Run Baby Run

THE WARD (2010)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There is no doubt that a horror movie about a mental ward facility has been done before. Samuel Fuller's "Shock Corridor" is the most horrific and scariest example, along with a semi-remake of sorts, "Shutter Island" (though the latter is based on an equally creepy novel). Novel twist endings at such wards are not an uncommon practice - we have seen them before and can predict them with ease. So can director John Carpenter make it sing, or sink? He makes it sing. "The Ward" is an elegant, frightful horror flick done with the brio of a real master, and among Carpenter's best films since "In the Mouth of Madness."

Amber Heard is a traumatized woman running away from something, though we are not sure what. She burns down a farmhouse in the opening scene where something clearly traumatic had occurred there.  Cut to North Bend Psychiatric Hospital where Heard, playing a woman named Kristen, is held in a mental ward along with four other troubled girls. Kristen doesn't want to be at the loony bin (pardon the parlance) but then again, what mental patient doesn't say such things?  The other girls who hope to be promptly released include: Iris (Lyndsy Fonseca), a sketch artist; Zoey (Laura-Leigh), a near-mute who clutches a stuffed doll and suffers from arrested development;  Emily (Mamie Gummer, Meryl Streep's daughter), the toughie who taunts the others, and Sarah (Danielle Panabaker) who tries to woo one of the orderlies. All of them seem to come out of the 60's period though more modern Amber Heard look a little out of place, or maybe that is the idea. Rounding out the rest of the hospital's small staff includes Dr. Stringer (Jared Harris), who tries to help his patients yet is not above providing shock treatment (remember, this film is set in 1966). Oh, and there is a Nurse Ratched as well, but she is hardly as wretched.

Some may see "The Ward" as "Identity" crossed with "Girl, Interrupted" spiked with an extra touch of malice. I see it as John Carpenter's return to form, providing us with a dank, almost forbidden sense of atmosphere and a few well-executed scares that really come out of nowhere. Most important is that Carpenter and writers Michael and Shawn Rasmussen makes us care for all the female patients - we cling to them and hope that Kristen, in particular, gets away. "The Ward" also throws in moments that toy with us a little, like the girls dancing to the Newbeats' "Run, Baby, Run." The movie, though not as wholly original or as striking in its visual design as "Shock Corridor" or "Shutter Island," is a welcome return to horror that is neither geeky nor full of grisly, gratuitous gore. Instead, it will make your skin crawl.

Take pills, feel nicer

TERRI (2011)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Terri (Jacob Wysocki) is a heavy-set high-school kid who is indifferent to his surroundings. When he walks to school, he dresses in pajamas and angrily tosses his knapsack on the field. When Terri is home, he cares for his Uncle James (Creed Bratton) who needs his meds to stay sharp, but otherwise the old man is an emotionless vegetable. Terri also plants mouse traps in his house and reads "Gulliver's Travels." Anything, one would assume, to bring some light into this dreary world.

"Terri" is the kind of independent picture that I have heard people groan on about. It is small-town life where everything is offbeat and where "stuff happens" that could only appeal to those who have outgrown Hollywood fantasies. Only "Terri" deals with details of small-town life and high-school in an implicit comical manner. Take the character of Heather (Olivia Crocicchia), a young girl who succumbs to getting fingered during cooking class by a male high-school student. There is something funny about the fact that this girl thinks such a public act of indecency wouldn't induce wandering eyes, especially Terri's. When Terri has to visit the assistant principal once a week (the principal is played by John C. Reilly), the school official occasionally wears shades and mimics shouting at his students to please his slowly- withering-away secretary.

Most of the film "Terri" tells its story in an unhurried and very matter-of-factly manner. One extended sequence stands out where Terri, Heather and another troubled outcast, Chad (Bridger Zadina), drink some whisky and take some pills to feel "nicer." It is a startling sequence because it is a bit unsettling and we think it will end one way, and it does not. No scene in "Terri" ever feels insincere or out of place or predictable. When Terri decides to defend Heather in class, he picks up a pair of sunglasses and mimics an embarrassing TV commercial pitch.

