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walbournUnder the Tuscan Sun
Cute chick-flick about a woman trying to rebuild her life after a devastating divorce. As a story about reinventing one's life, it is pretty good. It is also a great movie to see if you want to motivate yourself to visit Tuscany. Clearly the director/screenwriter forced herself to visit every lovely little villa and beach-side restaurant in Italy to find just the right setting for the movie. Poor girl.
Upon reflection though, there are some aspects of the movie that bother me. The main character is portrayed as utterly blameless in the "failure" of her marriage. On one hand it wasn't really important exactly how things came to that end, but on the other hand it bothered me how much a victim this made her into. I guess I just have a weird view of relationships, but I prefer a bit more honesty to one's self. The ending throws a bone for the American audience that can't handle a woman being happy without a man in her life, but as he only shows up for the last scene you can easily ignore him and the excessive 'neatness' it lends to the story...
Kill Bill: Vol 1
I'm not a Quentin Tarantino fan. Pulp Fiction was worth seeing, but there were many aspects of that film I didn't enjoy and other aspects that I felt guilty enjoying. I have NO interest in seeing Reservoir Dogs, Natural Born Killers, or really any of his other films.
Having said that, I loved Kill Bill without reservation. It is in fact a QT masturbatory fantasy about violence, Japanese chicks, and edged weapons, but if you are into that sort of thing it is great. The movie starts with a "FEATURE PRESENTATION" effect that is right out of 1960s Hong Kong film and a quote attributed to Klingons ("Revenge is a dish best served cold"). It is a gory film, but the effects are right out of Monty Python films with fountains of blood spraying into a fine red mist for half a minute or longer so it just wasn't real looking. The dialogue and even the character code names are classic stuff you'd expect from a script written in formal Japanese and translated to English, stuff that you say to yourself "I'm sure that sounds cooler in the original Japanese".
The little details really made this film: Everyone in first-class on Japanese airlines has a Katana, non-linear story ordering, the costuming, little vignettes with character background, weird model-shots of Tokyo. Very cool. Lucy Lou, while obviously destined for death at the hands of the main character, turns in some awesome ass-kicking performances. David Carradine as Bill just fucking rocks.
There were parts of the story that were headed into deeply disturbing territory, but this film doesn't have the malice I felt in PF or heard about in his other films. Ultimately, it is about a warrior doing what must be done, avenging the death of her loved ones in a manner befitting the wrong done to her, in the finest tradition of the Samurai-style classics. If her enemies choose to put hundreds of defenders in front of them, she'll just have to kill every one of them to get to her quarry.
In short, if you are an animae fanboy/fangirl and love Hong Kong action/kung fu films, and can handle buckets of obviously Kool-aid blood effects spraying everyone in the room, it is well worth seeing. As a mainstream film, I don't think most people will "get it". I think they will go see it because it is the "cool new QT movie", but this film is really for the Asiaphiles and Kung Fu freaks and nobody else. I was the only person in the theater laughing my ass off, and it was fairly full. I'd say this is a "guy' film in many ways, but![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jeliza loved it too because she is a fan of the genres this film paid homage to with every stylish shot...
I tend to agree with some critics that Miramax splitting this film into two volumes is kinda irritating. At the same time, I thought that their choice of where exactly to end part 1 was perfect.
Cute chick-flick about a woman trying to rebuild her life after a devastating divorce. As a story about reinventing one's life, it is pretty good. It is also a great movie to see if you want to motivate yourself to visit Tuscany. Clearly the director/screenwriter forced herself to visit every lovely little villa and beach-side restaurant in Italy to find just the right setting for the movie. Poor girl.
Upon reflection though, there are some aspects of the movie that bother me. The main character is portrayed as utterly blameless in the "failure" of her marriage. On one hand it wasn't really important exactly how things came to that end, but on the other hand it bothered me how much a victim this made her into. I guess I just have a weird view of relationships, but I prefer a bit more honesty to one's self. The ending throws a bone for the American audience that can't handle a woman being happy without a man in her life, but as he only shows up for the last scene you can easily ignore him and the excessive 'neatness' it lends to the story...
Kill Bill: Vol 1
I'm not a Quentin Tarantino fan. Pulp Fiction was worth seeing, but there were many aspects of that film I didn't enjoy and other aspects that I felt guilty enjoying. I have NO interest in seeing Reservoir Dogs, Natural Born Killers, or really any of his other films.
Having said that, I loved Kill Bill without reservation. It is in fact a QT masturbatory fantasy about violence, Japanese chicks, and edged weapons, but if you are into that sort of thing it is great. The movie starts with a "FEATURE PRESENTATION" effect that is right out of 1960s Hong Kong film and a quote attributed to Klingons ("Revenge is a dish best served cold"). It is a gory film, but the effects are right out of Monty Python films with fountains of blood spraying into a fine red mist for half a minute or longer so it just wasn't real looking. The dialogue and even the character code names are classic stuff you'd expect from a script written in formal Japanese and translated to English, stuff that you say to yourself "I'm sure that sounds cooler in the original Japanese".
The little details really made this film: Everyone in first-class on Japanese airlines has a Katana, non-linear story ordering, the costuming, little vignettes with character background, weird model-shots of Tokyo. Very cool. Lucy Lou, while obviously destined for death at the hands of the main character, turns in some awesome ass-kicking performances. David Carradine as Bill just fucking rocks.
There were parts of the story that were headed into deeply disturbing territory, but this film doesn't have the malice I felt in PF or heard about in his other films. Ultimately, it is about a warrior doing what must be done, avenging the death of her loved ones in a manner befitting the wrong done to her, in the finest tradition of the Samurai-style classics. If her enemies choose to put hundreds of defenders in front of them, she'll just have to kill every one of them to get to her quarry.
In short, if you are an animae fanboy/fangirl and love Hong Kong action/kung fu films, and can handle buckets of obviously Kool-aid blood effects spraying everyone in the room, it is well worth seeing. As a mainstream film, I don't think most people will "get it". I think they will go see it because it is the "cool new QT movie", but this film is really for the Asiaphiles and Kung Fu freaks and nobody else. I was the only person in the theater laughing my ass off, and it was fairly full. I'd say this is a "guy' film in many ways, but
jeliza loved it too because she is a fan of the genres this film paid homage to with every stylish shot...I tend to agree with some critics that Miramax splitting this film into two volumes is kinda irritating. At the same time, I thought that their choice of where exactly to end part 1 was perfect.
