Why did The Hulk fail so badly? The CGI Hulk is impressive. The thing has a pretty emotive face, much better than the usual blank masks we see. Which reminds me. My favorite supplement on the Attack of the Clones DVD shows parts of the process of animating some of the cgi characters and interactions, focusing on animating Yoda, particularly for the Dooku fight scene and his line at the end when he says that the Clone Wars had started up. Which was bad. Particularly for that scene, they go through several iterations of the facial animation for Yoda, and you get to see the process, which is neat.
Anyway, Hulk has emotion in his face, and he integrates quite well into his surroundings, not standing out too terribly as a cgi insert (burly brawl, Anakin rides a hippo...). Hulk smashes, and there are real smashings filmed done which look to be the result of the cgi smashing. Unlike, say, The Matrix Reloaded's agent car hood jump. Sadly, the Hulk's shitty supplements that, for some reason, warrant a double disc set out of the relative flop, go over the animation process in very brief detail.
The flick also has Nick Nolte as a complete nutter, which is fun up to and including the point where he huffs out of a giant black plastic tube and irradiates himself. It looks to be something out of Nick's daily life. Plus, he has these freaky dog familiars early in the film, including a French poodle familiar that's really weird but works well with Nolte's character.
The last twenty minutes of the movie suffer a bit from Stephen King-ism, that is they present a ludicrous, overly symbolic way of resolving the story. Plus, the film makes no sense at this point - why is Banner's pop coming to visit him, why does he grab a power line, why does frenching it cause him to turn into v-ger from star trek the motion picture...it really makes no sense. But up to that, it was a pretty cool, smart little flick. If they'd just ended it with Hulk's capture in SF, it would've been a much better film.
Incidentally, Jennifer Connelly's hot. Sadly, she has no double-dildo action in this film. Shame, that.
I Spit on Your Grave
Meir Zarchi's rape revenge film. New York writer goes to the boonies to live in a summer home and write a bullshit bourgeois novel. There, over the course of 15-20 film minutes, she's chased, beaten, and raped by four townies. This stuff is pretty fucking intense and scary. Plus, it's a really fucking long time up there on screen. Now, mind you we're not talking penetration scenes, most of the actual act is filmed in cinemax's trademark imply-o-rama, but the implied acts are pretty nasty. There's also a fair amount of explicit beating, and some really scary chase sequences. This is the stuff that pissed off people who gave the film a lotta guff back in the day. One can understand having a strong reaction to this part, to be sure.
I can see that the rest of the film wouldn't endear such viewers, either. Having been savaged, the writer then stalks and kills each of her attackers. Usually she begins to seduce the characters and then kills them once the dudes've been suckered into erotic reverie. The nastiest of these takes place in her home, where she's taken the ringleader and is giving him a bath. Whilst manually ministering to the mastermind under cover of soap froth, she stealthily sneaks a...eh, fuck it. She cuts off his dick and locks him in the bathroom to bleed to death. We see the guy standing up, holding the bloody remains of his cock as blood spurts out. Pretty nasty, yes.
The film is pretty effective, I mean you really do feel something as all this is going on, how could you not? My complaints with the film are that the yokels are particularly yokely, and I'm sick of the cliche of boonie-types as backwards rapists or otherwise crazy. There are plenty of smaller towns out there in the US, and they're not all filled with homicidal nutjobs.
My second complaint is that the really hot cover shot of a nice ass barely covered by dirty panties, with a hand clutching a knife, appears nowhere in the film. Yeah, the chick is hot, and there's plenty of film time with her naked or cutely dressed which doesn't occur in the context of a horribly figuratively dick-deflating rape sequence or a horribly literally dick-deflating emasculation sequence. But that cover was hot, you know?
She's a pretty decent actress, too. The role's not terribly verbal, and she does completely sell the physical. When she gets around to the seduction/revenge portion of the film, she's like something from another planet. She's a convincing seductress, and yet you know what's gonna happen. She teases and taunts just as a setup for the kill. It's a femme fatale in a literal sense, which is pretty engrossing. So to speak. I mean, yeah, there are plenty of film women who figuratively lead guys to their doom, but she does it very literally and in a way that makes you totally root for her.
It's a rare moment in a film. A woman is using her wiles to seduce and murder a bunch of guys and the audience can't help but be totally sympathetic with her, the audience as ready for de-cocking as the movie is ready to show it.
