Eles Matam e Nós Limpamos

I really liked this movie, especially the main character. It was really cool linking the similarities between her and Esmerelda Villa Lobos from Pulp Fiction-besides both had Tarantino having some role in them- both characters exhibited an almost childish facination with death and murder. And, I have to admit, Billy Baldwin was really stylish as the Cold Blooded killer. This movie is definitely unique, and a treat to watch.

My only complaint is that, the movie, as a whole, is rather strange. It doesn't decide whether to be a dark comedy or some weird, violent romance. It is definitely dark and weird, but never steps into a comfortable niche to decied which one it really is. This really isn't that big of a deal, really, and after awhile, you learn to just forget the analyzation, and just enjoy the madness being thrown at you. This movie is definitely not for everyone, in that the gore is played so casually, as if it were a normal fixture of a room, like a table or a rug. It also has a few scenes that b\c of the conversational build up during the movie about what it's like to see a crime scene for the first time, and the casual way that the gore is treated, it may not be suitable for everyone. However, I enjoyed it b\c of it's pure creativity and of course, wonderful acting by the two main leads. A give it a strong 8/10 stars for having the courage to be different. That is my story and I am sticking to it.

One of my favorite scenes in Pulp Fiction was the one with Butch and Esmeralda Villalobos, the cab ride. Not many people I watched it with, and most of you maybe, didn't really care for it. More than half of the scene didn't make the final cut. I thought it was intriguing, this woman wants to know "what it would feel like to kill a man."

Imagine my surprise when I turned on this movie, CURDLED; starring Esmeralda herself, Angela Jones. Her character, Gabriela is fixated on murders. She keeps scrapbooks of newsclippings and the likes. Then she joins a crime scene clean-up crew. Only she aint too bothered that much with the actual cleaning up. Instead she savors the thought that 'this is where the killing actually happened, right here.'

What miffed me was that I found out that Tarantino was the Exec Producer, but he didn't help out with any of the writing. (IMDb only credits him with the news reports) There were a few scenes he could have spruced up, I'm sure, especially at the cleaning crew's home base. There were a few blahh moments. I also wondered if he could've been ballsy enough to keep Angela Jones as the same character as in Pulp Fiction, instead of the ditzy not-all-there Gabriela. But I guess this was a Reb Braddock vehicle. I see this started out as a short of his. Billy Baldwin is also very good in this.

I give this a 7 or an 8, I'm not sure which I'll choose just yet. It's really a solid 7.5 on IMDb's 1-10 scale.

Definitely check this movie out.

This is a very typical early 90's black comedy which menas that it's jarringly aware of it's own cleverness, shares the same faded primary colors as "Natural Born Killers" or "Freeway", and involves a serial killer. Frankly for anything like this to work it would need some basis in reality and the fact that William Baldwin kills women without using gloves avoiding touching things or even getting rid of his fingerprints immediately annoyed me. Nothing in this movie is real enough or gruesome enough to actually be funny or disturbing. The director poars on the stage blood but every murder is done in a clean emotionless tarantino type of way and all the crime scenes just contain neat little pool of blood. haven't they ever read that after a week you have to wear thigh length boots to prevent maggots from crawling up your legs or that you wear air masks when cleaning up these places or that most of it is done with an ultrapowful wet-dry vac? realistic details such as these would have helped this film. After reading that this was a short I could believe it because the entire film feels like it was very thinly stretched.

Tarantino presents this little gem, which he caught at an Italian genre festival while promoting Reservoir Dogs (he relates the fateful anecdote in an epilogue after the movie on video.) It shares with that director the nervy, hip black-comedy attitude, an absolute command of cinematic techniques, and a post-modern approach steeped in b-movie history. However, where QT's films (and similar triumphs like Go) are explosive, this one is insidiously subtle and dead-pan; so much so that the gradual recognition of the filmmakers' intentions will give you the shivers. The creeping revelations of the themes, the dark pastels, self-referential script and straight-faced performances are reminiscent of earlier successful dark comedies, like Parents and I, Madman. Jones (her solo dance is a knockout) and Baldwin are both dead-on, and the director and editor never miss a beat. This is one of the best films of the 90s. (by the way, did anyone notice that this film opened about the same time as Headless Body in Topless Bar? quite a coincidence.)

It's surprisingly hard to make fun about serious subjects, like murder. Curdled succeeds in it: it's a hilarious film about a girl obsessed with murder, with a nicely twisted vision of the world. Yes, it has it's faults, but there are some irresistibly funny moments in it as well.

Jones does an excellent job in this black comedy, it really is a shame we haven't heard more of her. Even Baldwin fits in his role! The soundtrack is spicy and quite excellent. Braddock has extended this from a short film, and unfortunately it shows in some places. A few scenes feel, well, boring, and dialogue isn't as sharp as it could be.

Tarantino is often linked to this film, although he was only the producer and wrote a very little piece of script. However, there are connections to his movies in Curdled and they are fun to catch.

My score: 3/5