directed by quentin tarantino
cinematography by robert richardson
starring uma thurman, daryl hannah, michael madsen, and david carradine as bill.

quentin tarantino has made his third perfect movie and he not only made it look easy, but made it look fun.

the writing is flawless the acting is solid but the look is fresh and the comedy is there and the action is there and the only thing thats not there is theres not enough stars in the heavens to award this film.

it was as if quentin filmed kill bill, realized it was a damn good three-hour movie but decided instead to hold back the best parts for the “sequel” and call the leftovers kill bill vol 1.

the rumors of you not needing to see the first to enjoy the second are true.

kill bill vol 2 stands on its own and shines on its own, it sneers on its own, its amazes on its own, its such a gargantuan shock to the heart that its almost like vol 1 was a warm up for what quentin knew he could do.

vol 2 runs laps around vol 1 in a way that vol 1 should have just been dvd extras, missing scenes, and deleted moments of this instant classic.

this is a dress rehearsal of a wedding between genius and artistry. action suspense humor, depth, subtlety, and beauty. the way movies should be made but simply cant be made because theres only one quentin and his fastball moves.

this is the work of a maturing filmmaker caught completely in stride, no longer the video store clerk trying to prove that he can direct, no longer the wigger in the kangol trying to show off his record collection.

this is the quentin tarantino that everyone hoped for after the one two punch of reservoir dogs and pulp fiction that never was realised in the pair of films that followed.

this movie was so good that i bypassed the miramax + ascis afterparty so i could run home and tell you to go right away before people start giving away the juicy bits because there are some parts that people are going to start talking about and it’s far better to see them for yourself unspoiled.

kill bill 2 gets the busblogs highest rating. as someone who was lucky enough to see pulp fiction the day it came out, i felt just as satisfied leaving this film, and i definately wasnt the only one.

krista + science blog + sigh club + matt welch

enjoy a photo essay

didnt really feel like blogging last night or today. which should tell you that something was wrong because usually all i want to do is blog.

i got a message last night from kristin pony who is doing fine and still looking beautiful and studying to be a lawyer, etc., who told me about this grisly murder in oklahoma, near where she lives.

turned out there was a 10 yr old girl who was missing. she was last seen going to the library to get on the computers there to surf around via her AOL account.

two days later she was still missing, which was odd because she lives in a pretty small town. so the cops finally started following some leads or going house to house, im not sure what they did but they ended up at this twentysomething dude’s apartment in the same complex as the girl and then found her mutilated body in his closet according to The Oklahoman

Apartment manager Tim Bayer told FBI agents he heard
[Kevin Ray] Underwood was the last person to see [Jamie Rose] Bolin before she went missing. Agents located Underwood about 3:45 p.m. and questioned him about the girl’s disappearance, the affidavit said.

When they were finished questioning Underwood, agents took him back to his apartment. He agreed to let agents search his apartment to make sure she wasn’t there. When agents looked in a bedroom closet, they found a large plastic container sealed with duct tape.

Underwood told agents the container was filled with comic books. When agents opened the container, they found a shirt believed to belong to Bolin.

Underwood then told agents, “go ahead and arrest me. She is in there. I chopped her up,” the affidavit said.

The DA called it gruesome and is seeking the death penalty against the man.

McClain County District Attorney Tim Kuykendall said that in his 24 years as a prosecutor, “I’ve never seen a homicide quite as atrocious and heinous and cruel as what this little girl suffered.”

so why did our pal mad pony let me know about this on the holiest night, good friday? because the killer’s myspace address got out, somehow, and that lead to his blog.

and guess who’s on this fuckers blogroll?

and guess who this asswipe quoted a year and a half ago, reprinting an entire post?

and whats even worse is as the little girl was dead or dying or chopped up in his closet he sat in his room and blogged about human fossils.

disgusting.

i feel sick thinking that someone with the potential to do something as vile as chop up a sweet little freckle faced ten year old girl would in any way be attracted to anything that i ever wrote, let alone put me on his blog roll. and im too grossed out to think about it but i know i linked him back, something i like to do when someone links to me. not because im a fan of all the blogs i link back to, i do it out of general courtesy.

ive avoided writing about this all day.

i even did my taxes instead of blogging. i even cleaned my house. i did anything i could to try to figure out what to do other than write but i knew the only thing id be able to write about is this prick and his indirect relationship with my most prized possession, this blog.

