We rented Mystic River and Kill Bill Volume 2 this weekend, and while both were good, about 20 minutes of a third movie on cable almost stole the show. (More on that in a minute.) Mystic River was a well-acted, well-directed movie that I don’t believe I’d watch again. I was expecting, well… more. It was the movie equivalent of a Chalupa: it filled me up but I felt empty afterwards. KB2 was just long. Too much talking, not enough ass-whuppin’. Sure, the situations were interesting, but it could have been handled as one long movie minus a pile of the filler in between. Watching a showing of Reservoir Dogs on cable Sunday night put into contrast how overblown Tarantino got with KB2. Jackie Brown was an excellent, funny, adult movie, well written and directed, which got overlooked because it wasn’t Pulp Fiction 2. The momentum in KB2 sort of tuckered out weakly into lots of half-interesting dialogue, none of which had the snap and crackle of Jackie Brown or Pulp Fiction. I guess I’d recommend renting both in the series and watching them back to back, if at all.

The movie that stole the show was the Royal Tennenbaums, which we caught about 15min. of on Monday. All the best off-kilter ideas in another movie by the folks that brought you Rushmore, a personal top-10 favorite. We’re going to have to catch this on DVD at some point real soon.