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An Open Love Letter to Quentin Tarantino + Bad Movie Review Haikus Posted by Marcos on May 11th 2004 Cross dissolve to 1994 – a young boy approaches a homeless man slumped by the side of a Walgreens store. It is early; nearing 8 in the morning, and the desert air on this spring day is uncharacteristically fresh. One 5-dollar bribe later and the boy’s Catholic high school receives a phone call from his “father” saying young Marcos will not be in school today – you know, allergies and stuff, the homeless man slowly spouts out, his hungover voice apparent from his previous night drunk off Mad Dog 20/20. “Think it worked?” the young boy asks his friend, still waking up and slouching in the driver’s seat of his Ford Ranger. The friend shrugs his sleepy shoulders. “Too late now anyway,” he replies, “if we’re going to get caught, we might as well enjoy it in the meantime.” The two had never played hooky before and their nervousness was all too apparent. But they were young and foolish, and the risk was too much of a sweet challenge to their instinct for adolescent rebelliousness to resist. And so that day started, a day of smoking weed and hanging around at public parks, of laughing and exploring the city which was way too open to them as the beat of the dawning summer grew louder and louder. The joking soon became too redundant and turned to boredom. “What do you want to do?” the young boy asked his friend, who shuffled a deck of cards in a smoky tedium. “The mall?” the friend replied. The young boy’s earlier nervousness arose, now combined with the paranoid tendencies of the Mary Jane. “nah,” the boy replied, “security will hassle us for being there on a school day.” “Then what?” replied the friend, and the boy’s glance surveyed around him and stopped on a nearby movie theater. 10 minutes later, the two were seated in a near-empty theater, waiting for the movie that had the nearest starting time to roll on. “What’s this movie called again?” asked the friend. “Uh, I forgot… Pulp… Fiction?” Little did I know back then, ten years ago, that when the theater lights went down and the projector started to sputter, that I was face-to-face with not just a movie, but my future aspirations. In the next two hours, I would witness the start of a fledgling career in film and video. For once, here was a movie that was truly unique. The characters spoke about the miniscule things in life that make it vivid, and did things that were larger than what could be imagined. What was especially mind-blowing about Pulp Fiction back then was the chronology- the middle was the end, and vice versa. I was amazed that a story could be put together so non-traditionally but be so effective. And so, that day, ditching school and sitting in the dark of an almost-empty movie theater, I began my obsession with film. With Pulp Fiction, many movie directors and writers began to try and replicate its style and quirks- most to no avail, but some have succeeded- Darren Aronofsky and Guy Richie come immediately to mind. It totally changed the face of crime drama forever. Reservoir Dogs was a gem of independent theater and also a contemporary classic that was both written and directed by QT, but it was nowhere near the scale of Pulp Fiction. It got Quentin’s foot in the door, but he outdid himself with his second film that came out two years later. Other Tarantino movies came out, but none where Quentin totally dominated its creation and inception. True Romance had a different director, he wanted nothing to do with Oliver Stone’s version of Natural Born Killers, he directed only portions of both From Dusk Till Dawn and Four Rooms, and Jackie Brown was written by Elmore Leonard. All films were debatably good, but Tarantino’s audience knew he could do better. Way better. And so some 6 years later, the hype and the word was out- billed as Quentin Tarantino’s 4th film, the previews for Kill Bill captured audience’s imagination. Was that Uma Thurman dressed like Bruce Lee and wielding a Samurai sword? Billed as a revenge flick with homages to grindhouse movies, the jury was out on this one. Then, at the last minute before its release, it was announced that Kill Bill would be split into two movies. It had become so long because Quentin kept adding scenes while he was shooting. Who knew what to expect. Opening day came and keeping with his movie-going tradition, this not-so-young-boy made his trip to the theater- this time older, wiser, with sharper eyes in his head, short films to his name, and a media arts degree on his resume. At first viewing, Kill Bill Volume 1 was a lot to handle. It strayed so far from what Pulp Fiction