Jake was keen to go see the latest Tarantino, and our plan to go tonight turned out messy as we both got sick, and a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend came to stay the night. Some last-minute wrangling saw us commit to the project, though I hadn't processed the fact that he'd bought tickets to the Hoyts in the Broadway Shopping Centre when I gleefully managed to park Betty just a couple of blocks down the road from the George St cinemas. The good thing about her is that it's easy to do a U-turn even on these busy roads. It further turned out that he hadn't remembered that the tickets were for the 9pm session, so it worked out after all; we had time for a beer and a light dinner in Sappho's courtyard.
I enjoyed some parts of this, though it is a long way from the masterpiece that being #39 in the IMDB top-250 would suggest. The scene where Tarantino, sporting an Australian accent, gets blown up was priceless. I found the early parts atypically predictable, perhaps because I'd read too many reviews.
A. O. Scott at the New York Times tells you more than you need to know. Dana Stevens was right to be bored at times. Anthony Lane and David Denby unpack it at the New Yorker.