cinema lunatic

Do critics just make a point of hating on Quentin Tarantino? Do they think it's hip? Are they jealous? Do they look at him and say, "I worked at a video store! Why doesn't someone film my screenplay?"

Some critics just think he's all style, no substance. I think those hatin' critics just don't get it.

Tarantino didn't just brainwash himself with pop culture -- he really understands the works. So the references that he makes in Kill Bill -- the old sadistic kung fu master, the samurai sword fight in the snow, the explanatory flashback in the middle of an action sequence -- do some heavy lifting for him in the service of his story.

The central theme -- for those people who were too busy taking notes instead of watching it -- covers Tarantino's familiar obsession with escape from a life of vice and redemption. That was a theme of Pulp Fiction and of Jackie Brown. It's interesting that Tarantino's references include exploitation films that glorify violence, when the characters want to escape their lives of crime, and join the rest of us mortals in the workaday world.

His main characters realize (or come to a realization during the movie) that vice is mesmerizing and sexy but it's hard and cruel and it can make you dead. The magic of his movies is that he makes the viewers love the adrenaline rush of the violence, but they also want to see Jackie, Butch, Beatrix or Jules succeed in escaping that life, despite how good they seem to be at it.

So, is it important that you know that the name of the gravestone where the bride is buried alive is a reference to some 1970s exploitation movie (or whatever)? No. Do you get more out of it? I don't think so. In fact, I think dwelling too much on how clever/well versed/nerdy Tarantino is can cloud the mind when it comes to his movies.

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