We're not talking retarded, Charlie's Angels-style girl power here, this is the real deal. And the chick, Camille Keaton, completely sells it. She's like a force of nature by the second half of the film. She's Buster Keaton's grand-niece, by the way.
The revenge portion of the film is the source of the I Spit on Your Grave title, also of the film's alternate title, Day of the Woman. Criticized as violently misogynistic, it's hard to see the film that way, I think. I mean, she gets back really well at the rapists, and the film works really hard to balance the savagery. It's just so shockingly done that I guess it just sticks in people's craws.
The DVD has a great commentary by Joe Bob Briggs, who demonstrates a fine aesthetic sense regarding gory b-pix.
Had a preview for the Dawn of the Dead remake, which I will no doubt see. The original by George Romero is fantastic. This one has Ving Rhames and Sarah Polley, the former I kinda like, the latter I find quite appealing, so I'll probably see that.
Anyway, the TCM remake is not as good as the original, but then few horror flicks are. This one is pretty good at delivering the gore, and has a storyline that only very loosely follows the original, evoking themes more than plot points. While I quite enjoy some of the specific plot points of the original, the creativity and freshness are quite pleasing. No, you don't need to see the original to enjoy this one.
I do have a bone to pick with the film, though, and that's Jessica Biel. By all accounts a fine bitch, she gets naked at no point during the film. Not only that, but she gets drenched in water not once but twice, the second time after spending some quality time in a meat locker. She's wearing a tshirt, and despite the moist frigidity, we see no nipplage at any point! Either Leatherface sanded off her nipples in a deleted scene which we will see on the DVD, or that's one motherfucker of a thick bra she's wearing. It's all rather displeasing.
Her character is also a bit of a sow, it must be said. At one point, she feebly tries to help a comrade off a meat hook, but does such a poor job that the poor slob has to ask her to finish him off with a knife. All she really needed was a better grip and, perhaps, to stand on top of a nearby piano and the fellow'd be saved. In another scene, she and another friend are hiding from Leatherface. She is flushed out by the man with the saw, and her friend valiantly comes out of hiding to attack the maniac and save Biel. As soon, however, as the tide turns against the friend, Jessica zips right out of the room without a thought of her pal. Jessica Biel proves why she is the black sheep of the 7th Heaven family. No truly virtuous preacher's daughter would turn her back on a friend being attacked by a 70's horror film icon. And we don't get to see her tits. And she wears a bra of thick quilting. We can only hope that she's anally violated by a rhinoceros in the sequel.
Characters in the film are seen wearing extremely low-rise jeans and trucker caps, placing them oh-so-perfectly in the 70's. That's my other clothing gripe.
Otherwise, it's a decent horror film.
It's Tobe Hooper's second film after Texas Chainsaw, and it's a good, if extremely bizarre one. It concerns an old southern motel and roadside attraction joint. The attraction is a giant crocodile or alligator. The film doesn't know the difference between the two, and neither do I. I do know that I used to be on a bowling team called the "Alley Gators," and that such a punning name would be quite difficult to form from the word "crocodile."
The motel has deteriorated over the years, and the substance of the plot, such as it is, is that a bunch of people show up at the motel and are terrorized by the crazy old man running the joint and/or eaten by the huge carnivorous varmint.
What makes Tobe Hooper's first two films so great is that they're some sort of feverish nightmare. Everything is gritty and surreal, a weird parody of real life. In Chainsaw, this is most evident in the homicidal family, which acts very much like a family, except that they're all really into cannibalism.
Eaten Alive is almost as distressing. Shot very darkly and in menacing red lights, the characters are extremely exaggerated and act very oddly. A family that arrives at the motel has their little dog eaten by the thing in the pool. Unsettled, the family takes a room in the motel, where the father proceeds to break down in bizarre fashion, uttering weird nonsense and ultimately asking his bride to extinguish her cigarette by grinding it out in his eye.
Most of the action revolves around this family. The crazed husband gets whacked by a sickle through the throat, Throne of Blood style, and then falls to the reptile. The wicked old proprietor ties the mother to a bed for some purpose he's never allowed to carry out. Creepiest, though, is the little daughter, who's like 7 years old and has a leg brace. She hides from the madness underneath the motel itself, amongst the rats and garbage, through which she's chased both by the reptile and the old coot. That's some prime scary - a crippled little girl being chased by a maniac and his pet carnivore of indeterminate species.
