What follows is my entry into an event that Mike Lippert over at
You Talking To Me? is heading up. If you're in need of a refresher, here's the deal. We are counting down the
27 Greatest Movies That Made Going to the Movies Suck! The idea is that myself and my fellow film junkies would each pick a film that we love and write about how it has influenced the movie industry in a bad way, i.e: how a really good movie "inspires" directors to make cheap, soulless knockoffs of it. The countdown to the number one worst offender has been going steady all month. The film I have the privilege of writing about settles in nicely at number 4.
So,
Pulp Fiction. It is a title that is synonymous with wit, absurdity, violence, vulgarity, and all around brilliance. A film this original, smart, and consistently entertaining only comes around every so often, and when it does, it ignites a firestorm of praise and mayhem! Quentin Tarantino's meisterverk did just that. Before
Pulp Fiction, no one had really seen anything of the sort. Characters had never talked that way; events like that had never occured. Plots were a strictly linear affair, and changing it up and going back and forth in the timeline of the film was unheard of. The vulgarity was never so vulgar, the violence was never so violent, and the comedy was never so comic, as it was in
Pulp Fiction. It proved to be uber popular, winning the Palme d'Or at that year's Cannes festival, raking in tons of cash, and winning the Best Original Screenplay oscar. It took the world by storm, which, depending on how you look at it, was a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, Tarantino had ushered in a new era of moviemaking, one that celebrated the conventions and reveled in prolonged, elaborate stories. On the other hand, it quickly became apparent, as various writers and directors attempted to emulate this style, that filmmakers like Tarantino were a rare breed. To this day, he is still the master of his craft. No one has come close to touching him.
"Do you know what divine intervention is?"
