Just the Ticket #133: Pulp Fiction (List Lookback)

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Ticketmaster

As announced in this Tuesday's NPO #28: The List (2024 Edition), I plan to review twelve movies from my various Top Ten Best [Genre] Movies Of All Time lists (from a defunct social platform from twenty years ago) that I selected based on aggregated review scores and how much I actually wanted to talk about them regardless of score.

Since these things come to mind by happenstance (I got my mother Pulp Fiction for her birthday, and I saw it mentioned in that old post when I was deciding what to do for 2024, so, idea!) and it's still fresh in my mind, I made it the January selection for my List Lookback event.

Before we continue, Mr. Wolf reminds you to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, comment at the bottom of this post about how good the shakes are at Jack Rabbit Slim's, help out my ad revenue as you read, and follow my footsteps on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest glowing briefcases of news on my content.

You've seen the Vincent Vega memes, the short musical by There, I Ruined It, and the Simpsons parody episode that started its own flood of memes and video edits. You've heard the music and characters referenced in "Pump It" by the Black Eyed Peas and "Uma Thurman" by Fall Out Boy. You've heard quotes from the movie in "Make A Move" by Cypress Hill and "Scooby Snacks" by Fun Lovin' Criminals. And if you're a "true cinephile," you've probably seen the movie already.

Which is going to make it kind of a challenge to talk about. But I will do my best.

First, the music. Sampled in the aforementioned "Pump It," the opening theme was written and performed by the late Dick Dale, an icon of classic surfer rock who also did the theme for Hawaii Five-O and the genre standard, "Wipe Out." If you haven't heard it before, you're either deaf or Amish or your house is a rock, and the Pulp Fiction title theme is an iconic tune. Enough said.

Now, say what you want about Quentin Tarantino having a foot fetish (which is obvious from the many podo-centric shots in his movies and the near-five-minute conversation our main characters have about foot massages at the beginning of this movie) or being such a scholar of film that he lacks originality to a borderline, plagaristically larcenous degree, but from the aforementioned foot fixations to the neo-noir atmosphere to the excessive gore and larger-than-life characters to the chapter title cards (this latter is not exclusive to his style, but it is one of his signature touches), Pulp Fiction is unquestionably a Tarantino joint, and an almost perfect exhibition of disparate narrative done right with a cast so large in size and name power that the opening and ending credits are nigh indistinguishable from one another.

Tim Roth (Funny Games) and Amanda Plummer (Hunger Games: Catching Fire) bookend the feature as Pumpkin and Honey Bunny, an opposites-attract, Bonnie & Clyde couple with plans to rob a diner (this is where that opening line from "Scooby Snacks" comes from). Following their announcement of the robbery and the opening credits, we are introduced to Vincent Vega (Be Cool star, John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson in perhaps the defining role of his career), two hitmen in the employ of crime lord Marcellus Wallace (Dawn Of the Dead's Ving Rhames) who have been tasked with sending a message to a group of ambitious but incompetent drug dealers (including character actor Frank Whaley and Samurai Jack/Static Shock himself, Phil LaMarr) and retrieving a certain briefcase (the source of countless fan theories as to its contents). The scene is iconic (as are most of the scenes in Pulp Fiction), and Jackson's dialogue (especially the "bible verse," Ezekiel 25:17, which is also the epitaph on Nick Fury's gravestone in the MCU) is so quotable that he even remembers it hundreds of movies later. This scene ties into a later one where Vince accidentally shoots Phil Lamar's character and they have to go to Jules' friend, Jimmie (Tarantino himself) and a fixer known as "The Wolf" (Harvey Keitel) for help, all the while debating the biblically Miraculous implications of their own continued above-ground verticality. "Fuckin' magnets; how do they work?" indeed. These two scenes, capped off by the bookend at the diner where Jules says he's going to retire from the hitman/enforcer game and "wander the Earth, going on adventures like Caine in Kung-Fu" (I grew up on the Legend Continues sequel series, alongside Walker, MacGyver, Hunter, and the usual batch of MeTV-type courtroom drama reruns and Saturday morning cartoons), are kind of a shared perspective between Vince and Jules, with the best dialogue going to Jules in the first and third segments and giving more focus to Jules' perspective and growth in the second and third, using Vince as a rumination point and source of conflict.

