From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V4 #123 Reply-To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Sender: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk chakram-refugees-digest Sunday, May 2 2004 Volume 04 : Number 123 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [chakram-refugees] Fwd: [XN] another Zoe Bell interview (Lucy mention) [c] Re: [chakram-refugees] Fates Again [cr ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 1 May 2004 20:43:39 +1200 From: cr Subject: [chakram-refugees] Fwd: [XN] another Zoe Bell interview (Lucy mention) Posted by kind permission of the original poster... I found it unintentionally hilarious in spots. cr ... I can't really get used to being hit by a car. You are constantly fighting your instincts to run away. - Zoe Bell http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/entertainmentstorydisplay.cfm?storyID=3563732 Uma saved by Bell, the fight scene queen 01.05.2004 By FEDERICO MONSALVE A quick word with Zoe Bell, stuntwoman to the stars, whose CV includes doing Uma Thurman's rough stuff in the Kill Bill movies as well as enduring a 67m freefall for Sharon Stone and dying at least twice for Lucy Lawless. Q. So what's Tarantino like then? A. Oh the guy is fantastic. Kill Bill Vol I was the first movie I worked on so I don't have much to compare it to but he is just the most energetic man I know. He made everything interesting because he was so passionate and enthusiastic and, I must admit, we connected over the fact he cusses all the bloody time. Q. How much screen time did you get in Kill Bill? A. On the first episode, shitloads. Not so much on the second because there is much more character development on that one, a lot more script- driven scenes. I remember watching the films with my dad and I would squeeze his arm every time I was on, and there was definitely a lot more arm squeezing on the first episode. Q. How much do you get paid to do the hard work while Uma sits there wiggling her toes? A. [Laughing] Let's not go there. I would make a lot of people pissed off if I say how much I earn per film. Let's just say the standard, union required rate here is about US$2000 ($3200) a week. On top of that there are adjustments for particularly difficult stunts, and then there are residuals, which are based on distribution and DVDs and stuff like that. Q. So what's Volume 2 like? A. They are quite different, they are both obviously Quentin, but I think this one will reach a broader audience. The first was quite shocking, the second might help people understand what it all means. Q. Have there been many adjustment payments lately? Have there been any particularly scary stunts you have had to perform? A. I can't really get used to being hit by a car. You are constantly fighting your instincts to run away. I do get a kick out of freefalls, though. But the thing is you are always so full of harnesses and safety equipment that it's quite okay. I did have an accident while filming Kill Bill Vol 2. I was being catapulted backwards and the landing mat was placed in the wrong place and I broke my wrist. It left me a bit shaken but it's part of the job, I guess. Q. The most embarrassing? A. Oh [giggles] my undies being flashed around happens all the time. I remember one of my boobs popping out while filming Xena and there is that thing about farting while you are in mid-air, yeah, well ... Q. You've been working alongside Sharon Stone in Catwoman how is that going? A. We finished shooting about a month ago. I enjoyed it like hell. She was quite respectful to me and what I do which is very, very rare in this town. I also had a chance to fall off a 26-storey building, jump through glass. Yeah, all that fun stuff. Q. Is their anyone's ass that you are just dying to kick? A. Oh man, that's a tough one. I know Quentin would love to get me in the ring but he would probably wipe the floor with me. I don't really know though - oh wait, Johnny Depp is a hottie. I could go for beating him up any day. Q. Any advice for anyone accidentally stapling their fingers together while at work? A. Be afraid, be very afraid! ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 1 May 2004 15:00:34 +1200 From: cr Subject: Re: [chakram-refugees] Fates Again On Sat, 01 May 2004 09:57, IfeRae@aol.com wrote: > Heh, I deleted a line from my post saying Xena wasn't "stupid," which is > what I thought she would've been to fight Caesar on the 0 in 100 > possibility that it would be the "magic" ingredient or "just because." > Alti's vision had already given her the clue to what Caesar thought that > ingredient was, which at least raised the odds above any other ingredient. > She was smart enough to use Alti (her enemy) for that key to the "past," > just as she had for the future during season 4. > > I'm not understanding why you think she should've spent time on some other > action, when the most likely answer was right in front of her. It seems > you believe protecting her image should've been more important to Xena than > achieving her larger goal. "Me beat up Caesar. That the only thing me > care