Rainfox

Tarantino's bloody Valentine

• Clap your hands, stomp your feet and wiggle your toes

* * * * * (5 out of 5)

Kill Bill: Volume 1

Directed by: Quentin Tarantino, 2003



Kill Bill hits the ground running. With an uncanny grasp of film lore and a boy-scout's shameless innocence, Quentin Tarantino carves up a bloodied slice of geek mania in the finest of martial arts traditions - as masturbatory as it is exploitive and rewarding.

There's a popular saying about Tarantino. That he didn't go to film school, he went to 'films'. Kill Bill underlines this with a big, fat marker in screaming pink.

It is crafted with both a burning passion and a delicate sense of detail, amidst a grounded understanding of the history and style of its many scattershot origins. Be it Hollywood, spaghetti westerns, Che Chang, the Shaw brothers, a cult benchmark like Blade Runner (yes, that's the L.A. tunnel doubling for Tokyo) or pop-culture 60s TV-schlock like the Green Hornet (music and Kato mask) and Star Trek (how about that pompous opening quote?). Tarantino is throwing everything and the kitchen sink in the same cooker and it smells delicious. Tastes even better.

Is it a tribute or a parody then? Neither. It's a celebration.

The plot is deceptively simple: a woman known as The Bride (Uma Thurman) seeks revenge on a team of assassins (The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, or DiVAS) led by a man named Bill, who massacred her wedding party (including The Bride's unborn child) and left a bullet in her brain. As if that wasn't enough, Miramax decided to cut the movie (180 minutes) into two separate parts. Whatever stand Tarantino made on this issue doesn't matter, because Volume 1 works effortlessly in its current running time, even though we don't get to see that much of head-honcho Bill (portrayed by sleaze icon David Carradine - remember how bad this man was at kung-fu?) or the whistling, hip-swinging, one-eyed Darryl Hannah. Instead we get an agile Thurman carving her way through opponent after opponent, leaving wounds and body parts that erupt like scarlet geysers.

As with his other films, Tarantino ignores chronological order and goes about his story in a mish-mash of information. Yes, this is the style we are accustomed to with him but it never felt as right as it does here. This is the cartoon (and anime) style of interwoven storytelling, where characters are rooted by their past experiences and charged by emotions of revenge, while defined by their weapons of choice and/or colorful names.

It turns out no one does it better and Tarantino naturally also knows where the line is drawn - he's a Ph.D. in congenial geekdom laws - so there's no plastered speech bubbles of "oomph" and "kaboom" and no awkward special effects just for show. He might tease us with bleeping out a name, go Manga anime for an otherwise too offending scene or suddenly turn black and white as a fingerpointer to TV censorship, but it's all direct homagés that fit as a whole. There's an unflagging spirit to Kill Bill, as if the tons of soul, trivia and history invested in it was meant to be.

There are also no digital effects during the fight scenes.

Tarantino brought in friend and choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping, best known to the MTV-generation for his Matrix and Crouching Tiger work. Yet the elaborate action in Kill Bill is like nothing you've ever seen before. It's a gorgeous throwback to Woo-Ping's original style from the 70s - his Zui Quan (Drunken Master) days - which translates to being real stunts by real people and an emphasis on, say, just how sharp a Japanese sword can be. CGI-less and based on hardcore flow rather than specific stiff kung-fu moves (see Matrix), even the rare wire-work feels fresh and elegant. Blended with a keen eye for editing (Sally Menke works miracles), Kill Bill takes genre material and elevates it to a whole other level. To a whole new world. The showdown in the House of Blue Leaves restaurant between The Bride and the yakuza underworld is the most exhilarating, well-staged and intoxicating swordfight ever brought to the big screen. Doubt me? Just watch Tarantino's smoke.

Thurman delivers a remarkable performance as The Bride. Never once do you doubt her moxie or capabilities. Physically, she's completely convincing and not just a "silly Caucasian girl playing with Samurai swords" (an actual quote from the movie ofcourse), evident from the opening, high-speed knife-fight with Vivica Fox (as killer vixen Vernita Green) to her eye-popping electric boogie twirls on a dancefloor cutting hundreds of yakuzas into bits and pieces. Literally. Thurman's martial arts mannerisms are dead-on - a performance for the history books. White girl, yellow heart. Indeed. She truly honors the tracksuit she wears.

