Once Upon A Time In Hollywood… There Was ‘Pulp Fiction’

By John Meyer. 14 Oct 2019 9:56 AM

It’s been 25 years since the premiere of Quentin Tarantino’s masterpiece “Pulp Fiction”, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes before winning an Academy Award for Best Screenplay (Written Directly for the Screen). With Monday, Oct. 14 marking the 25th anniversary of the film, we’re ranking it alongside the director’s nine big-screen movies!

Courtesy: Miramax

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'Pulp Fiction' 25th Anniversary
Courtesy: Miramax
To celebrate the filmmaking of Quentin Tarantino, one must pause and consider Tony Scott’s “True Romance”. Once considered a potential film for himself to direct, Tarantino sold his screenplay to Scott for $50,000 and used that money to partially finance his big-screen debut, “Reservoir Dogs”. While Tony Scott received some of the best reviews of his career, Scott re-assembled Tarantino’s impactful script and put it in a conventional, chronological order — which was NOT how Tarantino intended it.

(Could you imagine the famous Christopher Walken/Dennis Hopper scene — “The Sicilian Scene” — at the “beginning” of the movie?! That’s what Tarantino wanted…)

“Pulp Fiction”, however, would keep its unique storytelling format intact. And it won Tarantino an Oscar. And we’re still grateful for it 25 years later.

And a word about the number nine. We’re not including Tarantino’s (partially lost) amateur film, “My Best Friend’s Birthday.” Or his segment in “Four Rooms.” Or “From Dusk till Dawn”, which he wrote and executive produced, but didn’t direct.

No, we’re dealing with the nine acknowledged films in the Tarantino canon. And “Kill Bill” is considered one (long) film, the way Tarantino planned it — until producer Harvey Weinstein (shudder) insisted on breaking up the movie into two parts.
#9 – ‘The Hateful Eight’
Courtesy: Entertainment One
"The Hateful Eight" opened on Christmas Day in 2015 in a mere 100 (retrofitted) theatres. It ranks seventh in Tarantino's domestic box office take. in between "Kill Bill Vol. 2" and "Jackie Brown". Adjusted for ticket price inflation, it falls even further. It won an Academy Award though... for Best Original Score by the great (and under-appreciated) Ennio Morricone.

Do you see where we're going with this? It's last, okay? One of Tarantino's films has to be last... and this is the one.

It's a post-Civil War, western thriller about eight objectionable strangers stuck in a cabin during a blizzard (shot in expensive 65mm and then transferred to 70). Things go badly quickly and painfully over three hours (depending on the version you saw). The plot was little more than lies, threats, and executions. Tarantino based his story on 1960s TV westerns he saw as a kid — except with more threats and executions.

It was intentionally coarse and claustrophobic (which didn't stop Robert Richardson from getting an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography). Okay, fine. But despite Tarantino's unquenchable thirst for gratuitous violence, it's just not very... compelling. You kind of want all the characters to die. And they all do, or probably will, very soon. And you don't feel very good about it.
#8 – ‘Grindhouse: Death Proof’
Courtesy: Lionsgate Entertainment
Fans of Tarantino know that the director likes to change things up with every film and often faithfully pays tribute to whatever movie style currently interests him. So if you’re not a fan of cheap-looking, slasher B-movies from the 1970s… you might not be as enamoured with “Death Proof” as much as its director.

It was often paired in a double feature called “Grindhouse” along with “Planet Terror” from Robert Rodriguez. And it stars Kurt Russell as a maniacal stuntman who kills young women in stage car accidents using his “death proof” stunt car. And like any horrific slasher film of that era, the bloodthirsty attraction was the “monster” of the movie, and not the screaming victims.

Tarantino is even credited as the cinematographer… and the stunts are real and didn’t rely on CGI. Quentin’s goal was to re-introduce audiences to the thrill of old-school stunt driving on the big screen. And he delivered!

Critics may call it a minor work and it received mixed reviews at the time. But we’ll give Tarantino the final say on this movie’s low ranking when he told other famous directors at a Hollywood Reporter Roundtable in 2012, “’Death Proof’ has got to be the worst movie I ever made.”
#7 – ‘Jackie Brown’
Courtesy: Miramax
We’re the first to admit that “Jackie Brown” requires another viewing. However, don’t let its #7 ranking rile you up. Quentin Tarantino is a master filmmaker and his #7 movie is a lot better than many other filmmaker’s best.

