Pulp Fiction revisited (1 Viewer)

[Jim Williams]

When Pulp Fiction first came out on VHS I rented it and about halfway through I was so confused that I just turned it off and never watched it again. At the time it seemed like one of the worst movies I had ever tried to watch. Since then I have seen several Quentin Tarantino movies and enjoyed every one of them. Yesterday I decided to give Pulp Fiction another try and I must say that it is, without a doubt, his best effort. A phenomenal film. What I didn't understand was that he was telling four interrelated stories in one movie. Once I understood that, the whole movie made sense.

The movie simply blew me away.

 

[ChrisBEA]

Glad you gave it another shot. It is truly a classic film.

 

[Haggai]

Just watched this again last week for the first time in a while (I'd seen it at least a dozen times before that, one of my most frequently seen movies ever). Still love it, always will. In fact, I'm in the middle of watching the enhanced trivia track right now on the SE DVD, some very cool stuff in there. I watched all the extras back when I got the disc, right when it was released in fall '02, and now I'm re-visiting just about everything. With Kill Bill Vol. 2 coming up, I guess I was in the mood again (although I didn't re-visit this before KB Vol. 1 came out).

Though I've always been blown away by Sam Jackson's performance, one of my favorites by any actor in any movie, I gotta give props to Travolta. I definitely appreciate how good he was the more I watch it.

I also recall how ominous Ving Rhames was as Marcellus back when the movie came out, making it all the more effective when you don't see his face for the first several scenes he's in. Ving wasn't a very familiar figure in the movies at the time (I remember that I'd never heard of him), so the unfamiliarity helped bring a really unsettling edge to his on-screen presence.

Why don't we throw in some of our favorite subtle details of this movie? Here's one I enjoy that's easy to miss. In the needle-plunging scene, after Mia snaps out of it and they realize she's ok, there's a funny little thing in the background. Jody (Rosanna Arquette) says, "That was fuckin' trippy" and laughs to release the tension, while Lance and Vincent collapse from their nerves. And then--the detail I'm talking about--Jody's friend, Trudy, who's also been watching what's happening, goes back to her bong and takes another hit! Show's over, crisis averted, back to the ganja. Great stuff.

 

[Rob P S]

I saw this in a theater six months after it opened. I didn't know anything about it, except that they said it was "not for the squeamish". The out-of-order thing threw me at first - I thought the theater had mixed up the reels. I loved it, though, and I still love it, although I couldn't care less about seeing anymore QT movies.

 

[Mike Williams]

Absolutely one of my favorite movies, I thought it was very sad that Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption ended up nominated for Academy Awards the same year as Forrest Gump, since I think either of those movies just about any other year would win hands down -- certainly over drivel like Shakespeare in Love or American Beauty.

I just watched it the other night in High Definition and was really ticked off that HBO cropped the movie to 1.85 AR. Why show a movie in high definition and anamorphic widescreen and then crop it. They don't do that with every movie, so why that one? I LOVE Pulp Fiction and I can't wait to get Kill Bill on DVD (sight unseen) on Tuesday and then see Kill Bill, Volume 2 in the theaters next Friday.

 

[ZacharyTait]

Jim,

I was in the same boat you were. I hated Pulp Fiction the first time I saw it. At the time, I liked my movies like any other moron. Linear and straight-forward, everything spelled out for me. It took me several years to break myself out of that habit. I revisited Pulp Fiction a few years and now I consider it one of the best movies of the 90's. [SENTENCE DEEMED OFFENSIVE TO MEMBERSHIP REMOVED BY ADMIN. PLEASE DO NO REPOST.]

 

[Jim Williams]

I probably was uptight like that too. I think it was Memento that finally broke me of that. When I read how Memento was filmed I was sure I wouldn't like it, but I rented it anyway. I loved it immediately and it is definitely on my top 10 list.

 

[Chris Parham]

As a HUGE fan of Mr T, I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned his other movies. I LOVE Pulp Fiction and have seen it many times since seeing it on opening night at the a packed theater! The buzz in the line up was all about this great young director and after loving this I sought out his other title "Reservoir Dogs" which remains to this day my favourite QT film. In fact, a couple of years later I would rank Jackie Brown as my second favourite QT film.
I just finished watching Kill Bill Vol 1 in my HT and still feel (as I did after seeing it in a large theater) that I cannot rank this film until I see it in it's entirety (ie. VOLs 1 & 2 together).
Again, I love Pulp Fiction, but I feel that QT has made better films in my humble opinion.

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

My favorite Mr T film is definitely "Rocky 3"

Sorry...back to your regularly scheduled thread...

-Dennis

 

[Chris Parham]

lol!
I pitty the fool who hijack this thread

 

[Mike Williams]

Zachary,

Whether you're pointing out a scene -- or even quoting a line -- from a movie or not, the end of your post was extremely inappropriate and unnecessary.

 

[Raasean Asaad]

You beat me to it Mike, I was almost offended. Some asterisks or stars or something could have been used to get the point across. Anyway we all make mistakes and I hope it doesn't happen again. Can you please edit that.

