Pulp Fiction, Apocalypse Now and Taxi Driver

I thought there was no point doing three separate posts as I pretty much watched these movies back to back to save time. I have one more film to watch tonight and it will probably be Fight Club which I will review separately.

Pulp Fiction

This was the film I was always shamed to say I hadn’t seen. I can see why its a cult classic and many people’s favourite. It’s incredibly well made thanks to the wonderful Quentin Tarantino. I only made a few notes as I couldn’t really find much to write about but oddly enough, I still thought it was really good.

I know the opening song/theme tune! So it’s THIS movie that it’s from!! It turns out that I knew a lot of the iconic things in this movie but just didn’t know it was from this movie, if you know what I mean. Like, for instance, I now know that John Travolta’s stupid, ugly long hair was from this movie! And Samuel L. Jackson’s weird afro type thing. Also that iconic dancing ‘twist’ scene! *hangs head in shame* I’ve just never had the opportunity to watch this movie before.

I love the style of the storytelling, seeing it from different people’s points of view but it never stops. Sorry, back explanation but I like that the point of view changes from Samuel L. Jackson/John Travolta to just John Travolta then to Bruce Willis then back to Samuel L. Jackson/John Travolta. It keeps it fresh and different.

I didn’t like all the drug snorting and injecting. Hate it hate it hate it! Gives me the heeby jeebies.

OMG BRUCE WILLIS SHOT JOHN TRAVOLTA!!!!

202/212

Apocalypse Now

I’m a little sick of Vietnam movies, just like I’m sick of Westerns. However, for some reason, this Vietnam movie was different and didn’t make me completely bored and rolling my eyes all the time. I suppose because it’s a little different from the rest because I actually cared about the characters in this one and it wasn’t just simply ‘I hate the war, I’m so depressed, I want to go home’ crap that is most Vietnam movies but it was about hunting down an American who had gone insane! Now THAT is different because it finally showed that Americans aren’t perfect!!

The opening explosions made me think of Tropic Thunder: “Mother Nature just pissed her pants!”

I love that there is no CGI in this movie! It’s all real! It’s not that I’m anti-CGI, it’s just I love movies more when they’re actually real. But I think its safe to say that it was probably Vietnam movies that caused Global Warming.

I want some mangoes.

Awww! It has little 18-year-old Lawrence Fisher in it! He’s a scrawny little thing! Then he turned into Morpheus! Anyways, his death [sorry to give it away] is so incredibly sad because you can hear his mother’s tape in the background talking about him coming home and getting a car and grandkids. So heartbreaking.

I loved that this movie doesn’t put Americans in an all good light. It showed that there were a lot that didn’t take it seriously and just acted like it was a giant holiday with a chance to kill people and take LSD and smoke weed. Then they’re high and light up their boat for the enemy like a bloody gay pride parade.

Marlon Brando’s character is wanted for murder. In a war. Seriously.

OMG CUTEST PUPPY EVER!!! And yet we never know if it lived or not. I hope it did. It was an Andrex puppy, the cutest of them all.

The entrance to Do Long Bridge was some amazing piece of cinema. It showed the true horror of war. You had these people begging and pleading to go on the boat so they could leave this land, it’s so horrible to hear. Then they land and the base looks and sounds like an evil, dead circus. I think I remember the main character saying that the people in charge were like clowns and they were going to bring the whole circus down.

Charlie Sheen [before he went crap] was in Platoon and he looks so much like his father [Martin] did in this movie, the resemblance is uncanning.

EWWWW! THE HEAD IS ON HIS LAP!!!

The lighting of Marlon Brando is amazing because it helps show the insanity of the character with the face gradually shown and never on full display and such.

203/212

Taxi Driver

I love Robert De Niro but it’s not just him that makes me love this movie, the whole thing is amazing. I don’t know exactly what it is… the cinematography, the acting, the storyline, everything! It’s an incredibly well made movie, I will definitely watch it again. I knew it was going to be good within the first minute with the opening entrance of the taxi with the smoke and the camera angle and the music! An incredible entrance for an automobile.

Its got Frank from Everybody Loves Raymond in it!! RIP Peter Boyle!!

De Niro is really handsome in this movie! And his character is lovely and cheeky. It’s such a shame that he’s a loner. And crazy. But he is a sweetheart when it came to Betsy but I think it would have turned ugly if they’d been together because of his mental instability.

Martin Scorsese is the [fantastic] director and he’s in it too! He’s one of Travis’s [De Niro] passengers and a really important character because I think he’s the one that gives Travis the ‘lets go murder some people’ idea. Scorsese and De Niro in the same car is acting overload!!! Also made me want to watch Shark Tale.

Ewww! I hate spit and veins, those are the two things I can’t look at in movies [oh, and spiders!]. When Travis gets fit and then there’s a shot where he clenches his fist and all his veins show ewwwww!!! I’m getting all cringy just thinking about it!!

“You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?!”

I don’t like his mohawk. He looked much better before.

One of the ending shots, where it pans through the building is something I’ve seen before because we watched it when we were doing Shocking Cinema in film studies. It is pretty shocking, what with the walls practically repainted with blood and guns everywhere. I oddly like this part but I have no idea why. I’m not some weirdo that likes seeing blood but it just worked well with the rest of the movie.

I read somewhere that there are theories that the last scene[s] of the movie may not be real, and may be either what Travis is dreaming of in prison or his dying dream. It kind of reminds me of The King of Comedy where we didn’t know whether he really did become a celebrity of if he was just thinking it. Those endings are great because it leaves you thinking and to give your own interpretation rather than the director saying “here’s how it ends, tada.”

204/212

Kate
xoxo