Thursdays are the days before our theater changes their films, so the new arrivals are ready for the weekend crowd. So tonight (or last night, now) was our last opportunity for Return of the King. Only third viewing for me, fourth for the wife, and at least six for eldest son.

Which was followed almost immediately by our first viewing of Kill Bill.

Now, I hate Uma Thurman. And all I know about Tarantino is that he directed Pulp Fiction, and I hated that enough to not actually have watched much of it. And we already knew this is just half a movie. Not the first of a series of two. Just the first half of a long movie.

So you would expect us to hate it.

And the wife did. As did Chuck, who seemed embarrassed to have shown it.

But despite all the omens, I expected to enjoy the film. And I did.

Yes, it was horribly bloody. But I have seen things with their legs blown off. Watched blood gush from a severed throat. Yes, it is nothing like what Tarantino showed, in either volume or distance, but it is nothing as neat and clean as shown in so many other sword films, either.

My impression from the whole thing is that Tarantino has a whole bunch of ideas for neat scenes he wants to shoot, and does not have the patience to wait for an appropriate film or story to shoot them.

Instead, he shoots all of his ideas, and ties them together. Like a gaudy quilt of patches made from sentimental family garments, rather than any uniform design or plan. Certainly not much plot. The big "surprise" kicker at the end? Wife and I each saw that coming when Uma's character was still in hospital.

So, if you take this as a linear collection of extremely violent music videos, or cinema shorts, then some of them are actually quite good.

The lethal sword fight (who am I kidding... they all were lethal fights) in the snow-covered Japanese garden, with new flakes gently falling and a fountain quietly burbling in the background? That, I would like to see again. But not much else.

And Uma?

Loved her, as I expected to (dang it). Her performance was never quite melodrama, never quite tongue-in-cheek, both of which would have been real easy in this film. Although there were a couple fight scenes where you could tell she was going through the motions... "stand on one leg and swing the other around behind you"... rather than a disciplined control of every movement of her body.

Had high hopes for Daryl Hannah as a villain. Not enough of her character in Part 1 to decide how I liked her.

And Julie Dreyfus. Yet another brunette to fall infatuated with. (And yes, I know she was in the Matrices... but I wasn't impressed, there.)

Almost six hours straight of cinema (with a little exercise in between to change theaters). And hence no dinner. Still a good evening.

I would liked to have seen Return of the King in a theater one more time, though.