Okay now...Kill Bill

Alright, so Steph and I did finish Kill Bill Vol 2 this weekend. I have been feeling much better than (warning: do not click) Thursday night. I won't go into a long review of the 2 part movie; as you know, I am a man of few words. I liked the movies over all and watching the "Making of Kill Bill Vol 2" on the DVD illucidated a few things that I think I "knew" but didn't really see.

The first picture was more of a kung-fu movie. It had lots of action, lots of blood, and lots of death. The sword fighting was the most fun for me. The gushing fountains of blood didn't really bother me, but they didn't "do it" for me either. The characters were set up, we were kind of introduced to them one by one, and we were left to wonder "Who is Bill?" and "Why did this happen to the Bride?"

The second picture is more of a speghetti western movie. The music (composed by Robert Rodriguez was pretty much right on and put me in the mood that was right for this movie. There was less overall action, but the action was top notch. Including a scene with a classic white haired kung-fu master. We finally meet Bill and finally figure out what's going on.

I definitely give it thumbs up. But one thing (that jumps out at me) that I didn't like is Quentin's tendency to put things out of order. He used this technique masterfully in Pulp Fiction where it helped to make sure we didn't always know what was going on. We would see things out of order, but we wouldn't know that they were out of order until we saw the connecting, earlier part and say "Ah! This happened before that part I saw earlier. I see how they fit." Well, in Kill Bill he just threw a couple things out of order and basically let us know how two or three very important things turned out. It is one thing to think "Okay, so-and-so isn't going to die here because it's the beginning of the movie" while watching a tension filled fight, but it is completely different for the director or writer to come out and pretty much say "This person will survive everything that gets thrown at her until you see her driving this car along a dusty road". That isn't "artistic", that's stupid.

Anyway, like I said, I liked it.

Steph and I last night went to see The Bourne Supremacy. We both enjoyed it, just like the first one. The action was good and the plot was good with no blarring holes that I immediately noticed. But here we go again: an artistic direction that I didn't really like, but unlike Quentin's time shifting, I can actually understand why this was done. For all of the action or fighting the movie shifted to "shaky camera mode". I can see the point; that when in these extreme situations that everything happens quickly and you can't see everything in Matrix like precision. A fight or a fast car chase is just a bunch of flashing images that you have to react to. After the last car chase Steph let out an audible sigh of relief from the tension and excitement that had built up. I nearly let one out from the relief to my head and eyes trying to focus on a purposely blurred film. It bugged me, but I can see why it was done, but it bugged me.

Anyway, like I said, I liked it.

Finally, rounding out the weekend movie trifecta. I popped in an old VHS of the movie Invincible Armor which I first watched a few years ago while living with Steve. It's classic old school kung-fu. Bad dubbing, no plot, crazy white-haired kung-fu masters, a not-quite-good-enough hero who learns the ultimate secret technique from an unlikely source, and plenty of sweet action. There's not much to say about it other than it is an enjoyable hour and a half or so marvelling at the moves and laughing at the ridiculousness at the same time.

Other than move a few things to my new place, that's about all I did this weekend.
Caio!