As such, Jules does not get a story arc that is entirely his own. But based off of that prolonged discussion of foot massages from early in the movie, Vince does get his own arc. Granted, he is out-sexed, out-danced, and upstaged by Marcellus Wallace's wife, Mia (the aforementioned Uma Thurman, bury me 'til I confess) as he takes her on a date to a 50s-themed cafe called Jack Rabbit Slim's, where the shakes are "pretty fuckin' good" for five dollars, Steve Buscemi waits tables in Buddy Holly cosplay, and you can win a "Do the Twist" contest by using dance moves that are not the Twist. The dialogue between Vince and Mia is the perfect mix of sexually charged and being so "real people do not talk like this" that M. Night Shyamalan might roll his eyes if he were not otherwise fixated on the Twist contest. The dancing scene is amazing and corny. Vince learns the truth behind the foot massage story and Mia's short-lived acting career (a pilot for a Charlie's Angels-meets-The A-Team show called Fox Force Five that shared Universe enthusiasts believe was re-worked into the Tarantino "Movie Universe" films, Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2, or that those films are continuations of the unseen pilot). Oh, and because this film is an 80s throwback on top of the even older decades it pulls from, Mia has a cocaine habit, Vince has a heroin habit, and his chivalry almost gets her killed when she sucks an uncooked intravenous drug up her raw sinuses. As many times as I've seen Pulp Fiction, and as memorable and iconic as it is, I always forget the outcome of Vince's story, and the chemistry, atmosphere, and buildup of it all keeps me invested every time.

But boy, oh fuck, do I have some words for the other story! Of course, I'm talking about the story of Butch Coolidge (played by Chandler Lindauer--the actor, not the Verizon employee--as a kid in his only film role, and by Bruce Willis as an adult), a boxer who goes into hiding after killing his opponent in a match where he was supposed to take a dive for Marcellus. But things get complicated when his girlfriend (Maria de Medeiros) misplaces his grandfather's gold watch (which, Christopher Walken's Captain Koons tells a young Butch in flashback, spent a great deal of the Vietnam War in various rectal cavities, bringing both its monetary and sentimental values into serious question), and he unwittingly crosses paths with Wallace himself upon retrieving the watch and--SPOILERS for the out-of-sequence plot--killing Vince. This leads to Butch and Marcellus being held prisoner by Zed (Peter Greene--Dorian from The Mask) and Maynard (Duane Whitaker, Children Of the Corn: Genesis) in a sequence that The Simpsons chose to parody despite it being far from TV-friendly. The few positives about the Butch story are Christopher Walken (who is a delight in even his most "I need a paycheck" roles, like Wedding Crashers, and he's given some truly absurd dialogue to lend his unique style of delivery here), his rescue of Marcellus Wallace, and the buttery-smooth follow shot of Butch as he sneaks back to his apartment to look for the watch. I'm not a huge film buff, but that dolly work outperforms most modern drone shots and it made me drool. Also, throw in the little nod to Duane Whitaker's role in Texas Chainsaw Massacre III when Butch considers a chainsaw before settling on a samurai sword to take down Zed and Maynard. Easter eggs are always welcome. However (because the Butch story already has enough butt stuff in it to turn a semicolon into a colon and back again), even though it's a good redemption story, Butch is difficult--for me--to see as a good guy, or even as a lesser evil. I hate every second that Butch and Fabienne are onscreen together. They're the worst fictional couple I've seen since Riggs and Rika in Lethal Weapon 2. Their dialogue consists of Fabienne being totally, obliviously okay with Butch (who punched a man to death and stole a crime boss's money the night before) fat-shaming her during sex, calling her a retarded Mongoloid in the shower, and yelling and throwing things at her when his grandfather's ass-watch goes missing. I watched it all the way through and listened to everything for critical purposes this time, but usually, this is the only part of the movie (or any movie in recent memory) that I skip over. And that includes the N-word- and fuck-laden dialogue in the rest of the movie, even before "retard" and "Mongoloid" became cancellable to say or "fat-shaming" was even a term. Plus, Fabienne's diabetically cutesy voice and her stupid accent make me sick.

Oh, and before I forget, Pulp Fiction was the first movie to ever be fully funded by Miramax (a Weinstein production company).

If contributing to the financial success of horrible people is something you feel strongly about or you have an aversion to gore or foul or poorly-aged language, Pulp Fiction is not for you.

That doesn't change the impact that the movie itself has had on cinema, pop culture, and meme culture, or the star power and--mostly--smart writing employed to bring its characters to life (or how pants-wettingly good that dolly work is...). Pulp Fiction may not be a perfect movie for the reasons listed above, but like [insert Tremors geography factoid here because pun intended], it's damned near Perfection.

B+

Just the Ticket will be taking the rest of January off while I make more academic progress. There are a few Ticket Stubs and romance-based Anime Spotlight posts I have in mind for February (plus the One Night At McCool's review), so Stay Tuned, thanks for the views (over six hundred in one day), and please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, comment at the bottom of this post about how good the shakes are at Jack Rabbit Slim's, help out my ad revenue as you read, and follow my footsteps on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest glowing briefcases of news on my content.

Ticketmaster,

Looking Back,

Backing Out.