And the Rest…
Class of ’94
Now while ‘Pulp’ does feel like something of a lightning strike, it didn’t quite come out of nowhere, in fact 1993/1994 saw several films released that contained some of its elements. There’s a good reason for that: most had some sort of Tarantino involvement, from “Killing Zoe,” directed by Tarantino’s ‘Pulp’ co-writer Roger Avary and exec produced by QT, to Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers,” which was based on a Tarantino story idea, to Tony Scott’s “True Romance,” which Tarantino wrote. Also notable from this peri-“Pulp Fiction” period was CM Talkington‘s “Love and a .45” which stars Renee Zellweger in a boneheaded, overcooked “Bonnie & Clyde” story, and seems designed for viewers who found “Natural Born Killers” just too rife with nuance and subtext.
The Not Really Rip-Offs
And then there were those films that may well have found it easier to get funding due to the success of “Pulp Fiction,” or to see their way to find an audience, but that were much more their own things, and in some cases became influential, career-making films of themselves, like Bryan Singer‘s “The Usual Suspects” and Christopher Nolan‘s “Memento.” You can even at a pinch include Soderbergh‘s terrific “Out of Sight” and extremely enjoyable John Cusack vehicle “Grosse Point Blank” in this category.
‘Lock Stock’ and the Rebirth of the British Gangster film
And finally, the true mark of a deeply influential film is that sometimes even its copycats spawn copycats, and the influence of Tarantino on Guy Ritchie, who made “Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” in 1998 can’t really be overstated. Even if he’d eventually try to slip the noose of the “British Tarantino” tag, the deeply QT-indebted Ritchie pioneered the return of the British gangster film that saw films of variant quality like “Snatch,” “Sexy Beast” “Love Honor & Obey,” “Layer Cake” and “The Limey” all released within five years of each other, constituting a subgenre all of their own.
Anything you feel we missed on our tumble down the rabbit hole? Want to berate us for underrating “8 Heads in a Duffel Bag” or congratulate us for making it all the way through “The Boondock Saints”? Leave your comments below, we’ll be at Big Kahuna Burger. – Jessica Kiang, Oli Lyttelton, Drew Taylor, Erik McClanahan, Mark Zhuravsky
