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April 30,
2004 Uma Thurman (Beatrix Kiddo) – karate hottie. David Carradine (Bill) – karate creepy. Daryl Hannah (Elle/California Mountain Snake) – karate pirate ho’. Michael Madsen (Budd) – now you know there is such a thing as karate trailer trash. Gordon Liu (Pai Mei) – what octogenarian ZZ-Toppers will someday look like. As I stated last October (and which still applies today): Wanna have some fun? Tell a film student that you think Tarantino’s Kill Bill really sucks. Then stand back and watch with amusement as the film-geek’s hands wave about wildly and veins pop out of his/her pierced forehead. Then just as they are about to pass out from this hissy fit, tell them you were just kidding. Pause for effect. Now tell them, no really it does indeed suck. Chuckle as their head explodes in a Tarantino-like bloody mess. This is how to deal with geeks who blindly follow their geek-God, the not-so-great and no-so-powerful Quentin. Look at it this way; only a baseball fan can justify watching 162 regular season games. The rest of us watch only the World Series. And this flick is not playoff material. Considering the huge promotional push it got, they might consider renaming it “Overkill Bill.” Hmm … “Kill Bill” – isn’t that the title of Hillary’s book? Yeah, yeah I know, all you Tarantino worshippers; I’ll repeat your holy mantra for you: Quentin Tarantino is a talented guy (rinse, repeat). But so what? This is what happens when a neuveaux Hollyweird icon to the wear-all-black-and-sit-in-tonish-coffee-shops crowd makes a movie unchecked by Mr. Necessary Editor. In essence, Tarantino has become trendy to the limp-wristed feelm crit-teeks and feelm stoodents, and now he serves as his own supervisor. Well, Mr. Self-Supervised; anyone with half your “talent” could easily take KBv1 and KBv2, remove the superfluous blabbery and come away with one solid flick chock full o’ kitsch and kookiness. And it would only be 90 minutes long. Here is the plot of KBv2 in a bloody li’l nutshell: skinny girl who kicks ass does a search-and-destroy on her slimy ex-boyfriend. Despite the opening explanatory verbosity, to really understand what the hell is going on in KBv2, you must first see KBv1; and for that I pity you. The political correctness in KBv2 leaps out like a flying front-kick (insert karate swoosh sfx here). In one scene, a local yokel drawls, “Them Japs sure know how to keep a grudge.” This is Hollyweird’s PC view of the bombs we dropped on Japan in WWII. Nevermind that Japan attacked us first. Nevermind that the atomic bombs ended WWII. Nevermind that flattening Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved countless American lives. This America The Bad Guy nonsense is the same pop-culture PC pap that has been peddled to publik skool kids for decades – ever since the spiral-eyed, America-hating liberals took over the system. There was no reason to bomb Japan in WW2. They did nothing to us and if they did, we deserved it. America is a mean war machine operated by evil right-wing imperialists and is only interested in oppressing hapless non-Caucasians. War is always wrong, especially if the United States wins. I know this, because Hollyweird tells me so. Memo to Hollyweird: Here is the stark reality of war; the enemy does not love you; the enemy does not want to hug you; the enemy does not want to sing Kum By Ya by the campfire with you; the enemy does not want to be your friend. The enemy will kill you if you don’t kill them first. Does the name Al Qaida ring a bell? Freedom is not a welfare program. Freedom is not free. More PC geratsu (silliness) comes out when martial arts grand poobah Pai Mai says to our blonde & blue heroine, “I hate Caucasians! I hate women! You make me sick! You eat like a dog!” All this from a character who is portrayed as a good guy. Imagine the yowling from the left if Pai Mai was a white mentor and he said to a black character, “I hate negroes! You stink!” The flick would never get off the shelf. Orientals know things … seeeecret things that no racist-bigot-sexist-homophobe Westerner could ever know. Asian customs and culture are superior to American culture. Come to think of it, all non-American cultures are superior to American culture (except maybe France). I know this, because Hollyweird tells me so. Naturally, the guy that needs killin’ is a white guy. Bill, oddly enough, is portrayed by TV’s former Kung Fu fellow, David Carradine (who at his age is almost as spooky looking as his famous-movie-monster Father was). Why is Uma so dang mad at Bill? I dunno; maybe it could be that Bill had her entire wedding party massacred, shot her in the head, had her buried alive and sent several assassins after her. That would definitely do it for me. Bill’s explanation for all this jealous rage is, “Ehh … I guess I overreacted.” Do tell, bub. Bad jealous white guy! Bad bad bad! More PC hakkyou (craziness) chops out with the latest Hollyweird obsession: Skinny Girls Who Kick Ass. You can’t get away from it – every time you go to the movies these days there is a 110-pound bony babe bashing big bad guys all over the screen. Not only that, but these scrawny sisters take an incredible pounding themselves, flying through walls, crashing out windows, smashing through floors … I tell ya; I’ve been looking for a girl like that. I’ve got a bruiser buddy that says that if he ever finds a wife, “… it’ll be a gal who can take a punch.” Nice. Women are just as strong as men. There is no physical strength difference between the sexes. Women can do anything men can do. If a woman cannot pass a general strength test, either military or civilian, then the test is biased and must be changed. If you do not agree to this, then you are a sexist and must be forced to partake in Guv’mint sponsored sensitivity training. I know this, because Hollyweird tells me so. Here’s some reality for ya – 110 pounds? Hell, I warm up with more than that. KBv2 has more implausibilities in it than there are teabags in China, but then again the whole thing is an implausibility. In one scene, a woman walks through a hotel blasting a shotgun here and there and nobody seems to notice; no cops, no security guards; not even a nosy neighbor. I got a call from the front desk once for snoring too loud. Then there is the whole skinny girls kicking ass motif. What’s with the whole Superman/Clark Kent monologue? How come Uma had to go talk to some oddball Spanish dude just to find out where Bill was? What’s with the little girl squishing her goldfish? What’s with the really stupid “Cub has rejoined the Mother and all is right in the jungle” esotericism? Did we have to see “Budd’s” scene with his boss at the strip club? It had nothing to do with the story. What’s with this movie being so talky it makes a Woody Allen movie look like a silent film? That being said, there are some fun things to look for in KBv2. Look for a really boss Trans Am. Look for Bill’s fancy-schmancy sports car – I don’t even know what it is, so therefore I doubt I could afford it. Look for classic Johnny Cash tunes. Look for a very cool buried alive scene. Look for Quentin’s self-reference to Natural Born Killers. Look for a kooky eyeball-squishing-between-the-toes scene. Look for an audience member to leap to his feet and screech, “It took him six years to come up with THIS?!” Methinks Tarantino spent way too much of his childhood in front of a TV watching Kung Fu flicks, spaghetti westerns and cartoons as his Mother screamed from the other room, “Quentin, go play OUTSIDE!” By the way, “Beatrix Kiddo” (our heroine’s heretofore unspoken name) is very close to the Latin phrase for “give happiness” – beaticus addo. I don’t know if that was done on purpose, but there you are, Quentin, you can take credit for that and I won’t tell your blind-follower fans – they wouldn’t believe you got it from an evil capitalist conservative like me anyway. KBv2 has two of the five Bachelor B’s: Blood and Bashes. No Bombs, no Beasts and no Breasts – which kind of makes Darryl Hannah’s performance wholly unnecessary, although it was fun watching her get her eyeball smacked out of her head. Put it this way, where as KBv1 was mostly sugar-high, KBv2 is mostly Prozac. I give Kill Bill volume 2 two and a half Capitalist Dollar Signs (out of 5). $$½ Hear
RadioFree Rocky D at www.wtma.com |
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