From pop culture references to becoming pop culture itself...

Pulp Fiction is 31 years old this year. The movie that really launched Quentin Tarantino to the world (his second feature as director), pushed Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman to stardom and relaunched the career of John Travolta — who’s ironically had less career longevity than Jackson! But the movie, filled with its own endless list of 60s and 70s pop culture references has now been influential itself.

Now my youngest son is watching all kinds of movies already. He’s a big fan of horror and he’s watching all kinds of intense and sophisticated fare. So of course he didn’t take long at all to find Tarantino. And we figured we might watch Pulp Fiction with him.

But what did he watch years ago? A little episode of The Simpsons called 22 Short Films about Springfield. Which I tried to explain the references in for years, but as we watched Pulp Fiction, it all made sense to him!

Pulp Fiction won the Palm d’Or at the 1994 Canne Film Festival and was nominated for seven Oscars, winning for Best Original Screenplay for Tarantino and Roger Avary. The star linked page has so much more detail about the film and its critical analysis — it’s worth a read!

Favourite fact I learned — the Jack Rabbit Slim restaurant scene looked real, but it was the biggest single cost in the budget, created entirely in a Culver City warehouse.