The film is a little too far to the loopy side for it to be as frightening as Chainsaw, but it's still a unique little horror flick and well worth watching.
Well, so Easterbrook went and got fired from ESPN. I thought that was kinda odd...I mean, it was his retarded political writing for TNR that was the problem. TNR should've given the cultural conservative the boot. Oh well.
I've been sitting around, listening to Sonic Youth a lot, waiting for the good movies to come out...one of those is Gus Van Sant's Elephant, a flick about a Columbine-style shooting. Looks good, I hope it somehow makes its way to St. Louis.
There's a Sonic Youth song called Expressway to Yr. Skull which is very good, and it starts out with the lyric "We're gonna kill the California girls, we're gonna fire the exploading load in the milkmaid maidenhead." The idea of random killing, of the mass slaughter of innocents, this is a storyline which has floated around the culture for a while. While it didn't, as Herr Easterbrookkk suggests, evince itself in the movie Scream, it's certainly in others and in Sonic Youth songs, as well.
I remember going to a school auditorium in the early/mid nineties to see a screening of the film 1991: The Year Punk Broke. The flick was basically a tourfilm for Sonic Youth in Europe when they were being supported by Nirvana. Several other Big Cred bands were featured...there's even a short segment where Bob Mould pops up. SY play a great version, as I recall, of Expressway... in the film. The cramped and acoustically claustrophobic auditorium helped the experience.
I also remember being puzzled by the ironic mocking of Bob Mould, Iggy Pop, and a hapless Goo fan by Thurston Moore. Puzzled and threatened, really. There were people that I recognized from school there, a couple of goth-ish alternachicks. Wasn't really a part of that scene, but some of the music was quite good.
Why does this cocksucking piece of shit write for The New Republic, supposedly one of our magazines?
Of course, I encourage you to read this and judge for yourself. Entitled "TAKE OUT THE GORE AND KILL BILL IS AN EPISODE OF "MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS"", the piece is a bunch of handwringing over violence in movies. Won't somebody think of the children and all that. Say, doesn't this sound like their side's position in the culture wars? Funny enough, it is.
Is Quentin Tarantino the single greatest phony in the history of Hollywood?
That, kids, is what's known as hyperbole. What Easterbrook means to say is "I think QT's overrated," but that's less hooky.
All of Tarantino's work is pure junk. How can you be a renowned director without ever having made a film that's even good, to say nothing of great? No film student in 50 years will spend a single second with a Tarantino movie, except to shake his or her head.
I would love to take a bet with douchebag on this one. Maybe Tarantino isn't his thing, hey, that's cool, de gustibus non est dispuntandum and all that. But. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction in particular have huge amounts of praise lurking out there in the film dialogue. Critics adored these films, and they went on to be quite influential. Their stylistic influence on the rest of the 90's cinema assures them a place of importance. But there's more. Pulp Fiction's status as an enormously successful independent film had a real impact on the business side of film, both in proving the potential of the indie and, very directly, by being a gi-normous financial boon to Miramax in particular. Miramax has a pretty big film lineup, and it's first one out of the park was Pulp. Miramax's current importance makes Pulp important. This is not to mention the fact that Pulp had an enormous impact on a generation. This film really connected with people. Maybe Gregg (two g's? Fucking douche!) doesn't like the films, but the large amounts of existing criticism, the number of films clearly influenced, the change in the business all mean that you can't just forget it. It's like Easy Rider, man...maybe you're not into hippy road-trip movies, but you can't just dismiss it out of hand.
Tarantino does nothing but churn out shabby depictions of slaughter as a form of pleasure--and that, for decades, has been what the least imaginative and least talented of Hollywood churn out.
Apparently, he's never seen ANY SINGLE ROMANTIC COMEDY released from, oh, say, 1992 to the present.
Nothing about Hollywood is more hackneyed or trite than preposterous violence--and that's all Tarantino has ever put onto film.
Watched those films on mute, eh? Well, since Greggg apparently has, I'd just like to point out that QT is also well-praised for his dialogue.
