BONUS The Friday Show - On the QT: Pulp Fiction
Guest:this debate over the foot massage has has persisted like i don't know it's kind of over the line no it's not it's just a foot massage it's like i'm listening to these guys talk i'm like wait no it's definitely over the line 100 percent
Marc:Hey, Chris.
Marc:Brendan, our pal Dan, informed me that you and Mark have known each other for 20 whole years.
Marc:Wait, what are you talking about me and Mark?
Marc:You too.
Marc:You're a part of that as well.
Marc:Sure, but for everyone listening, it's really you and Mark.
Marc:Like, if someone told you 21 years ago that you and Mark would be working together for 20 years, what would you say to them?
Guest:oh so 21 years ago if they said that to me next year you're gonna meet this guy mark man you're gonna work for together for 20 years 20 whole years yeah i'd be like man i gotta watch more short attention span theater jesus can i tell this guy at all you i remember meeting you and dan in the air america offices and you know i come in i what did i say i know dan says it all the time uh because he remembers how i introduced myself you said you were you were from across the guinea gang yes
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So I say that, and I'm like, yeah, so who's on our show?
Marc:And you guys are like, oh, this guy, Marc Maron.
Marc:He's from Almost Famous.
Marc:And I'm like rattling off the movie.
Marc:I'm like, who from Almost Famous is Marc Maron?
Marc:And I could not place him at all.
Marc:And you guys were like, oh, you know, he's the guy with the gate.
Marc:He says lock the gate.
Marc:And I'm just like...
Marc:okay, sure.
Marc:I don't, I don't, I don't know.
Marc:And so, yeah, so that, that's how I was introduced to Mark.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I was not a short attention span.
Guest:I would, I would think it was, it'd be so funny if you were like, if we were like, yeah, he's the, you know, the guy from almost famous and you were like envisioning that like Philip Seymour Hoffman was there.
Guest:Oh man, this guy's going to be our host.
Guest:Yeah, 20 years, man.
Guest:We were kids.
Guest:March 8th, 2004 was our first day at Air America Radio.
Guest:It was a day.
Guest:I don't remember you being at the opening, I don't know, call it ceremony.
Guest:We had some, like, it was some...
Guest:hotel ballroom in Midtown.
Guest:Everybody went in.
Guest:Al Franken gave a rah-rah, pep rally-type speech about what the mission was.
Guest:A bunch of the executives spoke.
Guest:I remember one guy, he was taking questions.
Guest:Man, I don't even remember this dude's name.
Guest:It was just one of the suits there.
Guest:He was taking questions from people.
Guest:He was like, anybody else?
Guest:Yes, sir.
Guest:And he pointed to like someone who was raising their hand behind me.
Guest:And I hear the person go, ma'am.
Guest:And I turned around and it was Rachel Maddow.
Guest:No!
Marc:Not a great first impression.
Marc:there from that suit.
Guest:Rachel, though, who, if you remember, was just doing the newscasts at the time.
Marc:Sure do.
Guest:She was not even hosting a show.
Guest:I think she had a very good spirit about things like that.
Guest:I remember Al Franken made everybody take Polaroids
Guest:and oh yeah yeah and he said because he said it was a thing they used to do at snl which was hilarious in hindsight that it was al's big idea was you all get to know each other by having these polaroids up and then he never talked to anyone like you could you couldn't talk to that guy if you were on fire asking to be put out like he would not be bothered but unless you had a rack
Marc:That's true, yeah.
Marc:My girlfriend would come in and he would just stare at her wreck the entire time, not making eye contact.
Guest:You're not the only one with that story.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But the thing I remember about those Polaroids was then, you know, you took the Polaroid and then wrote your name on it.
Guest:And Rachel's Polaroid, you know, a picture of her, and she wrote, Rachel Maddow, mannish but friendly.
LAUGHTER
Guest:she's great i i mean you think about things 20 years like there's it's still shocking to me that things even happened 20 years ago like on my 20 years ago wasn't i still a kid right there were actually things happening in my life that turned out to be important like i can't believe we're in that phase where like a 20 years ago thing actually had great consequence on my life that's usually not the case
Marc:No.
Marc:And, uh, it's, it's really telling, especially with, uh, the, the, uh, episode on, um, early in the week, uh, episode 1520 with Thurston Moore.
Marc:That guy has recall from 50 fucking years ago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I wonder if it's because he wrote the memoir.
Guest:So he's got a lot of that stuff in the bean, but he does still seem very on top of it in a, in a way where it's impressive.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, he was good to go.
Marc:He had recall about so many things.
Marc:It was really, really great to hear him say that.
Marc:But were you a Sonic Youth fan when you were a kid?
Guest:No, I couldn't tell you much about Sonic Youth.
Guest:To me, Sonic Youth was more of a kind of a statement or an aesthetic statement.
Guest:Rather than any kind of actual thing I listened to for enjoyment.
Guest:I remember, you know, some of the songs that I enjoyed and, you know, they were visible, especially if you were like, you know, staying up late to watch like, you know, 120 Minutes or Alternative Nation on MTV.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was the extent.
Guest:I also could draw connections from Sonic Youth to then when other things started, like the band Bikini Kill.
