I wanted to revive one if I could find it because I saw it again for the first time since 1994 in the company of friends, most of whom hadn't seen it but had wanted to for some time. So it was interesting judging not only how much I did or didn't remember from the film (I'd say I actually recalled a good three-quarters of it without effort, if not every individual line), but seeing how people judged it with fully fresh eyes. My favorite moment along those lines: "Oh, so *that's* where 'medieval on your ass' started. I've been saying that for years but never knew."
Seeing how much of what was in the film rapidly became shorthand for all sorts of useless films that followed was fascinating -- I was hardly surprised by that, it was just interesting to get that reconfirmed.
My favorite bit of trivia that I know about offhand -- the reason why Travolta wears the University of California, Santa Cruz shirt is because Tarantino's then-girlfriend Grace had graduated from there. I knew this because Grace was at grad school at UC Irvine the same time I was, also in the English/comp lit program. I didn't know her terribly well but Tarantino did come down there a few times and fellow students of ours met him at parties.
And yeah, still a great film. It's a crazy-quilt patchwork of all the stuff he geeked out on that became its own self-contained bit of brilliance, and there's not one thing wrong with that. And I was amused to realize Tarantino's foot fetish for Uma T. was already in full effect.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 27 January 2007 17:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Saturday, 27 January 2007 17:10 (seventeen years ago) link
― latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 27 January 2007 17:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Saturday, 27 January 2007 17:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 27 January 2007 17:18 (seventeen years ago) link
― timmy tannin (pompous), Saturday, 27 January 2007 17:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― cutty (mcutt), Saturday, 27 January 2007 17:40 (seventeen years ago) link
― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Saturday, 27 January 2007 17:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Saturday, 27 January 2007 17:47 (seventeen years ago) link
― Matt Olken (Moodles), Saturday, 27 January 2007 19:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 27 January 2007 19:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― timmy tannin (pompous), Saturday, 27 January 2007 19:53 (seventeen years ago) link
― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Saturday, 27 January 2007 20:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 27 January 2007 20:53 (seventeen years ago) link
― Matt Olken (Moodles), Saturday, 27 January 2007 21:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― mothers against celibacy (skowly), Saturday, 27 January 2007 21:07 (seventeen years ago) link
Pulp Fiction was not directed by Dreyer.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 27 January 2007 21:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― wogan lenin (dog latin), Saturday, 27 January 2007 21:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― acrobat (elwisty), Saturday, 27 January 2007 21:21 (seventeen years ago) link
Having watched it again for the first time in a long while, it was nice to hear the songs and quotes back in the context of the movie. "Let's Stay Together" is playing in the background while Marcellus is telling Butch to take the fall in the fight, right? I seem to remember thinking, and still do, "What a PERFECT daytime at a bar song. Just chillin'..."
― B.L.A.M. (Big Loud Mountain Ape), Saturday, 27 January 2007 21:37 (seventeen years ago) link
I enjoy the ride a lot.
― Hoosteen (Hoosteen), Saturday, 27 January 2007 22:07 (seventeen years ago) link
Great, great movie, despite all the shite that came in its wake.
― Soukesian (Soukesian), Saturday, 27 January 2007 22:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Saturday, 27 January 2007 22:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 27 January 2007 23:02 (seventeen years ago) link
Pulp Fiction is entertaining, but I missed the initial impact so it doesn't mean much to me and it suffers from Monty Python syndrome in a bad way (so tired of hearing quotes I don't want to watch it again).
― milo z (mlp), Saturday, 27 January 2007 23:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― Soukesian (Soukesian), Saturday, 27 January 2007 23:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― roger goodell (gear), Saturday, 27 January 2007 23:20 (seventeen years ago) link
I saw it on its opening weekend with a packed house. I'll never forget everyone's reaction at seeing the needle get plunged into Uma as well as everyone holding their breath as Butch makes it back up the stairs and almost out the door. Maybe the closest to an event movie that I've ever been to.
I've been catching it on cable recently. That QT/Keitel segment certainly hasn't aged well (Hello, Julia Sweeny.) I can't help but notice the bullet holes already in the wall before the guy comes out of the bathroom with his gun blazing. But it's still a great movie.
The thirty-second sequence with the toaster might be my favorite part of the movie. The smoke detector still going off as Butch walks back out into the courtyard...
― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Saturday, 27 January 2007 23:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 27 January 2007 23:44 (seventeen years ago) link
The next time I saw it was over whatever vacation was next -- Christmas? -- when I went with the friend I'd always seen movies with in high school, and by then it'd been hyped and they'd done SNL skits or whatever, and the theater was packed: it was that moment in a popular movie's theatrical life when there are people in the audience seeing it for the second time and shouting lines out or laughing in anticipation of the joke, alongside people who are only there because it's really popular and they want to know why. The difference in vibe was just really cool to notice -- it's not often I see a movie in the theater in such different circumstances. (Revival theaters seem to be dying off just in time to prevent me from seeing a revival of anything I saw when it was new.)
