Must admit that I've been agonising over what to say about Tarantino's latest effort. I had my reservations as anyone who visited my blog yesterday will know but sat down with my mind firmly set on 'pop corn movie' and hoping at least to be entertained.
It's not that it was one of what I like to call 'three star-er's' ie a film that is OK, not brilliant but not terrible. Three star-er's don't make me agonise over what to say about them. I suppose the key problem is that it is both brilliant and terrible.
Brilliant because, as Mark Kermode says in his review for Radio 5, which I've linked to below, Tarantino has an incredible skill with set pieces of dialogue. There are some great performances as a result.
But terrible because it is way too long and indulgent and if Tarantino had been sat next to me I would have slapped him and told him to get over himself.
There weren't many people in the cinema as it was a weekday matinee but one person walked out three quarters of the way through and at the end someone actually applauded which I think says it all.
And, I know Waterbaby disagreed with a comment that Ginger Sister made on my last post about the gratuitous violence well I think that a lot of the violence is gratuitous, in this film. I had to look at the seat next to me on a number of occasions.
Here are some other reviews but I'd just like to point out that I've singled out Mark Kermode because on this film his views are on the money and I don't very often feel that way about a review.
Mark Kermode - Pretty much summed up above really
Guardian - Quentin Tarantino
is having what Martin Amis readers might call a "Yellow Dog" moment -
something which happens when, following a worrying, mid-to-late period
of creative uncertainty, a once dazzlingly exciting artist suddenly and
catastrophically belly-flops, to the dismay of his admirers
And the movie blog (video embedded below) Summed up starts out great but not enough action and too long