Short Cut Movie Review From My Collection: Kill Bill Volume 2

A Short Cut Movie Review is normally less than 400 words, but in some cases may go slightly over. This is my attempt to keep writing about as many films as I see without getting bogged down with trying to find more to say. They are meant to be brief snapshots of my reaction to a movie without too much depth.

It was hard to see after Kill Bill Volume 1 where the entire epic was headed and what the point of it all was, but then Kill Bill Volume 2 truly tied it all together. I judge it a better film overall when considering them as two separate entities if only because it feels much more complete.

I don’t much care for the opening black and white scene of The Bride (Uma Thurman) driving while narrating the events of her recent life. It’s a scene that I always thought was tacked on (likely a reshoot) when the Weinstein’s refused to allow Tarantino to release it as one four hour film. So the scene serves as an introductory recap of the first film.

What works really well in the Volume 2 is that we finally get to see Bill (David Carradine) in an early scene that shows how the massacre at the chapel went down. During the wedding rehearsal, The Bride finds him sitting outside playing his flute. The tense conversation gives way to feelings of comfort until the rest of the assassins arrive for mayhem.

Just about everything about this film works better including the lengthy flashback showing how The Bride learned her skills from Pai Mei, the unforgiving teacher for whom she nevertheless has tremendous respect. This sequence informs the double level of revenge she seeks toward Elle (Darryl Hannah) when she confesses to having killed Pai Mei. Also the whole section involving Budd (Michael Madsen) and The Bride’s burial in a coffin from which she manages to escape using a brutally painful Pai Mei technique. Then the final showdown between Bill and The Bride, staged not as a brawling climax but as a reflective, semi-apologetic, emotional comedown from all that has transpired over the course of the two films. We learn the nature of their relationship and fully understand both the tragedy and necessity of killing Bill.

“The woman deserves her revenge. And we deserve to die,” says Budd. Yes, but that doesn’t mean you go without a fight.

Tarantino’s epic turns on qualities like honor, fealty to ideology, and loyalty to family and loved ones. And most importantly of course, revenge for past transgressions. He accomplishes it all with great visual style ad flare while imbuing the ending with genuine emotion.

From My Collection: Kill Bill Volume 1 Movie Review

It always felt like Kill Bill needed to be taken as a single four hour movie rather than the two individual parts it was broken into. That seems obvious, right? It’s one story. It was conceived as one film and split up for marketing reasons. But not every multi-part film series necessarily has to be taken as one shot. As incomplete as any one of the Lord of the Rings films is, they can each be taken as films unto themselves individually. Kill Bill Volume 1 feels unfinished in a way that no other “first part” film has ever felt to me, and it all makes a lot more sense after seeing Kill Bill Volume 2.

25 Years Ago This Month: March 1988

We'll start with the movies I've seen:

At the time Switching Channels was on repeat on cable TV, I was still too young to care about these kind of adult comedies, though I did see most of it, albeit in bits and pieces. It is at least the fourth iteration of Ben Hecht's play The Front Page, which was also the source material for the far superior and classic His Girl Friday. This 80s version is an updating which takes the story awy from print media and into the TV broadcast news station. Unfortunately, Broadcast News came out the previous year and was a much better movie on similar subject matter. How long before we get another updating focusing on Internet news?

I guess I liked Vice Versa for some reason back when I was a kid. It was one of several switcheroo films, in which two minds change places, around that time. With Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage playing father and son whose minds change bodies through some kind of voodoo magic, it's not much different from Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron in Like Father, Like Son the previous year.

"And Now, Little Man, I Give the Watch to You": Pulp Fiction Analysis Part XI

Go to Part X: "That was fuckin' trippy."

Butch, as a child, sits watching television. His mother enters and introduces him to Captain Koons (Christopher Walken), who was in the Vietnamese POW camp with Butch’s father. Koons tells Butch about a wristwatch bought in Knoxville that belonged to private Doughboy Erine Coolidge (Butch’s great granddad). He wore it all during his time in The Great War. When his son, Dane, went off to WWII he took the watch with him. Before dying in battle he made sure the watch would be delivered safely home to his infant son (Butch’s dad). He then took the watch with him to Vietnam, but didn’t survive the prison camp. Koons promised to take the watch to deliver it to Butch.

"That Was Fuckin' Trippy": Pulp Fiction Analysis Part X

Go to Part IX: "Is that what you'd call an uncomfortable silence?"

As Vincent speeds along the streets, taking Mia to Lance’s house, notice Tarantino no longer uses a process shot for the moving vehicle. He maintains realism throughout the overdose sequence. After Lance hangs up the phone and just as Vincent drives up onto the lawn, Tarantino switches to a hand-held camera for most of the scene. This gives an immediacy and sense of disorder to what’s going on.