I went a long time without watching it because my ex got the video and I still don't have it on DVD, but it was on On Demand the other day ... and yeah, I understand the Python effect, but like Ned alludes, the joy of rewatching it is all those moments that haven't been made iconic, weren't relived throughout the nineties. Even the over-familiar parts, in a lot of cases it just demonstrated what a poor job the imitators did.
Though I think my favorite moment might actually be Travolta's apparently arbitrary attitude with Butch in the bar.
― Tep (ktepi), Saturday, 27 January 2007 23:51 (seventeen years ago) link
― latebloomer: crapness 2 the Nth degree (latebloomer), Saturday, 27 January 2007 23:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 28 January 2007 00:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― roger goodell (gear), Sunday, 28 January 2007 00:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― groovemaan (groove nihilist), Sunday, 28 January 2007 00:36 (seventeen years ago) link
― do i have to draw you a diaphragm (Rock Hardy), Sunday, 28 January 2007 00:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― timmy tannin (pompous), Sunday, 28 January 2007 00:44 (seventeen years ago) link
otm, they forget that his movies are essentially comedies-of-manners for underworld types not action movies
― latebloomer: crapness 2 the Nth degree (latebloomer), Sunday, 28 January 2007 00:45 (seventeen years ago) link
The Rodriguez section of that is great! I won't defend any of the rest of it.
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Sunday, 28 January 2007 00:49 (seventeen years ago) link
Would you like to see a leisurely paced Things to Do In Denver When You're Dead or Killing Zoe?
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 28 January 2007 01:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Sunday, 28 January 2007 01:11 (seventeen years ago) link
― timmy tannin (pompous), Sunday, 28 January 2007 01:12 (seventeen years ago) link
And ya gotta remember, almost no one involved was a name at that point - other than Travolta, who was a joke, the biggest names involved were Eric Stoltz, Rosanna Arquette, and (thanks to RES DOGS) Harvey Keitel - and there hadn't been a thousand other movies in which everyday-people gangsters sat around talking about cheeseburgers.
The sheer frequency of short sharp shocks was dizzying, and while I'm firmly in the "it's all surface" camp the surface was particularly brilliant in its offhand explosion of the (generally crypto-essentialist and painfully turgid) contemporary discourse of race and identity.
Also, I will confirm QT's fascination with degreed women and f33tz0rz.
― hearditonthexico (rogermexico), Sunday, 28 January 2007 02:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Sunday, 28 January 2007 02:16 (seventeen years ago) link
xpost
― acrobat (elwisty), Sunday, 28 January 2007 02:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― latebloomer: crapness 2 the Nth degree (latebloomer), Sunday, 28 January 2007 02:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― latebloomer: crapness 2 the Nth degree (latebloomer), Sunday, 28 January 2007 03:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Sunday, 28 January 2007 03:42 (seventeen years ago) link
― cutty (mcutt), Sunday, 28 January 2007 03:46 (seventeen years ago) link
Famous yes. Bankable, not so much. He'd scored big cast against type in DIE HARD, but he was coming off HUDSON HAWK, LAST BOY SCOUT and STRIKING DISTANCE.
Oh, you don't remember STIKING DISTANCE either? Nope, Willis was another one who PULP FICTION brought back to life.
― hearditonthexico (rogermexico), Sunday, 28 January 2007 05:05 (seventeen years ago) link
The guy who gets shot on the couch first during the whole Eziekel segment. In the script, it said the character would have a Flock of Seagulls haircut, though that wasn't really the case in the movie.
― Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Sunday, 28 January 2007 05:11 (seventeen years ago) link
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-avary28-2009nov28,0,3500921.story
― velko, Saturday, 28 November 2009 10:34 (fourteen years ago) link
― velko, Saturday, 28 November 2009 10:35 (fourteen years ago) link
Not exactly earth-shaking but some cool tidbits in this VF story
I especially liked the story of how Jackson ended up having to fight for the rolehttp://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2013/03/making-of-pulp-fiction-oral-history#
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 15 February 2013 19:15 (eleven years ago) link
lol @ the parenthetical here:
The script was sent out to actors with the warning “If you show this to anybody, two guys from Jersey [Films] will come and break your legs.”
― Welcome to my world of proses (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 15 February 2013 20:07 (eleven years ago) link
They talked until sunrise. Tarantino told him he had two films in mind for him. “A vampire movie called From Dusk Till Dawn and Pulp Fiction,” says Travolta, who replied, “I’m not a vampire person.”
also wtf can't believe there's ANYTHING Travolta won't do
― Welcome to my world of proses (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 15 February 2013 20:13 (eleven years ago) link
otm
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 15 February 2013 20:23 (eleven years ago) link
A New Yorker profile of Travolta before the release of Get Shorty quotes Tarantino saying exactly that. Something like "He'll star in Look Who's Talking 16, where the CHAIRS talk."
