Fresh in my mind because of Gazebo's 90s movies thread, I have corrected a couple oversights this week by watching Men in Black on Sunday and Pulp Fiction last night.
MIB was decent, but nothing special. I liked the second one better, but that's likely because those jokes were new for me in the second rather than in this one, which is when they were supposed to be new.
Pulp Fiction, on the other hand, was very good. However, does not go into my list of top 90s films. Very good? Definitely! Excellent? Almost but not quite. That's obviously not a knock against it, but I know that a good number of people put this movie very high on their all-time lists.
The part I liked the best was the intertwining of the stories. It reminded me of Sin City a bit in that respect, although properly it would be the other way around had I seen them in the right order. Starting with a vignette that occurs in the middle of the film chronologically was a nice touch. Of course, this movie is filled with tons of excellent lines. I have heard many of them before on numerous occasions---similar to the case of Bull Durham but not quite as often (because I would hear Bull Durham lines when watching and listening to baseball games). There is a local place, by the way, that has a $5 milkshake, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they borrowed the title from the movie.
Several years ago, my mother rented Pulp Fiction because of the acclaim it was getting. She was horrified by the film and her attitude was that its acclaim is an indication of our society going in wrong directions. (I am phrasing the last part vaguely because I don't remember the statement precisely and I don't want to accidently exaggerate how extreme the statement was.) I say: bollocks! (Although it does make sense that the film would be more popular in a culture that has become desensitized to violence. But I call "bollocks" on stronger statements of moral downfall or anything like that.) As with Kill Bill, this film is artistically violent. (Althought the scene with the gimp overdid things, in my opinion.)
It's an interesting contrast between the way violence is presented in Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. In the former it's always ugly, clumsy, and random--no one should claim that the movie glorifies violence (of course people claim this anyway). The best example is the fight between Butch and Marsellus where they are stumbling down the street in a comically ungraceful manner. The fights in Kill Bill are of course a lot more elegant and choreographed (since it's partly an homage to the old kung-fu and samurai flicks). The main exception is the fight between The Bride and Elle Driver in the trailer, which stubbornly refuses to become dignified.
ReplyDeleteUnlike other violent movies, in Quentin Tarantino's films violence is always messy.
I liked Kill Bill, Vol. 1 better than Pulp Fiction because of the whole kung fu thing. ("I know kung fu." OK, so I'm switching movies, but I really love that line.) And the scene when The Bride is going through all the spuds is simply one of my favorite scenes ever!
ReplyDeleteFor the following thought experiment, let's take the success of Tarantino out of the equation (it's obviously relevant; it's just not where I am heading here). Would there be a Kill Bill without Pulp Fiction having achieved its level of success. (For the purposes of this query, suppose it was somebody besides Tarantino who made Kill Bill.) So, I can harp on Kill Bill all I want, but I feel like I can't just make the blanket statement of Kill Bill I > Pulp Fiction (IMO on that; probably I'm in the minority) without also acknowledging the roll the latter played in the former even existing.
I hope that was coherent, or at least that you can see what I have in mind even if it wasn't.