Through no fault of its own, “Jackie Brown” suffers from being the next Tarantino film “after” the international sensation, “Pulp Fiction.” It’s also not a Tarantino original. The screenplay is based on the Elmore Leonard novel, “Rum Punch.” However, that is NOT a strike against it. In fact, Leonard admitted that it was the best screenplay adaptation of any of his works.

However, after playing with time in “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction,” Tarantino played it pretty straight with a “mostly” linear story about a double-crossing flight attendant ripping off a drug dealing, gun runner.

Tarantino also wanted to pay tribute to 1970s blaxpoitation films, particularly ones starring Pam Grier. This meant, apparently, the heavy use of the “N” word which Tarantino claims makes the language accurate to the characters that inhabit his world. That may be true, but it’s still hard to hear for many viewers…

There were no Academy Award nominations for the film or Tarantino. However, there was an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for the late Robert Forster. And it did give a brief boost to star Pam Grier’s career. Maybe not to a John Travolta kind of level, but Grier’s been working ever since.
#6 – ‘Django Unchained’
Courtesy: Columbia Pictures
"Django Unchained" continued the director's penchant for respecting unique movie genres and adopting their familiar tropes for his own visual playground. In the case of "Django Unchained", it was a spaghetti western set in the pre-Civil War South, with more than a nod to the 1966 Italian film, "Django" by Sergio Corbucci.

Starring Jamie Foxx and Leonard DiCaprio, it remains (for now) Tarantino's greatest financial success domestically, grossing over $162 million. It also won Academy Awards and Golden Globes for Best (Original) Screenplay for Tarantino, and Best Supporting Actor for Christoph Waltz.

So why isn't it ranked higher? Because it's also, for many fans, a difficult film to watch. While Tarantino has always peppered his movies with quotable criminals and villains, the story of a freed slave rescuing his wife from a brutal plantation owner is teeming with terror. While you may admire some of the director's comical rogues from the past, DiCaprio's Calvin Candie is anything but evil and deplorable.

And just like "Jackie Brown", the film is saddled with the heavy use of the N-word. Appropriate, perhaps, for a movie about a time in America's past where slavery was accepted or tolerated, but it still casts a verbal pall over the entire proceedings. The almost three-hour fray into Django's horrific world is not exactly quality time to be... savoured. Slavery films — even savage slavery films where the hero gets justifiable revenge — can be (should be?) uncomfortable for many viewers.
#5 – ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’
Courtesy: Columbia Pictures
Admittedly, "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" was the most difficult film to rank. It's too "new." It hasn't marinated yet. It hasn't stood the test of time. It's too recent of an addition into the Tarantino filmography.

So the gut reaction is to place it 5th, because the film is all about feel, as in, how do you feel about Tarantino, the director? Were you okay with the slow pace in his latest movie? Did you succumb to its meandering story... completely confident that there would be an unforeseen payoff? We're still torn.

It's 1960s Hollywood on the eve of the Charlie Manson murders. But yet it's revisionist history, so the outcome is never inevitable. Leonardo DiCaprio is the aging actor with a mid-life crisis. Brad Pitt is his official stuntman and unofficial therapist. Margot Robbie wafts across the scene as Sharon Tate, all smiles and short skirts, and dirty feet in the theatre. But nothing much of significance happens until we visit the menacing ranch of the Manson family...

The award nominations (and wins) are still pending. And so is the film's inevitable ranking on our list.

(However, here's a recommendation: watch Jack Lemmon's Oscar-winning role in 1973's "Save The Tiger," another movie about an aging man with a mid-life crisis. Both movies share the same pick-up-a-young-hitchhiker scenes. But in "Save The Tiger," the hippies are seen as liberators, not as monsters.)
#4 – ‘Kill Bill’
Courtesy: Miramax
To be honest, “Kill Bill,” is that one Tarantino film that moves around a lot on this list. For many fans, it’s a relentless thrill ride. For others, it’s an exhausting kill ride where the gratuitous violence tears down everything in its path.

It stars Tarantino's muse, Uma Thurman, as a former assassin seeking revenge on her ex-colleagues who tried to kill her and her unborn child on her wedding day.

