#5 Kill Bill

#5 Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2 (2003 & 2004)

First of all, I feel justified in combining these two movies because they originally were supposed to be one epic movie and were later edited into two for theaters. Now that that is out of the way, onto Tarantino’s revenge saga. This is a movie lover’s delight – a spaghetti western, Chinese kung fu, Japanese samurai, anime, blaxsploitation cornucopia.  He took all of the best parts of these genres and integrated them into a seamless five-point-palm-splitting-heart technique to the chest.  In an age where Transformers CGI garbage is considered “good action” Kill Bill has some of the best good old fashioned choreographed fight scenes ever. Not to mention it is rank with classic Tarantino dialogue; you know, the  kind of lines that make you smile with malicious delight every time you hear them – the kind of lines that you try to memorize and mouth as you watch the movie for the 100^th time.  In short, the films have wonderful cinematography, pitch-perfect music, bad-ass characters, some the best writing this side of the century, and great tempo. Who doesn’t love a good revenge story?

Favorite moment: This is tough – there are a lot of moments to choose from. I’d have to say though, the confrontation between the Bride and Elle in the trailer.  After a while of fierce battle, there is an intermission and as both pick up their Hanzo swords they exchange words from across the hall. Elle decides to piss Beatrix off by revealing that she killed her master and begins to laugh a classic maniacal laugh as the camera zooms onto her one evil eye which seems itself to defy goodness. Just as you really start to hate that stupid eye our hero charges, the titans clash, and Beatrix (like a total bad-ass) snatches her one eye out with her kung fu grip and, as her defeated foe writhes on the floor screaming, proceeds to drop the eye on the floor and squashes it with her bare foot. YES!

- By Scott