Guest:I was like, oh, Kathleen Hanna.
Guest:Yeah, I remember her hanging out with Sonic Youth.
Guest:Things like that would always draw me around it, but I was not a Sonic Youth fan.
Marc:same i mean you know i was a led zeppelin guy so i was like into like british like rock but then like you know i got into like pearl jam and sonic youth was always like the band that my favorite band likes so never never really my band um but yeah so but at the beginning of this episode is that liquid liquid death i hear being cracked open anytime you hear a can that's liquid death yes absolutely
Guest:And if you notice, Thurston Moore was fine with it as opposed to some other former Oscar winners who have been on the show who don't seem to like The Liquid Death.
Marc:Who I got to see on my television screen on Sunday when I saw the Oscars.
Marc:Did you watch the Oscars?
Marc:I did.
Marc:I saw little Ben Kingsley up there.
Marc:He's so tiny.
Marc:He's very tiny.
Marc:So tiny and so humorless.
Marc:Like...
Marc:Like, oh, my God, we're having a good time.
Marc:We're all like making jokes and like having fun.
Marc:And then he comes on as if this is the most serious event in all of time.
Marc:Like he's giving out the Nobel Peace Prize.
Guest:That he had to give the award to like he did the presentation there.
Guest:I had five former best actor winners speak about a current nominee before they announced the winner.
Guest:And he was the one who gave it to Cillian Murphy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, he did his presentation before they announced the winner.
Guest:And everybody else's, though, they were, like, these, like, very, like, kind of friendly, light, nimble, like, Nicolas Cage and Paul Giamatti.
Guest:That was great.
Guest:Perfect.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, yes, exactly.
Guest:It was so serious, the Oppenheimer one.
Marc:They were, everyone else did a perfect sort of wedding toast speech.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You know, where you're funny, but heartwarming.
Marc:And then comes this guy who's just like, just so serious.
Marc:It was a real change of pace from the night.
Marc:That was a great night.
Marc:It was a great night.
Marc:I really enjoyed the show.
Marc:Kimmel was great.
Marc:He had his dad jokes.
Marc:He did a Baba Booey for Paul Giamatti, which was great.
Guest:Dawn didn't know what the hell he was talking about.
Guest:I was like, come on, it's pig vomit.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Did she not go with you to see private parts in the theater?
Guest:Oh, well, no, that was many years before we even met.
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah, Private Parts, I did see... That's such a great exhibit.
Guest:Private Parts, such a great... Pulling back the curtain moment.
Guest:If you were a stern listener back when that movie was coming out, you thought that that was going to be like...
Guest:Like, it was like, this is the biggest thing that ever happened.
Guest:He'd talk it up all the time for, like, well over a year.
Guest:You know, this was, like, this massive thing.
Guest:And, you know, and Howard, you know...
Guest:proclaimed himself the king of all media and he was the guy he had best-selling books and you know whatever he put these things on pay-per-view oh they sold best pay-per-view of the month or whatever it was he'd always tout all these things and his huge listener base and you knew oh god yeah Howard Stern it's everywhere
Guest:and i remember going to private parts and we had a half day of school and i was like to my friend who was also a stern fan i was like let's go and we'll get to the earliest show we have a half day so we're going to be out at noon if we leave right from school we can go to the first matinee showing at the movie theater it's at one o'clock and that way we'll definitely get a ticket because you know we'll avoid the crowds yeah
Guest:yeah and we got there and it was like us and like one other loser no and i was like wait a minute
Guest:i'm thinking the king of all media might not be as big as he says he is yeah the emperor has no clothes there huh yeah so i had this same exact conversation many years later with tom sharpling who did the same exact thing like he was like oh i better get my tickets i don't want to get locked boxed out of this thing
Marc:I saw it in the theater, in the city, at like, I think what's now like the SVA Theater, but it's on like 23rd Street.
Marc:It's a nice theater.
Marc:I saw like, I think two of the reissue Star Wars movies there.
Guest:Yeah, they came out right after that and knocked the private parts out of the theater.
Marc:That's right, yes.
Marc:But I loved that theater.
Marc:It was a big-ass screen.
Marc:It was nice.
Marc:It wasn't IMAX.
Marc:And it was kind of a packed theater.
Marc:I remember being in the back, and everyone was kind of going nuts.
Marc:So it was kind of a scene in my screening.
Marc:I don't know when I would have seen it.
Marc:Probably opening weekend.
Marc:But I remember it being pretty loud.
Marc:But yeah, I'm just looking it up.
Marc:They made, opening weekend, $14 million.
Marc:And the movie, the budget was $20 million.
Guest:In January, by the way.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:Which we all know now is like the dumping ground.
Marc:Yes, for bad movies.
Marc:And the budget was $28 million.
Marc:It made only $41 million.
Marc:So it just barely made its money back.
Marc:Oh, that's brutal.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That was, well, I think there's a reason you never saw any other Howard Stern movies.
Marc:Yeah, I guess so.
Marc:Goddamn.
Marc:But did you and Don and Owen, did you guys watch Ken?
Marc:I'm Just Ken by Ryan Gosling?
Marc:We did watch it.