but whats scariest of all is as you poke around on his blog and see how he answered surveys and wrote about this or that you try to look for clues that he was this monster just waiting for something to push him over the edge, but i cant find anything like that. to me he seemed like a normal dude working at a 7-11, who didnt have many friends, was beat up a bunch in school, and wasnt all that lucky with the ladies but not necessarily a murderer.

he had no criminal record. he didnt use a gun. wasnt on drugs as far as i could tell from his blog, or booze.

just another dude walking down the street. someone you might say hi to if theyre wearing a cubs hat or raiders jersey. someone who you might tip if he brings you a beer at a ballgame. someone who you might link to or god forbid put as a special if linked to you more than once or twice.

yesterday when the facts were fuzzy i was hoping that he wasnt the guy because his blog just doesnt look like that of someone who would just destroy the life of a little kid – or his own life. but today when i read that he admitted it, it made me feel so gross.

and despite the fact that theyre probably going to shut it off when news gets back to them that its up, i hope Blogger doesnt touch his blog so we can see that murderers – cold thoughtless killers – walk among us, and even look human.

UPDATE: His plan was to eat her.

“Regarding a potential motive, this appears to have been part of a plan to kidnap a person, rape them, torture them, kill them, cut off their head, drain the body of blood, rape the corpse, eat the corpse, then dispose of the organs and bones,” [Purcell police Chief David] Tompkins said.

a roundup of news stories and of his presence online + what other bloggers are saying + the oklahoman

not a bad selection for Good Friday, eh? thanx raymi!

happy good friday. because of all the traveling and working ive been doing i didnt even know that this weekend was easter until karisa asked me yesterday what i was gonna do for easter. i was all whens that.

she was all, its sunday.

when i got home from the office there was a package waiting for me on my doorstep.

it was my easter basket from my mom.

how did easter sneak up on me? and how did i make a deal with mc brown that i would work from home today. today is good friday, holiest day in the year for Christians.

i stayed up all night working. its 415am. funny thing about me is if i like what im doing and if i can do it all night i will do it all night.

but the funny thing about working for someone else is theyre likely to call you the next day and totally discount that you were up all night doing little things and some big things.

one of the big things i did was ask a few people to put that Coachella Blogad ad on their blogs. and lucky for me a few of em did it.

because this is good friday i cant really ask all of you to do it, but for those of you who have blogads and youd like to stoke your pal tone, i cant pay you anything, but i might be able to work something out, like i was thinking about holding a raffle for all the people who do it. or give away some tshirts or something.

all you have to do is email me your Offer Code in your blog ads thing. if you dont know where it is i can help you. anyways i shouldnt be selling or pitching or anything on Good Friday.

i should be thinking about the Lord. and how He died today. died with pretty much nobody believing in Him. died with probably just as many Romans believing as Jews. i have a feeling the Romans totally believed, thats why they were scared. you can tell if someone believes in you cuz theyre scared of you and they act mean. its like dogs dont bark at you if they wanna bite you, if they wanna bite you they bite you. if they want you to back off they bark. and the only reason they want you to back off is if theyre scared of you.

my mom got me a cubs baseball with a little clock in it. she also got me some cubs peanuts, and a tshirt that says lake geneva on it. and then of course the nice sized easter basket of candy and chocolate and stuff.

this morning i was awakened by the telephone ringing. the land line. no one good calls the land line in the morn so i let that fucker ring but then it was Chris, she left a message. she said she only had two minutes on her calling card and i jumped outta bed and tore through my house to the phone and i was all baby baby baby and we talked for thirty seconds. mostly i love you i love you too i miss you i miss you too. i was half asleep so i couldnt even think. i didnt get her to ask any questions. i knew her time was running short so what do you say?

oh i had so much to say too. i wanted to tell her i had just seen this thing about the elephant orphanage on 60 minutes. i wanted to ask her how the lions were. i wanted to ask her if she had masturbated in africa. im sure she would have said no but i wanted her to know that she was really on the phone with me and not some spy who had put cloroform over my mouth and was holding me for randsom in some underground lair.

i wanted to ask her if the phone books there were one or two pages. i wanted to ask her how many post offices there were in uganda since they had zero zip codes. i wanted to ask her how much a coke cost because thats my universal standard for the cost of living in a town. its fairly unscientific but… when i traveled around europe many moons ago in some towns a coke was a buck in some two bucks.