Terri himself begins to see change in his own life when he develops three new friendships, especially with the sympathetic assistant principal. Only the film is not willing to see that change as life-affirming or earth-shakingly revolutionary, merely a stepping stone. As a film, "Terri" is filled with small pleasures and one wishes there was more, more time spent with any of these intimate characters. As written and directed by Azazel Jacobs, the running time feels like it is just enough of a stepping stone to a greater film. The fact that I wanted more is the mark of a real talent, who genuinely loves his characters and empathizes with them.

Mickey and Mallory's love beats the demon

NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

20th anniversary - An appreciation

In 1994, I sat through "Natural Born Killers" in a movie theater and absolutely hated every minute of it. However, it was not a film I could escape from - something about it took a hold of me. In 2001, I wrote: "Natural Born Killers" is the kind of over-the-top nonsense only Oliver Stone could make. He is a brilliant director and, throughout his fine career, has crafted fine films such as "J.F.K," "Wall Street," "Platoon," "Talk Radio" and "Born on the Fourth of July." "Natural Born Killers" may be his weakest film by far and his most self-indulgent, a film where he claims to have not censored himself." I stand corrected because nothing in Stone's kaleidoscopic imagery from "The Doors" can begin to describe the superfluous flourishes of what is essentially the most controversial film of 1994. "Natural Born Killers" is a nuclear fever dream - an expose of what was the reality of celebrity murder in 1994, and what stands as the most evocative film of that year, the most prescient. I suppose I love and hate this movie.

The "Killers" in this movie are two white-trash kids named Mickey and Mallory, played respectively by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis. The blonde-haired, vicious Mickey is in prison for grand theft auto but he still has the hots for the young, sexy, alluring Mallory Knox who frequently visits him in prison. Through pure intervention or "fate" (Mickey's own philosophy), he escapes from prison on horseback during a tornado and proceeds to rescue Mal from her vile parents by murdering them. How vile? Porcine Rodney Dangerfield plays Mallory's incestuous, blubbering wrestling fanatic of a father who is beaten to death and drowned (the mother is tied to a bed and burned to a crisp and Mal's brother is left as the sole survivor). After this already cartoonish sequence of violence, the two lovebirds go on the run, get married by an enormous New Mexico gorge, and indulge in a murderous spree all around the West killing at least fifty people. Naturally, Mickey and Mallory are branded as celebrities by another cruel force of nature, the media! The two killers are depicted as sexy criminals admired by globally by desensitized twentysomething fools who call them, "the best thing to happen to the media since Charles Manson." One grungy character ironically admits that if he were a serial killer, he would be Mickey and Mallory!

The Bonnie and Clyde pair are eventually caught by a crazed cop/writer, Jack Scagnetti (Tom Sizemore) who specializes in writing about the minds of serial killers and in breaking women's necks. Tommy Lee Jones is the prison warden who is nearly as loony as any inmate in his prison where M and M are kept. And let's not forget Robert Downey Jr. as Wayne Gayle, an Australian TV host for the high-rated show "American Maniacs," who is eager to interview Mickey in a live special after the Super Bowl in the hopes of beating the ratings for the infamous Manson trial. This all ends in pure fire and fury during an eerily effective, blood-on-the-walls prison riot climax that remains the most horrifying footage Stone has ever shot on film.

As I stated earlier, I hated "Natural Born Killers" when I first saw it in a theater in August of 1994. I knew the reactions of the primarily young audience in the theater - who laughed and cheered at Mickey's actions during a particularly vicious opening sequence - was a definite sign of how times were changing. 1994 was the year where "Pulp Fiction," released a month later, changed film forever with its portrait of criminal antiheroes as the protagonists to root for. With "Natural Born Killers," the visual style is what bothered me the most initially. I could not sit still and watch such disorienting images coming in at a faster clip per second than say the bullets of a gun. I gave it a second chance much later on video and I can say that it is not as visually exhausting as it was in theaters. There are performances that stand out amidst all the noise. For example, Tom Sizemore does a marvelous job of balancing sorrow and sheer apathy for his character Jack, who grows more and more attached to the wild Mallory. Robert Downey Jr. is hilarious and pathetic as the loquacious TV host who will do anything for higher ratings, even if it means killing people himself. There are also some volatile turns by Joe Spinelli and Pruitt Taylor Vince as the warden's most trusted guards.