Guest:We loved it.
Guest:And I don't know why you wouldn't.
Guest:I don't know if there are opinions out there.
Guest:If people didn't like the Ken thing, I haven't heard them.
Guest:But yeah, it was great.
Marc:Yeah, that was great.
Marc:But my favorite moment of the night, of Oscar night, was Arnold Schwarzenegger, Danny DeVito, and Michael Keaton.
Marc:And these three, let's just get them in a room and let's cook up some stuff.
Marc:Oh, have them host the show.
Marc:Yeah, they are-
Marc:Michael Keaton just instantly is back into Batman mode.
Marc:And it was just a delight.
Marc:I don't know if it was staged, but it was great.
Marc:And I think you said it to me privately.
Marc:You were like, Arnold saying that son of a bitch is the best line of the night.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:All the scripted banter that they had and all the prepared bits.
Guest:The highest point of comedy of the night is Arnold saying, you son of a bitch, to Batman.
Guest:I just think the great thing about Arnold and Danny DeVito is those are two guys who know exactly why they're funny.
Guest:They're completely in on themselves.
Guest:And they just know how to be them.
Guest:They know what you like about them, and they're okay with that.
Marc:They're self-aware and they accept that.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Guest:I love that they gave the award to Godzilla.
Guest:It's like, if you could pick one person to announce that Godzilla won an Oscar, who would it be?
Guest:Like, if you just asked me that last week, hey, if somebody's going to give the award to Godzilla, who should it be?
Guest:I'd be like, oh, fucking Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Guest:No doubt.
Guest:And it delivered.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the winner is Godzilla.
Yeah.
Marc:Look at him.
Marc:Can you describe the movie?
Marc:He's stomping around.
Marc:Just a great.
Guest:Fantastic.
Guest:I just smashed the whole city.
Marc:Well, that that happened on Sunday, the same night that Mark was in Tarrytown and someone got arrested at Mark's show.
Guest:Yeah, he doesn't really fully know the details, but he said that there was some kind of craziness going on in the balcony.
Guest:He didn't seem to be disturbed by it or anything or say that he... He said the same thing to me he said about that show that he does about a show where there's like, you know...
Guest:a drunk person that or or like a couple of people shouting things out he's like oh it was a hands-on performance that's what he called it yeah it was hands-on but uh but it seemed like he had a good time he had a good tour he's tired but he had a good week and uh yeah just gonna be about pacing himself as he goes forward
Marc:yeah mark is road tripping right now with like an acquaintance like his opener right yes i gotta say that's a razor's edge of being a good time and a really terrible time like i can't imagine that situation you know like that that sounds to me like a not fun experience like what have you ever i guess well you've done that with mark
Guest:i have yeah yeah i can tell you from experience that mark absolutely wants someone else in the car with him if if he if he can oh yeah yeah he he can't um his his level of like concentration on things he can't listen to things in the car and pass the time like he's not like a podcast guy he's not even that much of a music guy
Guest:like when he's in the car no he's he's like his brain is churning and he's thinking and like i guess like you know if he's in a car solo for an hour that's like an exhausting point for him mentally uh to be like by himself doing that for an hour and i think he just needs the interactions
Guest:And, you know, he was doing it in his early career all the time, you know, driving around, making towns, driving with other comics.
Guest:So I think there's part of him that it's comforting to have another comic in the car as he's going on all these places and he can, you know, bounce things off of them.
Guest:And it's just it's something he's got.
Guest:He's kind of used to.
Guest:But yeah.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Mark is the he's the king of, you know, the text while he's stuck in traffic.
Guest:Oh really?
Guest:Talk now.
Guest:And then you call him and he's like, got nothing to say.
Guest:He just wants like somebody to be on the phone with him.
Guest:In the room.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, so does he listen to music?
Marc:Like when you road trip with him, like, did you guys listen to music a whole bunch?
Guest:We did, but I could tell that, that it wasn't natural to him.
Guest:Like I could tell that it wasn't like his, his bag.
Guest:Like I think, you know, if you put on like a couple of ACDC songs and he's like, you know, recalling his youth or whatever, he's like,
Guest:yeah this is great oh man i love this song but he doesn't like pop in an album and listen to it whereas it's weird he's one of those people who will sit in his room where he's got his stereo system set up yeah and just sit and listen to a record like which i never do like i'm the opposite like i will put music on primarily do something else or right or when i'm when i'm doing chores or whatnot no he's like music is like i'm sitting and listening to this
Marc:Wow, that's so different than, I mean, I would say most people, but I don't know.
Marc:Like, I feel like most people put music on to do something else.
Guest:I think you're right that it's most people, but I think that true music people...
Guest:do what he does like people who have people have the kind of appreciation for for music as like a uh a skill and a craft and a and an art form like i i can understand why he would you know as a guy who plays guitar himself and is always kind of thinking of the the technical aspects of what goes into a lot of things as well as just his own enjoyment of it uh that's where his
Guest:level of concentration needs to be when he's taking it in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I gotta say with Thurston Moore, I was, I'll be honest with you, I didn't know who he was.
Marc:So I'm listening to this episode and I'm just kind of like going through some work stuff.
