Kill Bill Vol. 1

I watched Kill Bill Vol. 1 again yesterday, in preparation for seeing Kill Bill Vol. 2. It was still good.

That might seem like a stupid comment; one might ask how a movie could be good the first time and bad the next, but I've found that to be the case for movies like Memento, which depend heavily on a plot twist, or summer blockbuster types.

Kill Bill is a visually arresting piece, with great attention to detail and a tautness that suggests Tarantino knew what he wanted and elicited just that from his cast. There's a rhythm to the scenes, in which conversational pauses are just important as words. Throughout the movie, the music is great, and fabulously matched, from "Bang Bang" during the opening credits, to the fight sequences, several of which were choreographed to original pieces by RZA, of the Wu-Tang Clan. The entire movie plays something like an animated film (well, one part is literally anime). By that, I don't mean that it's cartoonish, but more that its story is painted with broad, exaggerated strokes. As always, Tarantino pays homage to his cinematic influences, this time with an emphasis on Japanese samurai warrior movies.

There are some great small moments, too. I love Oren's deadpan delivery when she accuses the Bride of being a silly Caucasian girl who "likes to play with samurai swords", and even before seeing this movie I was fond of calling people "silly rabbits" but now I just can't stop. Plus, GoGo rocks. I want one of those crazy ball on a chain looking things.

I was also very impressed with the actress that plays Sofie Fatale, both her Japanese and French accents were spot on, as far as I could tell (which isn't saying all that much, I suppose) and her English was unaccented as well. I'm going to venture a wild guess that she's European and not American.

A mostly unrelated thought: I was reading reviews for Vol. 2 when I found BugMeNot.com. How did I not discover it before now? I hate having to register just to read one article on a small town news site, which happens a lot nowadays since I read Google News all the time.