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 15 February 2013 20:33 (eleven years ago) link
it's funny how much these "making of" oral histories always break down to "and then a bunch of REALLY EXCITING meetings happened"
― Welcome to my world of proses (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 15 February 2013 20:35 (eleven years ago) link
Daniel Day-Lewis was considered!
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 15 February 2013 20:41 (eleven years ago) link
how weird would that be
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 15 February 2013 20:49 (eleven years ago) link
At the wrap party, held on the Jack Rabbit Slim’s diner set, Walken danced alongside John Travolta. “Somebody said, ‘They should do a musical together!’ ” remembers Stoltz. (They were later both in Hairspray.)
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 15 February 2013 20:50 (eleven years ago) link
"Somebody said, 'They should take a roadtrip together!'" (They were later both killed in an automobile accident.)
― schlump, Friday, 15 February 2013 20:56 (eleven years ago) link
"Someone said, 'Travolta is SO gay!" (John Travolta has not come out).
― the little prince of inane false binary hype (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 15 February 2013 20:56 (eleven years ago) link
i love how Travolta came up with the 'Batman' and 'Swim' moves in the dance scene!
― piscesx, Friday, 15 February 2013 21:23 (eleven years ago) link
yeah that was awesome. lol at the 9 year old Travolta winning the twist contest
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 15 February 2013 21:26 (eleven years ago) link
http://nyookami.tumblr.com/post/43539515046
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Wednesday, 20 February 2013 05:02 (eleven years ago) link
aw travolta was awesome Hairspray
― k3vin k., Wednesday, 20 February 2013 05:09 (eleven years ago) link
I couldnt stand it any longer. Am watching it right now
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 20 February 2013 05:18 (eleven years ago) link
Pulp. Not Hairspray
http://i.imgur.com/h8pW41T.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/liajkPb.jpg
― 龜, Wednesday, 13 April 2016 13:13 (eight years ago) link
and none of them were "bad motherfuckers"
― Jerry Lee Lewis: The Total Film-Maker (stevie), Wednesday, 20 April 2016 08:25 (eight years ago) link
Worst fairytale ending ever
― Daithi Bowsie (darraghmac), Wednesday, 20 April 2016 09:00 (eight years ago) link
Watched this last year - it still moves, but time has not been kind to the effect of the "5-dollar milkshake".
― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, 20 April 2016 10:13 (eight years ago) link
Haha, yeah I remember thinking that didn't sound all that expensive even in 1994.
― the joke should be over once the kid is eaten. (chap), Wednesday, 20 April 2016 10:41 (eight years ago) link
I worked at a Friendly's back then. One of their milkshakes was about $2. McDonald's was a little over $1.
― how's life, Wednesday, 20 April 2016 12:52 (eight years ago) link
$5 dollar or 5 euro milkshake would seem a bit pricey to me tbh
― i;m thinking about thos Beans (Michael B), Wednesday, 20 April 2016 12:58 (eight years ago) link
what if it has bourbon in it
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 20 April 2016 13:06 (eight years ago) link
“My name’s Paul and I leave the rest to y’all.”I like how, besides the dancing, Vincent Vega is a walking disaster through this film. He makes every single situation worse by his actions or inaction!
― bit high, bitch (gyac), Wednesday, 21 December 2022 14:25 (one year ago) link
Had a boy in a grade 7 class this morning with wild red hair who wouldn't sit down. Was so tempted to go Sam Jackson on him--"You, Carrot Top" (points to desk)--but thought better of it.
― clemenza, Monday, 20 March 2023 17:25 (one year ago) link
I was trying to find J. Hoberman's review of Natural Born Killers--couldn't, but did scare up Stanley Kauffmann's Pulp Fiction review:
https://newrepublic.com/article/61392/shooting
Found the last couple of paragraphs interesting as a snapshot of an old-guard critic (Kauffmann was 78 at the time) confronted with a sea-change of sorts. If you love the film, and maybe even if you don't, you'll dismiss it as cranky old-guy whining. I have great patience with that perspective. (I wish he were still around, in part because I think he'd be taking a battering ram to the last few Wes Anderson films.)
― clemenza, Saturday, 30 March 2024 17:38 (three months ago) link
“tried various keys in the lock and had at last picked the right one.” Ha this is a good metaphor for why I don’t like Reservoir Dogs (and other things as well). Guess it’s just an elaboration on “trying too hard”
― brimstead, Saturday, 30 March 2024 17:47 (three months ago) link
the last paragraph is pretty awful ad hominem trash though. glad fewer like him are no longer around to spew that shit. Does he just want to go back to the Donna Reed Show? ugh.
