I like Reservoir Dogs as much, perhaps even more because of the insane tension of the 'ear' scene and its overall cleverness and raw feel. Pulp Fiction was more slick, which is not a criticism, simply a natural evolution of what QT was up to at that time. I don't think I've seen anything else of his; I ought to search it out. Harvey Keitel deserves mention too, particularly as he was instrumental in getting Tarantino his big break.

Yeah, Reservoir Dogs is a good movie too. It didn't stick in my mind as much as Pulp Fiction did though...
I seem to remember Jackie Brown isn't a bad movie, but it's been years since I saw it so don't quote me on that...
I wasn't a huge fan of Kill Bill though.

Jackie Brown was based on an Elmore Leonard novel, (if you like crime novels and haven't read him, he's good) and I prefer Tarantino when you get Tarantino throughout, screenplay as well. I recall seeing it, now I think of it, and liking it. I love the way Tarantino uses (used) actors who have been out of the limelight or whose star has waned, or just uses them against type, which is something I'm sure the actors enjoy. He has a distinctive approach and based on my limited knowledge of his films I think he does a good job.

I'm not generally a fan of crime novels, mostly just fantasy I stick too.
The casting is always great in his movies. I think it's a shame that actors these days have a kind of shelf life, and once they've been in a big movie they are in everything for a few years, but then you never see them again (although, having said that.. in some cases that's not a bad thing :/ )
It would be good if more directors did that kind of thing and choose their casts from a wider pool than just whoever is currently popular and in favour...
I was just looking at his credits on Wiki and I could have sworn he'd done more stuff... but I suppose a lot of the things might have been ones he's been associated with rather than strictly directing it.

I agree that the flavour of the month club dominates too much when putting the cast of a film together. Marketing can really screw up the natural development of art. In publishing, genre titles (fantasy, sci-fi, horror, romance, crime) are heavily influenced by word count because a book of 'X' thousand words sells £8.99 or whatever, which to me is ludicrous. If a genre title comes in at too much under its less likely to be taken on. A trilogy or series is big too because you then have a captive market who will hopefully keep spending to complete the series. I suppose its a case of everyone mutually scratching backs, but coming from the creative side of things I'd prefer a little more respect for ideas and where they come from.

Yeah, publishers are looking to fill a formula of whatever's popular at that moment; whether that's gory and violent, full of sex scenes, aimed at teenagers or whatever else. And it has to fit within a certain length, too short or too long and they don't want it.
I do like a good trilogy, and I find when I plan a story it tends to naturally gravitate towards that format (but that's probably because it's what I'm used to reading) but I know what you mean, sometimes you wonder what people might write if they weren't thinking it's got to be a trilogy so it will get published / sell well. Sometimes you feel a book would have worked better as a standalone novel rather than being dragged out into three just for the sake of it, or that it might be better with more detail and time and spread over more books.
We have Lord of the Rings to blame for that I think... :)

Lord of the Rings I feel is an exception, and your smile indicates you might feel the same way. Its simply a separate beast from everything else, even from the books and films it inspired and still inspires. It doesn't rest on hallowed ground, it is hallowed ground.

I can't recall how many times I've read a book and thought, 'Jeez, when is this thing going to end?' The waffle I've had to wade through because of 'unit size' could fill a small library, and worse than that, it encourages the great windbags of our age to keep right on blowing. I don't think Stephen King has written anything in the last six or eight decades that couldn't have been circumcised with a very large knife and not been any different. When I see his latest title in a bookshop with a sticker that says £5 OFF I always wonder if they're referring to its physical weight. Fortunately I gave up on him a long time ago, but the thought still wryly crosses my mind.

I mainly meant that everyone writes trilogies and expects fantasy books to be a certain length because of LoTR, because it was so successful and so well loved everything since has pretty much been in imitation of it. The irony being that LoTR was never actually meant as a trilogy.

I've never really read any Stephen King, because I'm a massive wuss when it comes to horror stuff. To be honest I read a short story of his in an anthology and thinking about it still freaks me out, so I have no desire to try any of his works in case of mental scarring...

I really struggle to find decent stuff to read these days as most of my favourite authors have either stopped writing or have deteriorated greatly.. Joe Abercrombie is probably my current favourite as his books are gripping and interesting without being too long or too short.

I take it, you've already been through all of Pratchett's considerable body of work?

If not, start reading, NAO!

In other news.

Imma lost in that labyrinth under Crete and have no yarn!

Interesting you mention Joe Abercrombie. My better half is an art director for a 'fashion' magazine and part of her job is to do location shoots where models wearing a selection of garments can lounge about looking like models lounging about. Joe Abercrombie's house happened to be put forward as a possible location choice and she went there to get the required images. He wasn't around (I don't blame him, to be honest - shoots like that are amazingly dull).

I've never read Stephen King myself, but I knew someone who said that he was going to make himself a t-shirt that'd read "I read IT; the whole thing!"
He then told me about how he'd read a couple of pages, dedicated exclusively to telling the life of a street sweeper, who has no significance to the plot whatsoever and is NEVER mentioned again.

Lol. Shame she didn't get to meet him, I read his blog occasionly too and he seems like a very nice guy (drinks a lot of whiskey and plays RPGs, so he'd fit right im here ;) )
Can't blame him for not being there though, doesn't sound like much fun... does he have a particularly nice house?

Making money was still pretty damn good.

But I shall wear midnight and snuff were significantly weaker.

I still shake my head at the fact that the major plot point of I shall wear midnight was based on grammatical ambiguity.

Yeah, making money was good. To be honest after the first Tiffany book I found the others a bit poor. I wish he'd stuck with writing proper witches books as Nanny, Granny and Magrt are much better characters. I can't really remember I shall wear midnight at all...

Rereading Snuff right now. It's an ok book, but not really up there with his greatest stuff (of which most of the watch books are)