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CareySandwich
Reviews
Cavale (2002)
Loved it...
I generally don't consider myself the biggest fan of thrillers, but it seems that it may be due to my American upbringing. This makes me real bitter that intelligent, thorough, and stylistically unique films are being made elsewhere, but the American market doesn't seem interested because... why? The subtitles? The acting and writing are still better even if you do have to read the translated subtitles. You know what, I should boycott American movies for a while because I really haven't had much experience with foreign films, but of the last three films I saw, two of them were French, and one was from Hollywood. Guess which two were wonderful, and which one was God-Awful...
Cavale was one of the best thrillers I've ever seen. It was dark and shadowy and very well shot. It was full of humanity, which is another thing that American films seem to be lacking. One of the things I liked best about it was the underlying subtlety in the characters. They had tones and textures that really drew me in.
If you haven't seen Cavale, do so, you're going to love it.
The Girl Next Door (2004)
God-Awful
The Girl Next Door might be even worse than it looks. By watching the trailor, you think, "Oh man that looks pretty bad". Well frankly you have no idea. This flick starts out as a sappy gimmick-romance, turns into some kind of dumb porno-heist, and then eventually ends up as a pretentious slice of the American dream. Puh-leeze. I really want to contact director Luke Greenfeild and tell him that just because you add a whole 2nd plot to your movie, making it seem hours longer than it needs to be, and then in the conclusion play Baba O'Reily while a medley shows how your protagonists end up, that doesn't make your movie a coming-of-age epic.
I guess it hurts worse that it wasn't funny. You can forgive Old School for the mediocrity of its serious side because the film happened to be hilarious. The Girl Next Door--apart from an amusing performance by Timothy Olyphant--is almost completely devoid of any funny material. Which leaves you to hope that the movie will be good in other ways... which it isn't. God, it was awful. I mean really bad.
The Dreamers (2003)
It speaks to me...
Tomorrow I have to write my review for my university newspaper, and I have to figure out how to tell a young American audience why they should see this film. And now that I think about it, why should they? They're not all film buffs, they haven't all traveled alone to foreign countries by themselves, they don't live in a revolutionary climate, and they don't have open minds regarding many aspects of sexuality. So why should they see it?
Roger Waters once said, "The only thing that matters is weather or not it moves you..." Well if that's true, then it doesn't matter why they should see The Dreamers, because they will all either love it or hate it, depending on how thoroughly indoctrinated by American culture they are. Personally, this film moved me for similar reasons that High Fidelity moved me... for similar reasons that Lost in Translation moved me... for similar reasons that Punchdrunk Love moved me... You have a media-obsessed American putting his life in perspective during the culture-clash shock of his lifetime, and navigating his emotions the best he can, albeit awkwardly.
This film spoke to me as a recent first-time traveler to Europe, as a "film buff", as a person who is dealing with the philosophical implications of relationships and politics, and most importantly, as a 20 year old. I found this film hypnotizing, despite the awkward, and far-more-graphic-than-I'm-used-to nude scenes.
It wasn't perfect... There were moments that seemed very contrived, as well as an ending that was a little more abrupt than I was hoping for. But mentioning the ending just goes to remind me to mention that this movie was very well shot. The camera shots, at times, get just as intimidating as being in a completely foreign country.
The acting was top notch, especially by Louis Garrel, playing Theo (the brother). The soundtrack was groovy, featuring a quality mix of American rock from the late 1960s. All things considered, this study of ideological contrast is worth seeing. You might want to make sure you know an thing or two about French history during the late sixties (not essential, you can still figure out basically what's going on if you--like myself--happen to reek of world-history ignorance).
One last note: this film seems to have potential to be a big conversation piece, at least from an American's point of view. I, unfortunately, happened to not have any peers with me at this screening and now feel a slight deficit of the banter that this movie is likely to produce. Feel free to email me if you saw The Dreamers, and want to chat about it.
