Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Movie Review: Pulp Fiction

I like this movie. I've seen it before but Heidi and I watched it last night. Heidi likes it as well. In fact she picked it out.

Allow me to step onto my soap box for a moment and rant about something. Why is this movie so damn popular with women? Most women I've talked to love this movie. It's violent. Extremely violent. And the same woman who will refuse to sit down and watch Saving Private Ryan or Braveheart will watch Pulp Fiction. Do those "guy" movies really have more violence? Generally there's a reason why there are channels like Oxygen or Lifetime TV, which states they are 'geared to women', and we have channels like SpikeTV or TNT, which you may have channel hopped past on a Saturday or Sunday and saw them running "Movies for guys who like movies." Women tend to prefer romantic comedies and guys tend to prefer action/war type movies. (I'm speaking in very very general terms here... yes there are exceptions - one of my favorite movies is Return to Me as well as Kate & Leopold - starring the champion of all romantic comedies, Meg Ryan).

So it's surprising to me exactly why women have such an affinity for Pulp Fiction. Let's go over some of the violence. In the first 15 minutes we get to watch Samuel Jackson blow away the "flock of seagulls" guy on the couch followed by offing 'Brett' while he sits in his chair. Then we get to watch Uma Thurman overdose on drugs, watching blood spill from her nose and vomit out of the corner of her mouth, followed by John Travolta jam an adrenaline needle into her chest. There's also the brutal man on man rape scene with the wonderful S&M guy that they keep in the box. We watch Bruce Willis kill John Travolta and slash up the rape perpetrators with the samurai sword. And last but not least lets not forget the accidental shooting of guy in the back seat by Travolta which splatters brains all over the back of the car... So which movie really is more "violent"? I would submit that we're splitting hairs here and that the difference between Saving Private Ryan and Pulp Fiction isn't quite as far as some women would have us believe.

End rant.

No comments: