I haven't seen the movie yet, but this review from the New Republic summarizes how I feel about Tarantino more generally:
Quote:
TAKE OUT THE GORE AND KILL BILL IS AN EPISODE OF "MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS": Is Quentin Tarantino the single greatest phony in the history of Hollywood? I realize that's saying a lot--about Hollywood, not him. But it's the sole explanation I can think of to explain his bizarre prominence.
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.
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. Supposedly it's "revolutionary," or something, that Tarantino films revel in violence to a preposterous degree, but that's like saying it is revolutionary for a presidential candidate to revel in complaints against Washington bureaucrats. Nothing about Hollywood is more hackneyed or trite than preposterous violence--and that's all Tarantino has ever put onto film.
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. 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? Set that concern aside. Tarantino's films are simply trite as regards adoration of violence. In Hollywood, nothing could be less original.
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. To laud Tarantino as innovative because events happen out-of-sequence is like lauding The Bridges of Madison County as innovative because it opens with a discovered letter from someone who has died. All novice novelists know that device. Of course, the novelistic device may be used well or poorly, just as time-shifted cinema may be good or bad. Tarantino's out-of-sequence film moments are, uniformly, trite drivel.
And supposedly Tarantino is some kind of counter-genius for getting box-office stars like Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman to debase themselves in his drivel. But commercial Hollywood types debase themselves for a living; most never do anything else. To persuade someone to do that which he or she was eager to do anyway isn't much in the way of accomplishment.
Tarantino must draw his prominence in Hollywood, and among film-buff culture, from the very fact of his phoniness. 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. 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. Tarantino is its ultimate expression of this phoniness. Please don't tell me that makes him ironically postmodern.
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. 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.
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. Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence? 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. 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.
"For the sequence in which Uma arrives in Japan, we went to Toho Studios and rented their model of Tokyo from the Godzilla movies, so we could have this little model airplane we built fly over it. So Uma is flying in this little plane into the model of Tokyo. It's really cool".
By the same token, Thurman wears a costume identical to one Bruce Lee wore in his last film. Is this intended as coincidence, homage, impersonation? Not at all. It can be explained by quantum physics: The suit can be in two movies at the same time. And when the Hannah character whistles the theme from "Twisted Nerve" (1968), it's not meant to suggest she is a Hayley Mills fan but that leakage can occur between parallel universes in the movies. Will "Volume 2" reveal that Mr. Bill used to be known as Mr. Blonde?
i can't comment on the movie, as i haven't seen it yet, but that review fromt he new republic is filled with such know-it-all ignorance that it completely nullifies any good, solid point it tries to make. i especially like it when they associate scream with the columbine killers, intentionally plucking at those somewhat caloused nerves, while making oh-so subtle "i'm not sayin'... i'm just sayin'..." comments that i thought were reserved for talk radio shock-jocks.
As an opposing viewpoint, I didn't like it at all. My brother and I saw it on friday and both of us walked out wondering why we wasted a couple hours of our lives on that. Maybe someone could explain the brilliance to me, 'cause I don't get it. Hacking people up to soaring music is brilliant how?
i can't comment on the movie, as i haven't seen it yet, but that review fromt he new republic is filled with such know-it-all ignorance that it completely nullifies any good, solid point it tries to make. i especially like it when they associate scream with the columbine killers, intentionally plucking at those somewhat caloused nerves, while making oh-so subtle "i'm not sayin'... i'm just sayin'..." comments that i thought were reserved for talk radio shock-jocks.
pathetic.
Can you be more specific? The reason I posted the review is that it sums up pretty well what me, a few others in this thread, and some critics think about Tarantino, even though most critics seem to love him. Basically, that his movies are ultra-violent with a veneer of coolness, and that for some reason that veneer seems to make the content OK.
As for the Columbine reference, I'll make it no-so-subtle: I strongly believe, and I think the evidence supports my belief, that the violence displayed in our media causes the violence in our behavior. I know you're not supposed to say that, but there it is.
As for the Columbine reference, I'll make it no-so-subtle: I strongly believe, and I think the evidence supports my belief, that the violence displayed in our media causes the violence in our behavior. I know you're not supposed to say that, but there it is.
That makes me wonder. Would someone who has never been exposed to violent media be able to function in the 'real' world, where (relatively) violent acts occur on a daily basis?
As for the Columbine reference, I'll make it no-so-subtle: I strongly believe, and I think the evidence supports my belief, that the violence displayed in our media causes the violence in our behavior. I know you're not supposed to say that, but there it is.
at the risk of sending this thread careening down an unintended tangent, i don't necessarily disagree with you. i take more offense at how "one-to-one" new republic makes the relation, as if nothing else might have figured into the shootings.
Can't wait to read their review of Mel's "Passion of Christ".
Tarntino has violence in some of his films because he makes films of a certain violent genres...gangster (Dogs), pulp fiction (er, pulp fiction...), black exploitation (Jackie Brown) and now Kill Bill (kung fu).
I guess this critic never saw "Jackie Brown". My favorite of QT's and out of all of his films...has almost no onscreen violence.
I haven't seen Kill Bill. It's almost too good to be true. That QT has finally presented us with his homage to a genre I grew up with (and it hasn't caused me to run around a mall slashing people).
But my litmus test for this film will be Ang Lee's homage to the kung fu genre, Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon. His was a masterpiece. QT will always have detractors and critics who hate him. All the more for me to like him. Comparing him to directors who churn out slasher flicks is idiotic and grasping at best.
I guess if Kill Bill had sub-titles, then that stuffy-ass critic would LOVE it.
I don't care whether it's good or bad. Tarantino is a film maker making films because he loves films. It's like one of the crew is up there making films. It's great, regardless of whether I like the film or not.
Comments
Anybody see any others?
TAKE OUT THE GORE AND KILL BILL IS AN EPISODE OF "MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS": Is Quentin Tarantino the single greatest phony in the history of Hollywood? I realize that's saying a lot--about Hollywood, not him. But it's the sole explanation I can think of to explain his bizarre prominence.
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.
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. Supposedly it's "revolutionary," or something, that Tarantino films revel in violence to a preposterous degree, but that's like saying it is revolutionary for a presidential candidate to revel in complaints against Washington bureaucrats. Nothing about Hollywood is more hackneyed or trite than preposterous violence--and that's all Tarantino has ever put onto film.
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. 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? Set that concern aside. Tarantino's films are simply trite as regards adoration of violence. In Hollywood, nothing could be less original.
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. To laud Tarantino as innovative because events happen out-of-sequence is like lauding The Bridges of Madison County as innovative because it opens with a discovered letter from someone who has died. All novice novelists know that device. Of course, the novelistic device may be used well or poorly, just as time-shifted cinema may be good or bad. Tarantino's out-of-sequence film moments are, uniformly, trite drivel.
And supposedly Tarantino is some kind of counter-genius for getting box-office stars like Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman to debase themselves in his drivel. But commercial Hollywood types debase themselves for a living; most never do anything else. To persuade someone to do that which he or she was eager to do anyway isn't much in the way of accomplishment.
Tarantino must draw his prominence in Hollywood, and among film-buff culture, from the very fact of his phoniness. 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. 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. Tarantino is its ultimate expression of this phoniness. Please don't tell me that makes him ironically postmodern.
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. 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.
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. Disney's CEO, Michael Eisner, is Jewish; the chief of Miramax, Harvey Weinstein, is Jewish. Yes, there are plenty of Christian and other Hollywood executives who worship money above all else, promoting for profit the adulation of violence. Does that make it right for Jewish executives to worship money above all else, by promoting for profit the adulation of violence? 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. 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.
From a Cinefantastique article:
"For the sequence in which Uma arrives in Japan, we went to Toho Studios and rented their model of Tokyo from the Godzilla movies, so we could have this little model airplane we built fly over it. So Uma is flying in this little plane into the model of Tokyo. It's really cool".
That did it for me. Kill Bill officially rules.
KILL BILL: VOLUME 1 / **** (R)
...
By the same token, Thurman wears a costume identical to one Bruce Lee wore in his last film. Is this intended as coincidence, homage, impersonation? Not at all. It can be explained by quantum physics: The suit can be in two movies at the same time. And when the Hannah character whistles the theme from "Twisted Nerve" (1968), it's not meant to suggest she is a Hayley Mills fan but that leakage can occur between parallel universes in the movies. Will "Volume 2" reveal that Mr. Bill used to be known as Mr. Blonde?