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
Why it doesn't work
The third installment of the vastly popular Matrix series is a grand disappointment on all fronts. Where we were hoping it was going to be a combination of the first Matrix and the better half of the second, it ended up taking the worse half of the second and extrapolating an entire movie. Sorry, folks. Remember how one of the biggest problems with 2 was that it didn't give you enough to work with in 3's absence? Well not only is Revolutions completely unfulfilling intellectually, but it also lacks the interesting characters and impressive scenes that Reloaded had to make up for things like annoying dialogue. And if I had to pick one place to start when tearing Revolutions to shreds, it would have to be the annoying dialogue. The lines in this film had such an immense cliché feel that at times I felt like I was watching a sci-fi James Bond for third graders. And it's no surprise because the movie focused entirely on the most annoying characters: the humans.
Just about the entire thing takes place in Zion, where the humans are trying not to get destroyed by machines. Whatever. It's extremely difficult to care about things like the possible extinction of the human race in a movie series where the interesting, likeable characters are all actually computer programs. Perhaps that's what the Wachowski brothers were trying to get at: humans are flawed and lame, computers are gnarly and perfect. There were hints of that theme in the film, but over-all I think this is a case of the directors not knowing what it was about The Matrix that people liked so much. Let me fill them in: it was the matrix. It was the world where nothing is as it seems, and you can prance around with superior control over the properties of physics. It was not a dank ship where cheesy catchphrases moved the plot. In the matrix, your enemies are extremely intelligent and intriguing agents, not annoying robot octopi. In the matrix there are discussions of philosophy, religion, politics and cookies. In the real world all you have is your same old good vs. evil bit going on. It's nothing new and it's nothing interesting. The only thing that can make it interesting is that sometimes you have to go into the matrix for some answers. But when too much of your movie resolves itself without any time in the matrix, as Revolutions most definitely does, what you have left is big old 'when will this be over'-fest. As far as the `did Revolutions answer the questions posed in Reloaded?' query goes, the answer is- not really. All you have in Revolutions is a bunch of unglued philosophical and religious references. On top of that, the story is unclear. There were too many points in the movie that make you go, `what exactly just happened?' And for those of you who are hoping for a super profound ending to this tale, I hate to disappoint you. The ending was awful. Even if it had made sense there would have been far better ways to end it. There are so many bad things to say about this movie that I don't have nearly enough time or space to focus on specifics, and I CERTAINLY don't have time to focus on the only good thing Revolutions had which is the continued brilliance of Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith. And frankly, by the time the long-awaited Neo-Smith showdown occurs, the movie is so far past the point of possible redemption that it's almost impossible to enjoy. It's not at all Weaving's fault that the long-previewed showdown does little-to-nothing to save the film, since he more than does his part. His Agent Smith goes down in my book as the best movie villain since Darth Vader. Which is a fitting, considering the fact that the third matrix plays out a lot like the third Star Wars (or sixth. I can never keep it straight). The exhausting battle scenes that switch back and forth from sentinels vs. ship to sentinels vs. Zion aren't even all that fun to watch. That which worked for Return of the Jedi roughly thirty years ago does not work for The Matrix. That which does work for the Matrix-fights and story within the matrix-is stuffed back to the point where you want to just make the Wachowski brothers take it home and do it again. It's unfortunate that this film turned out the way it did because I suspect it is going to cost The Matrix franchise a lot of fans.
Mystic River (2003)
Eh...
Not terrible... Nothing too special either. It was well made in some respects, but I don't feel it handled its audience well. I don't think it started or ended in the right spot, and it didn't have any kind of flow to it. The performances were decent. No major complaints, except that it was kind of a chore to watch. Towards the end it just got awkward. Stylistically it was pretty good, and its hard to say who's at fault for me not enjoying it more than I did. The directing, acting, and writing were all pretty decent, but it just didn't really come together in a way that worked for me.
Good Boy! (2003)
Even a Dog Lover Hated it.
This movie about talking dogs from outer space is, among other things, a calibration of anti-climax. The most brilliant moment, in my humble opinion, is at the very beginning. The film opens up with a shot of a dogs flying through the air in slow motion. This opening scene, which gave us insight to the director's brilliant canine sensibilities, had me totally psyched for a great dog-flick. Before I explain how this movie failed, I should point out that I happen to be a huge dog fanatic. I have a massive, and borderline unhealthy love for dogs of every kind. This means that any shortcomings that a movie about talking dogs would normally have would, for me at least, be made up for in the sheer presence of dogs. Not the case. Despite adorable, hilarious dogs in almost every frame, I still couldn't wait for this movie to be over.
