@word_chemist: "The banality of fascist art and architecture is often noted; the banality of
fascist movies less so. Kill Bill is one banal fascist movie.Here's the
idea: Tarantino, like, loves, like, martial art films right man? So, like,
because he's stuck for anything else to do right, cos he only really had one
idea right? Right? He decided to show his fans a real good time by making a
big, fuck off kung fu film which will just be *so* wild man and so crazy and
so much fun that everyone will just have a great time man. Right?
Wrong.
I don't really care that it was fascist- Hollywood makes fascist movies for
the fascist inside us all: if Don Simpson or Bruckheimer could speak English
*that* is what they would say. My argument is with the solid-ass tedium of
most of them; with Tarantino, who has managed to get himself accepted as a
wild and wacky film director, leading the field now with Kill Bill.
Secret Agent (or some such covert operator) Uma Thurman's wedding party is
slaughtered by The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. She is in a coma for
four years then recovers and sets about killing them all. Er, that's it.
I'm cool with simple plots; I like a good comic they don't make good
comics anymore but a comic must have a dynamic brevity. I stopped reading
comic books when they went pretentious back in the mid-eighties, y'know,
when Spider Man spent three issues wandering around Manhattan fretting about
the meaning of his life. Kill Bill isn't as pretentious as that, but it sure
don't have dynamic brevity.
Here's the pickle that Quentin has got himself into: he's become a world
famous cinematic rock and roller. He wants to make a film that rips off
(read 'celebrates', read 'homage'; better still, read 'long masturbation
ritual') all the crappy kung-fu films he's watched over the years. This is a
not very freshest idea for such a towering hipster as Quentin, but its the
only one he's got. Course, if you're going to make such a movie endlessly
violent; one dimensional plot you better make it short and sweet; about 85
minutes I should say. But cinematic hipsters can't make movies that slight
and brief! Even if that is all their slight and brief idea is worth. So
Quentin gets to work on his trademarks: pointless (in the case of Kill Bill)
flashbacks, scenes that go on too long nobody minds because when they go
for that long, he rewards his audience with some heavy injuries being handed
out; crass jokes; a small smattering of off-the-wall dialogue (formerly
Tarantino's masterstroke, it's in short supply here); flashy cinematography
and baroque martial arts bouts on an ante that *he* thinks he is thrillingly
upping each time one occurs.
There's only one trouble with all this fun, man: it's boring. Uma hacks her
way around (she's nice to watch for a while) in balletic sequence after
balletic sequence of fight-arranging ingenuity and blood- spurting savagery
(there's cascades, fountains of blood which didn't give the audience I was
with the vicarious thrill that Tarantino has insisted it will. In fact, when
one man is disembowelled at a bar by a seventeen-year-old girl and an deluge
of plasma hits the floor, me and my compadres heard the coke-swilling
baseball cap-wearing thrill seeker behind me yawn. I smiled in the
darkness.)
It ends in a big and bloody fight. Only it don't end, there's Vol 2 as well.
I thought for one horrible moment, when Uma had prevailed over several
hundred Yakuza and was on plane consulting her revenge list, that we were in
for more but happily, the credits rolled. I turned to my two companions
(both Tarantino fans) and said: 'how do you feel?'
'Relieved'
Relieved that Uma wasn't going on, right now, to do the rest of the list.
Now, I hope that Tarantino and his producer *planned* to release the film in
two bits. Because if the wunderkid conceived this as one three-hour plus
film, then he has degenerated into a *serious* bore.
So, loud and clear, I'm not being a fogey (though I could take issue with
the usual bout of childish Tarantino sadism: a four-year-old girl watching
her mother being stabbed to death), I *know* its a comic but it is a
*crappy* comic. This be the song of Hollywood itself nowadays: too much
money and no ideas. Dragging what used to be a nerdy sideshow of culture
into the mainstream for lack of anything else to do. I was going to conclude
with the old school report admonishment 'must try harder', but that could be
disastrous advice for Mr T.
Incapacity Benefits~ the blog
<url>"
    @word_chemist: "news:<email_address>
<quote>
that?
Dunno, I know that I sometimes say 'its okay to be snobbish, as long as
you're snobbish about the right things.'"
    @egrasett: "<quote>
Could he have meant that being a snob _may_
(not necessarily, just possibly) protect one
from being something worse? The 'No  gentlrman
would dream of doing that' attitude.
Cheers,
       Elliott"
    @word_chemist: "news:<email_address>
<quote>
news:<bovq05$1jk897$<email_address>>...
banality of
for
English
I saw Red Dawn a long time ago and it was a load of shit. Kill Bill is
slicker, much slicker. It wasn't really the fascism of it that I objected
to it was a big budget american film for fuck sake but it's tedium, its
overblownness, it's sheer crappiness.
I have met people in the last week who declare it the best film ever made;
some of these people have high educational qualis."
    @ahogue: "<quote>
I haven't seen the movie since I was, oh, 14, but even at that age I 
remember it being horribly cheesy. The only thing I really remember 
about it is a hunting scene where one of the teenagers goes through a 
rite of passage ritual by drinking deer blood.
I'm thinking I might actually rent it tonight.
Alan H."
    @ahogue: "<quote>
There are a lot of interesting reviews on the movie at the imdb. Here's 
a recent one:
"Pinko's HATE this film
Why?
Because it is a direct hit. It exposes the Leftists for who they are 
(murderous, controlling tyrants) and lionizes the rugged, individualist, 
armed American. More to the point, it shows the rugged, individualist, 
armed Americans handing the murderous, controlling tyrannical Leftists 
their heads.
Out of ignorance and / or contempt they attack this film as 
'unbelieveable' or 'cheezy' or even 'jingoistic' (code for being 
pro-American / patriotic). Yet, as one who trained in counterinsurgency 
warefare as well as history, I can tell you that the technical direction 
of this film is of a very high caliber.
First, the intro lays the premise for how this 'what-if' scenario has 
come to pass: the Soviets are starving, the US is weakened and the 
Europeans sit this one out. We can start first with the last. Recall the 
lead-in to Desert Storm II? Much of Europe, led by those wonderful 
allies, the French, actively worked against American interests and 'sat 
that one out' with a vengeance. "
You can find the rest, and other user reviews, here: 
<url>"
    @ahogue: "<quote>
I don't think I can really comment till I've seen the movie again. I 
think that some leftists, in general, don't like such movies because 
they garner user reviews like this one, and leftists don't like to see 
gun-toting militaristic macho nit-wits get any more pumped than they 
already are. Note that this is really a reason that only obliquely has 
anything to do with the movie itself, and in this sense you could say 
it's a little unfair.
But I'll have to rent it and then I'll have my two cents.
Honestly, I think IMDB user reviews are a godsend for people interested 
in how audiences react to movies, and it's always instructive to look at 
them if you're interested in a particular movie. Of course a lot of them 
are just silly, but even those can tell you something. I'm pretty sure 
Orwell would have a blast trolling through them, like the boy's weeklies 
and postcards and all that.
For instance, when I decided to write a review of Showgirls (don't ask) 
I checked the reviews first, and it really gave me some insight into why 
anyone would like that movie. Otherwise I would have been utterly 
bewildered.
Alan H."
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