He also, interestingly, has a fetish for depicting, on screen, the source of incidental music. That is, when Uma and John are listening to Dusty "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" Springfield, Uma actually goes up to a big ol' tape machine and plays it. This trick happened to then show up in Kubrick's last film. I mention this for three reasons. 1-Kubrick is god. 2-In Eyes Wide Open, the guy who wrote EWS with Kubrick mentioned that Stan "the Man" was quite impressed by Pulp Fiction. 3-It's shit like this, whether you care for it or not (I find it to be interesting, if non-essential trivia), is EXACTLY the reason that they'll be watching Pulp Fiction in film school in 50 years
But, as specific to Kill Bill, I'd also like to point out that the violence depicted in the film is completely UNLIKE anything produced by Hollywood. The style of action is pretty solidly Asian in origin. Plus, there's that whole, you know, anime section. Dat shit be Japanese. Which is, like, Asian, like, too.
Oh, and I'll get to Gregg's antisemitism in just a second.
Set aside what it says about contemporary Hollywood culture that the supposed liberal progressives of this city now ceaselessly mass-market presentations of butchering the helpless as a form of entertainment, even, as rewarding self-expression.
Ah, what would a read in a nice liberal magazine be without some gratuitous liberal bashing. Fucking traitorous fuck. Anyway, regarding Kill Bill, the vast majority of the slaughter in the film, as is actually the case in Pulp Fiction, is not of the helpless.
The Kill Bill Helpless Death Tally
I fucking hate True Lies, but Arnold's line, "Yeah, but they were all bad" is pretty applicable here. Also notable is that the slaughter of the 8 in the wedding party happens off-screen. With the exception of one marine's wife, in fact, there is virtually no on-screen slaughter of the helpless.
In fact, Easterbrook's point here is going to become important, cos he takes it to some fucking weird places, so I want to hammer on this point - he argues that the slaughter of the helpless has become commonplace in Hollywood films. I just don't think this is so. Is there violence? Sure. Are there deaths? Sure. But of the helpless? Well, there are a lot of villains killed, be they vampires, werewolves (of London ah-oooooo!, sorry), zombies, or arms dealing North Koreans (last James Bond flick). Are there exceptions? Sure. But the wholesale slaughter of innocents just doesn't take place on the scale Easterbrook suggests. Violence against other violent actors is the norm in action movies. I mean, the bad guys shoot and Bond, he shoots back. Pierce Brosnan doesn't unload an AK into a schoolbus of developmentally-challenged children (though I think we all know what dark motivations lie in Pierce's heart).
Why is Easterbrook making such a retarded point?
Why do we suppose that, with Hollywood's violence-glorifying films now shown all around the world to billions of people--remember, mass distribution of Hollywood movies to the developing world and Islamic states is a recent phenomenon--young terrorists around the globe now seem to view killing the innocent as a positive thing, even, a norm?
Oh, that's why. Quentin and Osama are best buds. Gregg's connection...well, to call in tenuous would be misleading, as tenuous actually implies a connection. Note, please, that Gregg's point has now shifted from being about the slaughter of the helpless to the slaughter of the innocent. Of course, my objections still apply. The slaughter of the innocent is also rare in Hollywood. Furthermore, I would think that any number of factors, from, say, the rise of militant, whacko, fundamentalist Islam to poverty to America's role in backing the Afghani resistance to Russia, far outweigh Easterbrook's entirely imaginary role of Hollywood on potential terrorists.
Additionally, as a liberal I am outraged that this asshole is writing for a liberal magazine. Red-baiting is of the right, douchebag. You're doing the exact same thing, just these days you replace "pinko" with "towelhead." This is a despicable tactic.
But let me tell you what will really happen with a global cinema. In x years, some Iranian dude's gonna make a movie with a bunch of crazy Iranians shooting each other, but told all out of sequence and with snarky dialogue. And then people will say, "Oh cool, the Iranian Pulp Fiction!" And global cinema will become just that more global.
I would suggest checking out Amores Perros to prove this point, but I find that movie unimaginably dull, so I'll just tell you that the same fucking thing happened, and now people in the US give a shit about Mexican movies.
Set that concern aside. Tarantino's films are simply trite as regards adoration of violence. In Hollywood, nothing could be less original.