What works to a lesser degree is Tommy Lee Jones, overacting as much as anyone else in the movie - a simply cartoonish character who would be at home in a Road Runner short. It is also hard to remove the memory of Woody Harrelson from TV's "Cheers" - he appears to be too nice to play such a rough character like Mickey. Harrelson does try and there is a nicely underplayed scene where he is interviewed by Downey and claims his rather unbelievable reasons for bloodletting (all based on the words of Charles Manson during an infamous 1980's Geraldo Rivera interview).

Mallory is played superbly by Juliette Lewis and she certainly stands out the most in Stone's universe. She manages to make Mallory into a beautiful, believably scary and sometimes sweet monster almost ready to explode at any moment. Lewis is so good and inhabits the movie so often that becomes the soul center of the amoral world of this movie. This performance was so unusual for Lewis considering she's played mostly ordinary girlish types in films like "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" - the closest in proximity to Mallory is Lewis's role in "Kalifornia" and a TV movie she did with Brad Pitt called "Too Young to Die." Her work in "Natural Born Killers" will long be remembered, especially when she memorably utters "How sexy do you think I am now punk?" before brutally pounding an overzealous male. Lewis's appearance changes dramatically from short black hair to long blonde wigs, and she also wears cowboy hats, outlandish dresses, and bright red lipstick complete with a dangling cigarette.

Part of Oliver Stone's problem is that he is good at directing an out-of-control traffic jam rather than a subdued satire - he is just out to thrill us. A satire can make its points truly through exaggeration but also through pointed black humor. Consider Stanley Kubrick's anti-violent masterpiece "A Clockwork Orange," which is done with far more subtlety and restraint. One can argue that "Natural Born Killers" is not meant to be a satire but a mere condemnation of our media-obsessed world where killing is a stepping stone to celebrity on the same wavelength as movie stars. But even an outright condemnation needs a little breath of air or else you end up canceling yourself out - you can't fight fire with fire. Stone has made a desensitized movie about desensitized killers and has filled the canvas with lots of cartoonish violence - the sort of violence one would associate with an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, not an Oliver Stone flick. The violence is silly and trivial with none of the reality evident in Stone's hard-hitting war films such as "Platoon" or "Born on the Fourth of July." Sure, it is a movie about amoral killers in a typically amoral, devalued society but such rampant amorality would have served Ollie better as a sharp character study. Yet, it doesn't make the film any less than the sum of its parts - such overkill may be a hint of trauma in Mickey and Mallory's pasts. And maybe the lack of sting in the violence is only Oliver's way of saying: hey, that is our society! Truer words cannot be spoken than for today's culture of violence, hence why my opinion of this varies every few years.

Amorality is all that represents Mickey and Mallory, and what saves them in the end is love ("Love beats the demon.") They are essentially romantic rebels wronged by society for acting out their fantasy of a post-modern road movie where killers kill and get away with it. Since every other character in the film is as nasty and dehumanized as they are (particularly Scagnetti and the warden), then it is difficult not to empathize with Mickey and Mallory. This point-of-view was represented by Kubrick's "Clockwork Orange" but not to the degree that Stone's film does. After all, "Clockwork's" killer protagonist Alex is far more human and clever than all the cartoonish types in this film, and thus a thematically richer film dealing with the nature of violence and how it can't be controlled.

Visually, Oliver Stone is on a dizzying mind trip as he continually shifts our point-of-view using everything from color to black-and-white to color negatives, scratchy film, 35mm, 16mm, video and stylized animation in various film stocks and speeds. These shifts in images are not sparingly used - they usually occur within one specific scene. The editing is brilliant, the filmmaking is dazzling (courtesy of noted cinematographer Robert Richardson), yet the overall effect is nauseating (there are reportedly 3,000 images in the entire film). If Ollie chose to use this breakthrough editing technique less frequently, then his various opinions of Mickey, Mallory and the media would have been more fully realized. Clearly, Oliver's point is to keep us continually on edge.