Originally quoted by BRussell
All of Tarantino's work is pure junk.
It's true. I can't believe people find this stuff 'deep,' but sometimes junk can be fun. I prefer a good movie to junk normally.
Originally posted by bunge
It's true. I can't believe people find this stuff 'deep,' but sometimes junk can be fun. I prefer a good movie to junk normally.
deep? if someone finds kill bill deep, they have problems.
i just like all the references, nothing is coincidental, everything is from somewhere else. it's like listening to an ELO record for chrissakes.
pathetic.
Originally posted by superkarate monkeydeathcar
if someone finds kill bill deep, they have problems.
That's funny.
Originally posted by rok
i can't comment on the movie, as i haven't seen it yet, but that review fromt he new republic is filled with such know-it-all ignorance that it completely nullifies any good, solid point it tries to make. i especially like it when they associate scream with the columbine killers, intentionally plucking at those somewhat caloused nerves, while making oh-so subtle "i'm not sayin'... i'm just sayin'..." comments that i thought were reserved for talk radio shock-jocks.
pathetic.
Can you be more specific? The reason I posted the review is that it sums up pretty well what me, a few others in this thread, and some critics think about Tarantino, even though most critics seem to love him. Basically, that his movies are ultra-violent with a veneer of coolness, and that for some reason that veneer seems to make the content OK.
As for the Columbine reference, I'll make it no-so-subtle: I strongly believe, and I think the evidence supports my belief, that the violence displayed in our media causes the violence in our behavior. I know you're not supposed to say that, but there it is.
Originally posted by BRussell
As for the Columbine reference, I'll make it no-so-subtle: I strongly believe, and I think the evidence supports my belief, that the violence displayed in our media causes the violence in our behavior. I know you're not supposed to say that, but there it is.
That makes me wonder. Would someone who has never been exposed to violent media be able to function in the 'real' world, where (relatively) violent acts occur on a daily basis?
Originally posted by BRussell
As for the Columbine reference, I'll make it no-so-subtle: I strongly believe, and I think the evidence supports my belief, that the violence displayed in our media causes the violence in our behavior. I know you're not supposed to say that, but there it is.
at the risk of sending this thread careening down an unintended tangent, i don't necessarily disagree with you. i take more offense at how "one-to-one" new republic makes the relation, as if nothing else might have figured into the shootings.
Can't wait to read their review of Mel's "Passion of Christ".
Tarntino has violence in some of his films because he makes films of a certain violent genres...gangster (Dogs), pulp fiction (er, pulp fiction...), black exploitation (Jackie Brown) and now Kill Bill (kung fu).
I guess this critic never saw "Jackie Brown". My favorite of QT's and out of all of his films...has almost no onscreen violence.
I haven't seen Kill Bill. It's almost too good to be true. That QT has finally presented us with his homage to a genre I grew up with (and it hasn't caused me to run around a mall slashing people).
But my litmus test for this film will be Ang Lee's homage to the kung fu genre, Crouching Tiger/Hidden Dragon. His was a masterpiece. QT will always have detractors and critics who hate him. All the more for me to like him. Comparing him to directors who churn out slasher flicks is idiotic and grasping at best.
I guess if Kill Bill had sub-titles, then that stuffy-ass critic would LOVE it.
Originally posted by Artman @_@
I guess if Kill Bill had sub-titles, then that stuffy-ass critic would LOVE it.
it does. not for the whole thing, but a large part of it.
Originally posted by CosmoNut
Well, after seeing this movie, Uma Thurman is now my new Favorite Hollywood Hottie®. She's especially cute in the sushi bar scene.
uma is adorable in that scene.....
like charlie's angels most of the protagonists seen in volume one are women, unlike charlie's angels tarantino doesn't objectify any of them.
One, THE APARTMENT is a better film. I'd guess anything by Billy Wilder is at least ten times the movie of a QT film.
Two, I still would bet that if the slow motion scenes were done and regular speed this whole two films thingy wouldn't be necessary.