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"John Travolta? Wtf!? Lets go with Weekend at Bernies 2, has oscar written all over it." - TriStar Execs
Reminds me of that Key and Peele skit about the Gremlins sequel
You had me at gremlin vajayjay
But Gremlins 2 is unironically fantastic
Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go out cowboys in back to the future 3.
You shut your whore mouth about WAB2. Terry Kiser could act his way out of a paper bag, quite literally.
I just had a look on Wikipedia to see Terry Kiser's acting credits and discovered something. Apparently "Rachel Rachel" is an actual movie, one which Kiser happened to be in.
This is of interest to me because that particular movie title is mentioned comedically in the TV show "Seinfeld". The show "Seinfeld" would frequently make mention of completely fabricated movie titles, and because of this I wrongfully assumed that "Rachel Rachel" was another made-up movie title.
Oh baybe. You had me at "Rochelle, Rochelle," A women's erotic journey from Milan to Minsk?
Have you seen Chunnel yet?
My favorite is 'Checkmate'.
"That's right- just a gaaame."
Real movie is “Rachel, Rachel” (1968) which is highly regarded and directed by Paul Newman.
Fake movie is “Rochelle, Rochelle” which is implied to be somewhat Euro- softcore.
I don’t know if the real movie inspired the fake one- “Rachel, Rachel” is about a sexual awakening (of an “older” woman), so maybe. The title seems like more than coincidence.
The film was considered a comeback for John Travolta. He wasn't a big star during that time
Thanks for that info!
In their defence I guess, just going off the script and then hearing some Coked up rather newish director explain it would take a be of work to get over the line.
Glad they did though as it pumped a bit of new intellect into the whole movie making business.
I read the original script years ago. If memory serves, it was more linear. The chopping up, putting it out of order and a few other things made it more interesting.
Edit: for example, when Vincent drops off the case, it’s just him in one of his black suits on a different day from when they got it back. Jules isn’t present and the whole scene plays differently without him there and the workout clothes making the whole thing confusing ok first viewing
That describes Tarantino to a T
Not a new writer though. His scripts and stories had been taking Hollywood by storm with Natural Born Killers the same year and True Romance the year before. After Reservoir Dogs he earned enough respect to sell scripts but still had to prove he could direct a movie with mainstream appeal.
"Glad they did though"
They didn't. It was produced by Jersey Films and A Band Apart, and it was distributed by Miramax.
Rephrase; glad who ever gave him a chance, allowed it to be made and thus gifting it to the world as an everlasting piece of art.
Thanks for pointing it out.
Here's my take: Under any other Director Pulp Fiction would have sucked ass. The direction and the dialogue make the movie. It does a tightrope walk and is kinda unsatisfying, but the characters carry it.
No other director would have made Pulp Fiction in the first place.
But yeah, you're right. There were a ton of Pulp Fiction rip-offs in the 90s and early 2000s.
Take a look at it from the studios POV. You get the script summary and you don't have sam Jackson reading his lines. The appeal is obvious now, but back then?
You have to hear the man say it himself to understand that he really is the Foot Fuckin' Master.
I think plenty of people can make Jules' lines work, but it really took Sam Jackson to make them iconic and unforgettable.
And it was before Sam Jackson was famous. He was a minor character in Jurassic Park one year before but he didn't do much there. (It was an ok character, there just wasn't much to do)
Could you name a couple? I'd kinda like to check em out lol
Edit: thanks yall there's definitely more than I expected, and I've seen a couple of em even but guess never really realized pulp fiction was so influential
Go came out in 1999 and has a similar vibe, albeit with a younger cast.
Go is pure fun. Also has a young Timothy Olyphant
“Go” is such a great movie!
2 Days in The Valley.
Probably the best is Snatch, although to be fair, it's not a direct ripoff, but heavily influenced by Pulp Fiction: smart, fast-paced dialogue, violence, cool characters.
Snatch is a great movie.
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead
Great movie. Under rated. Christopher Lloyd is so damn good.
Love and a .45
The Way of the Gun
2 Days in The Valley.
Also, Thursday is the most blatant ripoff, and also the worst.