Again, seen any romantic comedies lately? The shifty logic here is troubling as well. First it's "slaughter as a form of pleasure," then it's "revel in violence," on to "butchering the helpless as a form of entertainment, even, as rewarding self-expression," finally ending up as "adoration of violence." He's not talking about the same thing here. On the one hand, there is definitely violence in movies. And yes, absolutely, that violence is a part of the entertainment. From a certain point of view (one, I might add, shared by Bill Bennett), I could see a fellow calling this "revel(ling)." "As a form of pleasure?" Well, you're sort of walking off the deep end with your rhetoric there. Yes, there is a positive aesthetic response to entertainment which has violence, but I don't know that I would say that there's some slaughter aesthetic, meaning that the death is the thing that pleases and does so intrinsically and without context. Adoration? Well, this isn't the same thing, either. When there's an eye-gouging in King Lear, is that an adoration of eye-gouging? No, it's using eye-gouging for an aesthetic response, and to call it pleasing is to use a very broad sense of the word. As for the helpless/innocents, this is a point which I've touched on earlier. Suffice it to say that Easterbrook's talking out his ass. Rather, he's talking off of William Bennett's notes, which is a fair equivalent.
And his supposed innovative screenplays? Spare me. The out-of-sequence technique Tarantino uses is praised as ingenious, yet every first-year film student is taught this device.
And yet so few films use them. And yet so few films with grosses in the hundreds of millions of dollars use them. In fact, I can't think of any recent mainstream film that ends in its chronological middle, certainly nothing mainstream. As for this technique's influence, well, without Pulp, no Memento.
By the way, there's also the dialogue in the film. That's also in the screenplay. I think they writes them words down.
OK, Gregggg sets up some more retarded straw men regarding QT's reknown which would be less entertaining to me to rebut, so I'll just say that the points he makes are retarded, and if you want to sully your mind with such things, you can follow the link way up above.
And then Greg sez:
Tarantino must draw his prominence in Hollywood, and among film-buff culture, from the very fact of his phoniness.
Holy fallacy of false bifurcation Batman! If Greggggg doesn't understand why people like QT's films, it must be because he's a *phony*.
First, his career says that you can do nothing but wallow in preposterous violence--Hollywood's cheapest and least original aspect--and still be revered.
Since Easterbrook doesn't see the artistic merit in the films, it must not exist. Pathetic reasoning. Other people see merit in these films. To say you don't is not to deny that such merit exists or, and this is the kicker - that other people might disagree with you and find merit in what you think is trash. Way back up there I said some shit in Latin, which I'll kindly translate here as "there's no debating matters of taste."
Second, his career validates the idea that you can accomplish nothing at all in any meaningful sense and yet acquire fame. The idea that you can get celebrity, money, and women through the movies without having any merits whatsoever is at the core of the Hollywood's conception of itself.
This is the most defensible point in this tripe. Yes, fame is a socially-constructed thing, and if a lot of people in the right positions think that your movie-making skills are dope, that your movies are awesome and super-cool, you will get recognition. So that far I agree with Senor Douchebag. Unfortunately, Easterbrookk unfortunately continues to think that his own personal dislike of QT translates to a universal truth of the lack of value in QT's films. He's really got a problem with this...
Tarantino is its ultimate expression of this phoniness. Please don't tell me that makes him ironically postmodern.
Ok, since I've interrupted the flow of Greg's, erm, thought, I'd just like to make the thesis of this paragraph clear to you. Gregg's saying that Quentin Tarantino is revered because he's revered without reason. Yup, it's just that bad. OK, I'd like first to point out that Greg's on some tautological grounds here, and second...
Oh my god. Gregg excludes from his thought the possibility that others might find merit in Tarantino's films, which would then create the reputation that QT has. No, instead, we're all characters in some absurd play in which kitsch is apparently really popular and we've all collectively decided to pull a giant Andy Kaufman prank on the world at large. He's seriously saying that QT is respected because he is completely undeserving of respect. Gregg is fucking insane.
By the way, I'd explain here the pomo elements of QT's films, but given Greggg's intellectual leanings, I'm sure he'd interpret any hint of postmodernism as a sign of godless devilry and amoral violent terrorist Islam. Which is to say, he's a shithead.
And he's an anti-Semite. Yeah, I'm getting to that. I'm taking his shit in order, and the ode to der fuhrer comes near the end of the article, after more shit like this:
Corporate sidelight: Kill Bill is distributed by Miramax, a Disney studio. Disney seeks profit by wallowing in gore--Kill Bill opens with an entire family being graphically slaughtered for the personal amusement of the killers--and by depicting violence and murder as pleasurable sport.