about." Sorry, but "my" Xena was more strategic (smarter) than that. What's this 'protecting her image' business? Since when did I mention *anything* about that? That's idiotic. You think it was 'smart' for Xena to meekly allow Caesar to crucify her? The one thing that was sure to achieve was Xena Dead, Caesar Alive. Geez, my worst enemy should be 'smart' like that (She had no way of knowing Alti was going to off Caesar. And while I'm at it, why in Tartarus did Alti do that? That was utterly illogical, there was no conceivable reason why she would do that.) > She was willing to surrender to that same daughter, rather than fight back, > when she was about to let Eve skewer her. She surrendered to those folks in > Reckoning and Locked Up. She surrendered to Devil Callisto in Fallen > Angel. She was willing to surrender to death in Sins, to join Gabrielle. In each case she had a very good reason. She had absolutely _no_ reason (IMO) to let Caesar walk all over her in WFC. > I submit she essentially surrendered to Lord Morimoto (?) in AFIN. Absolutely not. She took out as much of his army as she possibly could. But look at the contrast with WFC - in FIN, she needed to get dead. But she didn't quietly off herself, she chose to go down fighting. > She had a different reason each time, but on the surface it looked like > she'd given up. She had no way of knowing that it wouldn't mean dying. She > did not fight back physically, which seems to be your sole definition for > not surrendering. Or perhaps you credit her with giving Caesar far more > importance than I do -- that she would rather kill him (or not allow him to > kill her) under any circumstances, than possibly focus on something beyond > him. "Me no need look for 'reason.' Me beat up Caesar." What I'm saying is, I don't swallow Fugate's argument that the crucifixion was obviously (to Xena) the really important thing. I can't see it. Caesar set up that world when he messed with the loom (did Xena know he messed with the loom? I can't recall). If ya wanna destroy that world then the most likely way to do it is to wreck the loom, next most likely is to off the guy who set it up - JC. Not just let him carry on doing more of the same. > I'm not even going to ask you to 'splain that. I might snort, which isn't > conducive to a respectful discussion. I would have thought it was obvious. Contrast one brief long shot of scantily-clad Amazons dancing round their campfire, vs three minutes of slow-motion close-ups of same.... would you reckon Version Two was no more 'exploitative' than Version One? > Okay, not how I see it, but that makes sense, even though Xenastaff are > quite willing to admit they exploited all types of genres and cultures and > legends, etc. to "spice up" XWP. > > > Not sure I'd know the difference between "build on" and "cash in," but I'll > go with it. Put it this way - if the first episode (The Debt) was a big production and an amazing artistic achievement (which most agree), and the sequel (Purity / BITB) was a very average episode i.e. not up to the standard of the original (which most agree), then they're 'cashing in'. Just as Family Affair was cashing in on Sacrifice, IMO, or Them Bones on Sin Trade. There's several other eps of which the same could be said. Vanishing Act was mostly just Royal Couple of Thieves, revised, for example. OTOH, if the sequel is as good or as dramatic as its precursor then I don't think that charge of 'cashing in' applies. For example, The Debt was building on a storyline begun in Destiny, Maternal Instincts was building on Gabs' Hope and Orphan of War, and Sacrifice was building on MI and the previous Callisto eps.... but I don't think 'cashing in' applies in any of those cases. Does that clarify it? > Well, it wasn't "quite by chance," in the sense that he was another person > who posed a threat, whom they wanted to warn others away from in the most > convincing of ways. My understanding is that the method of punishment > (e.g., imprisonment, stoning, crucifixion, being fed to lions, banishment, > etc.) were chosen quite thoughtfully, in terms of the message to be > conveyed. Them Romans had it down to an art. I don't mean the Romans stuck a pin in the interesting-ways-to-kill-people wallchart, I mean 'if circumstances had chanced to be such that they'd decided to let the Jews stone Jesus instead'. Which is quite a conceivable scenario, I think. > I suspect what they thought they could get away with at the time was a > factor. As I said, I don't make distinctions between degrees of > crucifixions, but you are explaining how you do. It's *how* it's portrayed that plays a large part in its shock value. I can illustrate better if I digress for a moment.... This is why Sam Peckinpah Westerns were notorious for their bloodthirstiness - - it wasn't that he killed more people, but that he dwelt on the bullets hitting people, blood spurting out, yadda yadda... Or, to take the opposite, the James Bond film 'Goldeneye' that I was watching the directors' commentary of a couple of days ago. They had some interesting comments to make on the subject of how