While the yakuza showdown packs the most wallop, the best scene turns out to be a rather exquisite one. The final stand-off in Volume 1 between The Bride and another faster-pussycat assasin, O-Ren (Lucy Lui)- in an idyllic snow-covered garden - is a marvel. So where'd the snow come from? Don't ask and don't spoil the moment. Just acknowledge and respect that Tarantino is honoring an ancient Japanese tradition with the kind of love a mother has for her new-born. It's an angelic scene, enhanced by the loud dead calm that only lazy, falling snow produces. As the two warrior goddesses reflect in the crisp white landscape, the silence is broken momentarily by the caressing clank from a wooden waterpump. It's pure poetry.

The cast is perfect all around. Tarantino brings out both slapstick and relaxed realism in Sonny Chiba, while he gets the rather obvious Oriental fetiches (and his own?) covered with dressing Chiaki Kuriyama up as a schoolgirl with murderous inclinations. Her weapon of choice is a steel ball and chain with pop-out razors. What a deliciously funny performance by Kuriyama (however much is taken from Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale laid aside). But it's Lui that almost upstages our heroine. Her dotted, cheeky smile and twinkle of eye concealing a hidden ruthlessness is the object of much attention by the camera.

Lui is forgiven every bad episode of Ally (that's about 95%) and the shameless Charlie's Angels remakes for her performance as the sexy Godmother of the yakuza. I am reminded of John Ford's famous statement - when an assistent director questioned a shot he was making of a character's face, stating it was boring - that "What is more exciting than the human face?". Lui articulates a delicate cuteness and bruteness through the most subtle of facial expressions and as she fronts the yakuza entourage arriving at the restaurant, enhanced by the terrific main theme, it's as classic and cool as cinema can possibly get.

The mastermind behind the Wu-Tang Clan, RZA, has scored Kill Bill (together with Tarantino) and given it a pounding pulse to match the storm of visuals that come in from all sides of the universe. The overall sound is hard to define. Imagine old-school Nancy Sinatra ("Bang Bang") mixed with the savvy groove of Hotei's "Battle without Honor or Humanity" on top of the theme from "Ironside" by Quincy Jones, and you'll have some idea. Oh wait, those songs are already in the movie. Well, there you go.

It has to be said: Kill Bill is extremely gory. The violence is ludicrous, sometimes hilarious, but it actually walks a fine line between simply bringing bloodsplattering anime to life and the repulsive horror of Michael Madsen's ear-cutting moment in Reservoir Dogs. One minute Kill Bill gets down, dirty and dangerous for fun or shock, and in the next Tarantino brings everything to a screeching halt - as when The Bride and Vernita simultaniously hide their knifes away, welcoming reality walking in the door in the shape of Vernita's kid coming home from school. You just might be able to sense Tarantino laughing contently in the background. He's toying with us, but it's as thrilling for us as it is for him.

Kill Bill is glorius pulp fiction. A trancelike celebration of the pulp in the fiction. A martial arts benchmark and a slobbering, bloody Valentine's kiss from Tarantino to movie geeks all around the world. Right smack on the mouth.

Now, that's a first.

* * * ½ (3½ out of 5)

Directed by: John Carpenter, 1996.

Going back to Escape from L.A. - 5 years after my first viewing - turned out to be a nice surprise.

I remember disliking the movie originally; not just as a poor sequel to the cult benchmark Escape From New York (1981), but as a bad movie.

While I can still relate to the hokeyness I objected to back then, I also discovered so many more charms to 'L.A.' on my second time around. Maybe the lighter, goofier style in 'L.A.', compared to the dark bluster of 'New York', provoked me more than it should have since I was (and somewhat still am) biased about Carpenter making a sequel to a (his own) great movie by simply doing a shot for shot remake on a larger bag of money. What on Earth was Carpenter thinking? Well, in fact, it turns out he was thinking about a whole lot of things, including our Earth, and with 'L.A.' he managed to bring some intriguing what-ifs to the screen in his trademark part-screwball, part sci-fi action-adventure style.

