Man, Kill Bill vol. 1 was pretty fun in theaters. It's one of those movies that's way more fun in theaters than to watch at home.... You bought the Japanese version? How much did that cost you? And isn't the only difference, the black and white scene was in color? I actually really liked the black and white scene, I thought it was cool how it turned black and white when she ripped the eye out, was pretty remarkable. That scene in the snow was neat too. That whole scene was like Hard-Boiled/The Killer/A Better Tomorrow 1 & 2, but with swords instead of guns. I remember Tarantino said John Woo, and Wong Kar Wai (Woo's beautiful choreopgrahy and Wai's editing/color/style -- he'd just got done watching ASHES OF TIME when writing the script) were influences. Gotta love the long take with the camera showing the party, the 5 6 7 8's, and the bathroom. Decent little flick.

I watched

UNCLE GODDAMN! - 6/10


FACE OF ANOTHER - 9/10


WOMAN IN THE DUNES - 7/10

and I re-watched

GLORY TO THE FILMMAKER - an easy 10/10. Whereas Takeshis' was a compilation of every film Kitano had ever been apart of in any way, this film was a compilation of every film Kitano hadn't made. As such, it is sorta for fans of "The Master" only, but wow, what a film! Won "film of the year" at... Venice?... I believe.. the Venice Film Festival, and now there is a PERMANENT film award specifically named after Kitano called "glory to the filmmaker award", for outstanding directors. You just can't beat Kitano's often-maligned "Director's Trilogy", where he went the Godard route and decided to completely rip apart the fabric of cinema, make films that can't be pigeonohled in any way whatsoever, yet still possess his brilliant colors, music, elliptical editing, "emotionless"-to-the-point-of-near-stasis acting, odd singular cryptic vision, and dark minimalist humor. This film benefits from wacky performances (truly HILARIOUS, his funniest film since Getting Any?, maybe even eclipsing some of the weird editing/acting in Kikajiro), a wacky computer-animated part (which is by far the weirdest part in any Kitano film ever made, and one of the weirdest things I've ever seen, period), and a lot of self-referential fanservicing; if you're familiar with Kitano -- and more importantly, a big fan like I am -- you're going to be in love with this film. Everyone else might want to stick his yakuza classics. Amazingly/shockingly, his next film, ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE, was somehow even better than this film, a fact that wasn't lost on most people, thank god (I haven't heard any criticsm directed at A&tT, only the highest praise.. and some indifference). I saw A&tT in theaters -- the only Kitano film I've seen in theaters, unfortunately -- and all 20 of us clapped at the end, and I remember telling my friend, "Kitano is the greatest filmmaker in the world, isn't he?" And he sure is. THE OUTRAGE will be out on DVD in exactly 1 month, and I am so there.

More great screenshots from GLORY TO THE FILMMAKER:







My ratings for every Kitano film ever made!:

Violent Cop - 9/10
Boiling Point - 8/10
Scene at the Sea - 9/10
Sonatine - 10/10
Getting Any? - 8/10
Kids Return - 8/10
Hana-Bi - 10/10
Kikajiro - 9/10
Brother - 7/10
Zatoichi - 7/10
Dolls - 9/10
Takeshis' - 8/10
Glory to the Filmmaker - 10/10
Achilles and the Tortoise - 10/10
The Outrage - we'll see..

Yeah Vol 1 was AMAZING in the theater, but I also thought Vol 2 in the theater was intense due to the burial scene. I have a bit of claustrophobia, and the whole theater was pitch black and you just heard her breathing and the dirt being shoveled. It got to me.

I got the Japanese version way the F back when it was first released. 2 scenes are different. The b/w scene that you mentioned of course. Which is crazy in color just becuz it's super-red haha. But I do miss the eyeball-transition as well, so it's a trade off. However the scene when O-Ren is introduced is longer. The anmie is longer (surprised?) and the scene when she's in a bar is different too. She pulls a sword on a dude and his entrails end up spilling on the floor. At least I don't remember that being in the US version.

That "Rocks" haha I was watching bits of that Halloween weekend. i have seen the whole thing before i just remember the masks.

Yes I love the black and white scene it is wonderfull. Also, the snow scene is magnificent, I could just watch that on a loop. Beautifull how everything is balanced and shot with the cameras. I just noticed how during most of the fight Lucy is in front of the snow backdrop and uma (in her orange suit) is in front of the warm colors of the windows. And the water tipping fountain thing how its at the front while the fight is the real focus. just great:)

BTW, the Kill Bill cut talk reminded me of something really awesome that most people don't know...

If you buy the first Scream on VHS, it's the unrated directors cut. The back of the VHS says its rated R, but in fact it's a longer more violent cut than the DVD release. Sadly, no unrated cut of Scream has been released on DVD. At least not in the States anyway. :(

just the sound of the water fountain thing is beautiful and creates a slowed tempo (relaxed heartbeat?) for the scene.