her voice was so clear and sweet. it sounded like she was doing well. she asked if she had gotten my text message and i hadnt. fuck! and then she was gone. no call backs cuz i didnt have her number.

i have caller id that speaks to you. in the old days it would have been my voice that would have said chris. but when its an out of the area number its the built in voice that says “this call is out of the area”. so i blow it off. i should always sleep with the phone next to me from now on since i have so many questions to ask her.

mostly i want to know how i can help. i always want to help. ive had a lot of jobs over the years and one thing that the mean bosses have misunderstood about me is at my core i want to help. im all about customer service. im also about telling people to fuck off if theyre fuckers but im mostly about helping. i dont think theres anything better than the behind the back bounce pass unless its the through the legs and through the defenseman’s legs bounce pass. and to me its the dude who makes the pass whose the star not the dude who gets the pass and lays it up.

and thats why steve nash should get the mvp this year, for the second year in a row. although mr ron artest is making a strong case for himself as before he was traded to the kings they were in dead last. now theyre poised to get the 7th slot in the playoffs with the lakers likely to get the final slot, and dont expect the kings to get knocked out immediately like my hometeam probably will.

its good friday and i miss you chris and i miss you wrigley and i miss you isla vista and i miss karisa and i will be having lunch with her at 1pm which means this will definately be a good friday.

just a girl + this day in black history + my gum job

after a suprise wedding in Malibu, may i present to you The Browns!

for a pulitzer.

sux.

woke up with clippergirl next to me this morning. she was playing with what little hair i have.

you have the longest eyelashes for a boy she told me.

i mumbled something about carrottop and rolled over.

she said no no no its early lets seize the day, lets maul the morning.

i swear to you she said maul the morning.

please tony please lets actually do something today. ive been good.

upon reflection it turned out she had been good. so i told her that we could do anything that she wanted today.

she asked anything?

i worried for a second and said, sure, why not. anything.

and a full eight minutes later she kissed me on the cheek and then asked me what i wanted to do today.

i told her that i wanted to go to hollywood park but it was closed.

she said, what about santa anita?

i said, i thought you didnt want to rack up miles on your miata.

she said, fuck the miata, lets go to the races!

went to the track. im a mess at the track cuz all i want to do is drink and swear. and take pictures.

clippergirl says ive been annoying with my new camera lately taking pictures of every damn thing, so she asked if we could give the camera a day off. i told her it was palm sunday and how great would it be to take pictures of palm trees today.

she told me how great it would be to just enjoy the day, like adults, holding hands, drinking white wine, watching the horses with the san gabriel mountains in the background.

i reminded her that she was a cheerleader and i was in the xbi, therefore if anyone deserved to shun age it was us, and put on my gwar shirt, she put on her pleated skirt and we gave the finger to adulthood.

clippergirl however persuaded me to put on a different shirt and we went to the track.

as could have been predicted we lost all our gambling money after the third race. im not a good bettor. fortunately our drinking money wasnt even close to being drained.

when i was just at the point of either being too drunk to drive or just buzzed enough to deal with being at the races without betting, she started asking me questions that i only hear when she is one wine past drunk.

do you love me tony?

of course i do.

who do you love the most?

my mom.

who do you love love the most?

chris.

still?

shes only gotten better with age.

who do you love the least?

probably anna kournikova.

why would you say that?

i only love her for the material.

on a scale of one to ten, how much do you love me?

i brought my right hand to my nose, looked up into the blue sky, sniffed and said, eight and a half.

and i’d be lying if i didnt tell you that it was a quiet ride back home in that miata.

no one takes pics like raymi

“Love Explosion” – the second single off Band Girls Money (now available in the UK)
“Startime” – my favorite song off the cd – created by an 18-yr old fan!!!

i guess that serves me right since i wasnt very good to my last ones.

but still, i put out, chicks oughtta be banging down my door.

and i like romance like the slow jamz, and fireplace fires, and makeout competitions, and breakfast (burritos) in bed.

i dont cheat, i dont lie, i dont blog about the relationship. i know cool people. i have a decent record collection. i dont do that many kinky things in bed. on the floor is a different story, however.

maybe i need to go to more bars to meet the ladies instead of thinking that theyre just gonna come to me off this blog. like theyve done in the past. like they will in the future.