8 Heads in a Duffelbag
It is not a good movie.
The hell it’s not.
Small apartments
One like that is Love's a bitch / Amores Perros
Snatch and Lock Stock are the most obvious ones but if you don't mind foreign movies, Super Deluxe is my absolute favourite take on the Pulp Fiction style of movie. I think it's on Netflix.
Sin City filled the same niche for me personally
Yeah, the film majors at my university would put together unofficial bad film festivals.
One of them was Most Egregious Tarantino Ripoffs After Pulp Fiction.
It was fun voting for Most Trying Too Hard To Be Quirky (Things To Do In Denver When You're Drad) and Most Shameless (Truth or Consequences, New Mexico).
It's just more violent Big Lebowski. A movie about nothing
Never heard someone call Pulp Fiction unsatisfying
Yeah it does foreshadow a violent climax in the restaurant that ends up fizzling out but I always found that ending very satisfying
"I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd"
If you want a straight narrative in a traditional way, then pulp fiction will upset you on a storytelling level. My mom says it's just dumb, and my dad thinks it's entertaining but kinda overly artsy and subversive (ie there's not really a point to things that ties it all together. You can disagree but that's his reaction to it.)
It's just not to some people's taste. I have to kinda turn my brain onto a different setting to enjoy it, but I still think it's great.
I used my parents as examples because they are middle class white people. As standard issue as they come lol.
I think the script in itself, if you take away the editing and acting, can be unsatisfying.
Of course, it’s hard to imagine that t stripped of the production.
I find it to be the most satisfying and complete movie I’ve seen
I kinda feel thats the point
lots of movies have basic or strange plots but what really do the heavy lifting are the actors,depending how much they embrace what they are given
Hollywood execs are stupid fooks, just look at all the big budget shyts they've funded, they are so shyt, not even worth the trailer.
A lot of talented people could make the best movies with a fraction of their budgets.
They are only shyt when they’re not making profits.
Because most movie viewers have been conditioned to watch dumb shyt.
Good thing Harvey Weinstein saved it - ‘He rapes, but he saves’ - Dave Chapelle
I get the feeling Weinstein raped more than he saved though.
Travolta, Samuel Jackson and Bruce Willis were already big names by then. Wouldn't that alone give the movie star quality? Let alone a somewhat high budget
Travolta was regarded as washed up, and while Jackson had done some stuff before Pulp Fiction, it was that performance that propelled him into the mainstream conciousness.
Now Willis, might have been the biggest name at the time, but Hudson Hawk had come out the year before and bombed hard, so he was probably happy to take a 'grittier' less comedy focused role.
Apparently Willis loved Reservoir Dogs, and pushed to be in his next picture.
He wanted to be Travoltas character, didn’t really want to be Butch. Tarantino convinced him
Willis took a risk on it, got paid royalties. Was a good bet.
Willis seemed to have a good eye for what would be successful in the movie industry. I remember a behind the scenes video of Tarantino filming him with a camcorder and he was like "in a few years someone is gonna make a successful movie for cheap with one of those things" and he was right. Blair Witch came out about 5 years later.
Willis wanted to play the role of Vincent, which he assumed was the lead. Tarantino had to talk him into taking a lesser role.
Travolta was well known, but by that time he was well known for being a has-been. "That dude that did those couple of famous disco movies - haven't heard from him in ages".
Pulp Fiction turned out to be his great comeback, but he wasn't a big draw when the movie came out.
Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson were much bigger names to draw people into the movie.
But the real draw were the awards and general buzz about a fresh kind of movie.
If you were into movies the word amongst enthusiasts was that this is a must-see.
Sam Jackson wasn’t a big name, at least not a box office draw, back then. There was one big name on the movie, Bruce Willis, and one washed up has been, Travolta, and the rest were new ish (Thurman), or character actors (Jackson, Keitel, Roth, Stoltz, Plummer).
Agreed. But Jackson had recently done Tru Romance before, that was still more than Travolta.
The biggest name was no doubt Bruce Willis. Plus Harvey Keitel, but obviously small role.