The best scenes in "Natural Born Killers" are the quiet ones where Stone allows motion to move smoothly without bludgeoning the camera. I love the scene after the ultraviolent cafe attack where Mallory dances on top of a car (to the tune of Cowboy Junkies' version of Lou Reed's "Sweet Jane") and superimposed images of angels, red horses, and bright colored lights flash by. There is also the masterfully edited and composed scene where Mickey and Mallory declare their love for each other by a bridge overlooking a gorge. They make a blood pact, eschewing the traditional wedding engagement, and their blood trickles into the water in animation style forming twin serpents (a recurring motif in the film).

After having seen "Natural Born Killers" several times, I am convinced that Stone's grandiose visions are spectacular to watch but, storywise, the film is interestingly muddled. I recommend the experience of watching this film as virtually a visual odyssey of rampant images, a crosscutting style of excess. It is a film I am not able to take off my mind, and everyone will read it differently. Some will see it as a dangerous polemic of our times, and others will see it as the very same trashy exploitative violence that Stone was only pretending to skewer. It makes you wonder how one should view this film when we are asked to root for the remorseless killers - they do survive the bloodbath and (spoiler alert) they have a family and move on. The more I think about it, the more it is apparent that the film is infused with hyperbolic anger so it falls somewhere between being an exaggerated polemic and a rock n' roll, nasty, violent exploitation picture. Or maybe just both.

It would be cool to fight William Shatner

FIGHT CLUB (1999)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 1999)

"Fight Club" is an audacious experiment in filmmaking. It also redefines the term multilayered. It has so many layers that not even a simple miniseries like "Les Miserables" or "The Winds of War" could match the density of this film. "Fight Club" is a unique, neo-noir, fascistic film - undefinable and unquestionably brilliant. I've never seen anything like it.

Edward Norton plays Jack, an insurance-claims investigator leading a lonely life of IKEA furniture and not much else. Jack is constantly on plane trips where he hopes his plane will crash since the life insurance is so much higher on a business trip. One day, he decides to frequent self-help groups, including one for testicular cancer. Of course, Jack has no testicular cancer, but what else can a lonely guy do? Meeting these people, including Bob (Meat Loaf), has given this insomniac an emotional release and an ability to sleep like a baby. Jack's life seems in order until he finds his female counterpart, Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), attending all these meetings (including, hilariously, the cancer group) for the thrill of it. Marla is certainly a pill. She steals clothes from laundromats and fakes suicide calls, and always runs in front of traffic. Marla has reduced Jack back to his former self. He can't sleep again, feeling threatened by this loose, volatile woman.

Eventually, Jack meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a soap salesman who frees Jack from his isolation. Tyler also works at a hotel and occasionally as a projectionist where he splices in a single frame of pornography in children's films. One night, while drinking beers, Tyler suggest a new form of therapy for Jack, who has lost his possessions in an apparent accidental explosion in his apartment. Tyler engages Jack in "fight club," a club where barechested men engage in fistfights without gloves. The club is born as Jack moves into Tyler's nearly decrepit house and learns how to make soap, how to get a chemical burn, how to have sex with Marla - basically, how to be born again from a generation of men raised by women. This fight club engineers a movement all across the country. Even men like Bob (who had too much testosterone and grew breasts) learn to tackle their inner machoistic and masochistic behavior - men are men again without material possessions. They are on the course of self-destruction, as opposed to self-improvement.

Naturally, this club is not just about fighting as it slowly evolves. Tyler's club also includes "Project Mayhem," where businesses like Starbucks and corporate art symbols are destroyed (sometimes, an explosion on the surface of a building resembles a smiley face). What Tyler is forming is a terrorist organization without killing anyone. He is trying to bring out freedom, encouraging his members to pick a fight (one incredibly funny moment involves spraying water on a priest) and be free from the constraints of society. Jack doesn't quite see it that way, or does he?

"Fight Club" is not an average filmgoing experience. The film has its own rhythm, gliding along its own patterns and layers of storytelling. Director David Fincher ("The Game") has utilized distancing devices such as narration (used sparingly here), freeze-frames, subliminal cuts, impossible point-of-view shots (such as Jack's own nerves and nose hairs), and so on. The film is quite subjective, showcasing Jack's wild imagination, which includes icy caverns with sliding penguins, planes crashing into each other, split-second shots of forests, an advertisement for IKEA furniture with their prices superimposed, and much more. "Fight Club" unfolds in such a rapid succession of images and montage editing that it will leave you cinematically punch-drunk.

