"Tonight I miss one legendary Quentin Tarantino."

April 26, 2024 4:28 PM

Pulp Fiction cast on meeting Quentin Tarantino and changing film history | TCMFF 2024 [30m] "John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, and Harvey Keitel reunited at the TCM Classic Film Festival to celebrate the 30th anniversary of PULP FICTION."
posted by hippybear (44 comments total)

30th anniversary???
Lord, I’m old.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:48 PM on April 26 [10 favorites]

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore".
posted by hippybear at 4:50 PM on April 26

Wish I didn't dislike QT and Pulp Fiction so much, (except for the apartment scene...)

The Harvey Keitel scene is OK as well.

So much pointless violence though.
posted by Windopaene at 6:08 PM on April 26 [8 favorites]

So much pointless violence though.

I used to stan Kill Bill for days, but at this point I'm convinced that Jackie Brown is his best film and is the movie of his that is going to live forever.

Please watch Jackie Brown.
posted by hippybear at 6:18 PM on April 26 [27 favorites]

Besides the violence, the other thing about Tarantino is the pretty much constant thread of weird / sneaky / "colorblind" racism running through nearly all his movies.

He does have a knack for making entertaining films and witty writing, and attracting some wonderful actors, but it's hard to look past the racism that underlies this content.
posted by splitpeasoup at 6:30 PM on April 26 [7 favorites]

Huh Im not a tarantino stan but Jackie Brown is my least fav. (Inglorious Bastards is my fav) YMMV?
posted by supermedusa at 6:32 PM on April 26 [2 favorites]

I mean, I'll forgive that maybe spellcheck caught the words, but if it is your favorite Tarantino film, you should have spelled the title of Inglourious Basterds correctly.
posted by hippybear at 6:41 PM on April 26 [5 favorites]

I abandoned his latest, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, after Brad Pitt arrives at the killer hippie’s ranch, gets out of his car, and his butt fills the entire screen for a couple of seconds; it feels like he’s actively disrespecting his audience. It’s beyond frustrating because he’s clearly up there with the greats, if you can stomach the cartoonish violence and (as mentioned) the race/gender portrayals.
posted by somebodystrousers at 6:44 PM on April 26 [2 favorites]

Complaining about looking at Brad Pitt's ass?

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, indeed.
posted by hippybear at 6:45 PM on April 26 [5 favorites]

It was the mid Aughts when I encountered twenty-something dude bros who knew nothing of Pulp Fiction.
The "lucky 10,000" hadn't been coined yet but I was psyched.
posted by whuppy at 6:55 PM on April 26

It's funny how many of your SLYT posts are videos I see on my feed.
posted by Billy Rubin at 7:11 PM on April 26

It's funny how many of your SLYT posts are videos I see on my feed.

I post what interests me that I think others might find interesting.

If you're seeing what I see in your feed, that might be a symptom of you watching what I post, or what I post is also trending.

Alternately, maybe you are me. Posting while I'm in a different personality. I have no idea!
posted by hippybear at 7:21 PM on April 26 [3 favorites]

first time watched it, like it, second time watching its not so much, by the third time watching it, Fred MacMurray's looking pretty scary
posted by clavdivs at 7:25 PM on April 26 [1 favorite]

For a director he compiles a powerful soundtrack album, that’s what I’ll say for Tarantino
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:29 PM on April 26 [3 favorites]

Please watch Jackie Brown.

Please do. And please watch Inglorious Basterds. The sound editing during "hero" scenes is as much of an indictment of the audience, as later carryings-on in a movie theatre.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:30 PM on April 26 [3 favorites]

I guess I mean something like, we have similar taste, great minds think alike and all that.
posted by Billy Rubin at 7:36 PM on April 26 [5 favorites]

For a director he compiles a powerful soundtrack album, that’s what I’ll say for Tarantino

He also seems to know how to get some good acting out of actors. Michael Bowen, Michael Parks, Kurt Russell, Samuel Jackson, Christoph Waltz — Pam Grier and Robert Forster, of course.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:43 PM on April 26 [2 favorites]

I have a cycle with Tarantino where, over a handful of years, I slowly convince myself that his films aren't as good as I remember them being, and his stylistic flourishes are empty showmanship, and his films are as shallow and thoughtless as he himself claims they are, and all the things his critics dismiss him over are the real story of who he is.

