KILL BILL comments...

I have seen the trailer... great!!! I will see the movie next week... anyone has seen the movie yet?

 

To quote Letterman, Uma, Uma, Uma!

 

There's supposedly a comical rape scene of Uma's character in the movie. In good taste or no?

 

I'm leaving work early to see this on Friday. I've got high hopes for this flick.

 

Damn, I have to work on Friday from 7AM till 7PM so I'll miss the morning opening. I love being the first one on the block seeing a big flick.

 

A comical rape scene is in bad taste.

 

That's Mr. Terrible-tino for ya....

 

This (below) is a thread crap...

Synic,

I see you are from Naples? How is the land of Newly Wed, Over Fed, or Almost Dead? Tis my old stomping ground.

 

saw this tonight ... very stylish, not exactly understated.

it doesn't have the humor that Pulp did and the blood went too far for my taste, but Uma is incredible and there's no other ride out there like it. don't want to spoil anything, but I don't think anyone will be offended by the treatment of the rape scene.

 

So this movie isn't about Bill Gates?

 

I read two diametrically opposed reviews before seeing it, in The Boston Globe (positive) and New Yorker (must to avoid), but neither in my opinion got it right. I miss a lot of what was great about Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, but it's not just decadent crap either. Kind of more the way I think about Reservoir Dogs, something that should have been better.
First off, as with School of Rock and Jack Black, get used to the fact that Uma Thurman is going to be in every scene. And there's little for her to play off of, as the characters did so well in Pulp Fiction. This one is lacking in the snappy dialogue that made PF as memorable and hilarious as the first Richard Pryor concert movie. Madsen, Hannah, and Carradine look to figure prominently in Vol. 2, but their appearances here are cameos. This is Thurman and Liu's movie.
Second, the 'story told out of order' gambit is used here to no discernible effect. In Pulp Fiction, Tarantino cleverly killed off the Travolta character and let him ride off into the sunset. You don't get that odd sense of time looping back on itself here, and even though the 'last scene' comes at the beginning, it's really not much more than a long flash-back with announcements that we're in a new chapter. Kind of like the titles that interrupt silent films.
What comes across strongest is that this is Tarantino's homage to Leone and martial arts movies. I didn't find the martial arts sequences to be anything spectacular, although the first fight scene is nicely choreographed.
Finally, although the violence has a decidedely unreal look to it, for those who object to viewing dismemberment by sword on moral or esthetic grounds this movie is definitely not for you.
I hope Part 2 is better.

 

those are great points, ATR ... especially about the differences between Pulp, Jackie and this one.

I liked Bill, but when I woke up this morning and started thinking about it, I realized there were far more surprises, revelations and story advances in Uma's short fight with Copperhead than there were in all of the carnage in the second half of the movie.

instead of splitting the story into two 90-minute films, maybe they should have just edited a little tighter.

 

I haven't seen the film, but by all accounts it's perhaps the most graphically bloody film in history. That's not my cup of hemoglobin anyway, but what bothers me is a guy like Roger Ebert who doesn't mention the fact once in his review about the level of bloodshed. Some of these reviewers are so in love with QT it's embarrassing!

 

If your point is that this would have been a great single movie if edited differently, I wholeheartedly agree.
But what's with all this carping about the bloodshed in Tarantino's films? I don't have the visceral reaction to the violence in a Tarantino film that I do to films like Dead Man Walking, Unforgiven, Mystic River, or Saving Private Ryan for example. But Tarantino's movies are about what honor there is amongst thieves, and Robbins, Eastwood and Spielberg are about something else. Both perspectives have esthetic and moral validity. There is no more violent imagery anywhere than in The Bible, Greek Tragedy, Shakespeare, or Cormac McCarthy, for example (check out the novel Blood Meridian, makes The Wild Bunch seem tame by comparison). These are considered among the greatest stories of human civilization.
Ain't nobody but yourself taking you to these films, and there's plenty of warning as to what they're about.

 

Interesting, in that another recent film, "Ichi The Killer", has been described the same way.

http://www.ichithekiller.net

Warning: don't watch the trailer.

I'm not kidding.

Really.

Don't.

Ok, you've been warned!

 

I was too curious... cool

 

Films like Kill Bill invite sound bites/advertising like this. Gets some people into the theatres. But how 'graphically violent', whatever that means, a film is doesn't necessarily depend on the body count or what is shown. For me, the single most disturbingly violent image in a motion picture I can remember is the Alec Baldwin character in Miami Blues getting his fingers chopped off in the pawn shop, then pulling his hand away and leaving the fingers on the counter. Shocking because his hand was multilated (think of the homonculus you've seen in psychology books and how much space your hand takes up in your brain) and the unexpected suddeness of the act itself. A real stomach churner. I know a lot of folks think the torture of the cop in Reservoir Dogs was a similarly disturbing scene, probably because of the excruciating buildup, and the well established psychopathic nature of the Michael Madsen character. All I can say is, thank god for the levity of Stuck in the Middle with You.

