MY MOVIE SHELF: Pulp Fiction

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 167  Days to go: 160

Movie #216:  Pulp Fiction

It was fall 1994. I’d been living in Columbus less than two months, and suddenly there was this whole wide world of independent films available. (When I visited Chicago ten years later, I realized that Columbus had barely a glimpse of the independent film market, but coming from nowhere in the middle of upstate New York, it was a treasure trove.) I became fast friends with a girl who shared my love for movies and the two of us hung out often with my boyfriend and his roommate. I don’t remember who suggested it, or how we got there (I assume my boyfriend’s car?), but we went out to one of the city’s independent venues — there were three all owned by the same family at the time, something of an oxymoron, an independent chain cinema — and stood outside in a line for the next showing of Pulp Fiction. The world was never really the same after that.

When the Oscars came around, my friend was definitely hoping for Pulp Fiction to pull an upset, but I didn’t really think it had a chance, given the Academy. Still, as enjoyable as I find Forrest Gump, there’s no denying it didn’t have the same cultural impact as Quentin Tarantino’s breakout. (Reservoir Dogs came first, but it wasn’t as big, as amazing, or as talked about.)

For one thing, a nonlinear timeline hardly seems notable today, but Tarantino’s fiddling with the sequence of events in Pulp Fiction had people obsessing for literal months, and it’s actually something I still think about whenever I watch: this is happening first, this happens later, this goes back to earlier, etc. In some ways, this structure feels like a novelty — self-indulgent, perhaps and almost certainly unnecessary — but in others, it serves to tell a very particular story in a very particular way. If the movie went from the morning hit, to Jimmy (Tarantino) and the Wolf (Harvey Keitel), to the diner, to the handoff of the briefcase,  to our night out with Vincent (Travolta) and Mia (Uma Thurman), to the fight, to the watch (the flashback featuring Christopher Walken would still be placed in this general area) , to the whole deal with Maynard and Zed (Duane Whitaker and Peter Greene), then the movie would actually feel less cohesive, I think. It would end on the down note of Marsellus (Ving Rhames) having just been brutalized, Vincent dead and Butch (Bruce Willis) leaving the city forever with Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros) rather than the triumph of Vincent and Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) over Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer). It ties the beginning of the movie with the end, so instead of being simply a series of almost unrelated vignettes, it’s an integrated and complete piece.

Secondly, Pulp Fiction is often touted for resurrecting Travolta’s career. This was certainly true at the time, but it’s overlooked how the movie gave a little boost to Bruce Willis as well, and what it really did was make household names of Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman. (“Uma, Oprah.” NEVER FORGET!) Both had been acting for a while before this movie, and lord knows Jackson especially was in just about everything in the late ’80s in some sort of bit part or another, but this is the one that made them icons. There would be no Kill Bill without Thurman. There would be no “motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane,” (or a hundred other motherfucking somethings, including Capital One ads), without Jackson. These two are icons now, all thanks to Pulp Fiction.

The movie itself is iconic, too. The scene with Lance (Eric Stoltz) and the adrenaline shot is still one of the most exciting scenes in film, and I still jump when it goes in. (And Rosanna Arquette, pierced up to Jesus as Jody, saying “That was pretty fucking trippy” with this gleeful smile is a perfect way to close it out.) Then there’s the gold gleam of the inside of the briefcase, or Mia and Vincent’s dance at Jack Rabbit Slim’s, or the perfect, sad, wistful, intimate kiss he blows her as she walks away. Not to mention how all his crucial life moments are connected to being in the bathroom.  And that doesn’t even go into the dialogue: “Royale with cheese.” “Ezekial 25:17.” “Well look at the big brain on Brett!” “Garçon means boy.” “SAY WHAT AGAIN!” “Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.” “I’m pretty fucking far from okay.” “Will you give me oral pleasure?” “Catch up.” (I still tell that Fox Force Five joke, and I really wish that show was real.) “Bring out the Gimp.”

These are things that still are quoted and said in conversation and looked at as iconic moments in film to this day. Plus, the entire Beatles versus Elvis conversation is a cultural touchstone now. Are you an Elvis person or a Beatles person? It’s supposedly one or the other, never both. If that’s true, I’d have to go Elvis, but regardless, I am definitely a Pulp Fiction person. As we all should be.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Grease

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 246 Days to go: 250

Movie #131: Grease

“Grease is the word, is the word that you heard. It’s got groove, it’s got meaning. Grease is the time, is the place, is the motion. Grease is the way we are feeling.”