The plot is pretty simple: dog crashes spaceship on earth, gets adopted by young dog lover, tells the boy and local dogs that dogs were originally intended to run the world, tries to get these pets into shape before the 'greater Dane' shows up to check on world-domination progress. Of cause it ends with the dog 'falling in love' with the boy and deciding that being a pet isn't so bad after all. Simple, right? Very. As far as the plot goes, I really have no major problems other than it being terribly predictable at every corner (at times, I felt like I was watching a dog version of Toy Story). The plot is used to deliver a simple message, which is: dogs and humans need each other. They have a very special relationship. And I'm not going to lie, I cried. Technically speaking, the movie was very well shot. I don't know how they found such well-trained dogs, but most of the time I completely forgot that the dog in the screen does not in reality have any clue what a movie is. I felt like I was watching actual actors whose movements were all so graceful and precise. The problem arose with the usual suspects: the human actors and their characters. Lets start with Kevin Nealon and Molly Shannon as the parents of the main dog-loving character. I'd say there was really nothing WRONG with their performance, but I found it odd that they cast former SNL cast members to play roles that my very own parents could have nailed on the first take. Nealon and Shannon carry so much residual atmosphere with them, that the whole time I kept thinking that their performances were somehow meant to be humorous in ways that I wasn't picking up on. In truth they were just ordinary mom and dad. Once I got used to this idea, I was fine. The biggest problem was in another actor, who portrayed nothing more than the voice of the main dog. This actor was so unconvincing as a dog ambassador from space that whenever his dog had lines, all I could think about was how unimpressive of a human being the actor is. Of course I could be talking about none other than Mathew Broderick. It has occurred to me that Mathew Broderick couldn't be convincing if his role were to play an untalented actor. Please don't interrupt my anti-Broderick rant with thoughts of how much you loved Ferris Beuler's Day Off. I understand. We all loved that movie. And when Broderick was younger, fine, I'll admit it looked like he had potential. But as of right now the only potential he has involves greeting customers at Wallmart. The other major problem was the characters. With the exception of the dogs, I didn't care in the least about any of the characters. And I could identify fully with pretty much all of them, especially the main character who is a young dog lover with no friends and parents who think he's crazy. Yet despite the connection on paper, there's something so saccharine about the characters and their acting, that the character-to-audience relationship just doesn't seem real. When I had mentioned earlier that I cried, I should probably point out that I did not cry because I cared in the least about the characters. I cried mostly because it made me think of a few dogs I lost as a kid, and partially because I had just realized that I might be allergic to nougat. As I was leaving the screening, I heard a fellow critic say to someone, "It was better than a movie about dogs from space has any right being." This might have been true from a technical standpoint. But the fact that a dog-drenched movie couldn't get a dog lover like myself on its leash means that there was obviously too much missing for it to be a good movie.
Lost in Translation (2003)
Brilliant
Lost in Translation is a tale about two different people coming together and finding each other while on a search to find themselves. Bill Murray plays Bob Harris, a has-been actor who is in Japan to film a whiskey endorsement. He is going through the standard midlife crises and his being plopped into such a strange and foreign culture only magnifies his feelings of isolation. Scarlet Johansen plays Charlotte, a young girl who has been married for 2 years to John, played by a hilarious Giovanni Ribisi. John plays the stereotypical work-centered yuppie who doesn't give his wife the attention she needs and leaves her to sit and ponder her existence for days on end while he is out at photo shoots.
This is definitely the breakthrough role for Scarlet Johansen, who you may have seen supporting Thora Birch and Steve Buschemi in 2000's Ghost World. She delivers her role as a lonely Yale philosophy degree holder with an almost eerie grace. Bill Murray also gives what I would call the defining performance of his career in Lost In Translation. He delivers in classic form on the comedy element of this performance, but also manages to handle the dramatic elements of his character with surprising sensitivity and depth.
They meet in a bar and initially are attracted simply to the familiarity of someone from the States whom each can understand. But as they continue to run into each other, and eventually decide to hang out while they're stuck in a Japanese hotel, they begin to find that it is on a much more profound level that they understand each other. They relate to each other in ways that are therapeutic for both of them.