Guest:But you knew what Sonic Youth was.
Marc:I did, but I did not know any songs, I'll be honest with you.
Marc:So when this episode starts,
Marc:They're rattling off all these names of stuff.
Marc:And like with your show, it's a big part of how I consume it is, oh, they're referencing something.
Marc:I want to like read it or listen to it.
Marc:This episode was –
Marc:It was like a machine gun was being, you know, with names being rattled off at a very fast clip.
Marc:And so what I did, I was at my desk and I had a Spotify open and I just started it over again.
Marc:And just every time they referenced something, I paused it, looked up who that was and just threw it on a playlist.
Marc:So I assembled a goddamn Spotify playlist of just that episode.
Marc:of just them referencing stuff.
Marc:That playlist is six hours and nine minutes long.
Marc:It's a noise rock playlist of that episode, and I gotta say, I listened to it on my way to hang out with you on Wednesday, and it was a fucking great-ass time.
Marc:It's like...
Marc:If you pluck someone down and be like, hey, look, this is what rock was in New York at this time, here you go, listen to this, and you'll be set.
Marc:And that's what this playlist was.
Marc:It was fantastic.
Guest:So I'm looking at this, and it's 94 songs long.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What made you choose certain songs?
Guest:I would assume something would come up that's just like, they mentioned My Bloody Valentine.
Guest:What made you pick that particular song?
Marc:That was tough.
Marc:So sometimes I started playing some of the song, be like, all right, maybe that encapsulates them.
Marc:Other times I would use Spotify's like, oh, this is like the most downloaded song or most popular song.
Marc:So I kind of use that algorithm.
Marc:But some of them I'm like, oh, wait, I actually know that song.
Marc:I just didn't know that was Sid Vicious doing something else.
Marc:So that's why I would pick one song over another.
Guest:Well, listen, I'm not going to let your gift here go to waste.
Guest:I will put the link to this Spotify playlist in the episode description.
Guest:So for everyone listening right now, it's right there for you.
Guest:Just go down, click on Chris's Thurston Moore WTF 1520 playlist, and you have a sonic template for that episode, which is great.
Guest:I mean, a lot of these are just great fucking songs.
Guest:Richard Held, Blank Generation, Personality Crisis, New York Dolls.
Guest:This is great stuff.
Marc:But there's, like, The Coachmen, which I've never heard before.
Marc:Oh, yeah, The Coachmen.
Marc:Like, there's just some stuff in here that's, like, really good.
Marc:Like, The Stooges, like, I know of them from, you know, Iggy Pop.
Marc:But, like, there's just so much stuff on here that's really great.
Guest:Did you know – so they brought up the Minutemen, right?
Guest:And so you put a Minutemen song on here.
Guest:Did you know when you were going to that song what that song was?
Yeah.
Marc:So that was one of them that I was clicking around and be like, oh, wait, I know that song.
Guest:God damn it.
Marc:Jackass theme.
Marc:And I'm like, holy shit, how did I not know that this was the Jackass theme?
Marc:So, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, we've had Mike Watt from the Mimmen on the show and he, it was like...
Guest:It's one of my favorite kind of examples of the range of WTF, the dichotomy of certain things in our show that I think it was like maybe two or three weeks before we had President Obama on.
Guest:We had Mike Watt, lead singer of the Minutemen, who opened his episode up by talking about how he almost died the time he had an abscess on his taint and it exploded and it got infected.
Marc:Oh, hello, president.
Marc:Yeah, just that's the seat that... Yeah, my glove is sitting there.
Marc:He's like, yeah, I heard that.
Marc:You might want to put a cushion down.
Marc:Might want to just burn that seat.
Marc:Wait, so Mark's talking to Todd Glass, who, it was a lovely conversation.
Marc:Yeah, Todd's a good guy.
Marc:Mark brought up something that my cousin actually recently brought up to me.
Marc:I went over to my cousin's house for a fantasy baseball draft, and he's like, yo, what's up with Mark and this comedian that, you know, that this guy Brett...
Marc:or something.
Marc:Bert.
Marc:Bert.
Marc:And he's like, oh yeah, he like said some bad things about this guy.
Marc:And like, and you know, and he's like a Joe Rogan guy.
Marc:I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about.
Marc:And so he sends me this YouTube clip of someone making this like,
Marc:conspiracy it's like it's all like QAnon adjacent stuff where it's like oh well Mark said this on a podcast like this Netflix is cultivating I'm losing brain cells you've been telling me about it okay sorry so yeah so but why why did everyone think that it's this guy that Mark was talking about and why was that such a big deal
Marc:Well, two things.
Guest:A, I don't think it was a big deal.
Guest:I think it's just, you know, Internet bullshit.
Guest:But it hurt Burt's feelings.
Guest:And so Burt said something about it.
Guest:Mark had to go clean that up.
Guest:And but like, why is he talking about Burt?
Guest:No, he said in the thing he wasn't.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He said he was talking about Dave Chappelle.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So then why did, why did Joe Rogan's people be like, Hey, he's talking about you.
Guest:Because Bert, one of Bert's gimmicks basically is that he's like drinking on stage.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I think they just took that clip.