As a very, very young girl watching Grease on TV, there was no doubt in my mind it was the coolest thing to ever exist. (Not kidding, Sha Na Na was my all-time favorite band AND show when I was in pre-school. I once tried to duplicate the freeze-frame at the end of every Sha Na Na episode by holding myself in the air against the arm of the couch. It didn’t work.) I watched the movie every single time it was on, which, in the ’80s, was a LOT. There was nothing I wanted to be more than a Pink Lady dating a T-Bird, and I didn’t even recognize at the time that there was a T-Bird hierarchy. Any T-Bird would’ve done. I even used to think Patty Simcox’s (Susan Buckner) signature dance move of little kicks while raising the roof was pretty slick, and I used to show it off to my mom. Most of all, though, I wanted to live in those songs.

When I was in high school I worked at a grocery store as a cashier, and they played a mix of the same few dozen songs every day, so on a long shift you’d hear everything at least once. One day during a lull, “Hopelessly Devoted To You” came over the sound system. I was standing there daydreaming and “woke up” near the end of the song to realize I’d been singing the whole thing, that I apparently knew every word by heart and didn’t even have to pay attention to knock it out. That was how deeply a part of me Grease had become, and that was more than twenty years ago. It’s only gotten worse.

As a kid, it was really rare for “Greased Lightning” to make it past the censors and onto the TV broadcast, but it did every now and then. I remember being mad at it for being there and screwing up the movie as I remembered it. As I got older I got more used to it, but I was still in college when I realized how racy the lyrics were. I was beyond college when I realized how sexualized the rest of the movie is. I mean, I always just thought it was fun and sweet and full of great music. I didn’t actually pay attention to any of the dialogue, even if I had it memorized. It was kind of shocking to me how risqué it had been all along. The “sloppy seconds” remark, the broken condom, the pregnancy scare, the lewd dancing at school, and whether or not anyone’s “jugs are bigger than Annette’s.” Not to mention that “Greased Lightning” isn’t the only questionable song on the soundtrack, in case you’ve never listened to the lyrics of “Sandra Dee” or “Summer Nights.” But even after being sort of scandalized after the fact at how openly sexual Grease is, it’s still the coolest little musical in my heart. I love it so much.

I rooted for Danny and Sandy (John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John), obviously, but I also rooted for Rizzo and Kenickie (Stockard Channing and Jeff Conaway) and Putzie and Jan (Kelly Ward and Jamie Donnelly). Doody and Frenchy (Barry Pearl and Didi Conn) were fine, but I definitely thought Marty (Dinah Manoff) would move onto better things than Sonny (Michael Tucci). I have no idea why there were “Scorpions” with “turf,” but I remember finding the “gang rivalry” very tense when I was young and utterly laughable now (except I still think it’s scary and dangerous to put blades on your hubcaps). And I didn’t get why Danny had a flying car at the end, but that’s because the censors always cut out “Greased Lightning.” I also think it’s hilarious that these T-Bird bozos made so much fun of how dumb jocks were. This will be especially funny in Grease 2.

Some of my favorite parts now are the little throwaway jokes, like when Sid Caesar as Coach Calhoun gives his pep rally speech and says how when they win they’re going to come back and ring the victory bell, “Like we always wanted to.” Or how Blanche (Dody Goodman) pulled a tiny little pencil nub out of her hair. Or how Principal McGee (Eve Arden) closes her motivational end-of-year address with “or even a Vice President Nixon” and Doody sits up a little straighter.

I also relate to it. I remember feeling too goody-two-shoes and pressured a lot of the time. And I also felt tough like Rizzo (who has really great legs, by the way). “There Are Worst Things I Could Do” is my absolute favorite song. And I like the silly parts too. To this day I sing the Ipana toothpaste song. I even modified it to use when brushing my toddler’s teeth.

Grease will always be a part of me, a part of my soul, a big piece of my heart. I can’t imagine ever not loving it completely. It just makes me so totally happy. Who can find fault with that?

So remember, “If you can’t be an athlete, be an athletic supporter.”

