|
|
Kill Bill Vol. 1
(2003)
Dir: Quentin Tarantino
I’ve met a few people recently who told me that they’re, “not really into Tarantino.” That’s fine, but they’re fucking liars. The reason I say this is because each time, it’s been an emotive, skinny, hipster saying it. I’d revise the statement to, “I’m not really into the fact that I’m not Tarantino.” It’s easy for me to point the finger because, I’ve been the vulnerable, twiggy, wannabe on the firing end of the statement. Just after Pulp Fiction came out, I fostered a mean anti-Tarantino streak. My dad took me to see Reservoir Dogs, opening week, and I used to throw that around like currency--because in high school, liking something “first” seemed to count--so I got all bent out of shape when Pulp Fiction became an unprecedented success. I liked him first, I postulated, and I suppose I even thought that I liked his movies for better reasons than everyone else. I was especially touchy about all of it because I was still a virgin. It seemed then that the only way I was going to get some smell-bad on my swing-low, was to write a screenplay that was a hyper-contextual, pop masterpiece. I was plenty jealous of Tarantino’s success. What I should have focused my energy on was laying off the malt-liquor for a few hours a week and laying into my typewriter. The rancor dissolved after I got a job at a bookstore, and began channeling my energy into the haughty envy of dead writers instead of Mira Sorvino’s boyfriend. Claiming to be, “not really into Tarantino” is a fiery beacon of what’s missing in the lives of the perpetually adolescent males among us. The media fellates iconic individuals like Tarantino to the point where every sad-sack with a dream and a pocketful of snappy observations, thinks he’s just one big break away from his EW blowjob. This creates animosity, and self-loathing, and PBR-suckling, cinephile philosophers who usually have a pretty good yarn about how they wouldn’t trade place with Tarantino because of “obviousness,” or some such shit. Out of all the directors working in Hollywood today, Tarantino would have to be the one to trade places with. He has carte blanche. No studio head is going to tell him how to run his ship, and he’s rich, and he’s a dork who hot girls want badly. What really offends is that Tarantino got off his ass and wrote a screenplay, and got it made into a movie through hard work. So stick your sense of entitlement up your wristbands. Now, are you really, “not really into Tarantino?” I thought not. Kill Bill Vol.1 is great. I haven’t watched enough Goddard or Sonny Chiba movies to be able to tell you the boring reasons why. I liked it because it is creative, and filled with brilliant characters and nerve-ratcheting dilemmas. Very, very violent, but poetic about it. Plus, there’s a hot, Japanese schoolgirl that kills people.
|
|
|