As Murray and Johansen weave this intriguing relationship into a perfect tapestry before our eyes, we begin to wonder exactly what makes a relationship work between two people. We are forced to wonder why some relationships only work on paper (don't forget, both our characters are married, however unhappily) but fall short in real life, while others are virtually impossible on paper, yet come to life in the field, if only for a short time. The script, which was brilliantly crafted by Sofia Coppola (daughter of Francis Ford), makes suggestions about the philosophical nature of relationships, and how they contribute to the makeup of who we are. She also directed this film, with all the precision and care of an auteur who is looking to establish herself stylistically in the industry.
Lost in Translation is a great film, the best I've seen yet this year. It's humorous throughout, even though the laughs never really rise above a chuckle. The humor, while it is cliché-ish and standard for a culture-clash film, always comes smoothly and naturally, and is never forced. Tanslation plays to the immense acting talent of both leads and has a sense of ambient symbolism which lets its motifs flow naturally without drawing attention to themselves. Try to see this film if you are at all interested in other human beings or the dynamics between two people.
School of Rock (2003)
Jack Black is a Golden God
Get ready for one of the most biased reviews you'll read today. Because I gotta be honest with you: I love Jack Black. You hear me Jack? I love you. Jack Black is not only one of the most talented entertainers in the world today, but he seems to be one of tomorrow's finest comedic acting stars. He carries with him a seemingly inexhaustible supply of physical comedy mixed with precision comic timing. His style, while one dimensional and unchanged since High Fidelity and even The Cable Guy (that's right, even while playing a very minor character, he still commanded a hilarious screen presence) will never get old, even if he plays essentially the same character in every film.
School of Rock was a field day for Black. It's obvious in every frame that he had as much fun shooting this movie as we did watching it. Director Richard Linklater (responsible for the classic Dazed and Confused and the enigmatic Waking Life) probably had one of the easiest tasks in the world directing Jack Black as a rock-obsessed Dewey Finn who spends the whole movie rocking out and then rocking out some more. Dewey is kicked out of his band and needs money for the rent. Why not pose as his roommate who got a request to do some substitute teaching? And while he's there sitting out of his element in a room full of schoolchildren, why not train them to rock out with him? Ridiculous, right? Correct!
And I wouldn't have it any other way. This movie plays out like a long episode of the short lived HBO series, Tenacious D. With no rhyme or reason, Dewey invades these kids' sterile worlds and lights the fever of rock and roll within them. And when he gets them to help him win the battle of the bands, he will be able to pay the rent and stick it to his old band all in one fell swoop. From a structural point of view, this movie is nothing to get excited about. It has the classic `oh no, the whole plan is gonna fall apart' moments, followed by the happy and rockin' conclusion. Nothing in the plot itself suggests anything of originality. But when you consider that the topic is rock (which would be my second major bias), and the teacher is rock legend Jack Black lecturing our faces off on the ways of rock, it makes for nothing but a good time.
And that's exactly what School of Rock is. It's a classic feel good movie that makes for a great time at the theatre. Don't get me wrong: if you happen to hate Jack Black, you're probably not going to enjoy this movie. Because I can't stress this enough: it is chock full of him. Not just the fact that he's the lead actor, but every scene reeks of classic JB form, complete with all the usual flourishes that his performances pack. He takes a standard theme-the struggle to succeed in a mission-and makes it a work of art. And I say 'he' as if he were the writer, director, and producer. Well at times it felt as if there couldn't have possibly been anybody else involved in the making of this movie except JB himself and a dozen goofy kids. And if that doesn't get you excited to see School of Rock, then you better go back to listening to your Admiral Levigne album.
Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003)
A Guilty Pleasure
This movie may very well have been the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen (note: at the time this review was written, this critic had not seen Kill Bill). I should add to that statement the fact that since seeing Once Upon a Time in Mexico, I have seen a movie about talking dogs from outer space, and that film seemed far more reasonable to deal with intellectually than this tale of (revenge?). It's hard to say exactly what Once Upon a Time in Mexico is about in a short sentence, at least from a plot point of view. There seem to be endless sub-plots that all got lost on the way to the editing suite, and got forced together unaware of each other's existence for the very first time right before our eyes at the premier. What is far easier and I dare say much more fun, is to describe what the film was like.
