http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,98244,00.html
Success is a double-edged sword as we all know. Tomorrow, Miramax releases
one of the worst films in its history, a misbegotten comedy called Duplex
that stars Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore in a pale rip-off of Meet the
Parents.
On the other hand, three weeks from tomorrow the company will finally give
us Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 1. I've seen this
much-anticipated film and I can tell you that it is absolutely brilliant, a
real tour de force.
And it raises interesting questions: Why can Miramax only make this kind of
film? Why are they unable to make high-concept Hollywood films? Duplex
falls in the dubious category of Kate Leopold, Serendipity, A View
from the Top and Bounce.
Oy! If only someone knew the answer.
But let's address Kill Bill, which is the story of a character called The
Bride (Uma Thurman), a hit woman who avenges her newlywed husband's bloody
murder at the altar. The enemy is Bill, her former lover and employer and
his squad of vicious killers known as the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad,
or DiVAS. They are played by Daryl Hannah, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox and
Michael Madsen.
You know this is a movie that's going to be a flash point for all the
cinema-geek-Internet-whatever writers. Tarantino is a cult figure. His every
move is dissected by these 'experts.' God love them, to have the time and
interest for this minutiae. Some want him to fail. Some want him to succeed.
Me? I really liked Jackie Brown, so go figure. I have not watched the
special edition DVD of Pulp Fiction over and over in slow-motion.
Three-and-a-half years ago Tarantino surfaced from a long absence on the
scene during Oscar weekend 2000. He'd been someplace in the Caribbean for a
while and was with a mysterious woman whom he'd met down there. He was
supposedly working on a World War II movie. For some reason I can't
remember, we were sitting on a piano bench at a party. All of a sudden he
told me he was working on a script called Kill Bill that would star Warren
Beatty and Uma Thurman. The rest is history.
Eventually Beatty, who I guess couldn't figure out exactly what was going
on, dropped out of the project. He was replaced by Kung Fu star David
Carradine.
I remember seeing Tarantino chewing the ears off of Thurman and her husband
Ethan Hawke at the Miramax pre-Oscar bash that year -- almost to the point
of distraction. In fact, I wrote about it in this column. He was so excited
about Kill Bill and Thurman's participation that he ignored the skits
being performed on stage by that year's Oscar nominees.
Ironically, this February, Tarantino and Thurman may be asked to perform
similar sketches.
I will admit I'm not a fanatic expert on the subject of samurai movies,
'grind house' pictures, spaghetti westerns or Japanese anime. (The latter
all looks like Speed Racer to me.) Until I read the extensive press notes
for Kill Bill, I assumed a duck press was something served a la orange
or with plum sauce. But I do know that Kill Bill, Volume 1 is the hippest
thing I've seen on screen since Pulp Fiction.
From the opening credits (which are in Japanese) to the big finale in a
place called The House of Blue Leaves (sorry John Guare), Kill Bill is
full of visual knockouts. There are set piece homages to Tarantino's
favorite Japanese films, which are going to be parodied and copied as
slavishly as Pulp Fiction.
It's Crouching Tiger and The Matrix, mixed together and served with hot
sauce. What a meal these three films will make some day at a revival house!
What surprised me most about Kill Bill, though, was Thurman. She's had an
iffy movie career, with some good stuff (Pulp Fiction, Dangerous
Liaisons, Hysterical Blindness) and some famously bad stuff (Gattaca,
The Avengers, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues).
In a way, she's perfect Tarantino material -- someone we think of as a star
whose resume is littered with junk. Tarantino taps into that very
insightfully. Kill Bill sort of marries these two ideas together for
Thurman. Now she'll be a star like never before. Her performance is just
stunning, a really glorious piece of physical, witty exertion.
I'll tell you more about Kill Bill as its release date (Oct. 10)
approaches. But these were the impressions I was left with after the
screening: that it rocked, that the violence and spurting blood was
cartoon-like fun, that Lucy Liu was the best she's ever been.
I also thought that Kill Bill succeeded on every level that Charlie's
Angels didn't. And that I really wanted to see Part II as soon as possible
(I'm told it's not finished yet), but that I was happy there was a break.
Oh yeah, and one more thing: The soundtrack is simply amazing.
xponent
No Anti-Matter Was Harmed During The Posting Of This Review Maru
rob
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