Kill Bill, Volume 1

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Year Released: 2003
Rating: 3.5

Everybody's been going on about dividing this three-hour camp-epic into two parts, but I see it as the absolutely correct move: there's just too much of, well, everything to stomach this kind of thing for that long (as a matter of fact, this one ends just in time). Will probably divide audiences into those that 'get' it and those that don't, and those that have a sense of humor might find some of the black comedy and in-joke movie references truly inspired. Tarantino's ongoing obsession with redemption is now mixed in with the idea of children affected by their elders' (parents or adults in general) misbehavior (Q.T.'s childhood wasn't the smoothest); he's also into empowering women and castrating men (limbs are everywhere; one young lad has his full-length samurai sword hacked to shreds). Say what you want about Tarantino's acting, but his comic-book writing style and just-go-with-it energy are almost unmatched - he's some sort of savant-genius.