There's no need to run...
Radiohead and Sigur Ros at the Brooklyn Academy of Music tomorrow! Woohoo!
Class today was fine.
I saw Kill Bill today with Lee. It was all right.
I have mixed feelings about Quentin Tarantino. His movies are very entertaining but they're also just rip off after rip off after rip off of other movies. He does the ripping off well and he's very knowledgeable when it comes to cinema (him and Martin Scorsese are two people I'd be way to intimidated to talk film with) but sometimes it just becomes too much...
Kill Bill was entertaining but I was distracted a lot of the time by how much it reminded me of a Seijin Suzuki film in English with a bigger budget and more blood. I have to say the music in the film was great, but also a lot of the music was lifted from other films. The shot with the silhouettes against the blue backdrop was awesome but it was also straight out of a Suzuki film like Tokyo Drifter or Pistol Opera.
Having a relatively limited knowledge of cinema compared to Tarantino, who knows how many references went straight over my head?
I guess I'm just bitter that so many people think he's a genius when he's really just a film geek lucky enough to write pretty well and get a chance to live out his wildest fantasies on celluloid.
The following criticism doesn't really matter for a film like Kill Bill but I'm going to say it anyway. The characters have no personalities or anything going on inside their heads except kill... I realize it's just mindless violence but would a little bit of moral ambiguity, hesitancy, or self reflection on the part of Uma Thurman's character really hurt? Whatever.
My favorite things: The music, Uma Thurman, a totally awesome anime sequence, Uma Thurman, Sonny Chiba, Uma Thurman, and the cinematography was pretty cool.
Someday I will make a film that rips off my favorites: think George Washington meets No Retreat No Surrender meets Herzog meets Lynch meets Kubrick shot in a French New Wave style.
Anyway, Kill Bill = 7/10.
I should do some work now. Seeya.