was, and exceeded my preconceived capabilities of Quentin. The slow intro with Nancy Sinatra crooning to the audience eased me into another reality where Quentin had total control, and I didn’t know what to make of it. For all my training in film and video, for all my knowledge of the rules on how to write and direct something, there was something in this film that would counter it or disqualify it altogether. The movie ended at just after the two-hour mark too suddenly. Many who saw the first film would have gladly sat through another two hours. The Bride was our new hero, a potent warrior with deadly martial arts skills and sadistic revenge on her mind. One thing I did not like about Volume 1 was that it required the audience to assume what I thought was too much. The characters seemed to just be thrown in among a simple revenge premise and required to respond accordingly. This was not the Tarantino I knew, not the same man that explained every single small character motivation in excruciating detail. Not the same director who had Bruce Willis’s WATCH have an extensive back-story. I was not immediately pleased. The sets and costumes and small gimmicks like the Hattori Hanzo sword were nice, but I knew Tarantino could do better. And he did. Kill Bill Volume 2 came out and I had to ask myself if these were the same characters. While The Bride, Bill, and the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad seemed all too shallow and reactionary, their depth was revealed in Volume 2. Revenge was still the premise, but motivation was the central and binding theme. The two parts were entirely different. Divided into two parts Kill Bill assumed a complexity not seen in many franchised movie series. Volume 2 concentrates on the relationship between The Bride and Bill and the entire situation between the two was somewhat charming and endearing rather than the preconceived formulaic nature that Volume 1 provided. Bill became a human being with very real feelings and reasons behind his madness than just a faceless villain. The Bride was not just a killing machine but also a woman on a quest to find her true calling as a mother. Visually the entirety of the Kill Bill saga is top-notch. I always like when movies take me to other places- it may be why I’m so hooked on the Discovery Channel and the National geographic channel. Kill Bill took me to Japan, the desert, China, Mexico- among other places. The sets are beautiful from the House of Blue Leaves, to Pai Mei’s cave, to Bill’s extravagant apartment. The dialogue is of course, Tarantino dialogue. This means unexpected subjects pop up, catch phrases are peppered about, and irrelevant things become relevant. Another thing that makes the dialogue distinctly Tarantino is the way he directs his actors to pronounce and enunciate their words- so that their character is actually talking and not the actor doing an impression of their character. Listen to the Bride’s tone and delivery, then listen to Uma’s- two distinctly different things. The same goes for David Carradine, and the rest of the characters in the Kill Bill Saga. While we’re talking about the actors, let me just say that both Uma and Carradine have tremendous performances. Carradine is both charming and menacing simultaneously- not an easy thing to pull off. How does an actor establish such an unpredictable screen presence? Carradine’s movement is slow and smooth, very animalistic like a camouflaged tiger stalking its prey. Uma carries the presence that she is capable and strong, but yet still a deeply hurt, deeply emotional character. The scene where she sees her daughter for the first time was heart breaking yet still fun to watch. Must respect goes to her for her scene in Volume 1 where she first awakens from her coma to find her pregnant belly gone. The camera does not move for a very long time and stays on her pained sobbing- and we as the audience do not move either. These two scenes stand out as the most powerful in the saga despite all the incredible fight scenes and violence.
Overall this is the greatest movie I have seen since the Lord of the Rings trilogy conclusion, Return of the King. An instant classic, Tarantino does it again, and all those movie review buzzword clichés. 10 out of 10 Internet movie dorks to this one. BONUS BAD MINI-REVIEW HAIKUS Seeing as I have not yet given a truly bad review to any of my movie recaps on Lethal Entertainment yet, I wanted to throw some in, but not spend much time on them. So I figured the Haiku was the perfect form for this. Here we go:
Hellboy
Walking Tall
Man on Fire
Van Helsing That’s all for now. Thanks for reading. -Marcos |
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