 

I just came back from seeing Kill Bill and I thought it was great. Yes it's bloody and violent, but this is a Tarantino picture and it's one of his trademarks. Some of the violence is so over-the-top that it becomes cartoony. I left the theater geared up for part two, I wish that it came out sooner though. A December release for part two doesn't seem un-realistic. Maybe Miramax doesn't want to compete with the "Return of the King" juggernaut.

 

my point was more about the length and repetitiveness of the sword fight scenes as compared to the tighter, wittier knife fight at the beginning of the movie. but it's interesting that you mention in your other post the ear scene in Reservoir Dogs.

as squeamish as that scene makes a lot of people, the actual cutting isn't even shown on-screen. the way the camera slowly pans away at the critical moment and then back in a single sweeping shot, coupled with the soundtrack, is what makes that scene so effective, imo. the viewer's imagination is almost always a scarier lens.

Kill Bill is a very different kind of movie, obviously, but how many cartoonish beheadings, maimings and blood showers does a director need? I think the first 15 would have been enough.

 

In this movie, the more the merrier.

The movie was a blast. I could watch Uma slaughter people all day.

 

My words today on Kill Bill Vol 1. Where's the suspense? This should have been a 'Perils of Pauline' cliffhanger but instead it's a 'things to do' list. Why don't we get more back story on what happened before the slaughter at the wedding scene, as well as how the other characters are responding to the fact that she's eliminated two of their squad? It's not pulling me in the way that something like '24' does, even thought I'll see Vol 2 just because it's Tarantino.
Levi, even though I quoted you it was just in relation to your comments about splitting the film in half. I didn't get any indication that you objected to the level of violence.

 

I saw this movie yesterday and I was disappointed. Although I didn't see Jackie Brown, I have seen Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction several times and admire the storytelling skill and cinematic obsessiveness in each of them.

I didn't see either quality in Kill Bill.

Sergio Leone dealt in icons and big, sweeping allegories, but those icons carried actual human weight within a context and a narrative. Not a single character mattered to me in Kill Bill, and that includes Uma Thurman.

The flashbacks and flashforwards seemed gratuitous, not at all revelatory the way they were in Pulp Fiction. Time mattered in that movie. Here it was just something the screenplay couldn't be bothered with.

I didn't see much cinematic obsessiveness here, either. The fight sequences looked like old Batman TV shows without the zany humor. The cinematography was nice to look at, but the blocking was clumsy and the acting not even up to the level of mannered or campy.

I left the theater feeling dreary and a little sickened by the sadism and self-indulgence. I wish I could have had some fun. I was hoping for fun, at least.

 

Gardo, I'm not going to quote you but I pretty much agree with your assessment. As you can see from my comments previous to yours. I was not a big fan of Reservoir Dogs myself, and in fact I was shocked at how much different Pulp Fiction was. What a leap. By all means, see Jackie Brown. You have the Elmore Leonard story, and great ensemble acting from all involved. I also agree that although he's trying to be Sergio Leone, we knew Sergio Leone, and he's no Sergio Leone.

 

Saw KILL BILL today and it is no Pulp Fiction.

It is a very straight revenge story that one has seen many many times in the past.

The only good things about this film is Uma's performance and the great cinematography that was used. It is a beautiful looking film. It does have some great fight scenes that look real compared to the very digital The Matrix's.

But the story leaves me cold. I didn't feel anything for any of the characters.
It just over the top Quentin....who it seems to make any movie he likes. I guess he had fun.

I would give the look of the film an A+
The story a D-
so thats a solid C+?

don't rush to see this one....in fact I may just rent the DVD when it comes out and skip Part 2.

btw...is there anything more sexy than the japanese school girl look that one of the actors uses in one of the more effective scenes.

 

I wasn't expecting much from this film, and still managed to be disappointed. Were it not for the friend with me, I would have got up and left before it finished. KILL BILL is a very laborious, sausage grinder of a revenge fantasy that's about as exciting as a grocery list -- in fact, that's the point of the film. Uma Thurman's character methodically goes through her revenge checklist, crossing out names. I kept checking my watch.

I would have hoped that the serial nature of the very thin plot would allow the director to do something creative with each set piece, but it's just the same blood-soaked MORTAL COMBAT fight over and over, all very tedious, humorless, pointless, repetitive: I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE with a hipster layer of irony to render the violence-porn culturally acceptable. Extra points deducted for animie sequence that goes on way too long. Possibly the worst movie I've paid to see in years.