Originally published at: Pulp Fiction made its debut at Cannes 28 years ago today | Boing Boing
…
3 Likes
Pulp Fiction hit theaters when I was 11 or 12. My dad took my mom and she MADE HIM WALK OUT… I suspect it was during the pawn-shop basement scene. A year or 2 later when it hit video (VHS! I know we didn’t have a DVD player until I bought one at 16 or 17) he rented it and I got to watch too (they ffwd thru that same scene since I was probably 13 or 14 at the time). I was instantly hooked. (Dad also introduced me to killer flicks like Apocolypse Now, The Deer Hunter, Dog Day Afternoon, Falling Down, Deliverance) I love all of QTs movies but I’ve probably watch PF the most. My wife is also a fan and we have talked about what age the kids get to be introduced to PF… I’m saying 13 but she is more like Devin’s dad at 15. Guess we’ll compromise at 14 but we’ve got some years before we get there. May have to start with the other’s first. Hateful 8 isn’t too messed up, Kill Bill is just the goriest, and I can see no wrong with gleefully killing nazis.
5 Likes
I know Tarantino is a problematic guy who’s seen as gratuitously indulging himself, but I don’t think he gets the credit he deserves for the amount of thought and depth he puts into his pictures.
Also, all this time later, Winston Wolf remains one of my all-time favourite movie characters.
8 Likes
I went to go see it with my Dad when I was a teen. I can recall the theater being packed and had to sit in the front row. There was nothing like it at the time. What was interesting is how it influenced other films later on. I typically consider movies like “Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”, “Two Days in the Valley” being heavily influenced by Tarantino.
3 Likes
“you know what they call a quarter pounder with cheese in Cannes?”
8 Likes
Y’all making me feel old. I saw it at the campus theater in Ames, Iowa my senior year at university. I had already seen Reservoir Dogs, True Romance and (not his, but in the same vein) Bad Lieutenant. I had a good idea what to expect, but it was still a film like no other at the time.
5 Likes
Oh you know damn well that many of us saw that movie years before DVDs even existed.
18 Likes
For years I kept telling people that I thought Goodfellas made a great double feature with My Blue Heaven. Later, I found out that the writers for the two films were married, and their films are actually based on the same person! Nicholas Pileggi based his book on the guy’s career in the mob, and Nora Ephron based her comedy on the guy’s antics that eventually got him kicked out of the witness protection program.
8 Likes
Still one of my top 10 movies of all time. It really is his best work. The dialog, the look, the semi-anthology style of story telling. It just oozes 90s cool. This and The Crow are my top two 90s movies.
And the soundtrack is great as well.
I also still enjoy Reservoir Dogs. I keep thinking about cosplaying Tim Roth’s Mr. Orange some day.
1 Like
Yep. I had it on VHS! (Special features? Wha …?)
4 Likes
No shit? Interesting.
I saw Pulp Fiction in the theater when it was first released. I’m a bit older (more than a bit, I was just recently married to my first wife at the time) and loved it right away. Other than Tarantino scenes which are cringy AF.
Bruce Willis as Butch was perfect casting and he kind of is my favorite character in the movie.
“We’re American, honey, our names don’t mean shit”
4 Likes
I saw Pulp Fiction in the theater twice during its first run. Both times, the audience applauded during the opening title, which I have yet to see for any other movies. That first scene is an absolute killer, and the “Miserlou” riff sealed the deal.
Sorry, but Tarantino is a worthless hack who’s never had an original idea in his life. I’ve managed to sit through maybe six different films of his and every single time I just ended up angry that I hadn’t just rewatched Boondock Saints instead.
Take away all of the scenes he just flat out copied from more talented filmmakers, and you’re left with a c-grade slasher film made by a 14 year old boy who learned everything about life from reading Hustler magazine.
It boggles my mind that there are people who think this guy is some kind of genius,
Same here, senior year of college - I knew nothing of the movie or Tarantino’s work at that point (other than having seen a cardboard stand-up of the main characters that looked intriguing). A couple younger friends said I had to go see it and took me with them.
It was one of those movies that blows your mind because you’ve never seen anything like it as of yet when it came out theatrically (for me, Star Wars, Back to the Future, Die Hard, off the top of my head, also qualified. I was between 5-16 when those came out). I laughed through the whole thing (mostly in hysteria, rather than humor) because it was tremendously overstimulating.
I ended up seeing it in the theater 6 times within a few months of its release (though the last 2-3 were at the $1.50 bargain theater, to be fair). I don’t think I’ve seen any new film in-theater more than twice since then. It also set up huge expectations for the following few Tarantino films for me, which they couldn’t possibly live up to. Later on I learned to view subsequent films with more of a lens geared towards their intent/genre, rather than comparing them to PF.
2 Likes
This was the movie that made me rethink the pigeon hole I’d put him in in my mind.
And I’m not sure I’d consider this a good thing. I still see its influence every time a movie or tv show has that combo of inane chatter juxtaposed with ultra-violence sold as “cool” and I think that sort of thing is a well that since then has been drained, run dry, squeegeed out and capped with cement. And I think it perhaps undermined his intentions; people will go around endlessly quoting the cool bits of dialog (the cheeseburger, say what one more time motherfucker) but you can’t quote the violence, the juxtaposition of which is the point.
Coincidentally we’ve been on a Brian De Palma run (Sisters, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, the not-so-commercial ones we hadn’t seen before) and while Tarantino would obviously acknowledge the influence what struck me as so obviously similar wasn’t any particular technique or mood but just the style of wearing your influences on your sleeves in such a self aware way. Being open enough about your “borrowing” that it comes across as refining and extending the craft rather than plagiarism.
1 Like
True, but it made me feel old writing it. Lol
3 Likes
Since PF’s release (and also later Tarantino releases), I’d made a point of seeking out films & filmmakers who’d influenced his choices - made easier by the advent of Netflix’s disc by mail and later, streaming (and even later, having access to a fantastic classic reperatory theater or two).
‘Discovering’ older stuff by De Palma and other creators in the thriller/action genres has been a big treat, especially if I get to see them on a big screen.
1 Like
One thing about Pulp Fiction and how it’s viewed by whomever is watching it is how “well read” one is in the mystery and crime fiction genres.
Clearly he was influenced by Elmore Leonard and other authors as well. Of course he adapted one of Leonard’s books into a movie - Rum Punch became Jackie Brown.
When I saw PF, I was always in the middle of reading a book that was similar in feel.
3 Likes
Apology accepted.
1 Like
I was n years (n ≤ 10) old when I first blah blah blah…
I was 28 when I watched that movie in the week it came out. OLD I know.
I must’ve been living in the S.F. Bay Area at the time. There were a lot of really nice movie houses all up and down the peninsula, and in the East Bay.
2 Likes
