But was he right: So all this Easterbrook nonsense convinced me to go see Kill Bill Saturday night. Just how bad could it be, right? I mean I can take violence and gore, whether it's "realistic," like the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, or cartoonish violence a la Tarantino. I'm even on board for the occasional slasher flick (I just watched the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre a few weeks ago: cool!). So my reaction to KB: Fuck you, Quentin! Give me my $7.50 back.

Let's see, every gory, limb-hacking, blood spewing scene gets dragged out long enough to make you wonder if they left anything on the floor, one character in two hours is given any detail, the plot is barely alluded to, occasionally, in a weak attempt to justify the most sickening violence imaginable, and all we get at the end is Tarantino's mocking snicker as it's revealed that you've got to shell out more money to see the sequel just to find out why hell these people are all intent on killing each other (it ruins nothing to reveal that KB is only the setup, since anyone thinking person not prepared to sit in the theater for four hours can figure out after 30 minutes that he'll never finsih the story in one flick).

Tarantino has got plenty of talent, a great eye for visuals, and the guts to make a film that disturbs you a little, and make you like it. Sometimes it's just making you sing along with his soundtrack. How disturbing was it to find yourself bopping along to the "ooga chaka, ooga chaka" of "Stuck in the Middle With You" in Reservoir Dogs. Great moment. Or the overdose scene in Pulp Fiction, when Uma Thurman get the adrenaline needle into the heart. Disturbing, but the story justifies it. That's what happens when somebody OD's on heroin.

But KB doesn't even pretend to justify the violence with any backbone. It's just purley offensive dreck. Tarantino's ego has apparently gotten so big he believes every precious scene, every clever line, every gross out decapitation must be preserved to get the artisitic vision just right. But if that vision begins and ends with buckets of blood splashing across the screen, it's not one I'm interested in.

For the record, I don't have any money-hungry Jew criticism to throw on top. Tarantino and Pulp Fiction made Miramax, so Eisner and the Weinsteins are just a bit compromised. And they knew it would be a money maker, but you don't have to be Jewish to put out bad movies for the sake of profit.