Guest:It was some clip on Mark, one of his like ill-advised Instagram live sessions, which to me is all of them.
Guest:And, uh,
Marc:Not Brendan approved.
Marc:Not endorsed by me ever.
Guest:Not once.
Guest:That's a different story for another time.
Guest:But yeah, the thing he said was something about like, you know, these comics going there and just doing a cash grab to get up there drunk.
Guest:you know, I think it was from, it was from some time he had seen a clip of Chappelle who was like, you know, basically I got your money.
Guest:You're here.
Guest:I'm up here with a, you know, bottle drinking and whatever.
Guest:And it was like, he felt it was like a, you know,
Guest:a lesser performance like you're you're you're paying for a guy just who's basically on cruise control here he's gonna sit up there and drink and you know maybe you get some material but generally he's just kind of flying by the seat of his pants but because he's at that level he can just do it right and he said that and then yeah so then the troublemakers decide to
Guest:They're going to make trouble.
Guest:And Joe Rogan specifically was the one who did it.
Guest:Joe Rogan was the one who showed that to Bert, according to Bert, and said, look at this.
Guest:Look what Maren's saying about you.
Guest:It's just, when Mark sent, and again, I feel dumber even just talking about this.
Guest:When Mark sent this thing to me and he was like, this is so fucked up.
Guest:I wasn't talking about Bert.
Guest:And I watched it and I hated myself for watching it.
Guest:And after it, I wrote back to him and I was like, you people are in fucking middle school.
Guest:You are all grown men.
Guest:You're old too.
Guest:You are old people.
Guest:And you are like...
Guest:I mean, Bert Kreischer seems like a very nice guy.
Guest:Him talking about it the way he was talking about it, like the hurt that he had and airing it out publicly.
Guest:I was like, this is less, this is more embarrassing than middle school.
Guest:Like I think middle schoolers have more pride and ability to like, you know, reign in their emotions than this, than, than these guys airing this out in public.
Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But anyway, Mark handled it in private with Bert to tell him, like, oh, that wasn't about you.
Guest:Mark genuinely likes Bert.
Guest:Like, and I can say that, like, he does not feel that way about a lot of people.
Guest:And he genuinely likes him.
Guest:Bert's like one of those guys.
Guest:You can go back and listen to the episodes of this show that Bert has been on.
Guest:Mark gets a real kick out of him.
Guest:He likes the guy.
Guest:So I think it bothered Mark more that he, that like, he doesn't care that any of the other stuff got like tagged on him.
Guest:It bothered him that suddenly Bert was mad at him.
Guest:That was, that was the, that was the thing that upset him.
Marc:Gotcha.
Marc:So when those scamps get together, they, they, like a sewing circle, like a knitting circle.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Worse than a knitting circle.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Thank you.
Guest:Well, that's a good transition to what we're going to be talking about this week.
Guest:We are on our second month of Quentin Tarantino's filmography.
Guest:And the second month means it's time for his second film.
Guest:And as luck would have it, this week at the Alamo Drafthouse in Lower Manhattan...
Guest:they were showing a party screening, it was called, right?
Guest:They call it Movie Party or something, of Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.
Guest:So Chris and I took that in, and it was...
Guest:It was a party of sorts.
Guest:I don't know that I would go to that party.
Guest:No, it wasn't.
Guest:It was like a lot of people who I think just wanted to watch the movie, which is fine.
Guest:But they say to you, you know, Alamo has all these rules, like you're not supposed to talk or check your phone, no texting when the movie's on.
Guest:But if you go to these movie party screenings, they're okay with you shouting out quotes and, you know...
Guest:hooting and hollering and you get you they want you to kind of enjoy this communal experience i think you and i were the only ones who even came close to saying anything at the screen and because we realized that that wasn't exactly the vibe yeah it didn't lay into it the whole movie yes but i will say seeing it on the big screen again fucking rules man oh from the minute it was on it ruled
Marc:Like the level of detail that you miss by watching it on your television, no matter how big your TV is.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Watching it on the big screen.
Marc:I see Tim Roth smoking some red apples like in the diner.
Marc:It's just great to see on the screen and the music, the titles, everything.
Marc:Fuck, man.
Marc:What a great time.
Guest:So let's put this into a little bit of context.
Guest:You and I both put Pulp Fiction at the top of the list.
Guest:We ranked it as Quentin Tarantino's best film when we did our rankings at the beginning of this exercise.
Guest:So it's going to be hard to say whether or not it is not the best film because we're not really comparing it to the other ones.
Guest:But let's maybe put it into perspective of why we were there before
Guest:We went and rewatched it this time.
Guest:Like, what is it that led up to basically deciding that, you know, for us, Pulp Fiction was his best film.
Guest:And I guess you got to go back to when it came out, which was almost 30 years ago.
Guest:It was presented in the Cannes Film Festival on May 21st of 1994.
Guest:And the buzz definitely started then and was was hyped up throughout the next several months.
Guest:And it finally comes out in October of 1994.
Guest:But, you know, between Reservoir Dogs and this film coming out, he was definitely already kind of generating attention because, you know, you get True Romance, which, you know, prominently has his name on the credits.
Guest:The script is his.