And then I... watch one of his films. Any of them, really. And just like that, he's one of the most exciting directors on the planet again.

Last year, I got to introduce my girlfriend to Pulp Fiction, and MAN: it is a precious treat to get to watch someone watch that movie for the first time. What a marvel it is. So much of its weirdness has become so iconic that it's stopped feeling quite so weird, but boy is all that strangeness still packed into the film itself. Even knowing how it's structured, it's hard for me not to watch it and get swept up in the way it casually reveals itself.

(Tarantino would be a lot less alienating if he stopped trying to tackle race and racism. But I do think that his approach to talking about racism is more interesting than he's usually given credit for. It's an interesting and thought-provoking rabbithole to dive into, even if, at the end of it, I still get to a point where I go, "Okay, still maybe shouldn't have done it that way, though.")
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 8:01 PM on April 26 [16 favorites]

Kill Bill : the transition from the crazy 88 fight to the snow filled garden is one of the greatest cuts ever put to film.
posted by lalochezia at 8:06 PM on April 26 [8 favorites]

Stands on a hilltop waving a Jackie Brown flag. Like, is there racism in this movie? No! Is there excessive violence in this movie? No! Is there exquisite plotting that holds up across repeat viewing? Yes! Is there dialogue so delicious it makes you want to lick the screen to try to taste it more deeply? Yes!

Are there Oscar winning actors giving performances above and beyond what the script calls for? Yes!

Jackie Brown is the perfect Tarantino film. Others have amazing moments and fantastic sequences and unequaled sequences... but none of them are the gesamtkunstwerk that is Jackie Brown.

He's only got one left, according to his own mythology. I challenge him to do something better than Jackie Brown.
posted by hippybear at 8:08 PM on April 26 [15 favorites]

For a director he compiles a powerful soundtrack album, that’s what I’ll say for Tarantino

Yeah. The thing about Quentin is that he figured out a formula for modern action genre films: take out the boring parts. Good Music + Good Action Scenes; completely fill in the rest with funny interesting dialogue, no filler. (he also adapted ideas for action sequences from his influences, as one does).
posted by ovvl at 8:20 PM on April 26 [3 favorites]

For those who have watched this, who was the fifties actor Samuel L. Jackson was a version of? I couldn't understand him and the captioning couldn't either.
posted by Rich Smorgasbord at 8:56 PM on April 26

I think he was referring to Royal Dano.
posted by tclark at 10:21 PM on April 26

He's just really good, is the thing.
posted by Sebmojo at 11:28 PM on April 26 [1 favorite]

Maybe I am shallow or some kind of bad person, but I loved all of Tarantino's movies. If I had to pick a favorite it would be The Hateful Eight. I loved the acting, the premise, and the fact that, after the stage coach scene, the rest of the movie took place in the one room of the haberdashery.

I like Brad Pitt generally (see:Fury), but in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood I hated his character which I think was the point. I think Bruce Dern does a very good job with his off the wall characters in OUaTiH and The Hateful Eight.

My favorite scene in Pulp is when Travolta panics and brings the ODing Uma Thurman to his dealer's house to give her the shot of adrenaline. Arquette's roommate on the coach is hilarious in the scene. She does an amazing stoner.

Django Unchained has been growing on me. It's on cable (Sho?) these days. It is as violent as any of his movies. His gratuitous violence is so over the top that I find it almost comical.

