Why has it become fasionable to hate kill bill?

This is a spring off from the “Why has it become fasionable to hate QT?” thread…Sorry idk how to post links.

Anyway I always here people say “I love everyone of his movies except Kill Bill. Those movies are just crap.” And I ask myself, why is this? I friggin LOVE Kill Bill! Excellent Tarentino style (probably his most experimental and fun) excellent violence, and excellent revenge story with Pai Mei!!!!! What’s not to like?
It’s an homage, not a rip off… And it’s a damn good homage to 70’s blood sprayingn samurai and 80’s kung fu classics if you ask me.
Certainly not among his best, but they’re a damn good time in my book.

Why so much animosity, QT fans?

I like Part 1 . . . Part 2 does nothing for me.

I found part two to be dissapointing because I was expecting alot of violence like the first…A rewatch was good. If you watch it without the expectation of alot of violence like vol. 1, I think it’s an all around better film.

the problem for a general audience is the intensely personal nature of these films [it’s like being trapped in tarentinos subconscious]

I rather like the KILL BILLS. They’re done with a good deal of energy and are impeccably made, the acting is beyond reproach (thank God Tarantino got someone else to play the role he was planning on taking), etc. The big action scenes are marvelously conceived and brought off.

My complaint with the films, and this is how I feel about most of Tarantino’s work, is the feeling that he’s really just wasting his time and considerable gifts telling some rather silly, juvenile stories. I mean really: assassin squads? As much as I find to enjoy in the films, I don’t think they really transcend their origins in cheesy pulp blood spraying samurai stuff, try as Tarantino might.

I’ve seen Sex & Fury and honestly I thought it was horrible…doesn’t even hold a candle to Kill Bill, even if it is partially it’s inspiration (other than a female out for revenge, I saw no Kill Bill in there really)…And Tarantino doesn’t need lesbian sex scenes to make his films entertaining.

Pinku eiga Kill Bill is not.

@Roscoe I actually do know what you mean about Tarentino wasting his talents some one. However the fact is he does have talent and, as Inglorious Basterds has showed us, it’s not going anyway…I say he’s got atleast another 5 or 6 great films in him. Every director has to have fun with it atleast once.

I’m not sure if it’s fashionable or not to hate the Kill Bills now, but I’m happy if people are beginning to see the light now. I hated them when they came out and I seemed to be in the minority then. They felt lazily written, poorly plotted, badly paced, caricaturish and just plain dull. Maybe my main problem is that, unlike some of his other films, I don’t have an appreciation for the source material that he’s riffing on. Thinking about it, I would say my reaction to his films is largely a judgment on his film’s “bibliography” (for want of a better term). I hate the Kill Bills and Death Proof (I’m not a huge fan of the grindhouse genre either) and don’t mind the rest of his films (crime films, noirs, “guys on a mission” is more my fancy).

I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sex and Fury was great! Then again, I was watching it pissed drunk so I don’t remember half of it…

It has not become fashionable to hate Kill Bill.

You have to have a black belt in looser to have time to hate on Kill Bill. Srly.

Haha, well said Terminator. And yes I suppose if I was in that state I’d have a greater appreciation for Sex and Fury too…Here’s the thing. There’s practically no sword action in it. It’s cheap feeling. It’s main attraction is a lesbian sex scene that wasn’t all that, and the movie just dragged on and on and was actually quite boring to me.
Kill Bill, love it or not, was not the least bit boring for a second.

And @Ari…That may just be the defining line then. I LOVE samurai and kung fu films (though the two genres are extremely different) and I think he did the genre proud. He took all the delightful revenge and blood and swordplay and put his own original twist on it. The sword fight with the crazy 88, I have to admit, is one of the greatest ever made. It was so skillfully done as was the rest of both films. And you gotta love Gordon Lui in both!
He did the 70’s bloody samurai revenge genre proud IMO.

Actually, some sections of “Kill Bill” are boring. Mostly in Part 1. The huge climactic fight goes on for way too long. It wasn’t boring when I first watched it, but it has almost no re-watch value, in comparison to the fight with Vernita, for example.

I remember when I first saw Part 1 I was incredibly disappointed. I had waited a long time for a Tarantino film and this one was clearly not on the level of his other three. I found the dialogue to be stiff and awful, the pacing off and the tone to be a little awkward. Despite some absolutely brilliant sequences, like the opening credits and the anime scene, overall the film was weak to me.

I saw Part 2 and immediately thought it to be a huge improvement. Almost everything was done right. The final scene with BIll was a little drawn-out and anti-climactic. But still, brilliant, brilliant filmmaking. I absolutely love Madsen’s acting in it. He stole the show for me.

So should these films be seen as separate entities or parts of a whole? For a while I wrote the films off as minor trifles. Now I think they belong to the category of “great flawed films”. It’s epic (B) filmmaking and storytelling. What “Basterds” probably wanted to be, but doesn’t come anywhere close in my opinion.

Kill Bill 1 might be QT’s best work, but its still a waste of time.

You really didn’t find Basterds an improvement to Kill Bill…?! I thought Inglorious Basterds to be an amazing film! By far his greatest film of the new decade.
And I just can’t fathom how 1) you find the fight scene at the end too long. I mean come on that was a brilliantly bloody, stylized fight scene with great choreography. I think it could have went on longer & I wouldn’t have been crying…but then again that sort of stuff is my bag ya know…
and 2) how you find KB vol 1 to have no rewatch value. First off I think all QT’s films have great rewatch value and KB is no different. It’s fast pased, never dull, perfectly violent. And I didn’t find the dialogue all that bad. Not his finest but not bad at all…
Anyway glad you gave adequate reasons instead of just saying "Actually, some sections of “Kill Bill” are boring." and leaving it at that.