Once Upon a Time in Mexico was like the live action version of what a Looney Tunes satire of a Quentin Tarantino film would be. The movie is tour de non-sequitur, and has things happening that have you wondering if this is all one huge dream sequence, or if this is the actual story. The characters are all (and I say 'all' without exception) way over the top, yet amazingly they give us almost nothing to work with as far as figuring out what each one's deal is. Even the most minor of characters managed to be grossly over the top, without helping us to identify with them in any way. For example, the brilliant Willem Dafoe remarkably managed to take the simple role of a Mexican crime lord, and turn it into a not-even-remotely-believable caricature of pure evil. This is where the guilty pleasure aspect of the movie comes in. The performances given by some of our favorite silver-screen faces plop into our plates like a delicious steak that we know is terribly unhealthy for us and we have to choose weather or not to chow down. Now hopefully most critics aren't going to swallow the obviously rancid characters that have just danced violently before our eyes on screen. However, this critic, like a total idiot, will eat up anything that Johnny Depp, Willem Dafoe, and Cheech Marin tell him to.
Johnny Depp--whose Sands character alone makes me think bizarre things about what it'd be like if there was an alternate version of Reservoir Dogs, where Christopher Walken subs in for Michael Madsen as Mr. Blonde--brings the same on-screen charisma that he's brought to every role I can think of. And speaking of other Johnny Depp roles, I can say with a fairly buff degree of confidence that Once Upon a Time in Mexico is the most bizarre film he's done since Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. At times it almost feels like Hunter S. Thompson himself might be sitting in the director's chair while Robert Rodriguez is out back conjuring up the scripts of the next seven Spy Kids sequels.
And speaking of sequels, I should probably point out that if you don't want to see Once Upon a Time in Mexico before you see Desperado, don't worry yourself. I watched Desperado about a week ago, and Once Upon a Time has not the slightest hint of continuity with it's prequel or even with itself for that matter. I mentioned earlier that I believe one of the major plots is revenge-related, which is hinted at by what I guess were flashback scenes for El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas). Well let me just clear up any thoughts you might have about what the plot must be like due to its predecessor. There isn't the slightest focus on a singular plot. This movie was like a child with ADD who can't decide weather it wants to play guitar for a while, or use a mechanical arm to go around shooting the people that please him. Actually, now that I think about it, Once Upon a Time in Mexico is less like a movie, and more like a violent three-ring circus. You don't know what to pay attention to, but you know it's all ridiculous.
And yet I'm not sure if it is in spite of, or due to the fact that Once Upon a Time in Mexico is a meandering tale of pyrotechnical absurdity that the film begets a subtle brilliance. I never thought I'd find myself using the word subtle in this review at all, but there's no other word to describe the thin line of genius that may or may not be intentional underneath it all. It has all the workings of a cult classic. Obvious badness, yet thorough enjoyment. It's definitely Home Alone for college students. A postmodern James Bond style thriller for western-lovers, complete with a nauseatingly grandiose score and forced humor. For everything this movie lacks in continuity, integrity, good taste, and character development (did I mention that the characters in this film develop about as well as an unborn child in the crack district of Northwest Philly?), it makes up for with a sheer brilliance that only a movie this ridiculous could pull off.
Runaway Jury (2003)
Brief summary and review.
This is an all around solid movie. For a modern conspiracy flick (not to mention one that's based on a Grisham novel) it is not even impossible to follow the plot. Runaway Jury is an interesting twist on a fully explored subject-matter. The context is gun controll, and Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman) is sueing a major gun manufacturer on behalf of a lady whose husband had been gunned down by someone using illegally purchased firearms.
The lawyer defending the massive gun corporation (performance keenly by X-men antagonist-senator Bruce Davidson) employs the notorious Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman is our resident evil genius) to get psychological on the jury and use the jurors' weaknesses to push for a verdict in favor of the gun company. Nick Easter (played perfectly by John Cusack) is one of the hapless jurors who may have an alternate agenda which doesn't include getting big-leagued by Fitch's strongarm tactics.
It's really a Hackman/Hoffman face off as they go head to head for the trial victory. However, a third party emerges who decides to take advantage of the massive stakes in the trial, and makes bizarre offers to sell the jury intellectually to one side of the other, claiming to have the ability to influence the jury even beyond Fitch's means. Scandals ensue.