MY MOVIE SHELF: Get Shorty

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 256 Days to go: 256

Movie #121: Get Shorty

If you remember my post about Be Cool, some two and a half months ago, you maybe realized I wasn’t super fond of it. Get Shorty, I find, is worse. Tonight was my second viewing of the movie, and each time has been boring. I find myself drifting off, doing other things, contemplating tomorrow night’s menu or what my husband’s upcoming work schedule is. That’s not the sign of a great film.

The thing is, I don’t find John Travolta all that intimidating, maybe? He’s a big tough loan shark (thankfully, this movie doesn’t use the term “shylock” as often as Be Cool does), apparently the best fighter around, and can outsmart anyone and everyone. It’s a bit much.

What else is a bit much is the plot, which, while a decent send-up of the Hollywood hustle of putting a movie together that can maybe feel like a mob shakedown, is unreasonably convoluted and all over the place. Chili Palmer (Travolta) starts in Miami where he has a few run-ins with Ray Barboni (Dennis Farina, who is kind of funny as a bumbling mobster, but who is much more satisfying in things like Big Trouble as a competent mobster), then goes to Vegas to collect a debt, where he gets a job to collect another debt in L.A. Deciding he just “likes it” in L.A., he opts to leave loan-sharking to become a movie producer, as you do.

So in the midst of all this movie wheeling and dealing there are shakedowns and double-crosses and all sorts of underhandedness, featuring additional toughs drug dealer Bo Catlett (Delroy Lindo), stuntman-turned-heavy Bear (James Gandolfini), and the guy who played Lazlo Hollyfeld in Real Genius (Jon Gries) as some guy named Ronnie.

And on the movie side of things there’s Gene Hackman as B-movie producer Harry Zimm, acclaimed actor Martin Weir (Danny DeVito), and actress-turned-producer-turned-Chili’s-girlfriend Karen (Rene Russo). (Elmore Leonard might have a thing for chicks named Karen.) All the movie people try to act at least as tough as the mobsters and drug dealers and other criminals.

It’s kind of funny, like I said, but it’s also kind of a mess. Not only that, but being the “Cadillac of minivans” couldn’t save the Oldsmobile Silhouette (or any other Oldsmobile), so it’s kind of disappointing in general.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Face/Off

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 274  Days to go: 266

Movie #103: Face/Off

If anyone ever asks what the late ’90s were like, show them the movie Face/Off and explain that in 1997 when it came out, lots of people thought it was great. Myself included. It has a 7.3 rating on IMDb (out of 10), so lots of people STILL think it’s pretty great (or haven’t seen it this millennium, maybe).

Directed by John Woo — who has a bit of a reputation himself for making over-the-top gunfights look like operatic climaxes — Face/Off is, frankly, insane. In case you’re unaware of how on point the title is, the movie is about two warring enemies — a super-serious FBI agent with a martyr complex named Sean Archer (John Travolta) and a manic, egomaniacal uber-terrorist for hire named Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) — facing off against each other after having literally switched faces. I’m not kidding.

Castor and Sean have a longstanding animosity, stretching back more than six years when for some reason Castor thought it would be a great idea to kill Sean with a sniper shot at a public carousel because what could go wrong. Oh right, Sean’s at the carousel with his five-year-old son, who gets killed by the bullet that goes straight through Sean’s chest so Sean can feel victimized and self-righteous and guilty and vengeful all at once. No reason why Castor wanted to kill this one FBI guy back then, but whatever. Since that moment, Sean has been on the rampage, only he maybe sucks at his job? It’s six years later when he finally catches up with Castor — seemingly unexpectedly because they’re racing to catch him before he flies off, but they already have an undercover agent on the plane? I don’t know. Anyway, there’s a big shootout and Castor supposedly dies. However, Castor and his brother Pollux (Alessandro Nivola) — of course these are their names, in case you thought Mockingjay thought it up first — have planted a bomb somewhere in L.A. A huge one that will flatten a square mile, so you know it’s a big deal. Pollux isn’t talking without his brother (who I guess he doesn’t know is dead?), so secret FBI people offer Sean the opportunity to be put in prison with Pollux as Castor — they’re keeping Castor alive, see, and plan to put his face on Sean. WHAT COULD GO WRONG??