Corporate?! Corporate?! Ah, a little liberal drag to make it seem less like Gregg's on the side that says "god hates fags." Interestingly, he's still completely wrong. The film *doesn't* begin with an entire family being graphically slaughtered. In fact, such a scene doesn't exist in the movie. Not at all. We see 8 dead people, but they're all lying in chalk outlines on the floor. No murders depicted. At all. Not to mention that the motive isn't explained in the film, much less given as "the personal amusement of the killers." As for depicting violence as sport, well, I've covered that already. Short form: It doesn't, you fucking right-wing nutjob.
Disney's Miramax has been behind a significant share of Hollywood's recent violence-glorifying junk, including Scream, whose thesis was that murdering your friends and teachers is a fun way for high-school kids to get back at anyone who teases them. Scream was the favorite movie of the Columbine killers.
I do not know whether Scream was their favorite movie. I suspect that it wasn't, given that Gregg goes out of his way in other writing to avoid saying this same thing. Go ahead, check that William Bennett piece I linked to up there a ways. In that, The Hustler quotes another Easterbrook piece (and delights in pointing out that TNR is a liberal mag, a detail which should make every liberal's blood boil) in which he says more of the same bullshit, but doesn't make the claim that Scream was the Columbine thumbs-up.
I do know that Gregg's never seen Scream, because the thesis of the film is most definitely not that killing people who tease you is cool. In fact, that doesn't even come up in the movie. The two killers aren't outcasts, they're just kinda nihilists. Their motivation has nothing to do with teasing or getting revenge, they're just sadistic. Gregg's inventing a movie to prove his point. What a cocksucker.
Set aside what it says about Hollywood that today even Disney thinks what the public needs is ever-more-graphic depictions of killing the innocent as cool amusement.
Ever-more-graphic? Huh? This is just "back in the old days..." bullshit. Although there is rather a lot of violence in Kill Bill, is it more or less graphic than, say the ending of Bonnie and Clyde? It's a hell of a lot less real. What about, say, Sanjuro? Throne of Blood? MacBeth? I hear that a bunch of people get fucked in Hamlet, too. Why, you miserable piece of...
Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish.
Nigga what!
Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence.
But what?! But what?! Oh no, you've got to be kidding me!
Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence?
Holy shit, he just blamed the money-grubbing Jews for the decline of culture. I can't fucking believe it.
Recent European history alone ought to cause Jewish executives to experience second thoughts about glorifying the killing of the helpless as a fun lifestyle choice.
If Auschwitz didn't teach those hook-nosed bastards a lesson, maybe Gregg Easterbrook will. Oh, and by the way he's again conflating pleasure and...uh...helpless...and...uh....He seriously just wrote that it's the money grubbing Jews that're the problem. Seriously, he wrote that shit.
He fucking thinks that it's the Jews that are a problem. Holy shit.
But history is hardly the only concern. Films made in Hollywood are now shown all over the world, to audiences that may not understand the dialogue or even look at the subtitles, but can't possibly miss the message--now Disney's message--that hearing the screams of the innocent is a really fun way to express yourself.
Oh, and you'll note a return of the fallacies which, above, I....holy shit! He just said that the fucking jews are to blame! Because they're greedy bastards! Holy sweet fucking jesus! He seriously blames the jews!
He blames the Jews!!!! Because they "worship money above all else!" The JEWS!!!!
Holy shit, that's some dumb-ass-motherfucking-shit right there. This dickless fuckface who wouldn't know logic if it ejaculated all over his face just seriously tossed off Nazi propaganda like it weren't nothing. I can't believe it.
Now, I've said a lot so far about being offended by such a blatant cultural conservative having a place in an ostensibly liberal magazine, but this shit ain't got nothing to do with right and left. This shit has to do with being a motherfucking bigoted piece of shit spewing his crap all over the place.
I'm, well, somewhat disturbed by this.
is fantastic. The movie is a revenge tale, told in extremely broad and vibrant comic book style. Motivations are large and violent, fitting the style of b movie cinema which it uses. The action sequences are fantastic. Particularly notable is the anime sequence. That part is as filled with wonderful imagery as the rest of the film, which is fucking gorgeous.
