The wildfire in L.A. is horrible. No more tragedy on lives, I strongly pray for.
Here, I’ll start with a Hollywood legendary film.
The images below are screenshots of my choice from the video clip. The video itself is on YouTube, widely available, for this awesome-famous dance scene.
“Pulp Fiction” by Quentin Tarantino (1994).
Uma Thurman and John Travolta as Mia and Vincent.
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I’ve written about Pulp Fiction more than once and if I’m asked or I ask myself whether I like the film, the answer is not an easy shot. Nevertheless, I respect Tarantino very much for his unpredictable inspiration or some such a talent of his, let me please name it as such. All through the film, what’re coming next are serial surprises. It is also excessively violent. I often wondered. What did the director carry with him for this film? Pulp Fiction is a Hollywood legend and there have been a large number of reading materials on it both in the US and some other external sources. Was it a colorful twist of Coppola’s Godfather? I used to think of French film noir as a possible base. Qu’importe quel que ce fût! I know, this is a bit of challenging French in my part.
The sequences before and after the dance scene are at any event memory triggers with, of course, the dance itself. For me, those are from Vincent’s visit to the dance to their return to house to Vincent’s farewell. If I’m asked or I ask myself what is the deal shot in Pulp Fiction, I’d say those sequences of Mia and Vincent.
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Copy-paste of my review of Pulp Fiction, published in Aug 2023 at Juliette Masch Writes:
PULP FICTION:
(1994; Quentin Tarantino, director; written by Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary; Andrej Sekula, cinematographer) My viewing was yesterday 2/8/22 online for the first time as straight and full. The film can be best and most appreciated when thought and watched in consideration of cinema-cartography. On the timeline, 1994 was majorly the year of Forrest Gump or Interview with the Vampire or La reine Margot (fr). Therefore Pulp Fiction can be said as an American film noir jumping out as a new wave onto the cinema world with surprise. In 1994, the internet already be there. The navigations on computer in such a large scale though was pretty new to everyone. Mark Zuckerberg was not yet in Harvard. Obama neither has yet arisen for that democratic convention was not even in 1996. On the cinema-line, Tarantino wrote True Romance (1993 by Tony Scott) and directed his own film Reservoir Dogs (1992, co-written by Roger Avary). Those eruptions of gun shooting violence with dark romantic notions must have been fresh new and a flip takeover from the French film noir tradition along with Coppola's Godfather heritage. Tarantino remade them as an American pulp movie, that must be his grand achievement in the history of American cinema. In 1995, Tony Scott's Crimson Tide was also released, for which Tarantino was a co-writer with two others. Looking at the cinema-map of the era in Fracne, Matthieu Kassovitz's La haine (hate) was also released in 1995. A note is such that certain 1992-1995 films focused on the eyes at nuclear weapons pointing at all directions, ready to shoot out at anytime. La haine is a very critical film at large in which Africans(blacks), Muslims, and Jews are symbolized in three protagonists against Christians to be the establishment of the world order historically and now in the touch and go situation at the risk of the next world war. Pulp Fiction carries vaguely the same theme, but it is not an easy viewing if one tries to seek the meaning in that way in this film. It is not a solid black comedy either as an existing genre, rather or because Tarantino switches all those cliché-terms literally into the visual actualization of words by words. Then, how to take the film? Criminals are punished in their fates for their crimes? Some are spared for a caprice of the same fate governance? Killings, drugs, psychopaths to be the reality of social factors, expressed in condensation in a from of motion picture? Satirical drama into blood and words further into laughter with no sunny side fun-ride? The film is not funny. It is not sad either. Candy colored pop effects are not mere parodies of Hollywood in addition. Quasi-arabesque formats also fail to produce a mesmerized wonderland of underground crimes. Its bulky construction is rather sporadic and fragmental often in visual grotesqueness. But, it does not go into a genre of nothing at the same time. How does it work? The fiction starts with Pumpkin and Honey Bunny and ends in the same scene including two hitmen, Vincent and Jules. Viewers can only follow the whole story's time structure by Vincent's death from which the past and future revolve back and forward. The vital insertion is the boxer, Butch, who is also a hit man with no gun in his profession. Hit, shoot, hit, shoot, down, not to be down, I'll kill you. If you point it at me, I'll hit you first. Who chases whom for what reasons? Those profond elements in essence are covered with a style of pop culture, rock'n roll, living replicas of Marline Monro, James Dean, and cars, Elvis Presley allusion ubiquitous, easy and pulp, fictionalized in exaggeration, heavy in lightness, femme fatale in the gorgeous-cheap, no philosophy nor lecture, anecdotal anal watch through generations via the captain, crude lowness as raw meat, sodomy torture, the chosen sword after the chainsaw, gross-grim, clapy bloody while the ppl still have healthy appetites, oh, what's all about this much of craziness? This euro conscious Pulp Fiction makes the protagonists discuss on how the burger is called in Paris to begin with. At the beginning also, Pumpkin shouts out for a coffee to refill with his garçon call at a waitress. The simple fact is that Pulp Fiction may defy all reviews, or it could or should be. My tentative way is thus comparative. Let me go back to La haine, French film in 1995. Hubert says Vinz. C'est le Dieu qui pousse [les merdes] , which is my paraphrase, that means God helps your merdes down out. This is the phase of the intersection touching down onto the Pulp Fiction. Near the end, Jules elaborates his god-theory-revelation at the table after his pig the feces eater discourse, and the scene goes to Pumpkin and Honey Bunny, and back to Jules who cites the Bible. Then, again as chronologically reversal, Vincent comes out of bathroom in which he reads a pulp fiction, and still alive so he gun points at Honey Bonny who gun points at Jules who gun points at Pumpkin. This is the very end scene of the film. Viewers don't need to be Christians to see the silliness of the miracle-god popping in. However, it is not entirely a joke either. The bullets in question are just gone, regardless earlier. Nevertheless, according to me, there is no miracle-mercy transfer upon Jules, who is a bold cold killer able to switch himself back and forth between fanatic devil-saint and psychopathic madman, whose future path does not exist for the film ends there as the decisive period. It sums up as this all up to as such. The lovers leave with earned bounty. Vincent and Jules also leave the scene so much as cool as they are, that the former heads to the other bathroom to be shot death. The heart of the film's glory resides there. Cheap lowness, [as] stylized, pop, rocks, guns, bullets, shooting foul words, smash, clap, slap, thugs and gangs, all thrown into the colorful, very colorful fiction in a pulp motion picture book.