After one viewing, it is easy to miss some of the satire. In fact, you may not exactly know what it is you have witnessed. "Fight Club" seems more like an extension of a man's place in a consumerist society. But then there is all the mayhem from placing explosives in corporate buildings, credit card companies, and anything with a brand name. But it also buries itself in Jack's head, as in one incredulous moment where he punches himself repeatedly in front of his boss! One can say that "Fight Club" is an anti-consumerist, anti-society, anti-job, pro-male bravado-type film from the point-of-view of an emasculated insomniac. Earlier in 1999, there was Albert Brooks's "The Muse" where Martin Scorsese described making a "Raging Bull" remake with a really thin guy. Edward Norton seems to be the likely candidate in a movie that riffs on "Raging Bull" with blood-soaked glory.

Brad Pitt is about as live wire in this film as he ever gets as Tyler, expounding on Nietzschean philosophies and using bare fists as freedom fists. The question remains: does Tyler really think that his cult group is free if they have to conform to his ways? At one point, he says: "God doesn't like you." It could be that Tyler is just a rambling, egotistical, rabble-rousing Hitler whose own plans outweigh the results. Pitt shows the humor, the irony and the machismo of Tyler - this guy probably just wants some attention.

Edward Norton plays the most complex character of his career, showing Jack's frailty and emasculation flawlessly. He looks like a punching bag, and it is crudely funny how he shows up at his dead-end job with a black eye and a bloody lip. Norton also depicts Jack's recognition that this fight club has become too dangerous. There is a major twist involving his character which shows that Norton, one of the most gifted actors in the last twenty years, can convincingly mimic any facial expression at the turn of a dime.

Helena Bonham Carter, known for costume dramas, plays an unusual, atypical character. Her Marla has a weird hairstyle and a knack for doing anything for kicks, but she is also treated like a sex object by Tyler. The character may not have much juice, but Carter is game for sexual hijinks.

I am still not sure what "Fight Club" is really saying because it is difficult to discern if the film condones or condemns Tyler's neo-Nazi-bordering-on-punk actions. It is hard to say if the ending is optimistic or downbeat. Still, isn't the mystery the result of a great film? Mostly, "Fight Club" is a galvanizing, relentlessly violent, occasionally funny black comedy with satiric overtones. What Fincher has accomplished in this maddening parade is to inform us that society and consumerism have become social ills, preventing the males from being free to let loose and let the chips fall where they may. Oh, yes, and that it would be cool to fight William Shatner.

Passing the torch of film criticism?

EW LAYS OFF FILM CRITIC, AND MAY LOSE READERS...

By Jerry Saravia

Owen Gleiberman

On April 2nd, 2014, Entertainment Weekly announced the layoffs of seven staff writers, one of them being film critic Owen Gleiberman who had been an active and, I thought, prestigious member of the EW team since 1989. Former colleague and film critic, Lisa Schwarzbaum, left last February, 2013 and took a buyout. Owen is not the only one to leave; music critic Nick Catucci, staff writer Annie Barrett, Jeff Giles and executive editor Jason Adams were also let go. Some had planned to leave, others had upcoming projects in the winds. But Owen's departure is a little upsetting, at least to me. It may affect my overall view of the magazine as a whole. This is not intended to be a reminder of what happened to Bosley Crowther (New York Film film critic/journalist) whose damning review of "Bonnie and Clyde" might have led to his departure. I have not heard anyone say that Gleiberman is out of touch nor that his reviews cause any level of consternation from readers - it is quite the opposite. So what gives?