So, okay, fine, Sean has Castor’s face and a little microchip in his throat to give him Castor’s voice and he’s put into this insanely anti-ACLU prison and he finds out where the bomb is. Ta-da! Only the real Castor wakes up from his coma or whatever — despite being earlier described as a “turnip,” which to me means brain-dead, and having a lit cigarette put out on his arm — calls up some of his criminal buddies, and somehow manages to secretly kidnap the surgeon and, like, the only two cops who knew about this super secret undercover mission (including a completely wasted CCH Pounder). He makes them put Sean’s face on him, with the body modifications and the voice chip and everything, like how would that even be possible, before he kills them all and slips on Sean’s wedding band.

It’s all kinds of messed up from there, with Castor pretending to be Sean and sleeping with Sean’s wife Eve (Joan Allen) and flirting with Sean’s daughter Jamie (Dominique Swain, who, awesomely, has eighteen IMDb credits in various stages of production, one of which is called Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre) and getting off on a major FBI power trip around town, while Sean is stuck in prison as Castor until he stages an elaborate escape only to find that this prison is on an oil rig in the middle of the ocean, and still jumps into the water and swims to shore. DUH. Sean visits all Castor’s old buddies, getting crazy high and drunkenly swearing to take Archer’s “face … off.” Pollux tips Castor, off, though, so there’s a massive FBI swat mission that ends in a hail of bullets in which Sean tips his hand by not killing the FBI agent played by that guy who was Mike Delfino on Desperate Housewives, and Pollux ends up dead. Now, suddenly (??) Castor is out for revenge against Sean as well!! It’s so ridiculous, I’m kind of in awe after watching it tonight. But it’s still kind of worth it for the absolute brilliance that is John Travolta acting like Crazy Nic Cage and Nic Cage acting like Crazy John Travolta. It’s a parlor trick, sure, and I’m honestly surprised there’s scenery left with all the devouring of it going on, but sometimes a parlor trick is a thing of beauty.

This all has the potential to end very badly, of course, but luckily their blood types are different and Sean convinces Eve to look at that instead of at their faces. She does and discovers he’s telling the truth, and during the climactic ending — the John Woo-iest scene ever filmed — with the Mexican standoff and the doves flying everywhere and the slow-motion bullets and explosions, Eve manages to call Margaret Cho, who somehow got cast as an FBI agent in this preposterous film, and tells her the whole story over the five or so minutes Sean and Castor are fighting over Jamie and screwing with her head. She shoots Sean in the shoulder, thinking he’s Castor, but when Castor, looking like her father, holds a gun to her head, she gets clued in and opens his femoral artery with the knife he gave her. Despite likely bleeding out in a matter of minutes, he and Sean have an explode-y speedboat chase that includes physical fighting, ski-less water skiing while holding onto a chain, anchor attacks, being thrown fifty feet into the air and onto a beach by a giant explosion, and a harpooning facilitated by a kick in the nuts.

Then Sean gets his face back, adopts Castor’s son and lives happily ever after. The End.

There are also other awful/hilarious things in the movie beyond Travolta and Cage being certifiable. Joan Allen is way too good for this, you can see it on her face, but she bravely fights the urge to run in every one of her scenes. Also, her character Eve, a poised and intelligent doctor, has a journal that reads like it could belong to Taylor Swift. “Date night fizzled again.” Aw, shucks. And Jamie is the height of scary teenage rebellion because she draws eyelashes on her face and has a nose ring. That kind of wanton disrespect for proper makeup application was terrifying in the ’90s, I kid you not. There’s also Gina Gershon as Sasha, who should just be in all movies somewhere, like the Psych pineapple. And the bomb that Castor and Pollux plant in L.A. has some sort of 32-bit porn animation (correction: more like 8 or maybe 16-bit. I don’t know my animations.) for both its specs and its disarming feature. The best, though, is that when Castor places said bomb at the beginning of the film, he’s dressed like a priest and proceeds to rock out to a choir singing “The Messiah” before grabbing the ass of one of the young sopranos. He and Pollux are like the Charlie’s Angels of crime.

You know what? I think I’ve come all the way around to loving Face/Off again. It’s an extravaganza of camp. A Campstravaganza! Also, possibly the best serious acting work of Margaret Cho’s career.