We dragged ourselves out for a late night showing of Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino’s, despite generally being unimpressed by QT’s films, and downright despising Inglorious Basterds. (In fact, as that movie left us sympathetic to Nazis, we were rather afraid to go see Django Unchained.)

Why? Well, that’s a good question. I guess because I feel like I should like QT and he wouldn’t be the first director who went off the rails as he went along; indeed, increasing self-indulgence is the hallmark of our great modern directors (which is why they’re not as great as they might be).

And, it’s a funny thing: Pulp Fiction contains all the hallmarks of QT’s quirkiness, and yet, somehow, it all kind of works. The Boy loved it and I did not hate it.

Roughly, this is the story of two hitmen going about their day, with some tangents involving a gangster’s moll, a down-and-out boxer, and the hitman’s boss. If I were to bullet-point it (and I shall, just watch me):

• It features QT’s signature “long, pointless and inappropriate” dialogues. But these dialogues are genuinely amusing or at least engaging.
• It features QT’s foot fetish, though rather obliquely.
• The actresses are odd looking. That’s kind of endearing, I think.
• It’s long, but it moves briskly.
• There is a contrived chase that ends up with the characters jeopardized by a random third party. This has a point, even though it is silly.
• QT himself is in the film, but this actually isn’t an irritant. (At least it wasn’t to me; I know fans of his films who hate his presence on screen.) And he actually doesn’t look awful.
• No bad-ass chick fights. (I’m sort neutral on this but it does see to be a trademark.)