I saw II in the theatre. It was a great experience. Eapecially the live burial. I would like to check out the Japanese version that sounds cool. I really loved the anmie brilliant and O-Ren the movie would not be the same without that character. i love it when she slices that guys head off.

I am gonna look for that. They are cheesy movies, but classic. I love the violence. I saw Scream II in the theatre before it was released to the "public" We somehow got special tickets for the preview release before the actual release. It was really cool in the theatre.

All this theatre talk...has anyone seen the saw3-d version that came out yet? I am interested.

I've seen most Tarantino movies in the theaters starting with Jackie Brown. ALways fun.

Anywway, yeah Scream rules. The first isn't even cheesy. It's just awesome. One of my favorite movies of the 90's.

I haven't seen Saw 3D. How crazy is it that it's Saw 7 already? Nuts. The first Saw was one of me n my wife's first dates. Weird. The last one we watched was Saw IV. Which I thought was probably the best of the first 4. But theyr'e not movies I get excited about and have to see right away. I think theyr'e a little too much of the same a lot of times. Which is why IV was great. Plus I think it's awesome that Shawnee Smith is still doing horror.

Ryan and I saw Jackie Brown in the Theatre too. Weird I have not seen many at the theatre come to think of it we saw Dusk till dawn at the Drive in theatre here before they closed it. Talk about freaky.

I agree that IV was one of the best. They all kind of just get jumbled up in my head there were so many. I just think the 3-d thing would be cool. I havent seen anything in 3-d since I was a kid.

wow, From Dusk Till Dawn at a drive-in? That's amazing.

It was!!! The drive in was really dark and surrounded by woods. There were not a whole lot of other cars there. Bad ass.:) they just closed that place last year. it's a shame.

Strange, I actually knew that. Anyone remember how Scream had, like, 6 differnet VHS Covers? The typical movie poster one was a boring poster, and some of the actors looked completely different than they did in the movie (Skeet Ulrich had long hair and a moustache for some reason, for example; similiar to how "SILENT BOB" Kevin Smtih looked COMPLETELY different on the Clerks cover art... also, for Four Rooms, Madonna had COMPLETELY different hair color/style and clothes for the cover.. strange, these are all Miramax films).

Anyway, the SCREAM covers with the actors, wwith the blue lighting.. were some of the coolest covers ever.. almost lynch like..

amazing.

anyway

In many parts, it reminded me of the SMACK MY BITCH UP video by Prodigy. This is not a bad thing. This film was quite the technical achivement, and a lot of the sound design, lighting, set design, etc. was remarkable. It is probably Noe's best film... I kept going, "Wow, how did he get that shot? How did he do THAT?" I was impressed with the technical side of the film -- very impressed, in most cases. The long takes were filled with good acting, impressive camera movements, and just the LENGTH of the shots made the film constantly compelling -- there's an energy, an urgency, to it.. like, at any second, one of the actors is going to flub their lines or something. But everyone was spot on, pretty inspirational.

Still, besides some amazing technical achivements, it didn't completely excite me as a movie. I felt it dragged, sometimes it really dragged; I was a worn out by the end (probably the point of the director).

This film is definitely more of an event, an experience, than a "movie"; as a story -- with plots and characters -- there's nothing I found compelling or groundbreaking about it. But the visuals and the sound made quite an impact; if you can, watch this on a big screen, in the dark, pretty amazing stuff.

This film brought to mind a few other films... VISIONS OF SUFFERING (all the weird hallucinatory visuals, the party scenes, the tone of the film, the mood, the sound design, the atmosphere, and the length), STRANGE DAYS (the opening stuff especially), and MILLENIUM MAMBO (one of my all time favorite movies; that film's moodiness and color scheme seemed to be an influence on ENTER THE VOID). If you like any of those films at all, you'll probably get into this.

Definitely an outstanding -- and DARING -- technical achievement, of surprising and overwhelming, immense artistic depth. Some absolutely AMAZING shots and sound design here, wow (trying not to spoil anything here.. there's a scene about 20 minutes into the movie where the camera slowly zooms into a row of lights until you just see one extreme closeup of a flashing light, as the camera zooms in a heavenly high pitched drone slowly rises from complete silence... the sound and the image combine to create a truly heavenly, AMAZING mashup unlike anything I've ever seen). Atmospherically, it's one of the best films I've ever seen, but it's tough to reccomend, uh, "as a film". So, if you go into this looking for a typical, uh "movie",you won't find much to enjoy. Still, I wasn't looking for anything like that, so I was surprised by how good most of it was.

Noe's finest work to date. A bit too long and draggy, but when it's on, it's on.

ENTER THE VOID - 7/10

wes cravens new nightmare

OH 1990'S! HOW I LONG FOR THEE!

best opening credits sequence ever.

is this the first time I ever repped you?

Ha, that's funny 'cause I just got done watching Freddy's Revenge!



New Nightmare is certainly a much better film though.