Buffista Movies 5: Development Hell
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
The one where he captures Alba and dresses her up in a dragonfly outfit and strings her from the ceiling?
Yeah. And that part is creepy, but in a cartoony way. But at the end.. it's been a while, but what I remember is that she escapes, gets caught by, like, inbred rednecks, is almost gangraped, and then while she's traumatized, Gorodish starts blasting people with a shotgun. I may be misremembering the details, but I'm positive there was a abrupt shift in tone. I mostly remember feeling like, "Is he satirizing action movies or something? I think he probably is, but holy crap."
I'm waiting for the "Ultimate Criterion Super-Secret Special DVD with your own personal Tarantino Sperm Packet Included" before buying the Kills Bill
Yeah, me too. I think there was an interview recently where he'd said he was still too wiped out from doing it to look at it again for a special edition, but he was planning to do one.
I don't know about Oscars, though. It's a beautiful pastiche collection, but even in my ideal world where Oscars are based on merit, I'm not sure that's what they should reward. I do think Tarantino should get some kind of special achievement award for having some kind of savant-y skills when it comes to picking music, though.
Oh, anyway, TNT is running both movies back-to-back on Sunday.
My strongest impressions of French cinema come from Amélie and Techine's Wild Reeds. And, I guess, With a Friend like Harry, which made me sympathize with my mom's utter loathing for the fantastic. Considering my all-time favorite TV shows include Buffy, Wonderfalls, Farscape, and Due South, exceeding my surrealism tolerance in 90 minutes is quite an accomplishment.
I really liked the first Kill Bill.
Did you not like the second? I thought while the first was (mostly) a wild ride, the second was the whole heart of the thing.
With a Friend like Harry, which made me sympathize with my mom's utter loathing for the fantastic.
Huh? I saw that with a friend who's big comment (and not pejoratively) was "that was very French", and I can't say I found it particularly "fantastic", at least no more than when compared to the Hitchcock films it was apeing, and not at all surreal.
Do any of you remember
Jean de Florette
and
Manon des Sources
?
Two of the only three movies that made me cry. Twenty years later and I can only remember the barest outline, but I still remember thinking, "Wow. So sad, but wow."
Did you not like the second? I thought while the first was (mostly) a wild ride, the second was the whole heart of the thing.
I definitely liked the second part, and you are right that it carries the emotional weight of the story. But I never want to rewatch that part. Ultimately I don't think there
is
that much emotional weight in this story, and all of the parts that stuck with me were from the flashy trashy first part.
To me, the most emotionally intense part isn't her face-off with Bill at the end, but the ragged edges at the end of the first one when Sophie has been delivered, one-armed to deliver her message.
flashy trashy
And that's really what Quentin excels at.
And that's really what Quentin excels at.
And I don't dismiss it. The guy is a genuine scholar of exploitation film. He knows it
deeply.
I respect that. He wants to make movies that hit you hard emotionally. He's already shown with Jackie Brown that he's capable of more range when he sets his mind to it. It'll be interesting to see what happens with his war movie.
How did Kill Bill do at the box office, incidentally? Did it make Harvey money?
I loved Jackie Brown. Lots.
How did Kill Bill do at the box office, incidentally?
Well, IMDb probably isn't the most definitive source, but it lists the estimated budget at 50 mil for vol. 1, with an estimated worldwide gross of 178 mil as of August '04. Vol. 2 is estimated 30 mil budget, 149 mil gross.
So yeah, it made money.
Per Box Office Mojo, both parts combined cost $60 million and made $136 million (just in the US).
I thought the very end of Kill Bill was terribly sad. When she's crying in the bathroom? But I'm kind of a sucker for repression, so my tear-jerker scenes are usually that kind of thing.
And I think that sticks out in my memory because I could overhear someone nearby asking, "What's she so upset about?" and I kinda wanted to beat them. It's like when I saw Remains of the Day and one of the guys I was with was all, "Hey, on the second viewing I just noticed, there's kind of a romantic subplot!" But he had Issues.
Jeez, I'm rambling. And so to bed.
