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Algernon Alcala
How we see films often informs how we feel about them. And sometimes, you run across that perfect storm of circumstances that turn what would have been an ordinary cinematic experience into something truly special. This was the case for me when I saw Kill Bill Vol. 2, which stands to this day as one of my most memorable experiences in a theater. Why? I saw it before I saw Vol. 1. It was quite possibly the most Quentin Tarantino way to watch a Quentin Tarantino movie.
I was captivated from the moment Thurman took the screen in black and white to recap the previous story, and was enthralled through the finale scene with The Bride and her daughter, finally together and happy. I was on cinema Cloud Nine. Afterward, we spent the whole night talking about the movie, and when we came back the next day to actually screen The Punisher, I was no longer interested. I cared only about Kill Bill.
As soon as I could, I went to the store and bought the DVD for the first Kill Bill immediately and watched it the next night, and finally had the whole picture, and I have to say, viewing them the way I did changed the films for the better. Tarantino frequently tells his stories out of order for effect, and this felt like the grand realization of that method of storytelling, even though it was entirely unintentional.
Certain moments in Vol. 1 are played as a big reveal, but having seen Vol. 2 first, these moments play more like a masterful twist of the narrative knife more than a shocking reveal. The biggest example of this is the moment that Bill asks if the Bride is aware that her daughter is alive. I can imagine in theaters when Vol. 1 was playing, this was a huge moment of shock and awe, especially as the credits rolled and they knew they had to wait several months to know what happened next.
It also changes how you watch the fights in the first volume. I knew (because she told me as such) that everyone on her list was dead (or dispatched) except for Bill. It becomes even more exciting to hear Budd talk about how she deserves to kill them, setting up the fates of all the characters in a much grander way than Vol. 1 would do alone.
Going into Vol. 1, I knew that Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) and O-ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) were not long for this world, but it made their fates play out almost as Shakespearian, like a series of vignettes about doomed women forced head-on into their own destiny. Especially O-ren, because they set up her own story of revenge and contrast it with that of The Bride.
Holy cow, May is almost over! That means June is almost here, bringing with it summer. While there are plenty of summer activities one can do outdoors, let's not forget the ultimate summer vibe: sitting inside watching TV. Hey, it gets hot out there! You could go outside and sweat a lot, or you could sit on your couch with the air conditioner blasting, watching Netflix. As is their custom, Netflix will be kicking several titles to the curb as the month rolls over, which means you better act fast to watch some of these films and TV shows. Below, we're highlighting some of best titles leaving Netflix in June 2024.
Wes Craven solidified himself as a master of horror with "A Nightmare on Elm Street," a slasher with an ingenious hook: the killer targets teens in their dreams. Craven and company could've never predicted their little horror movie would unleash an entire franchise and turn dream-killer Fred "Freddy" Krueger into an icon. But that's exactly what happened. Hell, Freddy got so big that he even had his own hotline to call at one point. The many sequels would dilute Craven's formula and turn Freddy into a big of a comic figure, but the first film remains a classic for a reason: it's effective as hell. Netflix is currently streaming most of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" films, but the majority of them are leaving the service (see below), so maybe throw yourself a little Freddy marathon while you can.
Quentin Tarantino considers "Kill Bill Vol. 1" and "Kill Bill Vol. 2" to be one movie. Whether or not you agree with that is entirely up to you. But whatever you think, just know that both volumes are leaving Netflix soon. A bloody, stylish tale of revenge, the "Kill Bill" films have Tarantino throwing every trick he knows up on the screen, mashing up styles and stories to follow the Bride (Uma Thurman) as she sets out to kill those who wronged her. I think Tarantino went on to better things after the "Kill Bill" saga, but these movies (or movie) really hold up. Funny, violent, action-packed, and brimming with imagination. Hurry up and watch before the end of June!
Spike Lee, one of our best living filmmakers, turned his lens to the crime thriller with 2006's wildly entertaining "Inside Man." What could've been a standard bank robbery pic is transformed into something more unique thanks to Lee's keen eye for New York and all its character dramas. When Clive Owen and his gang seize a bank and take hostages, Lee regular Denzel Washington, playing a NYPD Detective, shows up to try to rectify the situation. But nothing is as it seems here, and this is not your standard bank robbery. While Lee has made greater, more important films, "Inside Man" is actually the biggest box office hit of his career, and it's easy to see why: it's a lot of fun.
The MonsterVerse has gotten kind of silly with recent entries like "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire," which makes the 2014 "Godzilla" from Gareth Edwards kind of weird to watch. There's no sense of "fun" to be had in Edwards' entry, which is dark, scary and very serious. When gigantic monsters suddenly start attacking the planet, the titan Godzilla rises from the sea and sets out on a rampage. Lots and lots of property is destroyed. The human characters are all kind of dull and lifeless, but Edwards has a great sense of scale and is able to make Godzilla feel like a mighty, imposing force of nature run amok.
Before Adam McKay started making Oscar-bait movies he made truly silly stuff like "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby." This ridiculous comedy features the "Step Brothers" duo Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly as a pair of best buddy NASCAR drivers. That basic setup allows McKay and company to throw a whole bunch of goofy humor at the screen, and give Amy Adams one of her best roles, too (Amy Adams, do comedies again, we need it!). While "Anchorman" is probably the most beloved of the Ferrell/McKay movies, "Talladega Nights" is so unapologetically wacky that it's hard to resist.
The short short version Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair's history is as follows. At the turn of the century, Quentin Tarantino and co-writer/star Uma Thurman gamed out the story for Kill Bill: a kung fu revenge epic to end all epics. Thurman would play The Bride, a.k.a. Beatrix Kiddo, the protagonist who would fight to get her vengeance against her former team of fellow assassins that did her wrong on behalf of their boss, Bill (David Carradine).
However, not too long after releasing both volumes to the singular story, Quentin Tarantino had promised that the story would be edited back together into Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair. It would be a single volume experience that reunited both halves of the Kill Bill story, telling it the way it was meant to be told.
Netflix would not only have a killer exclusive, it could nurture their relationship with QT to develop even further. Other films with deleted content, like Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained, could also find their way into the fold with expanded editions released to streaming. Or even better, this moment could be used to eventually propel these films to theatrical releases of their own.
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair exists in a finished form that Tarantino has showed at The New Beverly Theater. If that current form was the one that Quentin Tarantino and Netflix wanted to release to the public, be it theatrically or streaming, it would be easy to just convert to the chosen format and put it into the world.
Something worth highlighting to understand why both Kill Bill movies work so well is that the two volumes were filmed as a single production, hence why the tone matches so well, regardless of the changes in pace and constant time jumps. Now, while viewers learn the Bride has five names on her list, she only crosses out now suburban mother Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) and Yakuza head O-Ren Ishi (Lucy Liu) in this movie.
The closing act sees Beatrix Kiddo (the Bride) reach her destination only to find out her 4-year-old daughter B.B. survived and was raised by Bill. She finally confesses how the idea of motherhood led her to defect the Deadly Vipers and ultimately kills Bill in style before driving off into the sunset with her baby.
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