Watched this soon after reading Vox’s reviews of Joe Berlinger’s two new Ted Bundy movies, a documentary (“a bit of a slog”) and a “morally confused” Zac Efron feature. I was considering that maybe serial killer movies are a bad idea in general, but was also stressed out and feeling like watching some murders, so thought I’d torment myself by watching ol’ self-serious Lars alienate his fans. Divided into chapters, or incidents. “You might as well be a serial killer,” taunts Uma Thurman repeatedly in the first, until Matt Dillon finally, blessedly, beats her face in. Their self-conscious Tarantino conversation immediately calmed my concerns that this would be a grim, punishing movie. I keep forgetting about the campy prankster side of Lars – this was an escalating series of hateful murders, played for laughs and meta-commentary.

Segments are divided by short scenes, Dylan references, and stock footage in every aspect ratio and voiceover conversation with “Verge,” who turns out to be the late Bruno Ganz playing Virgil, Dante’s guide through hell, speaking of Jack’s murders as artworks. Next, Jack sets out to murder a woman alone at home (Siobhan Hogan, prison guard in Dancer in the Dark), talks his way inside with the most ridiculous excuses (he’s a cop but “my badge is at the silversmith”). He clumsily, awkwardly kills her then photographs the body, comes back inside to clean up and has to escape a visiting cop. Then he takes a date (Sofie Gråbøl, star of the series The Killing) and her two kids on a hunting trip and hunts them, kids first. Then the infamous double-mastectomy incident with a girlfriend (Riley Keough) whom he has cruelly nicknamed “Simple”. Then Jack, now known to the press as the serial killer Mr. Sophistication, is found out by his ammo supplier (Jeremy Davies of Dogville), and chased to his body-freezer home base by cops, where Virgil leads him into the underworld through a house made of the bodies of Jack’s victims.

I may have accidentally watched the censored version, but runtime is only two minutes different, so I’m not gonna sweat it this time.

I haven’t seen this since it premiered. Teenaged Me was really into Tarantino, and also Counting Crows and Gin Blossoms and the Nightmare on Elm Street movies and Wayne’s World and Tim Burton and Mortal Kombat, and most of those things are no longer good, so sometimes I forget that Tarantino still is.

Anyway, here’s what happens in Kill Bill Volume 1:

Whole wedding party is wiped out, execution-style by the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad.

The Bride shows up at Vernita’s house (Vivica A. Fox, lately of Empire). A quick knife fight, then relaxed conversation, then sudden death.

Flashback to the aftermath of the bloody wedding, investigated by the cop from Grindhouse, then Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) is sent to assassinate the Bride in her hospital bed but Bill calls her off at the last minute. We never find out what the Bride did, exactly, to deserve this treatment.

The Bride awakens, righteously murders the dudes who have been coma-raping her, and hits the road in a stolen Pussy Wagon.

O-Ren Ishii animated backstory, which is basically Lady Snowblood.

The Bride talks the retired swordsmith Hattori Hanzo (Sonny Chiba of bunches of Kinji Fukasaku films) into making her a perfect sword.

The Big Finale of Part 1: The Bride shows up at the House of Blue Leaves, taking on crazed teen Gogo (Chiaki Kuriyama of Battle Royale, The Great Yokai War)…

and O-Ren herself (Lucy Liu)

“Is she aware her daughter is still alive?”


Volume 2:

Wedding reprise, she introduces Bill as her father to groom Tommy (oscar-winning makeup artist Chris Nelson)

Budd (Michael Madsen) has a horrible strip club bouncer job and a pointless life, but he has been warned that the Bride is coming, and he gets the drop on her then buries her alive.

In flashback, Bill sends the Bride to be tutored by Pai Mei (Gordon Liu, star of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin with comical white hair), who teaches her “it’s the wood that should fear your hand,” and she destroys the coffin and emerges from the ground living-dead-style. 95% of movies would open with the training scene, then when she’s in trouble an hour later have a voiceover reminder of the training scene, then victory… it seems more effective to structure it this way (hopeless situation / flashback to training scene / solution).

Elle kills Budd via snake, and a close-quarters swordfight with the risen Bride follows. Elle loses her other eye. Frequent sightings of the movie poster for Mr. Majestyk.

The Bride visits Bill and rescues her daughter via the five point palm exploding heart technique.

“The lioness has rejoined her cub and all is right in the jungle.”

Divided into two parts with multiple sections each. Rough-looking nymphomaniac Charlotte Gainsbourg is picked up by virgin shut-in Stellan Skarsgard. She tells her story, divided into two long parts with multiple sections, each section metaphorically tied to a different token from Stellan’s bedroom. He is presented as the most patiently nonjudgemental man in the world, then finally tries to rape her in her sleep, because after all, she’s had sex with basically everyone but him. It’s temping to call this a betrayal of his character, but really it seems too tragically real. With all the sexual escapades in the four-hour movie, this final minute is the part I keep thinking about.

Part one is a romp, then part two does away with the fun and games and much of the humor, as “Joe” goes too far and injures herself then can’t have proper sex for a while and has to visit a masochist (haven’t seen Jamie Bell since 2006, forgot what he looked like – he’s got a Ryan Gosling dreamy intensity here) and she becomes obsessed with her first/true love Jerome (Shia LaBeouf, then distractingly a different actor in the last few scenes) and tries to murder him when he takes up with Joe’s girlfriend Mia Goth.

For the most part, except when part two gets too heavy in the middle, the movie mixes things up admirably. It uses cutaway footage with different resolutions and aspect ratios, graphics and captions in part 1, and is overall full of intensely good dialogue. Fun meta-moment when Jerome returns to the story, Stellan tells her the coincidence is too strong and Joe replies you’ll get more out of the story if you just roll with it and believe me.

Christian Slater is Joe’s father, mainly seen during the “Delirium” episode when he’s dying in hospital, and Connie Nielsen (Demonlover) is her severe mother (does she even have lines?). Sophie Clark is Joe’s best friend in part 1, and Uma Thurman gets a huge breakdown scene as the wife of a man who has left her to live with Joe. But, as usual, too small a role for Udo Kier.

M. Sicinski:

… it functions a bit like a notepad, moving through different styles and tones without ever lapsing into stuntsmanship. This is a promiscuous film, one that intends to strip that descriptor of any pejorative scent. Like Joe, Nymphomaniac is exploratory and remains radically open, while retaining a core existential self. It can attach its diegesis to a character who may well weave in and out of objective truth; it may tip its hand into reflexivity, only to pull back and attempt to compel belief, both on the level of story and that of formal organization.