These were the early days of computer generated effects (James Cameron's Titanic would surface a year later) and on a mid-range budget of $50 mill - however big that was for director Carpenter and co-writer/producer Debra Hill - the special effects in 'L.A.' seem to fit somewhere in between ludicrous and intentionally funny. It's then a testament to Carpenter and Kurt Russell - who reprises as the bad-ass, cynical Snake Plissken without missing a beat - that they make the cartoonish and apocalyptic world not only seem fresh and sharp but downright audacious.

There's actually so much vibe to 'L.A.' that you forgive it being largely identical to 'New York'. Here we are in California where a massive 9.6 earthquake has separated Los Angeles from the mainland and the area has become a deportation prison for all of America's unwanted. An island of the damned, home to murderers, immigrants and those guilty of "moral" crimes. In 2013 the United States is a non-smoking nation. No drugs, no alcohol, no women - unless you're married - no foul language and no red meat. The land of the free. It's hilarious.

The brilliant added bonus now though, what nobody could have foreseen, is the relevance of Carpenter's prophecies today. He spoofs a future America as a police-governed, ultra right-wing Christian theocracy, unpopular and isolated from the rest of globe (at war with most of the Third World and the Middle East), featuring a President-for-life in a White House that's relocated south (okay, to Virginia, not Texas). Geez, huh? It's 2004 and we're well on our way already. On a highway to hell.

'L.A.' also addresses the charming denial and magic lure of the city of Los Angeles. Today, tomorrow or in 2013.

In a future Beverly Hills people stalk for fresh body parts to supply and support their deteriorating mass plastic surgery (a great cameo by Bruce Campbell) and in downtown L.A. gang crime is at an all-time fever pitch. The best scene comes as an eerie shock amidst the bubblegum glossy feel - "It's actually not a bad place, if you learn to understand it," says inmate Taslima (Valerie Golina) in trying to defend her hometown and other Angelinos. A second later she's gunned down out of the blue by a 13-year old Korean gang-banger.

With the big quake of 1994 still fresh in mind, the bad economy and power shortages, the yearly mudslides in Malibu and the fires that ravaged California as late as 2003, it all rains support to the core of the thread that Carpenter is displaying. "What are you doing in L.A.," Taslima asks Snake in an earlier scene. "Dying," he dryly replies, in reference to the deadly virus he's allegedly been injected with by the police so he won't skip town. But Carpenter's metaphor is redwood-thick shtick all the same.

Still, it's unfortunately not all a flickering, beautiful neon sea as viewed by an evening cruise on Mulholland Drive. The action scenes are mostly stiff and slow and 'L.A.' is maybe the best example of how Carpenter was never an action director - much like Tim Burton never was - no, like Burton he's an inventive and suspenseful creator of unique movie places and worlds but not the man for editing interesting physical action. It also doesn't help that new baddie Georges Corraface as Cuervo Jones pales immensely compared to Isaac Hayes' Duke of New York. Furthermore there's a feeling of wasted opportunity in the otherwise smart casting of ageless hippie Peter Fonda and indie hero Steve Buscemi. Although they do evoke a smile now and then.

Russell is luckily super game and - it's amazing, to his credit for reprising this role - the man fit the same clothes he wore back in 1981, 16 years ago. The famous gladiatorial fight in 'New York' has been replaced with Snake shooting clocked hoops at the Coliseum (shots Russell made himself). It features another cool blow from Carpenter by way of Jones declaring to Snake: "You might have survived Cleveland. You might have escaped New York. But this is L.A., and this city can kill anybody!"

Having the City of Angels as the new 'Escape' playground is every bit the meaty material the Big Apple was. Carpenter and Russell are enjoying a field day on the west coast and the colorful setting makes for a fun, punchy time.

Hey, even Snake seems thrilled. When offered yet another Presidential pardon instead of a deportation, Snake says no deal - "F**k you, I'm going to Hollywood." He's in denial too.

* ½ (1½ out of 5)

The Matrix Reloaded

Directed by: The Wachowski Brothers, 2003



This movie has been getting a bad rap and I have to join in. I wasn't that much of a fan of the original either (a 2½ rating, so imagine my solitude when everyone was raving madly about it in 1999).