 

[Matt Pelham]

Thread crap anyone? Gimme a break
:rolleyes

 

[Robert Anthony]

I'm not so sure how asterisks would have helped--it's not like you wouldn't have heard the word in your head when you read it.

I can understand why someone MIGHT get offended, though--it's funny in the movie, with a touch of real discomfort mixed in as well, but I know I sure as hell would give a group of white guys a second look if I passed them in the hall at work or something and they were doing "Is there a sign on my driveway that says Dead Nigger Storage? Huh?"

So I'm not sure what's striking you as offensive. Just the word, (which is enough, granted) or the fact someone named Zachary Tait uses it with his friends when recreating the scene?

But then again--it IS in the movie. And this thread is a discussion of the movie. You can't really duck that.

Hell, let's steer it back on topic with this particular subject: Anyone remember the controversy, at the time, concerning Quentin, Sam Jackson and Spike Lee? Spike took GREAT offense to the number of times "nigger" was used in the script, calling Quentin a wanna-be who wrote it in solely for the reason of getting a free pass to say it around his black friends. Jackson and Tarantino both told Spike to shut it, The script was only going for a feeling of verisimilitude concerning how characters like Jules and Marcellus would speak.

I found myself falling somewhere in the middle of that particular debate--and it's because of that Jimmy in the Kitchen scene. I'm not so sure I'd buy Jules being a friend of this asshole's, much less letting him get away with constantly saying that shit in front of him.

BUT: Maybe that was the point? Jules has to eat a LOT of shit at this point because they gotta clean this mess up, and the only way to do it is thru Jimmy--and Jimmy KNOWS this. and that tension only adds to the scene.

It's uncomfortable, no doubt--but I doubt it's the most uncomfortable scene in the movie.

I'm relieved that Zach and his boys are recreating THAT scene instead of, say...The Gimp scenes.

Imagine seeing THAT at the water cooler.

 

[Steve Christou]

"Well, that's the end of this thread!"

Fantastic film, I was one of those angry that Forrest Gump beat it to Best Picture that year. A groundbreaking film, unlike nearly every other film that came before characters were seen talking about mundane things that had nothing to do with the plot, the script was the star. If it hadn't won the screenplay Oscar I would have kicked the telly in.

Fabienne: Whose motorcycle is this?
Butch: It's a chopper, baby.
Fabienne: Whose chopper is this?
Butch: It's Zed's.
Fabienne: Who's Zed?
Butch: Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead.

 

[Haggai]

Interesting point, Robert. For a different take on what QT might have had in mind, the enhanced trivia track on the DVD points to an underlying idea with Jimmie: that he used to be Jules' partner, but gave up "the life" after getting married. If you think about it that way (and I would say that it doesn't really come through on screen very clearly), the Jules/Jimmie exchange works as a sort of advanced state of the very familiar repartee that Jules and Vincent have had throughout the movie.

More specifically, as I always interpreted it from various details that came out in their conversations, Jules and Vincent had never met each other before Vincent came back from Amsterdam. Or, at the very least, they had never worked together, and probably didn't know each other very well (maybe just a passing familiarity as fellow hit-men on Marsellus' payroll). But their conversations all have a very comfortable feel to them, as if these guys are really familiar with each other (as opposed to, say, the slight strains in conversation between Vincent and Mia, where they take a little while to warm up to each other). So, with Jimmie and Jules, perhaps the exchange they have is the sort of argument that Jules and Vincent might end up having if they knew each other for a longer period of time (no chance of that at the end, of course, considering what ultimately happens to their characters).

A further thought along those lines is that while Jimmie probably likes Jules as a friend and respects him, he's going after Jules in the manner of someone who resents being taken advantage of by a friend. Knowing his friend quite well, he knows which buttons to push with Jules, and goes after him pretty hard.

 

[Robert Anthony]

That's a good way to look at it too, never even considered that Jimmy might have been Jules older partner--but I do agree the scene itself is just...I've never thought it fit ALL that well. Which is why Spike had all that ammo to say it was Quentin exercising some whiteboy wanna-be dreams.

but it does make a little more sense that if they were longtime partners or associates, that Jimmie would be able to get away with flicking Jules that much yang, and that it's born out of frustration and familiarity. It'd just be nice if that actually came out in the film somewhere instead of having to turn on a trivia track. People didn't have that in 94

 

[Dennis Castro]

I happen to be African-American and I do not feel that what Zachary wrote was offensive. He was discussing a scene in the movie that happens to use that word. In that context I don't find it offensive at all.

 

[Haggai]

Heh, definitely. I like the scene well enough as it is, but it might have made the background between the characters a little more clear if he had just had Jules saying, "I'm calling an old partner of mine who lives near here" or something like that (maybe "we used to do jobs together for Marsellus before Jimmie got married and quit"), maybe back in the car right after Marvin gets shot.

 

[Greg_C_T]

Count me in the same boat as someone who saw the movie when it first appeared on video and *hating* it.

Fast-forward to a couple years ago when the Special Edition came out on DVD. I checked it out and fell in *love* with it. Just a brilliant movie. Now I'm trying to get one of my friends to give it another chance, too.