Haunting the Web Since 1999
Roger Ebert, the reigning Dean of film critics, 1942-2013. As a movie reviewer, I often didn’t agree with him – I found his sensibilities a bit too saccharine for my taste. But as a writer and convivial voice, he was always inviting, and and always worth reading, and few established columnists have embraced the democratic give-and-take of writing on the web as much as he did. R.I.P.
Sigh. We’ve come a long way from “Dirt Off Your Shoulder.” In a commencement speech at Hampton University over the weekend, President Obama channels his inner grumpy-old-man (Roger Ebert?) to warn new grads about the perils of gaming and gadgetry. First off, it’s a ludicrous statement on its face: iPods are not particularly hard to work — and, if they’re really insidious Weapons of Mental Distraction, why give one to the Queen (who, by the way and to her credit, has fully embraced the Wii?)
Speaking more broadly, misinformation has been around as long as the republic — go read up on the Jefferson v. Adams race of 1800. If anything, today’s information society allows people to more easily hear the news from multiple sources, which is a very good thing. In fact, the reason our political culture these days is constantly bombarded with irrelevant, distracting, and inane mistruths has nothing — none, zip, zero — to do with iPods, iPads, Xboxes, or Playstations. It has to do with ABC, CBS, WaPo, Politico, and the rest of the Village, i.e. the very same people the President was noshing with a few weeks ago at the ne plus ultra of “information becoming distracting entertainment“, the White House Correspondents’ DInner.
Finally, while the “multi-tasking is distracting” proposition does seem to hold water, scientifically speaking, the jury’s still out on the pernicious effects of Xbox’s and the like. In fact, there are plenty of studies suggesting that video games improve vision, improve reflexes, improve attention, improve cognition, improve memory, and improve “fluid intelligence,” a.k.a. problem-solving. So, let’s not get out the torches and pitchforks just yet. It could just be that the 21st-century interactive culture is making better, smarter, more informed citizens. (And, hey, let’s not forget Admongo.)
To get to the point, while it’s not as irritating as the concerned-centrist pearl-clutching over GTA in past years, it’s just a troubling dynamic to see not only a young, ostensibly Kennedyesque president but the most powerful man in the world tsk-tsking about all this new-fangled technology ruining the lives of the young people. Let’s try to stay ahead of the curve, please. And let’s keep focus on the many problems — lack of jobs, crushing student loan and/or credit card debts, etc. — that might be distracting new graduates right now more than their iPods and PS3s. (Also, try to pick up a copy of Stephen Duncombe’s Dream — Video game-style interactivity isn’t the enemy. It’s the future.)
As seen on AICN, thousands of vintage movie reviews from episodes of the Siskel & Ebert Show (and, ok, the Ebert & Roeper Show) are now available online for perusal. Some fascinating time capsules here, and it’s good to see the late Gene Siskel again. (Ebert lost a good deal of respect in this corner when he ultimately picked the pedestrian milquetoast Richard Roeper to fill Siskel’s seat. Somebody more combative, more knowledgable, or more interesting — heck, or somebody with decent taste in movies — would’ve been preferable.)
Well, I’ll say this much for Kill Bill, Vol. 2…it’s a vast improvement over the atrocious Vol. 1. Perhaps because, one kinetic trailer park catfight notwithstanding, Tarantino isn’t trying to be an action director this time around, the second half of this revenge tale hangs together much better than the opening act. There’s actually time devoted to character beats here, which, as QT should know, is ultimately his forte as a writer and director. As such, Michael Madsen and David Carradine in particular get a chance to bring some much-needed complexity to the wafer-thin plot around which these films are constructed.
Still, like its predecessor, Kill Bill Vol. 2 has the whiff of a vanity project. It’s obvious Quentin had the time of his life making these two films, and they definitely seem to work as a love letter to a certain subset of grindhouse and chop-socky film fans (a group which includes David Edelstein, Roger Ebert, and Elvis Mitchell.) But, frankly, I thought a lot of Vol. 2 felt sloppy and derivative. I still don’t see why this project had to be two films, particularly as, once again, there’s so many drawn-out, redundant, or unnecessary episodes on display here. What’s up with the Uma car intro? Bud’s boss? Daryl Hannah’s googlesearch notes? Bill’s ridiculously QT-like riff on Superman? The tremendously stupid pregnancy test faceoff? As I noted about the first half of Kill Bill, Jackie Brown moves languidly, but with purpose. For much of these KB flicks, which often feel more like some sub-Tarantino outing (Killing Zoe, for example) than they do Jackie or Pulp Fiction, I was just bored.
Ultimately, there’s a difference between paying fleeting homage to some film influence and constructing a four and a half hour movie that just moves lazily from homage to homage. The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly, some Wu-Tang flick, Oh, look, The Vanishing. I’m sure that I recognized less than 10% of the movies Tarantino was referencing here, and I’m sure that probably invalidates my opinion of the film in many people’s eyes. And, if QT wants to show off his film-geek cred so blatantly and the film-geeks eat it up like candy, who am I to complain? Still, I very much hope that Tarantino had to get this orgy of excess out of his system, and that he’ll now settle down and focus his considerable talents a little more narrowly, instead of jumping all over the map as he does here.