Travolta was making decent money at the time with the Look Who's Talking movies which, incidentally, featured Bruce Willis as the voice of the baby. It is weird that in the state of the industry in the late 80s / early 90s that two actors could be leads in the same succesful movie franchise and one is considered "washed up" and the other a star.
Travelta after Look Whose Talking did the two unsuccessful sequels to those movies and two other movies that flopped before Pulp Fiction. Willis seemed to have been making movies that were well recieved and profitable aside from h Hudson Hawke
The first two were quite successful (although a significant drop from. 1 to 2) the third was a bomb, but by the time it came out Travolta was already cast in PF. The bombing of Look Who's Talking Now likely had a lot to do with the perception of Travolta as "washed up."
Willis had the first two Die Hard movies under his belt at that point, which was the differentiator.
No doubt that it was seen as a big comeback for Travolta. My point is merely that the industry was a lot quicker to say "Oh, he has moved to this genre, he can't play serious roles anymore."
The 90s is really when that started changing. You had Tom Hanks and Robin Williams both go from comedy to blowing it out of the water with Dramatic performances, and suddenly big stars willing to do comic book movies and scifi, which had been seen as kiss of death moves in "old Hollywood"
I remember Tarantino talking about the diner date scene with Uma and Travolta. Travolta had not danced in a movie in years, so him getting up there and dancing brought back a lot of nostalgia. Reignited how much of a cultural icon he was. He knew that was really gonna hook even the normal folks and women to this very violent movie, omg Mr. Saturday Night Fever is back again!
I don't think that's what the headline is saying. It's more "why are you wanting all these great actors for such a shitty script?"
How many incredible films or records or other projects were cancelled by suits for this very reason?
And how many films were rightfully denied by these suits? They see so many shit projects they are right to deny.
To quote William Goldman: “Nobody knows anything”
American Graffiti barely made it to screen because of this kind of thinking and this was after the movie was finished.
The exects thought it was a jumbled mess. I think it was Martin Scorsese that offered to buy the film outright if they weren't going to release it.
And how many of those suits still had their fucking jobs after “Pulp Fiction” opened? Spoiler: All.
Well that's just, like, your opinion, man.
And then this black guy with Jerry Curls....
They sent an assistant to go buy an afro wig, and he screwed up. The rest is history.
Oops
I was doing script coverage at a production company when a script for a movie called "Resovoir Dogs" was submitted.
I read it and loved it and wrote up the report. I pitched it to my producer who said "I don't want to do a gangster movie."
That's just how Hollywood works sometimes.
Good decision, Tristar.
Having sat through Pulp Fiction, I'll look into what good stuff you've got to offer.
Studio execs get a bad rap for being dumbasses, which is deserved, but I can sympathize a bit with reading a script and having to decide to throw millions at it not knowing if you're getting The Matrix or Jupiter Accending.
Hot take: they were right
So story time I guess. I was given the script to Pulp Fiction back in the 90’s BEFORE it was produced. And my reaction was exactly the same.
You have to imagine reading this script cold. It’s impossible to follow. It jumps all over the place and the dialogue doesn’t explain any of it. Instead the dialog seems to exist in this cinema fanboy space where everything is a meandering mashup of campy dated cliches. Plus some inexplicable use of the N word. My reaction was this will never work.
Then I saw the film and understood the effect a director can have. To this day I maintain Tarantino is not even a “good” screenwriter. But as a director nobody can touch his style and camera movement. And nobody can get legendary performances out of his actors like Tarantino.
Meh. I agree with the studio.
Same! Just not a Tarantino fan. 🤷♀️
Same. Its all very one note.
I agree. Terribly boring and pointless film.
I don’t get the hero worship for Tarantino. The films are needlessly violent and very seldom have actual narrative beyond “kill” or “revenge.” It’s violence for the sake of violence.
true
I remember taking my then 14 year old daughter to a movie, it was sold out, so we saw this, with no clue about it. Fairly surprising experience, lol.
"TriStar" = "Samsung"
Shame it went to the rape factory, but that was a good script. Saying it was unfilmable probably reflects more on the way studios treated movies with dialogue heavy scenes than what was being attempted.