Extras:
Trivia Track, Pulp Fiction: The Facts documentary, The Charlie
Rose Show- Interview with Quentin Tarantino, Production Design
Featurette, Behind-the Scenes Montages, Siskel & Ebert at the Movies
"The Tarantino Generation", Deleted Scenes, Theatrical Trailers, TV
Spots, Cannes Film Festival Acceptance Speech, Independent Spirit
Awards, Still Galleries, Reviews and Articles.
Director:
Quentin Tarantino
Screenplay:
Quentin Tarantino
Cast:
Pumpkin: Tim Roth
Honey Bunny: Amanda Plummer
Jules Winfield: Samuel L. Jackson
Vincent Vega: John Travolta
Brett: Frank Whaley
Paul: Paul Calderon
Butch Coolidge: Bruce Willis
Marsellus Wallace: Ving Rhames
Mia Wallace: Uma Thurman
Lance: Eric Stolz
Jody: Rosanna Arquette
Winston Wolf: Harvey Keitel
Pulp Fiction.
Two immediately recognizable words that mean too much for
two words. Edgy, violent, smart, hip, and most of all cool. Mention this
movie to anyone and they'll either tell you two opinions: love it or
hate it. I like to look at Quentin Tarantino films as the flicks made
by a movie buff for the movie buffs. His films are for the true purists,
the people who live and breathe film, the people who get the in-jokes
and appreciate good cinema when they see it. Show this or
Reservoir Dogs
to the typical
American Pie
generation junkie and they'll turn it off in
ten minutes. Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, Kevin Smith and a few others
are the directors who understand this. For them it's not about the
money, it's about telling a story and doing it the best way they can.
Telling the plot of Pulp Fiction is like trying to tell a person the
difference between widescreen and full frame (I know I'm beating this
horse to death but just one more anecdote and I'm finished I promise).
You either get it or you don't. Split into three chapters. Each tell
different arcs but they're of the same characters in the same place,
just told in different time frames.
The first starts off with some
different scenes then focuses on John Travolta's character Vincent Vega
(related to Mr. Blonde himself, Vic Vega from Reservoir Dogs?) and Uma
Thurman's character Mia. After that we get the Gold Watch featuring
Bruce Willis' character Butch Coolidge and Ving Rhames' character
Marsellus Wallace. Then comes the last segment and
quite possibly the best: It focuses on Vincent and Jules' (Samuel L.
Jackson) little assignment from the beginning. Vincent leans to the back
seat and talks to a guy named Marvin. All of a sudden the gun goes off
and the car is splattered with blood.
Vincent: "I shot Marvin in the face." Jules: "What do you mean you shot him in the face?" Vincent: "I don't know....it was an accident."
Twists and turns like this are what make Pulp Fiction stand out (Bruce
Willis with a samurai sword in a pawn shop - how's that for unexpected?).
Even though it's a great film it has one problem that sticks out, to me
at least. For instance, the Jack Rabbit Slim's scene is a little too
long, I often skip right over the entire segment. I have nothing at all
against Uma Thurman, she's a very good actress, but I just think her and
John Travolta's segment is the weakest of the three. I'm probably the
only one who thinks this but it doesn't ruin the film in any way.
Buena Vista has finally revisited one of their most lackluster discs.
This new disc features an anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer. Colors are well
balanced and fleshtones are significantly better. Blacks are very deep.
There is some very minor grain noticed in some scenes but this was
unavoidable given the gritty nature of the film. Pixelization and edge
enhancement are thankfully gone. This is easily the best transfer I've
seen from the usually average quality titles from Buena Vista.
Buena Vista presents Pulp Fiction's loud soundtrack perfectly in two
options. A Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1. Both tracks do a great job of
rendering every minute sound in this film. I never noticed any signs of
fading or dialouge interlacing. My only complaint with the sound, and
this isn't for the film, is that the menus are way too loud. Even
turning the volume down you're still messing with it when the movie
comes on. But that complaint is with the menus and not the movie.
