Pulp Fiction (1994)

In co-writer and director Quentin Tarantino's great tri-story classic, a stylish, immensely-popular, violent, off-beat, modern B-movie cult classic with witty dialogue and heart-stopping violence - with the skillful interweaving of three major story lines throughout the film:

• the opening credits sequence including the coffee shop scene with a pair of hold-up artists: "Pumpkin"/Ringo (Tim Roth) and "Honey Bunny"/Yolanda (Amanda Plummer)
• the casual conversation between two low-life, black-clad, contract hit men Vincent Vega (Oscar-nominated John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) about the strange names given to Parisian McDonald's menu items such as a QuarterPounder with cheese ("a Royale with cheese") and a Big Mac ("Le Big Mac")
• and their continuing discussion about gangster boss Marsellus Wallace's (Ving Rhames) jealous attitude toward anyone giving his moll-wife Mia (Oscar-nominated Uma Thurman) a foot massage (Jules: "Ain't no f--kin' ballpark neither. Now look, maybe your method of massage differs from mine, but, you know, touchin' his wife's feet and stickin' your tongue in the Holiest of Holies ain't the same f--kin' ballpark; it ain't the same league; it ain't even the same f--kin' sport. Look, foot massages don't mean s--t.")

Two Discussions
Parisian McDonald's Menu Items	Foot Massages

• Jules' crazed, oft-repeated, paraphrased recitation of a Bible quote from Ezekiel 25:17, spoken to Brett (Frank Whaley), who had betrayed his business partner Marsellus Wallace by taking a briefcase, and was about to be executed - ("Ezekiel 25:17. 'The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy My brothers. And you will know My name is the Lord when I lay My vengeance upon thee!'")

• the scene between Vincent and Mia in retro-fifties era diner Jack Rabbit Slims (with the MC impersonating Ed Sullivan) - and their hip-swiveling twist dance the Batusi (a dance invented for the campy mid-60s Batman TV series and made famous by Adam West) to the Chuck Berry tune You Never Can Tell during a dance-off contest, by making a horizontal V-sign with his index and middle fingers of both hands, and drawing them across in front of his eyes, one hand at a time, with the eyes roughly between the fingers; they also performed versions of the Hitchhiker and the Swim
• in the Wallace home, while Vincent was in the bathroom (talking to himself about being loyal to his boss and not messing around with Mia), Mia was in the living room where she discovered his stash of heroin in his coat pocket. Mistaking it for cocaine, she snorted it and immediately overdosed. Vincent hurriedly drove her over to reluctant friend Lance's (Eric Stoltz) house for help, as he entreated: "Don't f--kin' die on me, Mia!"; Lance bluntly stated what needed to be done: "We're giving her a shot in the heart so I guess it's gotta be f--kin' exact." Vega demanded a "big fat magic marker" and drew a red target above Mia's heart, after the two had argued over who would administer the shot. Lance described the procedure: "It's gotta be hard enough to get through her breastplate into her heart." She was revived when Vega (on the count of three) directly shot her with adrenaline from a large hypodermic syringe plunged directly into her chest "in a stabbing motion." She woke with gasps and coughs, with the syringe stuck there and protruding from her heart.
• the unforgettable speech (a childhood flashback) of "special visitor" Captain Koons (Christopher Walken) talking to Butch Coolidge as a young child (Chandler Lindauer) about an important heirloom - a gold watch - that had been in the Coolidge family for three generations; for five years, Koons claimed he had been with Butch's father when he died in a Hanoi POW camp: ("This watch was on your daddy's wrist when he was shot down over Hanoi. He was captured, put in a Vietnamese prison camp. He knew that if the gooks ever saw the watch, it'd be confiscated and taken away. The way your Dad looked at it, this watch was your birthright. He'd be damned if any slope's gonna put their greasy, yellow hands on his boy's birthright, so he hid it in one place he knew he could hide something - his ass. Five long years he wore this watch up his ass. Then, he died of dysentery. He give me the watch. I hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up my ass two years. Then, after seven years, I was sent home to my family. Now, little man, I give the watch to you")
• the character of boxer Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) who returned to his apartment to retrieve his gold watch heirloom left there, and then paused for a snack of toaster pastries from the kitchen cabinet; to his surprise, there was a small, compact submachine gun (with silencer) carelessly resting on the kitchen counter; Butch picked up the weapon, and then heard the nearby toilet flush; the bathroom door opened on a startled, unsuspecting Vincent - literally caught with his pants down - he was blown away (at the same time the tarts popped out of the toaster)
• the scene of an injured Butch with two psychopathic hillbillies in a pawn shop, when Butch freed himself and heroically saved Marsellus by disemboweling pawn shop owner Maynard (Duane Whitaker) with a katana; this allowed Marsellus to take merciless "medieval" revenge on security guard Zed (Peter Greene) who had sodomized him: ("You hear me talkin', hillbilly boy? I ain't through with you by a damn sight. I'm gonna get Medieval on your ass")
• the absurd scene when Vincent accidentally shot back-seat passenger, informant Marvin (Phil LaMarr), in the face at point-blank range; he had turned around, with his gun in his right hand and his mispointed gun fired accidentally; it was a sick, gruesomely funny, and blood-splattering back-seat death for Marvin; Vincent kept saying: "I didn't mean to shoot the son-of-a-bitch. The gun went off. I don't know why." Jules was worried they would be discovered by the police: "Look at this f--kin' mess, man! We're on a city street in broad daylight here...We gotta get this car off the road. You know, cops seem to notice s--t like you're drivin' a car drenched in f--kin' blood."

Vincent's Back Seat Accidental Murder of Marvin

• a "clean-up" specialist Winston Wolfe (Harvey Keitel) was called upon to deal with the immediate crisis at the home of Jules' friend Jimmie (director Quentin Tarantino)
• the film's epilogue - Jules Winnfield was eating breakfast in the Hawthorne Grill with partner Vincent Vega, when he contemplated quitting the profession (during "a moment of clarity"); he was confronted by the two coffee-shop robbers, Honey Bunny and Ringo, from the film's pre-credits prologue stealing from the patrons, he held his gun on them, and reprised and reinterpreted his Biblical Ezekiel quote speech to "Ringo" - ultimately, to redeem himself, he decided to let the two go with $1,500 from his wallet (but not the briefcase), because he was in a "transitional period": "But I saw some s--t this mornin' made me think twice. See, now I'm thinkin' maybe it means you're the evil man and I'm the righteous man, and Mr. 9-millimeter here, he's the shepherd protectin' my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could mean you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd, and it's the world that's evil and selfish. Now, I'd like that. But that s--t ain't the truth. The truth is, you're the weak and I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd. Go"