Thursday, June 04, 2009

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

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"You're not a bad person. You're a terrific person.
You're my favorite person, but every once in a while...
you can be a real cunt."

"How do I look?"

"You look ready."


Yesterday I was considering devoting today's episode of this series to David Carradine's death scene in Kill Bill Vol. 2 after reading this article on the greatest death scenes (via Nat), but then I changed my mind; I'd come up with another idea and this scene would always be there to get to. It's one of my favorites.

But now that David Carradine has been found dead by apparent suicide... well I decided this was a nice tribute to him. Not that I'm terribly familiar with his work (I don't think you can say you are familiar with him if you've never seen an episode of Kung Fu, and I've never seen any of Kung Fu) but I could believe it when people called this his finest hour. He was wonderful, just wonderful, in this film. So RIP, David Carradine. You were never nice in your whole life, but you did your best to be sweet.

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Previous Ways Not To Die: Nipple Injected Blue Junk -- Your Pick Of The Deadly Six -- Thing Hungry -- Don't Fuck With The Serial Killer's Daughter -- DO Forget To Add The Fabric Softener -- Any Of The Ways Depicted In This Masterpiece Of Lost Cinema -- Rode Down In The Friscalating Dusklight -- Good Morning, Sunshine! -- Mornin' Cuppa Drano -- The Cylon-Engineered Apocalypse -- Tender-Eye-zed -- Martian Atmospheric Asphyxiation -- Maimed By A Mystical Person-Cat -- The Sheets Are Not To Be Trusted -- Handicapable Face-Hacked -- I Did It For You, Faramir -- Summertime In The Park... Of A Pedophile's Mind -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 3 -- Strung Up With Festive Holiday Bulbs By Santa Claus Himself -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 2 -- A Vengeful Elevator God: Part 1 -- Decapitated Plucked Broiled & Sliced -- Head On A Stick! -- A Trip To The Ol' Wood-Chipper -- Pointed By The T-1000 -- Sucking Face With Freddy Krueger -- A Pen-Full Of Home-Brewed Speed to The Eye -- Motivational Speech, Interrupted -- A Freak Ephemera Storm -- When Ya Gotta Go... Ya Gotta Go -- Hoisted By Your Own Hand Grenade -- Having The Years Suction-Cupped Away -- Criss-Cross -- Turned Into A Person-Cocoon By The Touch Of A Little Girl's Mirror Doppleganger -- Satisfying Society's "Pop Princess" Blood-Lust -- Done In By The Doggie Door -- Tuned Out -- Taking the 107th Step -- Rescuing Gretchen -- Incinerated By Lousy Dialogue -- Starred & Striped Forever -- Vivisection Via Vaginally-Minded Barbed-Wire -- Chompers (Down There) -- Run Down By M. Night Shyamalan -- Everything Up To And Including The Kitchen Toaster -- Sacrificed To Kali -- Via The Gargantuan Venom Of The Black Mamba Snake -- Turned Into An Evil Robot -- The Out-Of-Nowhere Careening Vehicle Splat -- "Oh My God... It's Dip!!!" -- Critter Balled -- Stuff'd -- A Hot-Air Balloon Ride... Straight To Hell!!! -- Puppy Betrayal -- High-Heeled By A Girlfriend Impersonator -- Flip-Top Beheaded -- Because I'm Too Goddamned Beautiful To Live -- By Choosing... Poorly... -- Fried Alive Due To Baby Ingenuity -- A Good Old-Fashioned Tentacle Smothering -- Eepa! Eepa! -- Gremlins Ate My Stairlift -- An Icicle Thru The Eye -- Face Carved Off By Ghost Doctor After Lesbian Tryst With Zombie Women -- Electrocuted By Fallen Power-Lines -- A Mouthful Of Flare -- Taken By The TV Lady -- Bitten By A Zombie -- Eaten By Your Mattress -- Stuffed To Splitting -- Face Stuck In Liquid Nitrogen -- Crushed By Crumbling Church Debris -- Bitten By The Jaws Of Life -- A Machete To The Crotch -- Showering With A Chain-Saw -- In A Room Filled With Razor Wire -- Pod People'd With Your Dog -- Force-Fed Art -- Skinned By A Witch -- Beaten With An Oar -- Curbed -- Cape Malfunction -- In The Corner -- Cooked In A Tanning Bed -- Diced -- Punched Through The Head -- Bugs Sucking On Your Head
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3 comments:

anon said...

"So RIP, Keith Carradine."--QUICK--fix this and then delete my comment ;o)

Jason Adams said...

anon, thank you for the heads-up; I fixed it but feel no need to erase history. I'm not Hitler! I can live with my mistakes being known. ;-)

Dr. Stan Glick said...

Thank you so much for this. it's a wonderful tribute. I was in grad school when the original 'Kung Fu' was on TV and didn't watch it then. But I caught almost every episode in reruns and bought all the box sets of the series on DVD. I also watched 'Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.' But I think that his portrayal of 'Bill' - particularly the death scene you've so lovingly reproduced - was his finest performance. Grasshopper, you will be missed.