Shlep D-O Double Gizzle's Web Pizzle

A bee flew into my Dr. Pepper

A dish best served cold:

Mystic River and Kill Bill are both about revenge but are otherwise complete opposites. Mystic River is a contemplative and brooding look at guilt, pain, and vengeance, while Kill Bill is a brilliant triumph of style over substance.

I loved Mystic River because Clint Eastwood gives his actors room to find depth in their characters and allows them to search for the painful truth on their own terms. He gives each scene time to resonate and ends up hitting some excrutiatingly emotional chords. Two more things: Tim Robbins and Sean Penn are so good in this movie it made me want to cry AND wet my pants (actually, Sean Penn is always that good). Also, it was great to see Laurence Fishburne do some real acting rather than walking around with a stick up his ass "prophesizing".

I loved Kill Bill because it was everything Mystic River was not. The plot isn't deep at all. REVENGE. At any cost, in any way possible. The Bride must kill those that have wronged her. There is no time for resonance or for characters to search for emotional truth. They are too busy trying to not get their heads chopped off. My boy Ebert puts it best, "Kill Bill: Volume 1 is not the kind of movie that inspires discussion of the acting, but what Thurman, Fox and Liu accomplish here is arguably more difficult than playing the nuanced heroine of a Sundance thumb-sucker. There must be presence, physical grace, strength, personality and the ability to look serious while doing ridiculous things."

Mystic River makes you think and feel at the same time, Kill Bill makes you cringe and cheer. Mystic River is intelligent, dark, and open to many interpretations. Kill Bill is an exhilarating martial arts extravaganza with one simple message: Don't fuck with Uma Thurman when she has a sword in her hands.

Go see them both. Now.

*****

I'm so happy the basketball season has started...

"Allen Iverson with the ball in traffic. This is on my list every year. Screw big men moving predictably and unimpeded. Forget Tim Duncan. Never mind Shaq. Give me this paradigm-shifting, shape-shifting, taut wire of a little man every time out. Give me an underdog who makes guys twice his size cry mercy. Every game AI plays is a treatise on heart and stamina, and a command performance of sick, syncopated skill."
----Eric Neel, Page 2 columnist and fellow lover of the ART of basketball

(stay tuned Pizzle denizens, for more on AI and the redefinition of hoop)

Posted by sheelpi at October 30, 2003 07:46 PM