Directed by Tales from the Crypt guru Gary Fleder, Runaway Jury is like a cross between The Pellican Brief and The Life of David Gale, with alittle 12 Angry Men thrown in for good measure. It combines Pellican's massive scandal feel with Gale's morrality exploration. Overall, I loved the feel of this movie. It's busy, but not intimidating like some of it's modern conspiracy flick relatives.
The best part of Jury is cleary its acting. And even though the other elements of the film balance nicely and are definitely able to hang with the acting (the runner up would be its writing, followed by its editing), you don't shoot a movie starring 3 of the best actors of all time--plus an excellent supporting cast, to have audiences buzzing about the set production. The actors truley filled out their roles, and had a great onscreen chemistry. They played off each other perfectly, and I can honestly say that I can't think of 3 better actors for their particular roles.
Runaway Jury touched on alot of things including gun controll/constitutional rights and corporate/political corruption, as well as an occasionally unnoticed yet in-your-face dose of "oh, by the way, our legal system is FAR from perfect". This movie was a good one, worth checking weather you're a loyal American or an anarchists, a gun nut or a peace monger. Either way, it is your civic duty to see Runaway Jury.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
Review of this film's madness
(warning- this review includes speculative comments about the director's sanity that are intended to be humorous exaggerations. This critic actually knows nothing about diagnosing any mental inbalance.)
What can I say about Kill Bill Vol. I that hasn't already been said by hellacious hallucinations of a blood-soaked hobits dancing outside our windows late at night? For starters, it took everything that we thought we knew about what a movie is (which used to be something along the lines of a 2 hour visual narrative) and slam-dunked it into a small hoop that is hanging up on the door that separates insanity from hundreds of gallons of fake blood. Let me first get one thing out of the way to either entice or warn you off, depending upon what tickles you fancy: this movie is violent. It's easily Quentin's most violent work to date, and considering the fact that his movies are generally as violent as it gets, I'd say this movie hits close to being the most violent film of all time. Unfortunately, in my infant hours of having seen Kill Bill, that is really the only thing about the movie that I can be sure of. So if you're waiting for me to tell you what the movie was like, apart from the extreme violence, you'll have to settle for whatever descriptions can escape this speechless critic's brain. A decent jumping off point would be try to imagine Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon meets Army of Darkness and you have a small picture of what this movie is like. I, for one, have never seen ANYTHING like Kill Bill. Not in the movies. Not ANYWHERE. It doesn't even resemble a movie in any sense that we're familiar with. It's more like a 2-hour collection of footage depicting the revenge agenda of an un-named Uma Thurman character who has gone through hell, and will gladly go through more hell just to collect her vengeance. That essentially sums up the plot in its absolute entirety. Uma Thurman basically is on a mission for revenge and kills everything she sees. That's really all that happens in the movie. A great deal of the film is exposition, and the back story is pounded so well into us that even we are itching for Bill (whoever he is) to taste the wrathful vengeance of Uma Thurman (whoever she is). All things considered, there is really nothing for us to work with apart from our crash course in revenge seeking, dazzling visual texture, and half-hour fight scenes. Some might argue that this movie is nothing more than eye-candy, giving us a long awaited taste of the interesting things that Quentin does with the camera. Whether or not this is true, nobody can deny that--if nothing else--Tarantino is the most interesting director of our time as far as seeing how his movies will look on the screen. His style is so independent of convention that, if I had never heard of Quentin Tarantino, I would be pretty sure after seeing Kill Bill that he has never SEEN a single movie in his life. Unfortunately, we happen to know that he is an accomplished filmmaker, which means that the only explanation for Kill Bill's madness would have to lie within the apparent madness of its maestro. And this movie is so bizarre, that if I (and I happen to be a huge 'tino fan) saw Quentin Tarantino on the street, I would avoid eye contact and try to walk in the other direction without calling attention to myself. Because he's not sane. And anybody who thinks otherwise needs to sit down and watch Kill Bill, and remind themselves that the art came from within the mind of the artist.
If you're upset because this review didn't help you much with deciding weather or not you want to go see this movie, I apologize fully and offer the following question: do you think you can handle it? Because if you're going to see this movie, you have to be ready to take lots of things with a grain of salt. If you're a film student, or consider yourself a film buff, this movie is absolutely mandatory. I, for one, found myself desperately not wanting this movie to end. Kill Bill was entertaining, and without question, the most interesting experience I've ever had at a movie theatre. Good Luck.