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The Bride’s name is... Beatrix
Kiddo. This is the totally irrelevant piece of information
that I learned from watching "Kill Bill 2: Uma’s
Revenge," written and directed by Quentin Tarantino,
with shots and pieces of dialogue stolen from John Ford, Sam
Peckinpah, Brian DePalma, Martin Scorscese, Alfred Hitchcock,
Elmore Leonard, Sergio Leone, Akira Kurosawa, Paul Schrader,
Steven Spielberg, Francis Coppola, Russ Meyers, and just about
every other director who’s films are available at your
local Blockbuster.
Halfway through the second volume of the "Kill Bill"
movie we learn Uma’s character’s name, which had
been bleeped out for the entirety of the first film and half
of the second. And this means nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Nothing changes with this piece of information. There was
no huge plot point hinging on this discovery. Aside from a
cute sequence putting The Bride in grade school for the name
reveal (which I’m positive was shot solely so we could
see Uma in a short plaid skirt and knee-high socks), there
was really nothing special about her name, or why we weren’t
allowed to know it for the first half of the film.
The only reason left is because Quentin thought it would be
cool. Quentin usually possesses a keen barometer of cool.
His eye is one that can see cool where no one else can. “But
Quentin,” you might say. “Only waiters and parking
valets dress like that.” “Trust me, baby,”
that hyperactive ferret of a man would reply. “After
I get done with this we’ll see at least one skinny-tied
suit at every Halloween party from now on. “But Quentin,
it’s just not cool for a dorky white guy to use the n-word
in public.” “Hey baby, when I’m done with this
film, ‘Dead Nigger Storage’ will be a bigger catch
phrase than ‘Where’s the Beef?’”
The only thing that Quentin and his skinny-tied brethren produced
was a bunch of movies where gangsters and other assorted bad
guys would talk about their favorite films before shooting
their guns sideways. Soon, there were hundreds of films, clogging
the festival circuits, all of them with ironic music on their
soundtracks and cameo appearances by Christopher Walken.
So what does this all mean? Nothing. Sure, "Kill Bill
2: Uma’s Boogalo" was a fine piece of filmmaking.
Quentin Tarantino raided the Western section of his local
video store (his den) in order to make this picture. Instead
of quoting a bunch of Japanese and Chinese films that you
never heard of, he instead decided to quote a bunch of Western
films that you never heard of. I managed to identify the opening
shot from “The Searchers” and a driving scene from
“Psycho," but after that I got bored and just contented
myself to look at Uma’s feet. Quentin really likes Uma’s
feet.
Okay, the movie was well shot, and the acting was fine, Michael
Madsen, Daryl Hannah and David Carradine all died in fine
fashion. I did manage to learn that it’s really, really
bad luck to see a bride in her wedding dress before the wedding,
and I also learned if I ever get hogtied and buried alive,
I’m essentially fucked. However, two days after watching
the film, I felt kind of empty.
Nothing means anything anymore. We’re all so tragically
hip and ironic and we know all the right references and no
one I know is capable of saying anything without using air
quotes. I hate fucking air quotes. I hate people who refuse
to dance because they won’t look cool. I hate skinny
teenagers in trucker hats and people who watch reality television
even they know it’s bad but they can’t help it;
it’s so ironic. I hate irony.
I want to feel something. Feel something real. I want to cry
at a sunset and coo over little puppies and kittens and tiny
little babies with spit-up on their bibs and not count calories
and laugh at sit-coms on CBS and get married to a nice investment
banker who only wants to have kids and buy a minivan and vote
Republican and never question the President ever and raise
my children up right to beat up that weird kid down the block
who wears pink shirts and dies his hair black and-
*SLAP*
Whoa. I blacked out there for a second. What happened?
Anyone want to listen to Starlight Vocal Band and play Twister?
Come on! It’s so lame it’s fun!
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Uma
Thurman as...Beatrix Kiddo in "Kill Bill Vol. 2"
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