― brimstead, Saturday, 30 March 2024 17:54 (three months ago) link
I wish he were still around, in part because I think he'd be taking a battering ram to the last few Wes Anderson films.
He'd be 108 tho, so he probably wouldn't know what Wes Anderson, a battering ram, or films were by that point.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, 30 March 2024 18:55 (three months ago) link
Does he just want to go back to the Donna Reed Show?
Kauffmann? I think he wanted to go back to early-'60s Antonioni and Bergman.
― clemenza, Saturday, 30 March 2024 20:44 (three months ago) link
(xpost) True enough! I really didn't care much for the reviews he wrote the last two or three years he was active. (He kept at it for at least another decade-plus after the Pulp Fiction review.) Battering-ram wasn't his style anyway.
― clemenza, Saturday, 30 March 2024 20:48 (three months ago) link
Funny to see Pulp Fiction alongside grunge music. Do think the latter was speaking to a younger crowd whereas I am not sure PF will hold up in the same way.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 30 March 2024 21:02 (three months ago) link
For what it's worth, at 78, I'm pretty sure "grungy" to Kauffmann meant grunge meant rock meant hip-hop--all just undifferentiated noise to him. The thing I take from that last paragraph is that the meaning of escapism had completely flipped from the '40s to the '90s. And I think there's at least some truth to that. (Less so today in the superhero epoch.)
― clemenza, Saturday, 30 March 2024 21:17 (three months ago) link
Very weird how people will say x thing will have nothing to say when it's selling millions!
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 30 March 2024 21:19 (three months ago) link
The thing I take from that last paragraph is that the meaning of escapism had completely flipped from the '40s to the '90s. And I think there's at least some truth to that.
Well, to "well actually" this at least a little bit, 40's escapism also included poverty row westerns and crime thrillers alongside the musicals and comedies Kauffman was thinking of - and of course ACTUAL pulp fiction! So I think that escaping into the lives of violent men was as much a thing then as it was in the 90's, just perhaps the level of respectability of this escapism changed, you wouldn't have seen it at Cannes.
― Daniel_Rf, Saturday, 30 March 2024 21:44 (three months ago) link
Good point.
― clemenza, Saturday, 30 March 2024 22:43 (three months ago) link
I read this review (and Kauffmann generally) in the pre-internet '90s. When I discovered John Simon a couple years later I often found it difficult telling them apart; I realized Kauffmann was often the better writer.
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 31 March 2024 10:53 (three months ago) link
I don’t find the review heinous but calling Tarantino “Tarantino himself, passable in a small role” and expressing that he doesn’t understand why Uma is meant to be desirable are big thumbs down from me. Tarantino cameos are always the worst thing about his films, especially when he’s dropping racial slurs - yeah i know these are seedy underworld characters but the man truly cannot act and it comes across terribly.I actually watched Reservoir Dogs again for the first time in about fifteen years and had forgotten how much I loved Mr Orange’s whole deal and how fucking dumb everyone is in that film. Nice Guy Eddie’s ability to read people but inability to follow through on his hunches is fatal.I wish I would have been old enough to have seen Pulp Fiction when it came out. I saw it one night when I was babysitting and I thought it was electric. Over twenty years later, it still had that feel to me despite the fact the film itself has entered mass culture reference hell (and also Keitel doing those ads as the Wolf, yuck) ages ago.
― Roman Anthony gets on his horse (gyac), Sunday, 31 March 2024 11:15 (three months ago) link
Plummer and Roth are beneath comment.
I remember reading this line at the time and thought, "OK? Elaborate?"
― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 31 March 2024 12:29 (three months ago) link
That’s not a statement it makes sense to elaborate on tbf
― cozen itt (wins), Sunday, 31 March 2024 12:37 (three months ago) link
They're below in the comments.
― Daniel_Rf, Sunday, 31 March 2024 12:38 (three months ago) link
"Keitel doing those ads as the Wolf, yuck"
Lol I really like them
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 31 March 2024 12:39 (three months ago) link
he doesn’t understand why Uma is meant to be desirable
Dude was 78 but apparently died at 76. RIP.
― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR), Sunday, 31 March 2024 13:37 (three months ago) link
xp I don't like or hate those ads, but they are in character for the Wolf. Like the Wolf would actually do those ads if he was a real person.
― you gotta roll with the pączki to get to what's real (snoball), Sunday, 31 March 2024 13:48 (three months ago) link
I probably mentioned this upthread or so, but before this movie came out my friend had a copy of the screenplay. I didn't want it to be spoiled, but made a copy of it for myself for later, though when I was xeroxing it the only word I saw was "chainsaw."
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 31 March 2024 13:49 (three months ago) link
xp those ads are like Pulp Fiction, which is a series of little sketches.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 31 March 2024 14:58 (three months ago) link