Top Ten list, Number Three...

Pulp Fiction- Yeah, yeah, yeah. You knew this'n would be on my list, wouldn't you? After all, one can't claim to be a member of Generation X without owning this movie, now can one? First off, having looked at all of Tarantino's work from 'True Romance' to his guest spot on 'Sin City', I've come to a conclusion about him. He's the filmmaker equivalent of an idiot savant. That is, one of those guys who can recite plane schedules or carve horses out of soap bars but can't tie their own shoes or boil water. Is that a 'dis'? No. First off, I couldn't carve a horse out of a bar of soap if I had my life to live over again. Also, I couldn't take the essential pop thrill one gets from the movies and condense it into a coherent whole. Which is what 'Pulp Fiction' does.

Tarantino bends genre conventions into loops and distills the thrills of trash films with the experimental camera-work of 'respected' filmmakers like Goddard, Trauffaut, and all the rest of the 'Cahiers du Cinema' crowd. (Who, I should point out, took their cues from American filmmakers like John Ford, Howard Hawks and Anthony Mann...) No, Pulp Fiction has no connection whatsoever to real life, and you wouldn't meet anything like the characters in the real world. But 'Pulp Fiction' connects with us.

Scenes like Vincent Vega(John Travolta) stabbing a needle full of adrenaline into the chest of his boss's wife, Mia Wallace(Uma Thurman) hold us breathless with tension. (When I first saw it in a crowded theater, the crowd was dead silent. Then a girl in the front softly muttered, 'Oh, you idiot',regarding Vincent's desperate attempt. The crowd went nuts at that comment, breaking the tension.) The scene where Jules Winfred (Samuel Jackson) and Vincent show up at Jules' friend Jimmy's house (Tarantino himself) to get out of the predicament of Vincent accidentally shooting another person in Jules' car. (that in itself, is such a shock, I almost leapt out of my seat) The dialogue between Jules and Jimmy (Haw! a Traffaut reference!) is straight out of Monty Python:

[Jules, Vincent and Jimmie are drinking coffee in Jimmie's kitchen]

Jules: Mmmm! Goddamn, Jimmie! This is some serious gourmet shit! Usually, me and Vince would be happy with some freeze-dried Taster's Choice, but he springs this serious GOURMET shit on us! What flavor is this?

Jimmie: Knock it off, Jules.

Jules: [pause] What?

Jimmie: I don't need you to tell me how fucking good my coffee is, okay? I'm the one who buys it. I know how good it is. When Bonnie goes shopping she buys SHIT. Me, I buy the gourmet expensive stuff because when I drink it I want to taste it. But you know what's on my mind right now? It AIN'T the coffee in my kitchen, it's the dead nigger in my garage.

Jules: Oh, Jimmie, don't even worry about that...

Jimmie: No, let me ask you a question. When you came pulling in here, did you see a sign out in front of my house that said Dead Nigger Storage?

Jules: Jimmie, you know I ain't seen no...

Jimmie: Did you see a sign out in front of my house that said Dead Nigger Storage?

Jules: [pause] No. I didn't.

Jimmie: You know WHY you didn't see that sign?

Jules: Why?

Jimmie: 'Cause it ain't there, 'cause storing dead niggers ain't my fucking business, that's why!

I should also point out the camera work by Andrzej Sekula. Notice how it nervously follows the characters around in long takes. Roger Ebert points out how it seems anxious to return to the main action when Vincent and Jules break off to discuss the implications of a good foot massage early in the film. The only real criticism I can bring to "Pulp Fiction", is how Tarantino influenced a whole sub-genre of 'Tarantino-esque' film-makers who ran the gamut from okay(The Usual Suspects) to god-awful(Boondock Saints).