Buena Vista tosses the bare bones platter from the previous release and
gives us a full fledged special editon worthy of the banner. There were
numerous laserdisc releases here in the US alone so all the extras were
finally pulled together and put on the same format. Here's how the
plethora stacks up:
Disc 1:
Trivia Subtitle Track:
Since a Quentin Tarantino commentary is absent
this is the next to best thing. Many, many interesting facts are
revealed in the subtitles and worth a glance.
DVD ROM Materials:
Open mic commentary, script viewer and more. Nice to see some sort of DVD ROM extras at all.
Disc 2:
Pulp Fiction: The Facts Documentary:
A well produced documentary.
Pulled from numerous interviews (they actually tell you where each was
filmmed and when on a bar on the side at the start of each). Each offers
insightful info and worth a look. Runs 30 minutes and is presented in
full frame.
Deleted Scenes:
5 in all, including a Quentin Tarantino introduction
on the meaning of deleted scenes (he even says so himself that he is
sick of the laserdiscs that have numerous releases, something that rings
true to this day on DVD but this rerelease is a good thing). Tarantino
also offers some notes before each scene except for the last. All are
shown in non-anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen.
Behind-the-Scenes Montages:
Two segments are show. One for the Jack Rabbit Slims scene and the other for
when Butch hits Marsellus. Both are shot on camcorder.
Production Design Featurette:
Runs 6 minutes and is full frame. An interesting segment that examines certain sets.
Siskel & Ebert At The Movies: The Tarantino Generation:
How cool would it be to all the episodes of that cool show on DVD? Probably not
possible with all the legal rights and all. Anyway, this is an episode
from that show that features Tarantino's rise to fame. Made in 1994
right after Pulp Fiction (a mere five years before Gene Siskel passed
away during surgery). The two offer good analogies and they really liked
this movie. They mention how they don't like Reservoir Dogs....how can
you not like that movie?! It's great! Runs 16 minutes total and is in
it's original full frame TV presentation.
Independent Spirit Awards:
Runs 11 minutes and is full frame. A pretty
standard interview with Tarantino after the awards.
Cannes Film Festival- Palm d'or Acceptance Speech:
This was in France, Tarantino accepts the best picture award announced by Clint Eastwood.
This is kind of funny because someone seems to be cussing Quentin out in
French, and the ever cool Tarantino simply flips them off. This might
have been a joke but it's funny nonetheless.
Charlie Rose Show: Interview with Quentin Tarantino:
An entire episode from this show and runs a whopping 55 minutes long.
Theatrical Trailers:
Now these are cool. This is something that should
be included on all DVDs. Not only is the US trailer here but we get
trailers from around the world. US, UK, France, Germany, and Japan. Each
is different (the US and UK trailers are pretty much the same though)
and welcome. Studios should consider including trailes from other
countries more often.
TV Spots:
There are 13 spots offered here. I don't remember seeing
this many when the film came out, does anyone else. At least there's
more than three, the standard number of TV spots for many DVDs.
Still Galleries:
8 sections in all. Posters, sets, memorabillia, Campaigns, and more.
Reviews and Articles:
8 in all and offer random praising of the film.
Pretty stuffed little package huh? Do you want to replace your old DVD
now?
Pulp Fiction is packaged in a cool cardboard case. Pull out the slip
sleeve for the two discs. On the insert we get a collectible book and
the Jack Rabbit Slim's menu. You also get some rebates including one
that gives you 5 dollars back if you previously owned the old DVD. The
menus are animated and, like I said above, very loud. The film offers 26
chapters total.
Overall, Buena Vista has produced an excellent pakage here. Isn't it
funny how the months of August and September have seen 4 Quentin
Tarantino films released in two disc special editions? Pick up all four:
Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, the awesome Reservoir Dogs, and the
Tarantino penned True Romance (which I will pick up as well soon).
That's eight discs and some great films.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