“Kill Bill 1 might be QT’s best work, but its still a waste of time.”

very cold…very cold indeed. Honestly I can’t imagine why you even bothered to click on this thread if that’s all you had to say…

I didn’t say that Volume 1 had no rewatch value. I said the Crazy 88 fight scene had no rewatch value.

And no, “Basterds” is not an improvement on his epic B filmmaking. Fewer great sequences than the flawed “Kill BIll” films for sure. But let’s try to keep the discussion centered on “Kill Bill”. I don’t want this thread to rail off into another “Basterds” thread.

Actually, no, I thought INGLORIOUS BASTERDS was a mess. I started rooting for the Nazis to find and destroy the Basterds. The scenes involving Chrisoph Waltz and Shoshana were very good, but the rest of the film is Tarantino at his absolute worst: smirking and sophmoric, never more so than when Brad Pitt’s unspeakable attempt at a performance soils the screen.

I much preferred the BILLs to BASTERDS. I can’t agree that Mr. Tarantino has “another 5 or 6 great films” in him. For me, he got it most completely right with RESERVOIR DOGS, his best film by a considerable margin, and even that it brought to a halt by that interminable flashback to TIm Roth’s backstory.

One thing for sure, it seems to me that Tarantino has been backsliding since “Jackie Brown”. Each film is a little bit worse than the previous. I guess some can make that argument for his entire ouevre!

I’m eagerly awaiting another great film from him. Does he have another 5 or 6 great ones left? Probably not, since he may only make 5 or 6 more films in his lifetime. And as long as he keeps commodifying himself, making the “Tarantino version” of a western/sci-fi/gangster/kung fu/etc flick, I suspect his ability to raise himself to new heights.

But this is also for sure: each new Tarantino film is an event. There is no other director I go to see on opening night and so eagerly anticipate. No one even close. And for those few moments that his always-impeccable credit sequences run, I have a few moments to dream and desire the film that follows to be better than his best. I’ve been disappointed for a decade now. Tarantino always talks about directors who “lost it” in their old age, and that he doesn’t want to be one of them. I sincerely hope that this categorization hasn’t ironically sneaked up on him already.

What I’m finding interesting is the idea that it is “fashionable” to hold an idea, to like or dislike something. I find it hard to not be insulted by the notion that my reactions are part of a trend exterior to myself and my perceptions. On the other hand, I’ve certainly found myself wondering about the ongoing Eastwood Craze, etc. so I’m not immune to wondering about Big Trends.

Dimitris

“I’ve seen Sex & Fury and honestly I thought it was horrible…doesn’t even hold a candle to Kill Bill, even if it is partially it’s inspiration (other than a female out for revenge, I saw no Kill Bill in there really)…And Tarantino doesn’t need lesbian sex scenes to make his films entertaining.”

any male and / or female homosexual love scene is above Tarantino’s integrity and film taste. hell, anyone who likes Tarantino more than Sex and Fury and Lady Snowblood probably knows shit about camp films.

Dimitris pretty much nailed it here.

Yet Tarantino made “Jackie Brown”, an entire film as a beautiful extended (and unconsummated) love scene. But I’m sure that was a fluke and “above” his integrity and tastes. Besides, how dare he focus his camera on middle-aged people in such an unsavory way in the first place.

Yeah, Jackie Brown is not a fluke but it is the interesting anomaly in QT’s career. It seemed to herald a possible growing maturity that embraced the world outside in which his characters threatened to become fully developed human beings (although not entirely – besides Max and Jackie, the rest of the characters Ordell, Melanie, Louis – remain QT archetypes). Instead his response to the film (or perhaps a reaction against the film’s lack of success) was to lock himself up in his screening room, smoke loads of weed and watch exploitation films. So hence Kill Bill. Not that there’s anything wrong with that… but I guess that’s why I really hated Kill Bill when it was released. It seemed like such a huge leap backwards.

Nicely said, Ari.

Dimitris:

“Yet Tarantino made “Jackie Brown”, an entire film as a beautiful extended (and unconsummated) love scene. "

oh my, was it an “extended” love scene? really? my oh my, so many hidden meanings underneath the popcorn films of Quentin. sheesh Wise, i thought you were smarter than him. go watch Greenaway and Ruiz for that kind of theoretical analysis or i’ll think your taste is even more debatable than i already do.

“But I’m sure that was a fluke and “above” his integrity and tastes. Besides, how dare he focus his camera on middle-aged people in such an unsavory way in the first place.”

what’s that got to do with lesbianism and the connection of Kill Bill and Sex and Fury? and if Tarantino is your foremost example of elderly tenderness, you may want to take a look on that list here , away from Quentin’s “broomstick”

-any male and / or female homosexual love scene is above Tarantino’s integrity and film taste.-

Are there really any hetero love scenes in his films either? Dude seems pretty chaste to me.

-Jackie Brown is not a fluke but it is the interesting anomaly in QT’s career-

Simple explanation: that anomaly is Elmore Leonard, or perhaps Tarantino’s sense of obligation to remain somewhat true to his source in this lone literary adaptation in his filmography (unless we’re counting appropriating Roger Avary’s work to bolster his own for Pulp Fiction).

Appropriating Avary’s work? Isn’t it true that the only story of his that was used is “The Gold Watch”? But your point is made. Arguably the two best Tarantino films had collaborators on the story credits. Not a coincidence—but let’s not forget who directed them.

I never said Tarantino was my foremost example of elderly tenderness. First of all, I said he was dealing with middle-age love in the film, not elderly love. It’s a two-way middle-age love affair: Grier and Forster, Tarantino and Grier.

And I don’t save my theoretical analyses for directors like Greenaway and Ruiz. I don’t believe in qualitative hierarchies regarding critical attention for directors.