Keanu Reeves was poor in The Matrix. He's a really, really bad actor and the whole concept of the Matrix itself was not only dumb, it lacked simple logic and at best entertained like disarming nonsense. For a sci-fi freak like myself the basic idea was technically charming but the structure and themes were wafer-thin. Guns? Fistfights? Black leather? Suits? Too stylized, too nerdy, folks. You can tell it was written by nerds, for nerds, an "action-utopia" or "perfect computer game enviroment." To my knowledge and if I tune my future-goggles right here, hey, machines would never build something like the Matrix. On the contrary: Why cater to humans? They're all drugged and locked down anyway.

But back to Matrix Reloaded. The things that worked in the first one and that I liked - the atmosphere, the larger-than-life feel on a decent budget and the impressive still-motion wire stunts (that already back then got overdone) - are missing here. Well, the 'feel' of them are. This is just the Wachowski brothers with more money. Huge fights and huge chases but no excitement. It's soulless, it's heartless. Keanu is even worse than in previous outings - yes, it's actually possible - because here he has to tackle a romance with first lady Trinity. He delivers lines so bad, so wooden, they made me laugh. Funny also, because Carrie-Anne Moss is both cool, charming and sexy but she's just kissing and staring into the face of this bland neanderthal. Sad stuff.

The fights in Reloaded are way over the top. More of the same to begin with. Punch. Block. Kick. Punch. Jump. Kick. Say what? Why? Read Harry Knowles' review for more. He's completely on the money. We've seen it all before and it's idiotic. So just shoot the damn gun, alright? Oh wait, Neo can block bullets now. So why can't he block kicks and punches with a "mindwall" like he can bullets? Ah, the logic.

Agent Smith is back for no other reason then.. well, he's back. The public wanted him. Pretty obvious. So how to bring him back from the dead.. How about we make him a computer virus? Nice one, we'll buy that, but the thrill is lacking despite Hugo Weaving's characteristic spoken drawl and sleek meanness. Furthermore, Smith manages to turn up at two pivotal junctions in the story, just after Neo has delivered crucial dialogue to either The Oracle or Morpheus. How does he do that? The third installment, Revolutions, might shed a light on that, fanboys, but it's writing based on audience reactions, not vice-versa now. Contrived populism that destroys whatever shards of integrity the original had.

The grand fight scene that got all the trailer buzz - the many, many Agent Smiths against a lone Neo - made me speechless. Because I didn't care. Been there, done that. Neo will win. There is no intensity, no drama, just a retread of effects from the first one and juiced up. Then when the brawl escalated into a computer game (completely computer generated) I had to look away. I went into the kitchen and made some coffee, contemplating on how few moviemakers today have actually realized how CGI just isn't good enough yet. They want us to think so, but it's not. Talk about denial.

Later on, a freeway chase has logistics to die for. The Wachowskis actually built 1.4 mile of freeway just south of San Francisco to make this scene. That's moxy, considering how everyone else would just CGI-y it. I was psyched when this scene began hence it was maybe the kick in the face Reloaded needed. But it just doesn't resonate. I must direct people's attention to other recent movies: in Spielberg's Minority Report (that is even more CGI-drenched in its chase scenes) we cared because the story and storytelling was so good. In Terminator 3 - lesser all around to the two before it, but not as bad as we could have feared - the firetruck scene is gawking simply because there's a focus on the nitty-gritty basics of the action and struggles itself, real steel and glass, real automobiles burning rubber and colliding. In Matrix Reloaded the whole freeway slam-bam scene feels like a computer game. You know how you just always floor your car, pedal to the metal, when you play a computer game because you just don't care? It's all speed and velocity? Same thing here. Trinity, Neo and Morpheus whiz in and out of traffic, chased by agents and bad guys and there's just no tension whatsoever.

That scene is a full-on free shot. That hits like a powder-puff.

Same can be said for the movie as a whole. I didn't even get to the underworld of Zion, the long pandering neo-classical religious and philosophical speeches or the two new henchmen, The Albino Twins, who - when they morph into spirits - reminded me of the effects in Poltergeist (22 years ago).

Matrix Reloaded is bad. A disappointment even for moderate fans of the first one. The program doesn't just need patches, it requires a real upgrade. Somebody call Bill Gates.