Guest:Natural Born Killers, which comes out after True Romance and before Pulp Fiction, featured his name prominently in the advertising.
Guest:It was directed by Oliver Stone, written by Quentin Tarantino.
Guest:It was right there.
Guest:The movie Killing Zoe comes out.
Guest:That's directed by Roger Avery, who makes Pulp Fiction, and Tarantino's a producer on it.
Guest:So his profile is rising, but I do think it's interesting...
Guest:He was not yet at that rock star level.
Guest:That's going to come next.
Guest:It'll be interesting when we talk about Jackie Brown next month.
Guest:The context that you have to put that in is in the midst of the real Tarantino as celebrity phase.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He was becoming a thing, a Hollywood entity in and of himself with his appearances in movies.
Guest:He was on Broadway.
Guest:I saw that.
Guest:He was everywhere.
Guest:Oh, you saw Wait Until Dark?
Guest:I did with Mursa Tomei and him.
Guest:And yeah, I was one of those people.
Guest:So he was not there yet.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But for people like me, like a 14 year old kid with a premier magazine subscription and who had already seen Reservoir Dogs.
Guest:See, I think I was rare in that case.
Marc:Yes, you were.
Guest:You were more representative of most people who went back to Reservoir Dogs after seeing Pulp Fiction.
Guest:I was like, oh, man, I can't wait for this guy's second movie.
Guest:And then once it came out, it can.
Guest:And obviously, I didn't see anything about that, but I would read about it and read about the rapturous ovation that it got.
Guest:And, you know, I was hyped by the time this movie came out.
Guest:So I, and I guess, you know, wearing that enthusiasm on my sleeve that I can remember, it must have been, I don't remember the exact date, but it must have been, I'm guessing like election day, maybe veterans day of 1994 because I had off from school.
Guest:And I remember I agreed with my mom that I would go with her to a relative's house if, on the way back, we could stop at the movie theater that was near their house so that we could see this new Quentin Tarantino movie, Pulp Fiction.
Guest:And I went to see it with my mom when I was 14 years old.
Guest:And might I add, we both loved it.
Guest:We both thought it was a really great experience just seeing it in the movie theater.
Guest:And it was so good that when I got home, I told my dad it was great and we went to see it, he and I. Oh my gosh.
Guest:That Friday.
Guest:So it was, you know, I saw it twice in the theater in the course of maybe five days.
Oh.
Marc:That's so cool.
Guest:Now, you have a story, though, that you like happened upon it, right?
Guest:Wasn't that what the deal was?
Marc:So when I went, I was dropped off by my friend's mom.
Marc:We were going to see a double feature of some kids movies.
Marc:I keep on.
Marc:I try to search to see what.
Marc:Double feature would be for like a kid's movie, but I can't find it.
Marc:But we were in the middle of this movie and we're like, look, this movie sucks.
Marc:Let's sneak into a different movie at the Staten Island UA theater.
Marc:And we snuck in and we...
Marc:We snuck into the movie.
Marc:We were in like the first or second row because there was a packed crowd for this movie.
Marc:And as we're going into our seats, Vincent is speeding down a street in L.A.
Marc:And that's my first instance of Pulp Fiction.
Marc:I don't know anything except I know that there's a woman who is ODing.
Marc:In the passenger seat, that's my first entryway into Quentin Tarantino and into Pulp Fiction.
Marc:So I knew nothing.
Marc:I was not a premier magazine subscriber.
Marc:I would say I would see Entertainment Weekly and read that at the B-Dolton.
Marc:I was not on the tip of the spear of entertainment, zeitgeist, you know, shit.
Marc:So...
Marc:When John Travolta stabs Uma with the shot of adrenaline past her breastplate, dude.
Marc:I mean, I honestly think, like, forget seeing Pamela Anderson on Baywatch in slow-mo.
Marc:Like, this was me becoming from a boy to a man.
Marc:Like, I...
Marc:I saw something that changed my life forever.
Marc:Like it really was like life altering.
Marc:I remember I kind of stopped hanging out with that kid because he wasn't into movies as much as I was, even though he was into like wrestling.
Marc:But I just pivoted away into movies because of this movie.
Marc:Like this movie made me...
Marc:like, want to know everything about movies.
Marc:And that's why I got into Reservoir Dogs.
Marc:And, like, I had this movie on VHS cassette.
Marc:And I saw the only other time I saw it in the theater, it was at Lincoln Center, the old theater there, where it was, like, a huge theater.
Marc:And I was in this great theater, seeing Pulp Fiction up on the screen for a re-release for some reason.
Marc:And I was just like, this is the best.
Marc:And, like, movies are important.
Marc:Like, it was a real...
Marc:Gorgeous time.
Marc:And it just Pulp Fiction to me just changed my life and how I see things.
Guest:So how soon after that time of walking into the movie halfway through, did you go see the whole movie?
Marc:Oh, I, so that was, I, I honestly believe it probably was like a month.
Marc:Cause I remember there were all these other movies out at the same time, right?
Marc:There was like Shawshank Redemption and stuff.
Marc:And I, I went, I think a month later to see it, uh, in, in the full thing.