The criticism of the film is that it is a masturbatory exercise in b movie cinema with little human emotion. I think that if you level this criticism at Kill Bill, then you damn well better level it at Pulp Fiction.
The story is told in broad, operatic terms. Motivations are largely based on wholesale slaughter or horrific rape. This is just a different way of telling these types of stories, with broader, more iconic characters. The film is not afraid to be a grand comic book, and doesn't make concessions to this style. I think that this makes the film better than any of the other recent comic book films. It doesn't want to coopt the techniques of the films it references, it wants to celebrate them and use them to tell its own story.
This criticism, as exemplified by the NYT review, I find snotty and small-minded. Because the film uses the language of films which the reviewer is apparently too cultured to enjoy, it can be easily dismissed as an exercise in geekery. This is nothing more than refusing to enjoy the film because you're too good for it. It's unacceptable to reject movie genres and language like this.
The characters have unique identities and strong, well-explained motivations. In fact, these are very well intertwined. The revenge story is told in the main story of Uma against the assassination squad, in the story of her opponent's childhood misery (the amazing anime sequence), in the tale of Uma's comatose rape, and in the dialogue between Uma and Viveca Fox's kid.
It is much like a Sergio Leone film, but highly compressed in time, and with flying swordplay instead of gunfights. In the vicious, bloody, horrific world, there is honor and responsibility.
There is a consistent tone, a carefully constructed tale of revenge and honor, and strong, beautiful imagery. It's a really fucking good movie.
I saw a press screening of Kill Bill tonight, but before I write about that, I want to say something about Intolerable Cruelty. Before the film, a fellow outside the theater was talking about the Coens' films - he said that Fargo and Lebowski were the best, and that he had trouble getting into O Brother, which I can understand as I share his sentiments. He had seen IC and was generally favorable, though noted that it was a fairly understated comedy from the bros. I'll try to see the film tomorrow, but I wanted to bring up the NYT review of the film, specifically this section:
The Coens, bless their hearts, are too smart to apologize for avarice — it's what gave screwball comedies a kick, and sends this movie straight to your head. Keep in mind that it's only a minor rush, but a rush nonetheless. It has a Jell-O-shot smoothness that makes you a little dizzy afterward in recollecting how assured and unremittingly smart "Intolerable Cruelty" is. The second word in the title is a little too apt; this movie should pack a license to kill.
Now, I *think* this qualifies as a mixed metaphor, but far more important is this: what the holy fuck does this mean? Is this favorable? Unfavorable? Muted praise? Does this express a complex reaction to the film, or is it a convoluted bit of writing that says as little as it seems?
The first sentence follows an idea from the previous paragraph (or, if you are a dickless fuckface, graf) which takes Brian Grazer to task for giving greedy characters in his previous screwball comedies "hearts of gold." That is, those films copped out in the end by sentimentally making their characters more likeable, showing that they're not bad people after all. What this has to do with screwball comedies of the past is beyond me.
I'm no expert in the genre, but the ones I have seen don't seem to focus exclusively on issues of greed or avarice. I mean, Ball of Fire certainly has money in it, but the fire and verve has less to do with bankrolls and more to do with Barbara Stanwyck seducing an uptight Gary Cooper with her foot. My personal favorite screwball, The Lady Eve, has Stanwyck yet again going the foot seduction route, this time with Henry Fonda. In TLE, Stanwyck plays a con woman who tries to hoodwink Fonda but eventually falls in love with him. That is, she's an avaricious firebrand who comes to have a more complex, human, and sympathetic attitude towards others. Which is rather not the point of the ludicrously-named Elvis Mitchell's review. Avarice was not the sole motivator in screwball comedies, and those films were quite successful in creating more complex characters out of proto Gordon Geckos. I think Elvis' beef with Brian Grazer has to do with Grazer making shitty, sentimental movies, but he confusedly wrote it as a laughable universal statement that's as true as it is coherent.
As for all the talk of killing and getting buzzed on jello shots, I have no fucking idea what he's saying. In the context of the rest of the review, probably not much.
I have more bones to pick with the NYT, specifically their Kill Bill review, but I'll save that for a Kill Bill entry.
I view the playoffs much as I view the upcoming election. I just want Bush and the Yankees to lose. The nine million democrats running...as long as one of them shoves a bat up Joe Torre's ass, I will be satisfied.