I had started reading Entertainment Weekly back in early 1990 and haven't stopped since, primarily due to Owen Gleiberman. His film reviews were honest and, at times, incendiary. He gave a grade D to 1990's "Pretty Woman," though later he expressed second thoughts. He also gave a grade B to "GoodFellas," expressing that he was disappointed there was little soul in Scorsese's gangster masterpiece (though it ended up in the annual Best Movies of the Year list). In fact, Gleiberman fans might have noticed an echo of his thoughts on "GoodFellas" expressed in his review for "Wolf of Wall Street." Owen always stuck to his guns, giving his reviews the impression of an overall experience, much like his idol Pauline Kael. Every week, I couldn't wait to see what he had to say about any movie - he was sometimes as entertaining as the movie he was reviewing. I didn't always agree with his opinions ("Eyes Wide Shut" is far better than a "C" grade, and I do love "Saving Private Ryan" but it is not an "A" movie) but it didn't matter - his reviews took my love for Ebert and Kael in the 1980's to a whole new level of understanding of what an experience of a film dictates - engaging the emotions. He would occasionally make mention of a film's soundtrack, specific songs used to underscore a hidden meaning in a shot or sequence, that few film critics ever do.

According to Hollywood Reporter, "The entertainment magazine's layoffs are part of a broader reorganization at Time Inc that has seen staff reductions at titles across the company. 

EW debuted a redesigned website in June 2013, three months after Time Warner announced the spinoff. The publishing company is set to officially be split from Time Warner in the second quarter of this year, according to a regulatory filing last November. 

Recently, the publication launched a platform where a network of mostly unpaid bloggers can post recaps of TV shows and contribute lists and articles, Digiday reported last week. Titled The Community, the vertical is currently in beta mode with the first post listed as being published on Feb. 21. EW describes the section in a FAQ as 'featuring superfans with passion and unique voices'."

Now look, I am not a good film critic or blogger but I try my damnedest and I would love to be paid for my efforts. So is it a money issue overall, hence the unpaid bloggers making written contributions? Or is it the split from Time Warner - the latest in bad corporate decisions? Chris Nashawaty is staying on (he is equally delightful to read in the increasingly abbreviated DVD/Video section of EW) and will do a fine job filling in but Owen, among other contributors at the magazine, made Entertainment Weekly into the film/music/pop culture mag it is. Let's hope Owen finds a good fit elsewhere because the average film blogger, with exceptions, can't write two words that come close to the cultured musings of Owen.

That sword was priceless

KILL BILL: VOL. 2 (2004)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
(Originally reviewed in 2004)

Quentin Tarantino may be a demonic, mental case of a filmmaker, but isn't that why his fans and others warm up to him? In fact, his demonic, resplendent cribbing of other movies to make his own crime action epics is what juices him up, and what juices our senses. That being said, I was not a huge fan of "Kill Bill, Vol. 1," though I admired certain aspects of it. Overall, it was an often entertaining and incredibly shallow action picture with a shallowly conceived female assassin at its center. The story was unfinished, so here we are served up a Volume 2. I am happy to report that it is as good as the first volume, more restrained and more narrowly focused on the female assassin's motives. And I was initially right - Tarantino had more up his sleeve.

The movie begins with a recap of Uma Thurman's Black Mamba's aka The Bride's bloodied face shot to hell by Bill (David Carradine) in gripping black-and-white images. Then we see Uma driving down a road, again in glamorous black-and-white, explaining that her primary purpose is about to be fulfilled - she will kill Bill. And so off we are into Tarantino's cartoonish world of loners who look exhausted by life. The Black Mamba, actually known as Beatrix Kiddo, has to kill a few more fellow assassins along the way, including Budd aka Sidewinder, Bill's brother (Michael Madsen); the eyepatch-wearing Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah); and the lord of the manor, the king of the hill himself, Bill.

Before we get to the revenge, we are treated to Tarantino's usual break up of linear narrative into chapter stops. The opening chapter, titled the Massacre at Two Pines Wedding Chapel, is also shot in black-and-white, and it shows the Bride's wedding rehearsal with Bo Svenson as the minister and Samuel L. Jackson as the organist. The mysterious figure that shows up is Bill, playing his flute (no doubt the same flute from "Circle of Iron"), and inquiring why the Bride is getting married. Then we realize that the real purpose of Bill's appearance at her wedding is to kill her. The sequence is chilling in that we know the inevitable is about to happen - and we cringe when the Bride kisses Bill and thanks him for giving her away before the massacre begins.