Marc:And, uh, boy, really, really helped seeing the beginning.
Marc:Uh,
Guest:I guess, but I mean, if there's ever a movie where it's okay to walk in halfway through, it's the movie where the guy decided to rearrange the story so the hero doesn't die on the toilet and instead walks away triumphantly.
Marc:I'll never forget, though, with the first time I saw that.
Marc:And, you know, obviously I'm seeing it as, you know, John Travolta dies on the toilet there.
Marc:And then he's, we're back again.
Marc:With Samuel L. Jackson reciting his lines.
Marc:And I remembered the audible, like, murmuring in the theater in Staten Island of these people, you know, being like, wait, what?
Marc:We just saw him die.
Marc:Like, what?
Marc:Like, I honestly, I believe people were like, I think they fucked up the reel.
Marc:Oh, that's funny.
Marc:I think they messed up the movie because this guy's already dead.
Marc:Now he's back.
Marc:And there was like confusion in Staten Island, which is not the first time or the last time that's happened.
Marc:Well, see.
Guest:See, the thing is for me, I was so excited about this movie coming out that I remember seeing commercials for it.
Guest:Like I was very, I mean, I probably watched like Siskel and Ebert talk about it.
Guest:Anything that I knew that there would be clips of it or something, I was definitely seeing.
Guest:And I remember it was very prominent in the marketing for it was the scene where the guy comes out of the bathroom and fires at them and doesn't hit anything.
Guest:samuel jackson and john travolta and then they turn they look at each other and they turn back at him and they hold their guns up and pull the trigger and that would be like the end of the commercial right it'd be like pulp fiction so you're watching this movie and in the first 20 minutes or so it's that scene and it the the samuel jackson does the ezekiel 25 17 speech and they shoot brett
Guest:In the chair there.
Guest:And then the scene cuts to them showing up at the Marcellus Wallace's club with the briefcase.
Guest:And I, in the moment, thought, oh, this is one of those fucking ripoff things.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:where they put a scene in the ads that got cut from the film.
Guest:And so I just assumed I was watching the thing in chronological order.
Guest:And so when Bruce Willis shoots John Travolta, I'm like, oh, well, that's it.
Guest:He's dead.
Guest:And so, yeah, those scenes are gone.
Guest:Like anything I saw in the trailer that I didn't see in the movie yet with John Travolta, I was like, well, that was bullshit.
Guest:They bait and switched me on that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I guess the first time you saw it, you were, you were taken out of the movie, right?
Marc:Cause you were like, God damn it.
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I was loving the movie, but at, at, I did think like, uh, it's probably cause this movie's so long.
Guest:I knew how long it was going into it.
Guest:You know, you walk into the movie and they tell you, oh, this is a two hour, two and a half hour movie or whatever.
Guest:And,
Guest:And so I get, I'm like, I guess because it's long, they cut some of this stuff.
Guest:Oh, that sucks.
Guest:But I'm still sitting there enjoying it.
Guest:But you know, it's funny because I was saying this to you last night that there's some kind of magic that happens in the movie when the plot kicks in about trying to deal with the headless corpse.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then Harvey Keitel shows up and it, for the, like for this movie that's been filled with tremendous dialogue and real like firecracker, uh,
Guest:action and pacing and everything all of a sudden this thing starts to turn into like the funniest thing you've ever seen it's like it's like a sitcom on steroids right you're like i can't believe this is people talking like they're on seinfeld but they're gangsters and there's blood everywhere and it's a headless corpse and but it's it's great and it played that way even last night watching this in the movie theater and i
Guest:I think that one of the things that makes that scene so appealing to me is that the first time I ever saw this movie, it felt like a gift that I was getting more time with those characters that I already thought were out of the film.
Marc:Ding, ding, ding.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:It's like, oh, they're back.
Marc:These people.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:100%, right?
Marc:I was thinking about that as well.
Marc:And absolutely.
Marc:It's like, oh, my friend isn't gone.
Marc:Look, he's there.
Marc:This is another adventure that I just didn't see.
Guest:Well, if you think about it, if you think about it, this guy, Quentin Tarantino, has now done this
Guest:multiple times.
Guest:And I don't just mean the rearranging of the chronology.
Guest:I mean taking something where the ending is not suitable to him and making it more fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, World War II ended like that in real life?
Guest:No, no thank you.
Guest:I will kill Hitler.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, the Manson family did what?
Guest:And destroyed Hollywood?
Guest:No, no thank you.
Guest:I will have them be lit on fire with a blowtorch.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The antebellum South really didn't do much in the way of freeing the slaves.
Guest:I will have a slave massacre a plantation.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like...
Guest:There is, this has happened multiple times.
Guest:This is his overriding feature as a guy who gets to tell stories is he's like, no, it's my story.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I get to choose and I choose that we're going to go hang out with these guys and they're going to walk off like, you know, gunslingers in the West in their, in their volleyball outfits and, you know, put the guns in the drawstrings and walk out into the sunset.
Guest:Doesn't matter that this guy died on the toilet before.
Guest:40 minutes ago.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I will say, when you're watching the movie for the first time, or for me, the first and a half time, and it happens to me every time I see this movie in the theater, and it is...