Back to Pulp Fiction. Bruce Willis kills Travolta in the scene when he goes back to his apartment to get the watch his dad hid up his ass in Vietnam. So how is he back alive in the final diner scene?
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:38 PM on April 26 [6 favorites]

What! No love for Reservoir Dogs?
posted by fairmettle at 11:57 PM on April 26 [5 favorites]

"So how is he back alive in the final diner scene?"

The diner scene happens before the prizefight. Remember when Travolta and Jackson return the case to Ving Rhames(seen only from behind)? He had just given instructions to Bruce Willis to throw his fight.

I've wondered how they got from the diner to Ving Rhames' bar. They had no car, and LA really isn't known for cabs that are easy to flag down in the street.
posted by Marky at 12:42 AM on April 27 [4 favorites]

~So how is he back alive in the final diner scene?
~The diner scene happens before the prizefight.

I think Pulp Fiction’s non-linear timeline is its true strength. It’s subtle, but really effective in drawing-in the viewer, and I think the scene where Willis kills Travolta is Tarantino saying “in case you haven’t been paying attention” to the audience. It clues you in to re-examining the entire construction of the film, and how stuff overlaps and interweaves.

............
What! No love for Reservoir Dogs?

No. Not really. I find it kind of unwatchable. Same with Grindhouse.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:32 AM on April 27 [3 favorites]

The Hateful Eight and Jackie Brown are QT’s best for me. Both incredibly unique and memorable films.

I fondly remember QT’s beef with Disney about his preferred movie theater, LA’s Cinerama Dome.
posted by edithkeeler at 3:47 AM on April 27

I was in college when Pulp Fiction came out and I worked at a movie theater that showed it, so I saw it countless times (for free!). I loved it and saw it so many times that I vowed to not watch it for at least a couple of years so that i might forget it and see it with fresh eyes. It's been many many years since I've seen it but I haven't forgotten much. Tarantino's best film.

I watched Jackie Brown recently and it's much better than I remember. But I just don't think Pam Grier is that great as the lead. In the quieter dramatic scenes she's fine, but in the scam/heist scenes in the mall, Grier took me right out. The rest of the cast is really good, though, especially Sam Jackson.

Loved The Hateful Eight. One of his best. It starts with grand, sweeping landscapes and then suddenly turns into a sort of "locked room mystery." And even manages some third act surprises.

Inglorious Basterds is also one of his best. Several great suspense scenes, something Hollywood seems to have forgotten how to do. The opening scene alone is a masterwork in suspense.
posted by zardoz at 3:50 AM on April 27 [3 favorites]

Last summer our daughter was home to visit post-college life and we sat down for a movie night and showed her Pulp Fiction (which my wife and I love).

Her response, on its conclusion, was, "You guys are so weird"

I don't know where we went wrong.
posted by kbanas at 5:40 AM on April 27 [3 favorites]

By the time Inglourious Basterds came out i was kind of over QT. But then my in-laws said it was the most violent movie they’d ever seen, which intrigued me and my spouse enough that we watched it. And yes it’s violent. But as someone who speaks two and a half languages involved in it, it is outstanding.
posted by bq at 7:09 AM on April 27 [2 favorites]

Inglourious Basterds is one of those movies whose central conceit—not just the plot, but the way it blends languages together in the virtuosic shape of Christoph Waltz—is inimitable. Tarantino gets derided for genre pastiche a lot, but so few films of his fit comfortably into genre. They're all such fascinating chimeras.

(I was lucky enough to see the Cannes cut of Kill Bill, and was shocked at how much stronger it was as a film than the two halves in isolation. Partly that's because of one minor-but-profound change [SPOILERS]: you don't learn that the Bride's son is alive at the end of Part 1, and discover that along with her at the climax. Which makes the ending hit a whole lot harder, and somehow made it ten times clearer that the film as a whole is about parenthood? I'm grateful to have had the chance to see it.)
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 9:56 AM on April 27 [3 favorites]

I can’t ever hear about Hateful Eight without shedding a tear for the poor guitar
posted by gottabefunky at 10:01 AM on April 27 [6 favorites]

My best friend and I in college must have seen Pulp Fiction 20 times in the theater during it's run. We'd grab the T and go up to Harvard Square and watch the cheap matinee. It was perfect for a 21 year old dude with more quips than sense.

