Who needs plot? We mean really, what's the point, when all we want to see is the ass kicking. Particularly, the girl on girl ass kicking. This appears to be the rational behind Quentin Tarantino's newest film (and his fourth film, as he so arrogantly bills it even on the movie's opening credits) Kill Bill—Vol. 1. Cinecultist current theory behind her gut hostility towards QT is this flagrant arrogance from the man who put the oh lord in autuer. He's the ultimate pasticheur, offering knowing reference to a whole host of pop predecessors, from the Shaw brothers to the soundtracks of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns.
But it is not the fact that you could probably say there's nary an "original" moment in the picture that cuts it off at the knees; as Tarantino's originality lies in his ordering of reference. Rather, it's his position of exclusivity that gets in CC's craw. In QT's world we can never be as cool as him, as quick as him, or as in the know as him to "get" all he throws it as us. Sure, the thing looks slick and there's moments that are truly lovely in their brutality but if CC want to be talked down to, we wouldn't ask for it from a pop flick, a self-avowed paean to grind house movies. Shouldn't all of this populism, this re-appropriation of B-production, be completely accessible?
That said, Lucy Liu as O-ren Ishii, the flashback anime sequence detailing her history and that fight in the snow is awesome. Awe-some. Should've been a whole movie all about her. Zowie. But we could've used with less geyser blood from severed limbs. Yick. Pretty much everybody in the critic world loved it. Also, it made a bunch of money ($22.2 million on 3,102 screens) this weekend. Guess QT's here to stay. So we guess CC will just have to continue to alienate our fellow film geeks but saying the arrogant yahoo bugs us.
Posted by karen at October 13, 2003 7:42 AM