We’ve heard from the pope (sort of) (“It is as it was?” Jesus was a tall blue-eyed white guy?), we’ve heard from Harry Knowles, but now the “real” reviews of The Passion (which I’ll probably see this weekend) are coming in fast, and so far they all say the same thing: Too much violence and gore, too little charity and grace. David Edelstein sums up the emerging consensus view: “This is a two-hour-and-six-minute snuff movie — The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre — that thinks it’s an act of faith.” And even Roger Ebert, an admirer of the film (and one whom I rarely agree with these days), confesses: “This is the most violent film I have ever seen.” Hoo boy. I was afraid of that. Beware the packs of bloodthirsty bible-thumpers on your way out, y’all.
Well, I’m probably going to lose some fanboy cred for this, but I found Kill Bill (billed everywhere — even, ridiculously, in the credits — as “the 4th film by Quentin Tarantino”) to be a considerable disappointment. The movie starts off well…Uma’s The Bride covered in blood, some choice words, a gunshot, fade to black, Nancy Sinatra…so far, so good. Like an old friend back in town, it almost seemed at first we’d be getting something missing for too long, something along the lines of Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown. But then, alas, it becomes all too clear that QT has ventured deep into George Lucas territory. In other words, Kill Bill is an overripe, overlong flick by a director infatuated with his own cleverness and brilliance, one who’s clearly surrounded by entirely too many sycophantic yes-men. To wit:
1) The Editing. Perhaps it’s a result of chopping the film in two, but there are several scenes here badly in need of shortening, which is doubly strange given how perfectly — languidly, with occasional jolts and rushes — QT’s first three films move. Take, for example, all of Chapter 4 (The Man from Okinawa), and particularly the sake-pouring nonsense. Ok, I get it — it’s Sonny Chiba (and, I’ve since been informed, Gordon Liu)…but let’s move on. Jackie Brown moves at a leisurely pace, yet I was and am never bored. In Kill Bill I was stifling yawns. Or take the introduction of Buck’s Pussy Wagon (which at best is a sophomoric, throwaway joke anyway.) Uma gets the keys from Buck, beats him a final time, looks for the car, finds the car, looks at the keys, looks at the car, gets in the car. All this could’ve been condensed into one edit (from the hospital floor to Uma dragging herself into the Wagon), particularly as the joke was already made in Chapter 1 anyway.
2) The Dialogue. With the possible exception of Lucy Liu’s words of wisdom for the Yakuza council — one of the best moments in the film — there is hardly a single memorable line in all of Kill Bill. Again, this is bizarre for a Tarantino flick, which as everyone knows have been distinguished by their dialogue. Ok, so samurai are generally strong, silent types…that doesn’t forgive the banality of what’s actually being said most of the time. “Silly rabbit…Trix are for kids”? C’mon. And, aside from the ridiculous number of grindhouse chop-socky in-jokes, most of the pop-culture visuals in Kill Bill seem lazy and off-hand (For example, the fellow in the Charlie Brown kimono – which not only added nothing to the film but could be seen coming a mile away.)
3. The Action. Of course QT has no obligation to make movies like the ones he’s made previously, so both the editing and dialogue problems could have been overlooked if Kill Bill had succeeded in its main intent. But, sadly, it doesn’t. Amazingly, given the input of Master Yuen Wo-Ping, almost all of the action sequences in Kill Bill are dull, stilted, and boring, and none more so than the much-hyped House of Blue Leaves. Really. I was shocked at how off they seemed to be. Perhaps its because Uma Thurman couldn’t handle the martial arts choreography for extended shots, but I think it’s more likely that QT just isn’t a very good action director. Too many quick edits, too many goofy shots (the blue silhouette sequence was embarrassing, as was the spanking at the end.)….It’s just sad. Even fights that held great promise (Go-Go Yubari, a homicidal Japanese schoolgirl with a tricked-up mace…really, how can you screw this up? Same goes for O-Ren-Ishii in the snow) seemed flat and lifeless. Somewhere down the pike, QT must’ve decided that gore is the end-all, be-all of a good action sequence, but arterial sprays aside, there’s really not much to see here (and the whole hilarious gore bit was done better in films like Dead Alive anyway.) QT made a point recently of attacking the fights in The Matrix movies, but I’ll take those anyday over the jumbled morass of bad wire-fu and chop edits on display here. And one needs only to recall the breathtaking wire-fu fights of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, where the camera pulls back and allows the combatants to strut their stuff in extended takes, to see how badly misplayed QT’s action edits are here.
The Upside: Well, not much, really. There’s some great opportunities here, and I’d say Tarantino squanders most of ’em. I liked the anime sequence in the middle of the film, and the introduction of O-Ren-Ishii’s squad (Go-Go, Sofie Fatale, etc.) had a great comic book flavor to it at first. I thought RZA’s work on the soundtrack was superb. The critics on the film geek end of the spectrum (David Edelstein, Roger Ebert) adored all the in-jokes scattered throughout the film, and I’m sure most of ’em went over my head. (I don’t think, however, that this excuses the film by any means — LotR, for example, is filled with Tolkie in-jokes while still being accessible to laypersons.) Who knows? Perhaps if Kill Bill had just been another film, I might not be so harsh about it. But I expected more from this much-heralded return of Tarantino…I hope this was just an inglorious misstep, and I’ll probably go see Vol. 2 (word is the second one is more character-driven anyway). But I thought Quentin drank his own Kool-Aid with Kill Bill: Volume One, and hopefully he’ll return to his senses someday soon.