The Duke On "Kill Bill Volume 2"
Published April 28, 2004
The Duke On Kill Bill Volume 2
Let's clear up a few things here first before we go jumping guns and counting chickens and generally getting all ahead of ourselves and so on. The Duke is a fan of this fella by the name of Quentin Rodriguez or whatever. Up until tonight, I had never been disappointed with one of his stabs at the old directing malarkey.
Even when his scribblings were handed over to other folks for to point the cameras, more often than not the results were sublime. Tony Scott's True Romance, Oliver Stone's vastly underrated and misunderstood Natural Born Killers, hell, even that one with the vampires in the brothel, all of them were at the very least a whole fuckload of fun.
A lot of folks doubted that old Chinny Chin Chin could pull off this opus of Grindhouse exploitation by the name of Kill Bill, and whilst a few of them resumed their cynicism after seeing it, the rest of us thought it was fantastic.
Who in the hell would doubt that Kill Bill The Second was going to be any less fantastic? Only a maniac, is what The Duke is guessing.
In case you didn't know, what this The Killing Of Bill Part 2 involves is the end of the tale what began in Bill Will Die Part 1. The Bride wakes up from a coma after being shot in the head and so on, and gets all Steven Segal with regards the revenge on a bunch of low-life motherfuckers like Daryl Hannah and Michael Madsen who are all involved in her brutal near-slaying.
The first one nicked bits left and right, every damn thing it could get its hands on. A bit of Lady Snowblood here, a spot of Takashi Miike there, a dab of the old Baby Cart and a load of cool songs off of other flicks. Really, if the first one was some friend your kid brought home, you'd be saying things like "Why don't you go outside on a good day like that", and hiding all the spoons and shit. But then the kid turns out to be the coolest little bastard you ever did see, and he says stuff that cracks you up, and then ten minutes later he'll explain how he was beaten to shit by his folks and that why he's such a sticky-fingered motherfucker. Then he'll do a little dance.
The Duke (Aaron McMullan to his parents and the clergy) is a Northern Irish writer, performer and insomniac currently residing in London. He is the creator of Mondo Irlando, wherein his scribblings and hollerings can be found. He is currently working towards the completion of his first novel, and his debut "punk / country / folk / whatever" album has recently been released by Ex Libris Records . You can also pop by His MySpace Page and maybe have a coffee and a biscuit.
- The Duke On "Kill Bill Volume 2"
- Published: April 28, 2004
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- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Action, Video: Adventure, Video: Drama, Video: Suspense and Mystery, Video: Westerns
- Writer: Duke De Mondo
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Gee, el Duke-o, sorry there wasn't enough spurting blood and flashing lights to service your ADD, but Those Who Know will tell you that Kill Bill, Volume 2 was a much more engaging movie than the very entertaining cartoon that was Volume 1.
I'll note just a couple of things to be thinking on with a second viewing. First, the Bud character. Consider the shame and humiliation of this formerly big league assassin being treated so thoroughly like dirt in this nothing little bar. Think how consumed with guilt or something he must have felt to have been willing to endure that. Fascinating cross-motivations going through this guy.
The payoff of the whole thing was the family scene at Bills. Those precious few minutes are SO incredibly invested. It's an amazing film moment when she walks in on Daddy and daughter.
You need to think about this one some more.
Al, it wasn't the absense of flashing lights or blood. It was the absense of very much of anything. It seemed entirely hollow. Good point about Bud by the way. As i said, Michael Madsen was really quite wonderful, and you've illustrated something i may have missed. Maybe i'll "get" it next time around, but thing is, i kinda "got" it this time too, its just that i didn't particularly want it. No-one wants to hear twenty minutes of bullshit being spouted, man. The performances were flat as hell a lot of the time. But i think if i hadn't been so unimpressed by the bill/bride meet-up (and i wasn't expecting blood and gore and so on, but something, if they'd talked about something in an interesting manner, perhaps. Bill's speech, as one reviewer pointed out in Total Film, sounded like someone trying to "do" tarantino) then i probably would be a lot more postivie. Up until the last chapter, pretty much everything was wonderful. I need to watch it again, and think about it some more as you said. Incidently, my fiancee, who thought the first one was shit, loved part 2. She didn't even want to go see it, and came out with a big grin. Then she yelled at me for gettin all analytical.
You should check out Mark T. Conard's interpretation of KB, both volumes on metaphilm.com:
http://metaphilm.com/philm.php?id=200_0_2_0
http://metaphilm.com/philm.php?id=310_0_2_0_M
He gives a really interesting psychological interpretation of the movies.
Jeff B.
Thanks Jeff, i'll do that in the immediate future. I'm sure it's nowhere near as awe-inspiring as The Duke's analysis tho. As Plato said, "When it comes to the intellectual discussion of Filmic Affairs, ain't no motherfucker can touch The Duke"
Thanks Plato
Thanks Jeff
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The last funny movie Whoopie Goldberg made was the one where she gets her dress caught in a paper shredder. She then went on the pro wrassling circuit.
I really liked the episodes of "Vamprire Whisky Drinking Truck Driving Righteous Motherfuckers" but man, does Harvey Keitel One need a drink or what. Anyways, I've not seen the newest installment of the "Killing of Bill Again", really, I'm not seeing it until it comes out on DVD or I get a bootleg screener on bittorrent.
Where was I? Oh, yeah, why does Carradine get so much love for a movie he did a couple of years ago, but gets squat for a quite good appearance on "Alias"?