What these chapters do best is to signify the characters' importance in relation to their actions. One chapter focuses on Budd aka Sidewinder, something of a bloated loner who works a menial job at a strip club. He shows up late to work and is almost fired, until he is chosen for a special job by his boss: to clean the toilet. These scenes may not serve much purpose to most viewers but they show a sympathetic side to the Everyman who has to work menial jobs to support himself. To further signify the loneliness, we see that Budd is living in a trailer out in the middle of Sergio Leone's nowheresville desert landscape. Bill visits Budd to reassure him that the Bride will come looking for him. All Budd can do is drink and wait for her.

Less emphasis is given to Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), the cold-blooded assassin whom we remember happily whistling Bernard Herrman's "Twisted Nerve" in "Vol. 1." Budd tells Elle that he not only has the Bride entombed in a few feet of dirt but also an original sword created by Hattori Hanzo (Sonny Chiba), the sword you'll recall that Hanzo claimed will cut God. It is a precious sword that Elle would love to have, though she completely hates Budd. Once again, Tarantino sets up for the inevitable and all I can say is that it involves a black mamba snake. Oh, the irony!

"Vol. 2" squarely focuses on the Bride, and her desperate need to kill Bill. However, as if we thought Tarantino used up all his cinematic tricks and grindhouse cliches, the last third of the film is unexpectedly touching and injected with pathos. What? Has Tarantino gone soft? Not at all, and for those who remember the character-oriented "Jackie Brown," this new volume's extended climax should come as no surprise.

As for the performances, well, it is no surprise that Tarantino still has that special gift of casting the right actor. Uma Thurman is game all the way for these blood-soaked volumes, and she gives us the Bride in all her complexity. We see her pain in the superb climax, her anger, her fears, her winsome smile, her frailty - basically, what was once a one-dimensional, shallow Bride has become a full-bodied portrait of an assassin who wants to come to terms with Bill. And I definitely felt something for her during her brief moment where she is buried alive by Budd. Okay, so this is not the best performance by an actress in 2004 (too early to tell for sure), but it is among Thurman's more dynamic characters in quite sometime.

David Carradine has the role that best sums up his career as the killer with a smile and a touch of class, namely Bill. In "Vol. 1," we never saw his face. Here, we see a man who is soothing, calm, intelligent, loves to play the flute and tell stories, and also a man capable of pure masochism - a murderer who feels he has wronged the Bride. But the 67-year-old actor also carries the "Kung-Fu" stamp of a man who has seen and weathered the crimes of his past - he knows he will meet an untimely end. It is Carradine's pathos that gives "Kill Bill" an extra notch above any of the grindhouse pictures of the past.

"Kill Bill Vol. 2" has a couple of tantalizing action scenes, though none as over-the-top as the first volume. The brief swordfight between Elle and the Bride in Budd's trailer is shockingly awesome and tightly shot (it can't be easy fighting anybody in a trailer). More exceptional are the enjoyable training sessions the Bride must endure from her master teacher, Pai Mei (Gordon Liu, with long, flowing white hair), who is strict with her even when she tries to eat rice with chopsticks. And the claustrophobic burial where the Bride is encased in a coffin is vintage Tarantino.

"Kill Bill Vol. 2" may disappoint those seeking the thrill-happy momentum of "Vol. 1." It is less an homage to everything Tarantino loves than it is a poignant story of loners who are stripped of their costumes to reveal their humanity. It may not be what you expect from a demonic mental case like Tarantino, but it shows that he continues to surprise us.

Mercy, compassion I lack

KILL BILL VOL. 1 (2003)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally reviewed in 2003)

It is too soon to be sure but "Kill Bill, Vol. 1" may be Quentin Tarantino's weakest film. The reason I say too soon is because we are only seeing the first half of a four hour-plus movie - Volume 2 will come to theatres in February. So why not release the whole film together as one package? We are not talking "Lord of the Rings" or "The Matrix" where their stories need to be spread out over three movies. This film is simply a revenge story, unless it develops into something else in "Volume 2."

