I suppose I'm one of the nitpickers or naysayers- but any criticisms I might have for KB stem from a reaction to QT's boosters, more than QT himself. His films have a hefty amount of influence, and can I help it if I want to like it more? Besides, I still like Jackie Brown best.
(sidenote: Beckham's married to Victoria something or other).
Yeah, they have a cute cameo at the end.
And after all is said and done, I still like Pulp Fiction the best, myself.
We were friends, Johnny-David, right up to the point where you said you weren't wild about Leone's movies.
Now you must die.
Bring it on, my friend, bring it on. I won't be the only one dyin' tonight. 
It's not that I don't "like" or appreciate Leone films or others of that ilk, they just don't grab me as much as they do others. So don't kill me, just maim me a little!
Tut tut. Such ingratitude. After all the times I've saved your life.
(NAME IT!)
Nah, I'm just messing with you. This might explain why I liked Vol 2 better than Vol 1, though. I like the Leone films more than I like chop suey, even though I missed Sofie Fatale. Rarrr.
And this new blog design is... kickin', or slammin', or whatever the kids are saying these days.
Word. 
Besides, I was just trying out my High Plains Drifter persona.
"Were you gonna die alone?"
I saw The Good, The Bad, etc like four times in the past week, so I'm quoting it all over the place.
I enjoyed vol 1 more too, it had more energy and fun to it for mwah. But then, Gordon Liu's my man. I was surprised with how long Vol 2 was, I wonder if brother Bud's interlude in the strip club was always supposed to be in it?
You know, I never consider Pulp Fiction when I think of QT- but only because I haven't seen it for ages, and when I did, appreciated movies in a completely different way.
hcd: Yeah, like I said, padded. There really didn't seem to be much of a point to the strip club scene, unless it was just to set us up to think Budd was hard-up enough to pawn the Hatori sword.
Ken- actually, I'm long overdue to view all those films again: A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, and, of course, The Good , The Bad, and The Ugly. I'll have to keep an eye out on TV, or maybe look around at the video store sometime and see if I can rent 'em. And y'know, it would have been cool to see Sofie again, and I also missed Go-go Yubari. She was a great character.
Something I forgot to mention: I also got a charge out of the scenes with Pei-Mei, and how they were shot in that grainy style, like those 70s kung-fu flicks.
For me, QT films are about soaking in the dialogue and the way these characters interact. About 95% of what QT does in general is padding, anyway... imagine if you took out all the superfluous stuff in conversations from Pulp Fiction. You'd have a 20 minute movie. So me, I like padding. I could watch Carradine and Thurman talk all friggin' day, with those words coming outta their mouths.
Highly recommended: Once Upon a Time in the West. Leone's last western, to my knowledge, and more adult than the Dollars trilogy. Don't get me wrong, it's still western-fantasy, it just feels more.. grown up. Better music, too.
I've heard a lot about Once Upon a Time.... The last opportunity I had to see it, though, was a long time ago...uncut, anyway. Again, I'll keep an eye out. Not literally, of course, that's for Elle Driver.
You just know she'll be back if QT ever makes a sequel...
And I certainly don't mind padding, as long as it's as clever and well-written as in Pulp Fiction and the Kill Bill films.
I guess I'm one of those complainy people, David, so I won't weigh in much on Kill Bill, as I've already said way more than I probably should. I found it an entertaining and amazingly frustrating movie.
Bend it like Beckham, though, is probably the movie I've seen most often in the last year, because it's suitable for just about any group of people. I really enjoy it and while it's predictable, it has a lot of depth and honesty and warmth lacking in many such teen-triumph stories. I think it's great fun!
Bend It was great. Yeah, predictable; but so what? The performances in this movie were spot on... and I'm fairly eager to see what Nagra's doing next. She's got natural charisma.
Ken: I like his dialogue too. He has that special problem some of the 'auteur' filmmakers have. Which is, its not like they make bad scenes, per se, as a good scene just repeats other parts of the film. Which explain all these 2 hour + films lately. Vol 2. could be, hem, sharper. I imagine its harder to cut stuff thats good than scenes that don't work.
Which is weird complaint for me to have, since The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is 3 hours and amazing in the restored version I recently saw.
Anyway, keep that eye out for 'House of Flying Daggers'- though I don't know when that'll come to the US, its a good pure fun martial arts movie. Or Tsui Hark's Blade, a remake of the Shaw Brothers "One-Armed Swordsman". Or...
I'd better stop.
I still have yet to see Bend It or the second Kill Bill.. one of these days.
It was interesting because I saw a Fistfull of Dollars after Yojimbo (which it was based on). Both are good in their own ways, but be sure to see Yojimbo if you haven't yet.
BTW, as far as sports titles with some heart, I have to always bring up the anime TV series Princess Nine, about a female baseball team. A lot of people missed it when it came out on DVD, but just about anyone I know of that has seen it has really enjoyed it. Can also get an amazing deal on the box set for it...
Commenting by HaloScan