QT gets a lot of rightful banging on about his violence, the n-word and his absolute reveling in his influences. But his movies are easy to get lost in and he has a way with actors.

Jackie Brown is hands down my favorite of his films and you can see how much he loves Forster and Grier (without whom I don't think the movie works at all - ok and that soundtrack and Elmore Leonard - Out of Sight is another of my favorite films - and shared cameo!)

But regardless, each of his films has something that I can grab onto. (Hateful Eight is probably the one I have the least affection for). Rusty in Once Upon a Time is an absolute asshole of swaggering violence who just happens to do the right thing with that violence at the end. Django and Inglorious don't come close to working without Christoph Waltz (dude's so good and Django gets boring to me after Schulz's fate)

But still... damn Jackie Brown was great
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:10 AM on April 27 [2 favorites]

the Bride's son is alive at the end of Part 1

Has my memory misgendered this child… or???
posted by edithkeeler at 10:38 AM on April 27

Can we all agree that QT himself is a terrible actor and the small parts he puts himself in are not worth the film they are recorded on?

As for Reservoir Dogs, I will watch it whenever it comes on cable, but there are many parts of it that are slow and probably not necessary. I do think the Stuck in the Middle With You scene is one of my favorites though for some reason (I do like the song a lot independent and before the I saw the scene).
posted by JohnnyGunn at 10:44 AM on April 27

Pulp Fiction is one of my favorite movies. Jackie Brown is in many ways a better film than PF.

But the opening scence of Inglorius, in which Austrian SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa interrogates French farmer Perrier LaPadite, is a rare moment of genius.
posted by neuron at 10:49 AM on April 27 [6 favorites]

That and the scene at the end of Inglorious where the theater is on fire and the projector is shining the image of the woman laughing onto the smoke as the Nazis in the theater try to find an escape... That is SUCH an indelible image!
posted by hippybear at 12:28 PM on April 27 [4 favorites]

the Bride's son is alive at the end of Part 1

Son? The Bride had a girl.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:46 PM on April 27 [1 favorite]

Kill Bill Vol. 3 which will never be made because Tarantino fucked up with Thurman during filming part 2, was supposed to be a daughter seeking revenge. I think it was the kid of the woman who was killed early in Kill Bill, the Blammo Cereal killing. I don't know how B.B. might have fed into that film, but it will never be made because Quentin was an asshole with Uma about a car stunt.
posted by hippybear at 2:56 PM on April 27 [3 favorites]

When Pulp Fiction came out, there was also an animated family movie in release called The Swan Princess. My local multiplex figured, probably correctly, that there wasn’t going to be a big audience for The Swan Princess in the later showings when the kids were in bed. And similarly, there probably wouldn’t be that much business for Pulp Fiction in the early matinee showings. More of a late night movie, that one. So they figured the efficient thing to do was to put them in the same theater, with Swan Princess running early and Pulp Fiction later.

The sign over the door read “Swan Pulp.”

That is all.
posted by Naberius at 11:09 PM on April 27 [5 favorites]

“Fucked up with Uma” is an understatement.

Tarantino bullied her into a wildly unsafe driving stunt which resulted in back and knee injuries she describes as permanent.

CW: the linked article also extensively documents Uma’s abuse survivor status with respect to Harvey Weinstein.
posted by FallibleHuman at 6:20 PM on April 28 [4 favorites]

He's only got one left,

Well, it's more than one left. There will be some rights in there, too. Feet, naturally.

His last film is just going to be four hours of close ups of feet with the world's longest soft focus pull zooms, and that's just the theatrical release. The full director's cut is rumored to be nearly 12 hours long.

Thankfully the soundtrack is going to be really good.
posted by loquacious at 5:46 AM on April 29