Having said that, I managed to watch the cubs/marlins game tonight, and it was quite entertaining.
I am saddened by Georgy's loss...a hot, pro-pot and pro-linux governor would've been an amazing thing.
First up, some music stuff
Iron and Wine - got the new ep, The Sea and the Rhythm. It's new folk stuff, which I certainly enjoy. Has a nice song entitled Jesus the Mexican Boy, which is a nice title. All told, sort of a folky Belle and Sebastian, whispered, clever lyrics and sad songs. Quite nice, and he's comin to tha lou, so hopefully I'll get out to that show.
You can't stop the folk, so I'm also going to recommend Songs Ohia's Axxess and Ace record, which is just top notch. Very sad, of course, but hey, where's the fun in happy songs?
Finally, for real depression - Fred Phelps is mr. "god hates fags." This story, which I found on Metafilter, is a long journo piece on Phelps, detailing a history of severe child abuse dealt out by the rev. It's really long and pretty depressing, and actually starts with a tale of cat strangling, so it's a bit, you know, heavy.
Phelps is apparently fond of talking about sex by using the phrases "you got your dick wet" and variations on "sniffing around." Otherwise, I find his language less intriguing than the molding of his family into his own personal cult through savage abuse. The writer's not the greatest, tends to the melodramatic, but the substance is so good that it's worth reading. Long, tho.
Barbour = Haley Barbour, former RNC chairman, currently running for Mississippi governor, ran for Miss senate seat in '82.
NYT, October 20, 1982, Wednesday, Late City Final Edition.
But the racial sensitivity at Barbour headquarters was suggested by an exchange between the candidate and an aide who complained that there would be ''coons'' at a campaign stop at the state fair. Embarrassed that a reporter heard this, Mr. Barbour warned that if the aide persisted in racist remarks, he would be reincarnated as a watermelon and placed at the mercy of blacks.
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Underworld is not as bad as you'd think. It's actually got a fairly entertaining plot, and it has you bouncing around with twists in the latter part of the film. Sure, it's extremely derivative of Blade and the Matrix, but so what? It's still a fun movie to see, and I caught the Texas Chainsaw remake trailer again - man, when that fucker plays the flashbulb whines, it sends shivers up my spine. Even if the movie sucks, the trailer is fucking awesome. They even keep up with the "inspired by a true story" joke!
Kate Beckinsale is hot in fucking black rubber. Just wanted to say.
After that, I went and bought myself a new guitar! A nice little L'Arrivee D-03, a big old acoustic guitar that sounds incredibly loud and amazingly sweet. I've never played an acoustic guitar before, just classical (wider, shorter fretboard, different body shape, nylon strings) and an electric (a gibson mv2 that weighs a ton, thinner, more easily fretted strings). It's a lot of fun, but the embarassing thing about buying a guitar is that you end up playing it in the shop, and when you suck and aren't yet used to pressing down REALLY HARD on the strings, well, it's embarassing. I whipped out my Air riff (Bird), my Smiths riff (Back to the Old House), and then pretty much strummed chords. Oh yeah, I also tried fingerpicking out a little Caroline No - bad call. But it was great, and I also got to play a 1935 Gibson archtop acoustic, which was very cool.
So now the fingers of my left hand are covered in grime and blackened shards of skin peeling off the tips. And it's pretty gratifying, to tell the truth.
A recent press conference:
Scott McClellan: I've known Karl for a long time, and I didn't even need to go ask Karl because I know the kind of person that he is, and he is someone that is committed to the highest standards of conduct.
Reporter: Have you read any book about him lately?
Muahahaha. Anyway, saw Yo La Tengo last Thursday, it was fantastic. They played a great Little Honda that, at the break, descended into 5+ minutes of total noise and insanity, then picked it up for the last verse and chorus. Fucking awesome.
Outside, after the show, there were two babes handing out fliers promoting a particular alcoholic beveridge. Their attire - ankle boots, fishnets, black panties and bustiers. And makeup. In great gobs. I wonder if the Yo La Tengo crowd was really one open to this particular message.
Ugh, there were also fucking viral marketing ads scribbled on Delmar's sidewalks, promoting some fucking cell phone company.
But it was a great show, despite all these marketing headaches.