I assure you I meant to say “staring at Rosario Dawson as any other painful event occurs would make that event less painful.”

I will now go back to talking to my computer in Javascript.

But surely that it got destroyed with Rosario Dawson inside of it blunted the blow a bit, yes?

The only other thing about Death Proof is that QT sets it up so you don’t realize it’s a 70’s car flick until about 2/3rds the way through… then you get a big moment of realization.

Of the two, Death Proof was more authentic and less tongue in cheek about its source material. I can’t argue if you enjoyed Planet Terror more, but Death Proof wasn’t paced incorrectly for its intentions.

But here’s the thing about Death Proof w/r/t Grindhouse. Tarantino cheated. I went to see a film that reveled in the exploitation of the bad drive-in double feature. Planet Terror took the assignment and ran whole hog with it, turning the camp into joyous, splattery art.

Death Proof has a gem of a 70s exploitation concept, and then squanders it on meandering Tarantino dialogue about nothing. Grindhouse wasn’t supposed to be about slow burn. It was supposed to be about the adrenaline. QT figured it out in the last twenty minutes, but before that? I just wanted to see Planet Terror again.

But Jackie Brown? Fantastic film. That movie didn’t need an editor, it needed about 100 awards. I’ll accept a “Pulp Fiction was a better film” argument as a matter of taste, but otherwise, Jackie Brown is the hsit.

Jackie Brown was terribly boring.

“Pulp Fiction” is one of those movies you either really like or really hate. No middle ground.

While we’re on the subject of movies, allow me to plug one I saw a few weeks ago at the MD Film Festival: “Funny Bones” (1995). A failed American comedian goes to Britain, where he spent part of his childhood, to find new material – and learns interesting things about his family. (Jerry Lewis plays his dad, also a comic.) He also discovers a British comic who makes Andy Kaufman look tame. Despite the title, this is more of a drama than comedy. Almost nobody saw this in theatres, and it’s a damn shame…

As for Kill Bill…about the only thing I would cut out would be the scene with Bill’s father-figure. Which is well-acted, but doesn’t tell me as much about Bill as what we’ve already learned and will learn shortly.

And I rather wish they’d included the fight between Carradine and Michael Jai White.

I’m faithful to “Pulp Fiction,” as it almost literally saved my life (I first saw it after a major heartbreak). “Jackie Brown” was destined to be a letdown in the adrenalin-rush wake of “Pulp Fiction” (and Tarantino’s segment of “Four Rooms”). That picture does tend to drag in places. “Kill Bill,” OTOH, is QT’s masterpiece, best appreciated if you’re familiar with the 1970’s action and kung-fu flicks that inspired it. (The Shaw Bros.’ Shawscope logo opens “Vol. 1″ for a reason!)

And only QT could make it cool to listen to Georghe Zamfir…

That said, if I was worth $3 billion, I would end my movies when I damn well felt like it, too.