twenty years ago) link

Hmmm, maybe SF does hate fun.

adaml (adaml), Monday, 13 October 2003 04:26 (twenty years ago) link

That review reminds me of every single "letter to the editor" of the entertainment section of the Arizona Republic. The main film reviewer was a big indie Tarantino-rip-off dork and the mormons and elderly born agains would go up in ARMS over everything he had to say. "It's PORNOGRAPHY!" My mom and I would like lie on the floor laughing reading this shit day after day.

Then we'd both cry and cry and cry realizing that these were our fucking neighbors.

(translation: Girolamo, if you don't like it, fine, but that review is the biggest bunch of bullshit nonsense I've ever seen. How about you look up his review of Charlie's Angels and post that? I'm curious if he'd hate that too, since the only difference violence-wise between this and any number of films I've seen in the past, oh, five years is the fact that the violence is almost entirely perpetrated by and aimed at females.)

Ally (mlescaut), Monday, 13 October 2003 04:29 (twenty years ago) link

But is Tarantino indie?

adaml (adaml), Monday, 13 October 2003 04:31 (twenty years ago) link


You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.