"Kill Bill" begins very promisingly with the kind of intense, free-for-all, anything-goes, let's-give-them-a-show feeling that you can only get from a pop-culture master like Tarantino. We see Uma Thurman's bloodied face in black-and-white as someone wipes the blood from her face. Suddenly, a gunshot rings out. Then we hear Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" song. Great opening for a movie, and further proof that Tarantino knows how to hook you in immediately.

Thurman is the Bride a.k.a Black Mamba (and also known by her real name, which is often bleeped out). She was left for dead at her wedding, presumably killed by Bill (David Carradine), whom we never see except for his hands and boots. But the Bride survives and comes out of her coma four years later thanks to a mosquito bite! She is now seeking the members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad who are responsible for beating her to a bloody pulp. The curious members of this squad include O-Ren Ishi a.k.a. Cottonmouth (Lucy Liu), Vernita Green a.k.a. Copperhead (Vivica A. Fox), Budd a.k.a. Side Winder (Michael Madsen, who'll probably figure prominently in the next part), and Elle Driver a.k.a. California Mountain Snake (Daryl Hannah, sporting a wicked eyepatch with a red cross on it). The most interesting are Copperhead and California Mountain Snake, who exude charisma and sex appeal in two highly memorable sequences. The first one is an opening knife fight between the Bride and Copperhead as they duke it out in Copperhead's house, until her daughter comes home from school. Then Copperhead offers a cup of coffee to the Bride, until we see a gun firing inside a cereal box!

California Mountain Snake is ready to inject the comatose Bride (in a nifty flashback) with poison until she is interrupted by Bill. The scene is delirious in a Brian De Palma way with the screen dividing in half, showing Bride asleep as Snake walks down the hospital corridors to the tune of "Twisted Nerve." The tension builds incredibly in a weirdly cartoonish and dramatic manner, like most of the movie.

The first forty minutes or so of "Kill Bill" is a cartoonish carnival of pop dreams - songs, camera movements and performances remind one of the old grindhouse pictures that Tarantino is enamored of. Except Tarantino is far more stylish and inventive than any of the directors at the old Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest studios ever were. There is comedy and action in equal droves, firing at you with acute timing and wondrous rhythm. And when the film slows down with the introduction of the Man from Okinawa (Sonny Chiba), a sword maker, you feel Tarantino is playing us like a piano, speeding up for the kill and slowing us down like a grand maestro. But the rhythm can't last forever because once the story shifts from Okinawa to Tokyo. In Tokyo, the Bride begins a bloody rampage with her trusty bloody sword that would make the Shaolin martial-arts experts look away with disgust. We are talking fountains of blood spewed from severed limbs, severed heads, severed everything. The DTS sound effects amplify the killings to the point of over-the-top and beyond. It is the kind of gory action one would expect from Tarantino's ancestral cinematic origins, but it is also akin to Robert Rodriguez's "From Dusk Till Dawn" (which Tarantino wrote but did not direct). I have no problem with seeing fountains of blood (though it is well-executed in the delirious anime flashback) but Tarantino, dare I say, is better than that. His trademark is dialogue and shifting points-of-view, coupled with Sally Menke's editorial flourishes of time and space. Yes, we have seen gore in his other films, but nothing to the extent of what is offered here. This is like the "Dead Alive" of martial-arts epics, and though it is not as extreme as that horror flick, it is far more violent and repetitious than it needs to be. How many geysers of blood can one stand?

My other problem is that we are not offered reasons for the Bride's vengeful feelings. Yes, her husband-to-be and unborn baby were killed, but what is really at stake? Who is Bill and why were so many assassins needed when it seems Bill is the one who fires a bullet in her brain? I guess these questions will be answered in "Volume 2," but as of now, there is nothing really at stake in the story.

As the end credits came up for "Kill Bill," the small audience walked out quicker than you can yell "Fire!" This has been a common staple of audience screenings for the last few years, but I also sensed people were peeved that they have to wait four months before the rest of the story continues. I sensed they were disappointed with the final product, and I share that disappointment. "Kill Bill" is good enough despite its many flaws, including a shallowly conceived heroine, but I still wonder why this story needed to be split into two parts (and why is the combined whole more than four hours?) Is it just the standard revenge tale or does Tarantino have more up his sleeve? Let's hope it is the latter.