http://ambival.net/movies/kill-bill-vol-1 Just another WordPress weblog Sun, 27 Jul 2008 01:33:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 http://ambival.net/movies/kill-bill-vol-1#comment-7203 Ambival.net » Movie Reviews » Jackie Brown Fri, 20 Apr 2007 03:26:59 +0000 http://ambival.net/?p=86#comment-7203 [...] The camerawork in this movie is amazing – from the first time I saw it on the big screen, my favourite moment has always been the death of Beaumont, that camera staying behind while Ordell drives away, craning up, then coming back down again. That scene also makes use of a motif that I noticed this time around comes up time and again throughout the movie – the way people are always stopping and starting their cars, and the music always shutting down and coming back on in the same place of the song it left off at … it’s such a simple thing, but for some reason it just creates such a great feeling. On the Beaumont death, too, it’s worth commenting on the violence in this movie as it compares to most of Tarantino’s other work – the violence in this movie, rather than being wall-to-wall like Kill Bill, say, it mostly all falls into the same category as the ear-slicing sequence in Reservoir Dogs – with the Beaumont death, we see it from a distance – with subsequent deaths, though each becomes more and more shocking (not because of the gore, just because of who kills who) it’s always fast and mostly clean, but we feel the violence completely, I think it’s done brilliantly – I remember the double-whammy of Melanie and Louis had me just about shaking for the rest of the movie the first time I saw it … it’s the menace of the killer in both cases, the way Louis warns Melanie, the way Ordell bows his head almost in prayer for a long stretch before getting the information he needs from Louis before pulling the trigger – whatever you want to say about Tarantino elsewhere, you certainly can’t call the violence here mindless. [...] [...] The camerawork in this movie is amazing – from the first time I saw it on the big screen, my favourite moment has always been the death of Beaumont, that camera staying behind while Ordell drives away, craning up, then coming back down again. That scene also makes use of a motif that I noticed this time around comes up time and again throughout the movie – the way people are always stopping and starting their cars, and the music always shutting down and coming back on in the same place of the song it left off at … it’s such a simple thing, but for some reason it just creates such a great feeling. On the Beaumont death, too, it’s worth commenting on the violence in this movie as it compares to most of Tarantino’s other work – the violence in this movie, rather than being wall-to-wall like Kill Bill, say, it mostly all falls into the same category as the ear-slicing sequence in Reservoir Dogs – with the Beaumont death, we see it from a distance – with subsequent deaths, though each becomes more and more shocking (not because of the gore, just because of who kills who) it’s always fast and mostly clean, but we feel the violence completely, I think it’s done brilliantly – I remember the double-whammy of Melanie and Louis had me just about shaking for the rest of the movie the first time I saw it … it’s the menace of the killer in both cases, the way Louis warns Melanie, the way Ordell bows his head almost in prayer for a long stretch before getting the information he needs from Louis before pulling the trigger – whatever you want to say about Tarantino elsewhere, you certainly can’t call the violence here mindless. [...]

]]> http://ambival.net/movies/kill-bill-vol-1#comment-6944 Ambival.net » Movie Reviews » .45 Fri, 13 Apr 2007 15:52:33 +0000 http://ambival.net/?p=86#comment-6944 [...] There’s something massive missing at the end of this movie which for a long moment I saw as a major problem with the movie, and it concerns the revenge that is dealt upon the abusive Big Al, played terrifyingly convincingly by Angus Macfadyen. For what we see him do to Milla Jovovich’s Kate early on in the movie – a scene which goes down with such scenes as Noodles’ rape of Deborah in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America as one of the few scenes in cinema that I physically can’t keep my eyes on the screen for – it is far from enough. This movie is no Kill Bill. But the more I think about how Kate exacts her revenge, the more astonishing I think this movie really is. [...] [...] There’s something massive missing at the end of this movie which for a long moment I saw as a major problem with the movie, and it concerns the revenge that is dealt upon the abusive Big Al, played terrifyingly convincingly by Angus Macfadyen. For what we see him do to Milla Jovovich’s Kate early on in the movie – a scene which goes down with such scenes as Noodles’ rape of Deborah in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America as one of the few scenes in cinema that I physically can’t keep my eyes on the screen for – it is far from enough. This movie is no Kill Bill. But the more I think about how Kate exacts her revenge, the more astonishing I think this movie really is. [...]

]]> http://ambival.net/movies/kill-bill-vol-1#comment-5314 Ambival.net » Movie Reviews » 2003 Movies Fri, 06 Apr 2007 01:36:59 +0000 http://ambival.net/?p=86#comment-5314 [...] Kill Bill: Vol. 1 Quentin Tarantino [...] [...] Kill Bill: Vol. 1 Quentin Tarantino [...]

]]> http://ambival.net/movies/kill-bill-vol-1#comment-2505 Ambival.net » Movie Reviews » Shogun Assassin Wed, 21 Mar 2007 02:44:00 +0000 http://ambival.net/?p=86#comment-2505 [...] Somehow I don’t feel bad about being completely incapable of summarising the plot of this one, nor about the fact I watched the American dubbed version. I was actually happy to find that the copy I had was the dubbed version, lol – my first knowledge of this movie came from Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol 2, and when you see The Bride and B.B. watching this movie and hear that kid’s haunting voiceover, you really just wanna be watching it with them, lol … and that’s just the kind of movie this will forever be to me. It is simply awesome to have on in the background. The violence is beautiful – there’s one shot where a guy gets his head chopped off and it has that ridiculous spray of blood like Tarantino rips off in the first Kill Bill, yet against the backdrop of a man with a child in his arms and a sunset it is anything but ridiculous … it reminded me of the surreal, stomach-churning beauty of Lavinia’s death in Julie Taymor’s Titus. If you love martial arts / Asian cinema, I don’t need to tell you to see this since you probably already have … but if you liked Kill Bill or like highly stylised violence, it’s highly recommended. [...] [...] Somehow I don’t feel bad about being completely incapable of summarising the plot of this one, nor about the fact I watched the American dubbed version. I was actually happy to find that the copy I had was the dubbed version, lol – my first knowledge of this movie came from Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol 2, and when you see The Bride and B.B. watching this movie and hear that kid’s haunting voiceover, you really just wanna be watching it with them, lol … and that’s just the kind of movie this will forever be to me. It is simply awesome to have on in the background. The violence is beautiful – there’s one shot where a guy gets his head chopped off and it has that ridiculous spray of blood like Tarantino rips off in the first Kill Bill, yet against the backdrop of a man with a child in his arms and a sunset it is anything but ridiculous … it reminded me of the surreal, stomach-churning beauty of Lavinia’s death in Julie Taymor’s Titus. If you love martial arts / Asian cinema, I don’t need to tell you to see this since you probably already have … but if you liked Kill Bill or like highly stylised violence, it’s highly recommended. [...]

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