And while “Jackie Brown” paid tribute to blaxploitation films, “Kill Bill” goes even further with martial arts films, samurai cinema and spaghetti westerns added to the director’s palette.

It was Tarantino’s attempt to tone down the punchy dialogue he was known for — and raise his directing game to mimic the mayhem he so greatly admired in other action films. And at an overall length of four hours, there was an awful lot of violence to unpack.

The L.A. Times called it a “blood-soaked valentine to the movies.” And there’s where its overall ranking has to fall. Because love it or leave it, as the title strongly suggests, “There Will Be Blood.”
#3 – ‘Reservoir Dogs’
Courtesy: Miramax
It’s a smashing debut film whose plot borrowed heavily from other (sometimes obscure) movies — “homages” Tarantino calls them! It was about five criminals brought together for a jewelry heist which —despite their best laid plans — goes horribly wrong.

And you didn’t even see the heist: only the aftermath (a contrivance “Game of Thrones” would use on many occasions before their budgets ballooned to include the battles too).

Now you can’t praise “Reservoir Dogs” without thanking Harvey Keitel. He loved the script so much, he partly financed the film, and set up a New York casting session for Tarantino, and producer, Lawrence Bender, which produced almost half the cast!

It was a Grand Jury nominee at Sundance, a best first feature nomination at the Independent Spirit Awards, and a critics’ award winner at TIFF. And it contained many of the Tarantino trademarks we’ve grown to admire over the years: excessive violence, frequent profanity, pop culture references galore, and nonlinear storytelling.

I mean, now we know the hidden meanings in the lyrics to “Like a Virgin”. And who can listen to “Stuck in the Middle With You” without wanting to cut off somebody’s ear?

Oh, and please tip your waitress. They work hard.
#2 – ‘Inglourious Basterds’
Courtesy: Universal Pictures
"Inglourious Basterds" is not exactly a return to glory for Quentin Tarantino because he's never really teetered off his writing and directing pedestal. But this fictionalized Second World War epic has Tarantino at the peak of his powers, employing revisionist history to destroy an enemy we can all agree on needs destroying: the Nazis.

Christoph Waltz won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, while the entire ensemble won for Best Cast at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. The film was also nominated for seven more Academy Awards, including two for Tarantino as Best Director and Best Original Screenplay (losing both to the creators of "The Hurt Locker").

It took Tarantino a full decade to complete the script while he bounced around on other projects (including his own). Then using "Pulp Fiction" as a style guide, he was finally able to trim down his ever-expanding plot to an acceptable length. As it is written, it just may be his masterpiece.

Did it have as many surprises as the time-twisting "Pulp Fiction"? No. But, oh my Hans Landa, the tension is crackling in almost every scene! I mean, since when did sampling a glass of milk from a French farmer or playing a "Who Am I?" card game inside a cellar bar make you rigid in your seat just knowing that something very, very bad could happen at any moment? Say it with me now, "Ooh, that's a bingo!"
#1 – ‘Pulp Fiction’
Courtesy: Miramax
The sophomore jinx didn’t apply to Quentin Tarantino. His second movie won it all in Cannes and at the Independent Spirit Awards, while he (and Roger Avary) were Academy Award winners for Best Original Screenplay.

The movie was also a seven-time Oscar nominee including Best Picture. And even though “Forrest Gump” won that year, film critics in Boston, Dallas, Kansas City, Los Angeles, the National Board of Review, and the National Society of Film Critics disagreed.

It took the “Reservoir Dogs” template and elevated… everything.

You want nonlinear storytelling? How about seven narrative sequences with three main plot lines told in non-chronological order crafted for maximum impact?

You want criminal anti-heroes? How about a world of loquacious hitmen, brutal mob bosses, aging boxers, reckless robbers, and frumpy drug dealers? And… Quentin’s future muse, Uma Thurman.

Its soundtrack was spectacular. It reignited John Travolta’s acting career. It made indie filmmaking attractive to A-list stars. It made non-believers grab the Bible and look up Ezekiel 25:17. It described how the cannabis laws work in Amsterdam. It showed you how to survive if you accidentally snorted heroin…

And it gave us one of life’s greatest lessons: if you really want to survive in this cruel world, just be “cool like Fonzie” and don’t let anyone go “medieval on your a**.”

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood… There Was ‘Pulp Fiction’

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