Here, the lack of a process shot adds to the realism of the scene.

"Is That What You'd Call an Uncomfortable Silence?": Pulp Fiction Analysis Part IX

Go to Part VIII: "This is Jack Rabbit Slim's."

 Vincent and Mia share an uncomfortable silence.

Vincent and Mia enter the house happy, smiling and dancing a tango. Then they have a real uncomfortable silence after they embrace for a moment. The tension is broken by Mia:

MIA: Drinks, music.

VINCENT: I’m gonna take a piss.

Mia dances around the living room, singing along to Urge Overkill’s cover of Neil Diamond’s “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon.” Meanwhile, Vincent stands in the bathroom, self-reflecting in front of the mirror. It is now clear he is attracted to Mia, but recognizes the danger he faces if he sticks around too long.

"This is Jack Rabbit Slim's.": Pulp Fiction Analysis Part VIII

Go to Part VII: "I'll be down in two shakes of a lamb's tail"

Vincent and Mia pull up to camera in Vincent’s Malibu. Mia refers to Vincent as an “Elvis man.” This is in reference to a deleted scene in which Mia uses a camcorder to conduct a little interview with Vincent. She asks him several questions to learn about his likes and dislikes. She says there are two kinds of people in the world: Elvis people and Beatles people. Vincent is definitely an Elvis person.

"I'll Be Down in Two Shakes of a Lamb's Tail.": Pulp Fiction Analysis Part VII

Go to Part VII: "It's a sex thing. It helps fellatio."

Vincent slowly ambles to the door of Mia’s (Uma Thurman) house, finding a note for him to come inside and make himself a drink. In the fade from the close up of the note to the interior of the house there is a flash of the same orange glow we saw from the briefcase. If there is a motif to be gleaned from this it may be related to Vincent’s comment to Jules during the foot massage discussion: “You play with fire, you get burned.” He was referring to Marsellus’s throwing Antwan off a balcony after allegedly giving Mia a foot massage. The kids who betrayed Marsellus by taking the case also played with fire and got burned. As Vincent enters Mia’s home, he is crossing a threshold into which he will consider straying away from loyalty.

The cross-fade from the note to the interior of Mia's house brings back the mysterious orange glow.

Cue Dusty Springfield singing “Son of a Preacher Man.” This scene doesn’t do a whole lot except to show Vincent high on heroin, illustrate Mia’s cocaine habit and keep us in suspense as the camera keeps us from seeing Mia’s face until…

We don't get to see Mia's face until the next shot.

Go to Part VIII: "This is Jack Rabbit Slim's."

Reordering Convention: Introduction to an Analysis of Pulp Fiction

Following is the introduction to a full shot-by-shot analysis of Pulp Fiction that I did several years ago. This is not meant to be an essay or thesis, but rather an examination of the way Tarantino uses shot setups and narrative devices to effectively tell his story. I will try to post one new section a day over the next few weeks.

Since its release in October 1994, I have seen Pulp Fiction about eighteen times from beginning to end, including six times during its initial theatrical run. No viewing has ever compared to the first time when I was sixteen years old and not yet aware of what the film medium could accomplish. I was not yet versed in film history and I hardly knew from where director Quentin Tarantino was deriving most of his inspiration. All I knew after that first time was that movies did not merely have to be plot-driven. To borrow from Gene Siskel, movies aren’t what they are about, but how they are about it. Movies can be inventive, witty and can change the way we look at motion pictures.

Modern Classic Movie Review: Pulp Fiction

As a special treat to celebrate my 100th movie review posted to this site (I've actually written more than 100, but they haven't all been posted here) I decided to write a full length review of the film that got me interested in film in the first place.

Additionally, over the next few weeks I will post, in pieces, the full analysis I did on the film several years ago. Keep your eyes open for that starting this week.

It’s amazing to me that after roughly twenty viewings from beginning to end plus an exhaustive shot-by-shot study of it, there are still moments in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction that make me smile, chuckle or even downright surprise me: The Wolf’s smile of appreciation for the delicious coffee served up by Jimmy; Mia Wallace’s tomato joke to break the tension after an intense scene. Incredibly, watching it again for this review, I even pulled out something new that I had never picked up on before. And it wasn’t even a minor detail, but one that ties into one of the major themes of the film.

Sweet and Lowdown Review: A Woody Allen Modern Classic

Sweet and Lowdown doesn’t come across immediately as a very typical Woody Allen film. Sure it’s set in the late 1930s, a time period visited by Allen on more than one occasion. The subject matter is early jazz guitar and anyone familiar with his work and extracurricular activities knows he’s a real jazz aficionado. And of course the visual style is all Woody with wide shots that slowly zoom in on a subject and the writing is unmistakably his.