Willow ,'Storyteller'
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.
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.
My favorite foreign movie has to be M, though--Peter Lorre is mesmerizing as the serial child killer.
Okay, I just watched M, and I have to say I don't feel the love. Can people who like the movie explain why it's a classic? Other than being a first talkie.
I did enjoy Lorre's confession scene, but mostly because I saw a straight-line connection from it to Serkis' Gollum/Smeagol scene.
One fun thing about M though was the old regional German. In some ways it was easier to understand than modern German, but definitely weird.
How's your German, Raq?
I need the German word for "pleasurable irrititant" or "pleasing irritation." I know they have a word for that concept, but I can't recall it.
I loved M for the crazy art deco sets, the darkness at its heart, the hall of the mountain king, the film noir tropes it created, and, especially, the mock trial.
Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources ?
We watched them in French class when I was about thirteen, so anyone seen crying would have been mocked from on high. I do remember the general consensus being that they were great films though.
Do any of you remember Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources ?
I remember distinctly when they came out. My mom and I schlepped all the way to Hartford to see Jean de Florette and then there was the long six month wait before Manon des sources came out.
I highly recommend them. Provence looks gorgeous. Great acting from Yves Montand, Daniel Auteuil, the ubiquitous Gérard Depardieu, and a resplendent (and young) Emmanuelle Béart as Manon.
The fact these aren't out on DVD here just kills me.
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
See what struck me in part the second was something that was very nicely elided over - Beatrix had bonded with her hard-assed teacher to the point that she'd taught her the big secret killing move. That carried a lot of emotional weight, and the realization of that was all over Carradine's face at the end. It also added a great deal of retrospective resonance to both her training scenes, and her showdown with Daryll Hannah.
My Netflix list is kinda TV-heavy, but there are a reasonable number of movies on it. The foreign films I watch tend to be from Hong Kong, or from Britain. Monsoon Wedding is in my top ten, but I don't recall if that's Indian or British-Indian. Ah, well...
I love both Kill Bills. They kind of meld together into one big movie in my head, though.