Pulp Fiction at 30

[Nanker Phelge]

I'm beginning to think Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is his best work. Jackie Brown is also excellent. I did not warm at all to the Hateful Eight, and I'm a big fan of euro-westerns and alt-westerns; I found it fairly dull, compared to slow paced and very tense (which the great euro westerns mastered).

I find most of his stuff to be enjoyable, sometimes silly, often over-long, and usually interesting pop-cultural genre riffing. Pulp Fiction is like 70s US TV with an 18 rating, or the B crime flicks that the majot studios would knock out between their big releases; Stuff with Jim Brown, Joe Don Baker or Robert Duvall in the lead role. I'm not sure why he didn't set in the 70s. It would have worked well. I guess he had written too many 80s/90s references that he wasn't prepared to cut loose.

 

[kalidarkone]

I have also watched PF many, many times. Was totally blown away by it on release, loved it for years, had the soundtrack on tape, yada yada. I watched it not long ago with my teenage son (his first viewing, my first in years after having rinsed it so much) and while I still rate it as a highly entertaining, slickly made film with many superb performances, my perspective on it has inevitably changed down the line. This dynamic was one of the things that struck me quite forcibly, after never having noticed it before, and one of several things I now find problematic that I previously hadn't.

I had a similar experience regarding Pulp Fiction - like you I was blown away at first. However the scene you mention made me very uncomfortable and HATE QT because all I could really see from his shit cameo is he revelled in being able to say "NIGGER" "DEAD NIGGER STORAGE" which he says four times.

 

[Serge Forward]

Hateful Eight is total bobbins... a locked room mystery that goes on for ever and ever and ever. Pulp Fiction is ace, so is Reservoir Dogs. Django Unchained and Inglorious Basterds are decent. His best directed film however is Jackie Brown. His best non-directed film (he did the screenplay) is True Romance.

As for the "dead n*****" shit. Yep, Tarantino is a complete tosser and likely has a few confusing and mixed-message racism issues.

 

[moochedit]

Another i'm getting old thread

 

[skyscraper101]

I liked it, but I always found it got way too much cultural significance placed upon it. I mean, yeah it's alright but hardly the most amazing film ever committed to world of cinema. The way people banged on about it though. Jesus.

 

[krtek a houby]

Hateful Eight is total bobbins... a locked room mystery that goes on for ever and ever and ever. Pulp Fiction is ace, so is Reservoir Dogs. Django Unchained and Inglorious Basterds are decent. His best directed film however is Jackie Brown. His best non-directed film (he did the screenplay) is True Romance.

As for the "dead n*****" shit. Yep, Tarantino is a complete tosser and likely has a few confusing and mixed-message racism issues.

Liked True Romance at the time but even then, that scene between Walken and Hopper felt uncomfortable.

 

[belboid]

True Romance is very of its time. An okay script directed quite averagely. Not as badly a Natural Born Killers, obviously.

 

[Nanker Phelge]

The Bruce Willis storyline was the best bit in it. I would have a liked another film with his character in it. Breaking bad before breaking bad.

 

[Silas Loom]

The Bruce Willis storyline was the best bit in it. I would have a liked another film with his character in it. Breaking bad before breaking bad.

As long as he had a different girlfriend.

 

[Silas Loom]

As for the "dead n*****" shit. Yep, Tarantino is a complete tosser and likely has a few confusing and mixed-message racism issues.

Also goes for the Jackie Chan bit in the admittedly excellent OAATIH, but that was 2019. Different time. Of its era.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

I went to the cinema to see that on acid with a bottle of Jack Daniels. We sat on the front row. It was awesome and remains one of my favourite memories