they showed violence - they blew lots of things up and James Bond shot (or shot at) quite a lot of people in the course of escaping the KGB, blowing up the villain's command centre, etc - but they noted they never showed any blood, just stunt men falling off things and crashing through windows etc. It gives an entirely different tone to the film. > No "shock value" to seeing Xena hanging there like that? Impotent and > defeated? Mind you, I think it accomplished -- quite visibly for all the > world to see -- what crucifixions are supposed to. I'm surprised you don't > think it had "shock value" regardless of religious aspects. It did have an inherent shock value, yes. But TPTB were content to let it stand by itself so to speak. They could easily have increased the shock - e.g. by putting in lots of gory details - but they didn't. The scene was very short - cut to Xena on a cross, 'Break her legs', soldier swings hammer, Xena screams - cut. Given the plot point that Xena got crucified, they could hardly have made it any less melodramatic unless they did it offscreen. > But why? Why did Xena's tie to Caesar have to be on the cross? Why not > some battle where they fought a duel? Why not some situation where one of > them outmanuevered the other to gain key territory? Why did they add all > the obvious religious (and heavily Christian) references? What religious / Christian references? In Season 4? Oh yeah, Eli. Yeah I agree, Eli was exploitative and shoulda been omitted entirely. But he didn't get crucified and he wasn't party to the Vision, so I don't see the connection. > I loved season 4 > and Ides, but to me it was the most "exploitative" of all in terms of using > the > crucifixion. Not for me personally, but in terms of playing on the > emotions of those for whom the crucifixion has a larger meaning. Well, the Christian religion has waved crucifixions around for millennia, in about the same way that used-car dealers exploit the American flag. And Hollywood has exploited the daylights out of the bible for decades. Mel Gibson being the latest example. And Western 'culture' has never bothered about offending adherents of any other religion / society. So, I don't see why Christianity should be a privileged sacred cow (note the very common offensive-to-Hindu's phrase there :) in that regard. [Just personally, in fact, I have to thank TPTB. I had a lingering queasiness about crucifixions (quite unrelated to their inherent nastiness) which was undoubtedly a subconscious hangover from Sunday School. Even several viewings of Monty Python's Life of Brian didn't make it go away. But watching XWP cured me of it.] > More blood and violence to "soften" the blood and violence. Interesting > theory. Less "shock value"? I'm not feelin' it, but okay. Just think for a moment. Imagine that scene with the 'Caesar' bits edited out, so all you have is Gabs and Xena being crucified, uninterrupted. I think that might have been just too intense for many people (including me) to watch. Intercutting with *anything* diluted the intensity. Caesar getting stabbed was a less 'painful' scene than the crucifixion. And in fact, they didn't show that particularly graphically - the togas hid most of the action. > Not sure Xena would agree. Or Lucy. But I'll try to stay with ya. > > > < > climactic scene was an attempt to cash in on Ides.>> > > Um, actually, Fugate says the director wanted to "tie it" to Destiny and in > particular to Ides, but I'll go with your "cash in" interpretation. Re 'cash in', see my comments above :) > Fugate reminded me that the sex part was also in Ides, in Caesar's dream. Yes, but at the start of the ep, 40 minutes away from the crucifixion. > She didn't have that in her script for Fates. Again, that was the > director's idea. I agree, all the elements of "shock value," except > religion wasn't quite as prominent as in S4. > > Oh yeah, "I love you Gabrielle" (cringe). Subtext too. Everything > > _including_ the kitchen sink. ;) >> > > We had that in Ides too. I knew you'd say that :) But there was a good reason for it in Ides. Gabs was *there*. Much though I don't care for subtext, I have never complained about that moment in Ides. But in WFC? Gabs was nowhere to be seen. That was just gratuitous. It came out of the blue. > > Does that answer your question? > > Yep. On both "Me kill Caesar" and on what's "cross appropriate." "Cash > in" sounds like a more negative version of "tie in." It is. It all depends how well it's done. > Still shaky on > what's "scantily-clad Amazon appropriate," but I think I can factor > personal preferences into that well enough on my own. > > -- Ife Duh. In fact I always found the Amazons - or the scantily-clad dancers - more a distraction than an attraction. The Amazons I liked best were the Northern Amazons in Sin Trade (who were hardly showing any skin IIRC) and the Amazons in Amazon High simply 'cos their dancing was so enthusiastic. The scantily-clad dancers I like best are the Furies, at the start of that ep. cr ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V4 #123 **************************************