Epidermis cells have never looked so good
I saw Kill Bill: Volume 2 last night. I think I fell in love with Uma Thurman's pores. Much of this movie (as with Volume 1 for that matter) is spent up-close and in the face of the actors and actresses. Of course, it's Uma's movie. She's "The Bride," AKA “Black Mamba,” AKA “Beatrix Kiddo,” AKA “Mommy” on a rampage of bloody revenge. So, it's her face we see magnified most throughout the movie. There is even a scene at the end of Volume 2, while the credits are rolling, of Uma driving down the road in a convertible automobile. It's shot in black and white. The camera is tight on her face. She is just staring at you in the audience. Staring and driving. The wind blowing her hair. A half-cocked smile just for you. This goes on for several minutes. You can look up her nose, if you'd like. You could check for hairs on her upper lip. You could look for a wrinkle. A blemish. I defy you to find one. Even at 20X magnification, Uma's skin is flawless.
Well, except when it's not. At various times in Kill Bill: Volumes 1 and 2, Uma's face is covered in sweat, blood, welts, bruises, chewing tobacco spit, fruit pulp, even caked-on grave dirt (yeah, let your mind wrap around that one!). She looks marvelous through every indignity that Quentin Tarantino’s limitless imagination drags her character through.
How many of us could withstand the scrutiny of Tarantino's lens? I shiver to think of my face magnified to that extent on the big screen. I can imagine the following scene on the set:
Quentin: Whoa! Cut! What's with the nose hair on this guy? It's like a forest in there. Somebody get some hedge-clippers and start thinning.
No thanks. I'm happy to sit quietly in the audience and watch spellbound as Uma's skin exfoliates.
So what's this movie about? Well, basically, the close-up of Uma continues on her quest to get revenge on the folks who tried to kill her during her wedding rehearsal in El Paso, Texas. Basically there are only a few bad guys and gals that the close-up of Uma didn't dispatch in Kill Bill: Volume 1. These people cannot die an easy death. No siree, these people must die gruesome, horrible deaths so that we can see the satisfaction on the close-up of Uma's face.
One of the more interesting scenes in Volume 2 involves the close-up of Uma learning martial arts from the aging but sadistic master Pai Mei (reminiscent of the Kung Fu TV show back in the 70s); another involves the showdown between the close-up of Uma and the close-up of Daryl Hannah’s character (especially tight close-ups of Daryl’s eye patch, and, then, her other eye, on the carpet, beneath Uma’s foot). Everybody who is supposed to die does so in spectacular fashion and the close-up of Uma lives happily ever after. Plus some other stuff happens. That pretty much covers it.
There will be some debate among devotees of the Kill Bill movies as to which one is better. They are very different movies. I prefer the first one, which I think is a stylistic masterpiece with many close-ups of Uma and Lucy Liu and a nasty Japanese schoolgirl whose visage will keep you awake at night. The second Volume is slower with a lot less violence; although the violence of Volume 2 is a lot more disturbing than that of Volume 1. Then again, Volume 1 has several really, really close-up shots of Uma's naked feet that are pretty darn disturbing (not being a feet guy). Bottom line is both movies are refreshingly clever, you know, in a sick and twisted, anti-wholesome way.
Go see them. Watch the first one on video and then go out immediately and watch Volume 2. After that, just try to get those close-up shots of Uma out of your head. Bet you can't.
6:25:53 PM 
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