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The DJ and Edith Piaf scene is my favori, deal shot in La Haine by Mathieu Kassovitz (1995). The film made a sprash and very well regarded when released. Controversial? Yes. The theme was though a complex one, especially with today’s environments of migrants crisis in Europe as well as in the US.
The depiction of social tensions between financially non-affluent immigrants and law enforcements were based on a real incident. In the film, three protagonists, friends in the suburban complex, who represented Jews, Arabo-Islams, and Africans, spent a day and a night in Paris, then came back to home after experiencing …. well… what exactly? The reality of urban violence and gangs, prejudices and racism, flavors of bourgeois lives, all interlaced into the complexities of France to which they inevitably belong. As if the doom’s clock were ticking, the story carried the three young men to the moment of the time explosion in the end.
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The screenshot below is Matthieu Kassovitz on a recent mediatic interview, posted on X. He’s talking about France which may be in a transitory state toward what one does not know yet. He had been previously against conservatives. The time for RN is coming? He nuanced as it might be.
To view the video clip on X : click / here
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“Forbidden Planet” by Fred M. Wilcox (1956) is the greatest SciFi classic for anyone who wants to see such a film. I watched it on TV for the first time with Japanese language voiceover. Anyway at that time, I was an English zero child, very young.
This trailer captured all the importance and suspense, I found. For me, the deal shot is the underworld of the forbidden planet. (Oh no sorry, it’s not the robot. Did I disappoint you?). That décor of futurism in a Fritz Lang style with Sci-Fi pulp fiction in 3D motion picture is truly timeless (… I mean in my view).
Even then I was, and even now I am, very impressed by the aliens’ architectural constructivism more than the invisible monster. Guess what hit me most then as a child. The geometrical shape of openings as entryways, which indicates the non-humanoid form of those alien geniuses having built the underworld.
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Excerpt from “Summer Summary Early” (June 2022):
Jack Lee pushed the disk dock into his device to start the DVD. Unforbidden Planet. Real classic. My favorite. The PC screen flashed and the arrow suggested him click here on. On do, of course, otherwise what to do. Oh, however! Behold! Instead of pre-movie ads or previews of other kinds, what unfolded in front of him was a series of news clips. That sometimes happens. Jack Lee said to himself. Wait a minute… President … Biden?? Roe v Wade flipped over by Supreme Court? Gas price up over $5 per gallon? He continued to scroll up and down to click on more. Ukraine ready to join EU. Russian invasion to Ukraine. Emmanuel Macron presidency for the second term. The US - Mexico border crisis. High inflations. What am I watching? Oh, no doubt, this is the future, if not gimmick mimic of joke and joke. The digital journal was marked as by Jap Negro to be a publisher. He navigated by instinct a bit the cursor to find the art and book section to get more information to hold on. Click. Jap Negro was also a best seller among top 3 books of the year. The movie was set to be released very soon. It was said as based on a true story. He saw his name, Jack Lee, majorly credited for the production with a photo. Waaait a minute!! This is not me! The unknown guy supposed to be Jack Lee was also described as the author of this partial fiction memoir, Jap Negro! More! The guy was declaring he double acted in the library underground parking lot as two roles for Jack Lee and the girl, alone by himself! I didn’t count how many exactly, but I’ll tell you, one, two, three, within four seconds approximately, Jack Lee dashed into the front seat of his car, the model unidentifiable for me, but with the always same mustang logo like similar, to hasty-go back to the library. He pushed the key into the ignition slot, held the steer wheel gear lever to pull forward and click turn it up on. To slide open the roof top, he clockwise turned the crank handle attached to the rear corner of the opening shill. It’s no longer January. A summer kicked in by last minutes
The gear, in the clutch.
The engine, fired, already.
Then, the radio, turned suddenly on as automate.
Hey, Jack Lee!
Listen to this muuusiiiic!
The journey will be long, you jump!
Or just moments, you bring!
You’ll need anyway a song to sing with
That’s why!
Lo!
You know why!
Ho!
Clap slot jumping timer
Clap slot jumping timer
Clap slot jumping timer
(Excerpt from “Summer Summary Early” by Juliette Masch)
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“Forbidden Planet” also could be viewed from a psycho angle. That could be actually said as the whole point in the story, however in a way. By a full twist of patriarchy egoism, let me say. A man who tries to dominate the life of his wife’s sister as if he were her father, must have a deep causality in his consciousness as well as something truly grotesque on his subconscious level. More grotesque and more incontrollable than the monster in the film? So it would be, if so.
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Deal Shot by Juliette Masch (1/9)