Showing posts with label Lucy Liu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lucy Liu. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

41/50x2: Domino

I love when Keira Knightley does movies that are not period pieces. I enjoy her, and she is one of those extremely skinny looking girls I actually think is good looking - yet, I still think she should eat a sandwich.

Anyway, here Knightley stars as Domino Harvey the titular character in Domino. She is a former model living in LA that notices an ad in the newspaper about bounty hunting - so she heads to take a class from Ed Moseby (Mickey Rourke) and bail bondsman, Claremont Williams (Delroy Lindo).

This is one of those films where a bunch of things happen and three different groups of people end up in the same place with guns pointing at each other.

Apparently, a DMV employee who is also the mistress of Williams, Lateesha (Mo'Nique) is trying to secure $300,000 to help her granddaughter Micah receive a surgery.

Her and two of her friends look to rob a billionaire, Drake Bishop (Dabney Coleman) of $10 million to help pay for the surgery.

The entire film is told in flashback because Domino has been arrested by the FBI and is retelling her account of the situation to FBI agent Taryn Mills (Lucy Liu).

This wasn't the greatest of films - sure a pretty decent ride, but not amazing. The funniest part of the film was when a tv crew led by Mark Heiss (Christopher Walken) follow the group of bounty hunters around for a television reality series. And the hosts of the show are former 90210 actors Brian Austin Green and Ian Ziering.


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Tuesday, June 7, 2011

43/50: Kill Bill, Vol. 2

As I said in yesterday's 'post' I have decided to combine the two Kill Bill films. I know it is technically two movies - but it is more or less one film split into two.

First off, I have to admit, I never much thought of Uma Thurman as one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood. The Poison Ivy part in Batman was supposed to go to the most beautiful woman in Hollywood, and it went to her - but I just didn't see it. Well, despite being covered in blood for most of the films, I can see now what others were thinking - she looked amazing.

So, Thurman stars as the Bride in this revenge-filled film - both Kill Bill, Volume 1 and Kill Bill, Volume 2.

In the first film, we see that the Bride was 'killed' on the night before her wedding - while pregnant. She is found by the local police and taken to the hospital, where she laid in the hospital in a coma for months.

Once she came to, she escapes a nasty orderly and one of Adam Sandler's pals, and claims her revenge upon the people that put her in the hospital.

If my memory serves, during the first film the Bride takes on Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) and also O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu).

The first of the two films is much more bloody - the scene where the Bride takes on Ishii is amazing as she fights an entire mob of people before having to take on Ishii herself.

The second film is a little less bloody - and I have to admit I thought it was going somewhere else at the conclusion, but I am so glad it didn't. It would have taken away from everything we were building towards.

In Volume 2, the Bride takes on Budd (Mark Madsen) and Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) before finally making her way to her primary target, Bill (David Carradine).

Quentin Tarantino has a pretty great way of telling a story without telling it in a straight way. He is all over the place with flashbacks and out of whack placement of parts, but somehow it all comes together - and it works here just as well as in Pulp Fiction.

Like I said, I fell in love with Thurman and her quest to find those who tried to kill her - did kill her fiancé - all while she was pregnant.

The movies weren't perfect - I felt there were some extremely slow scenes that I guess ere needed for the overall effect of the film, but I didn't really enjoy. It took away from the action sequences and her journey. I was not a fan of the slow, somewhat boring scenes between Bill and the Bride (the flashback scenes, not the end sequence). And, I definitely did not enjoy the part (that was really drawn out) between the Bride and Pai Mei (Chia Hui Liu), her training master.

Overall, however, I was thoroughly enjoyed. Not as much as Pulp Fiction, but the story was great and told in an amazing way. And, like I said, so glad they went the way they did for the ending - I would have been totally pissed if they went the other way.

If this were two grades I would probably put the first film higher. I felt it was more action packed and had less slow-down scenes. But, this is an overall grade for the pair of films.

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