its gorgeous here in LA, 80 degrees maybe, but i have a flannel on. i went to mcdonalds for lunch and the lady didnt speak english cuz i was in a mexican neighborhood. they have this new machine there that chops up the potatoes and turns them into french fries and even loads them into the basket for you. i heart mcdonalds.

karisa keeps telling me not to eat there but sometimes when karisa tells you things youre just mezmorized by her hotness and nothing gets through. i’ll pretend that thats whats going on, but any time i eat anything its one of those wwks – what would karisa say. i heart her too. girls should wanna bone me and be my gf just so they could meet karisa.

i watched the two parts of The Ten Commandments yesterday. quite a daunting task to take on the cc deville classic. or to take on chuck heston. i cant say it was better than the original but it did try to keep more things closer to the bible, but it missed a lot too.

for example during the Let My People Go portion where Pharoah got all the plagues sent to Egypt for not letting Moses and the jews leave they totally left out the huge part that Pharoah wanted to free them but God hardended his heart.

the way they showed it on tv it was like this

Moses: dude let us leave here.
Pharoah: f you slave.
Moses: you know im not really a slave. technically yes, but come on.
Pharoah: kiss my ass.
Moses: Gods gonna fuck shit up if you dont let them go.
Pharoah: Bring it fuck.

But in the bible it was way more like this

Moses: dude let my people go
Pharoah: wtf
Moses: seriously
Pharoah: well i am rich, you guys did stoke us for hundreds of years, you know what fine.
Moses: cool
[God hardens Pharoahs heart]
Pharoah: on second thought f you Moses.
Moses: wtf?
Pharoah: yeah kiss my ass and kiss my bald son’s ass
Moses: oh no thou didnt. fine. youre gonna pay and your son’s gonna pay
Pharoah: whatevs. jew.

in my opinion the Bible tells the better story.

also in the new tv movie the parting of the red sea was more like a tidal wave on a beach. this is 2006 is that the best special effects the religious right could flow you? sheesh.

either way i watched the whole thing. im a sucker for bible stories, bible movies, tv evangelists, pretty much anything bible-related. except for this new Book of Judas nonsense and of course the wickety wack Davinci Code.

simply put, if Jesus wanted to bang chicks and have a family he woulda done it. He did anything He wanted to do anyways including working on the Sabbath, why wouldnt he have done something that wasnt illegal like having a wife? i hope the film bombs.

top photo by aj goddard + middle photo by snowsmiles

right before the Washington Nationals home opener he was roundly and loudly booed.

if you watch the video you will see that the outraged increased when he wusses out and throws the ball from in front of the mound instead of from the actual rubber.

i know the man has heart problems, and is old, but the distance from the rubber and the plate is 60 feet, six inches. if you cannot throw a baseball 60 feet six inches you shouldn’t waddle out to the middle of the field.

often times when women throw out the first pitch they do it from the first row of the stands to an awaiting catcher 30-40 feet away.

ive seen senior citizens take the mound and throw the ball over the plate.

perhaps if the Vice President’s bullet-proof vest is on too tight he should loosen it, or better yet, load a baseball into a specially designed rifle and shoot it.

for such a macho man, for such a tough talker, for someone so interested in showing whose boss in the world, he should have known that throwing the first pitch from in front of the mound is like riding a bicycle as an adult with training wheels. there is no way to look cool, there is no way to pull it off, and all you will incur is wrath pity and ultimately insult.

is no one listening to karl rove over there? surely he would have advised against such nonsense.

the rules of throwing the first pitch are simple: take the rubber, wave at the fans, dont forget to wave at the fans behind you in the bleachers, look in to the catcher, shake off a sign, wind up like either Luis Tiant or Fernando Venzuela, and aim high so as to get the ball over the plate without bouncing it.

children know this.

and when you get the ball back from the catcher and walk off the field either hand the ball over to a young child, or toss it behind your back to a hottie in the front row.

next week, mr vice president, i will show you how to pull out of a quagmire without spending another trillion dollars that you dont have.

in the Scratch My Back & I’ll Scratch Yours dept: all the people who write a sentence or two in their blog about The Official Coachella Blog being on Buzznet (and then link to it) will in turn get a link to their blog on the busblog either at the end of one of my upcoming posts, or if its a really sweet sloppy kiss, over on the left hand side as “tony’s specials”.

just let me know you did it in either the comments or via email. busblog at gmail