Marc:When you're in the diner with Vincent and Samuel L. Jackson, and all of a sudden, Tim Roth asked for coffee.
Marc:And, dude, it is... The feeling is just like that close-up of that heroin syringe.
Marc:Like, filling up with blood and just going into your vein.
Marc:Like, it's like, holy shit, we're back...
Marc:in this scene from the beginning that I thought we would probably would never see again.
Marc:It was like maybe just like a prologue.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:You think it's just a little vignette to start you out with the taste of the movie.
Guest:And now we're back?
Guest:The first time you see this movie, you have long forgotten about it.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:There's so much has happened.
Marc:People's heads have been blown off, for Christ's sake.
Marc:And when that happens...
Marc:There is just a pulse, a vibration that this movie has that is palpable.
Marc:It is like, holy God, we're inching towards this moment.
Marc:And I know what's going to happen in about 50 seconds.
Marc:It is great.
Marc:And it never disappoints.
Guest:I did say to you in the moment, though, and this is a feeling that you don't have the first time you see it, obviously, but then in subsequent viewings, and I really felt it last night, especially because we were having a good time.
Guest:You won a dance contest.
Guest:We didn't tell people about that.
Guest:They asked people to do a dance contest, to do the twist.
Guest:Chris volunteered, and he won.
Guest:Chris won the dance contest.
Guest:Tell him what you won.
Guest:I won a wallet.
Guest:Yeah, what did your wallet say?
Marc:Bad motherfucker.
Guest:Chris won a bad motherfucker wallet that has Jules' ID in it, which is almost better than the wallet itself.
Guest:He's got Jules' California driver's license.
Guest:So yes, we were having a great time.
Guest:It was so enjoyable.
Guest:We're old now, and so it's like, no matter how much fun you're having, there's always not fun around the corner.
Guest:Right.
Guest:and when that coffee gets asked for when tim rod says garcon coffee and you had that same like ding of recognition that this thing is about your your this we're about to you know hit into that next gear when they hold up this this coffee shop i also had the feeling of like oh man they're all gonna go away yeah yeah
Guest:I'm going to miss my friends again.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:What?
Marc:A hundred percent.
Marc:Like it's the beginning of the end.
Marc:There's the, the, the light is flashing.
Marc:I got five more minutes and yeah, you're right.
Guest:It's just that it's that it's a, it's 10 o'clock on Christmas night.
Guest:Everybody's leaving.
Guest:It's like time to get ready to go to bed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:So, so Brendan, I got to ask, have you ever given a girl a foot massage?
Marc:Uh, yeah, I got my technique down and everything.
Guest:No tickling.
Marc:I got to tell you, when I was single, that was like my move.
Marc:Like, like that was like, like that.
Marc:If I'm giving a girl foot massage, that means like, you know, some, you know, I'm it's, it's going to happen, you know?
Guest:Like, so that's the fun, another funny thing about the movie is,
Guest:This foot massage thing, which becomes, you know, it's a fairly vital plot point because he brings it back up with Mia later on.
Guest:And this idea that the foot massage led to Marcellus throwing this guy off the balcony.
Guest:And they have this very long and now kind of famous debate about the importance of a foot massage and that whether or not it's like equal to sex.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There's no argument.
Guest:It's so funny that for 30 years, this debate over the foot massage has persisted.
Guest:Like, I don't know, it's kind of over the line.
Guest:No, it's not.
Guest:It's just a foot massage.
Guest:It's like, I'm listening to these guys talk.
Guest:I'm like, wait, no, it's definitely over the line.
Marc:Right, right, 100%.
Guest:You know, like there's no debate.
Guest:Like that part where John Travolta's like,
Guest:I mean, that's his fucking wife, man.
Guest:I'm like, yeah.
Guest:And it's so funny, too.
Guest:There's so much stuff.
Guest:Like, obviously, in any movie, things get dated, right?
Guest:But the idea that these gangsters, these guys, this one guy, we see him shooting up heroin.
Guest:We see it happen.
Guest:That these guys are, and they kill people.
Guest:The complete amorality of the whole movie.
Guest:And yet these guys start the movie, the very famous opening sequence with Jules and Vincent in the car after the credits play, is them talking about how crazy it is that you could go to Amsterdam to smoke weed.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Like, I see a 13-year-old on the corner of my street doing it now.
Guest:Like, they're just hanging out smoking weed.
Right.
Marc:right so another question for you did you have you ever done like hard drugs not talking about weed no never i did i i i snorted cocaine once in college and i said well i'm never doing that again because it was too good oh really yep like you like like limitless like what you were just like yeah exactly all of a sudden i started seeing like beautiful mind uh numbers going in front of my face
Guest:No, I just, I knew, like, look, I've never been like a hardcore substance abuser or anything like that.
Guest:And I just knew limits to things.
Guest:And I was just, it was literally out of curiosity.
Guest:I was like, well, when the fuck else am I going to snort cocaine?
Marc:See, yeah, so that's my experience with – I've only done acid once, and that was at Woodstock 99.
Marc:And I was offered it by the girl that I hitchhiked up to Woodstock with.
Marc:And, yeah, I was like, what other time would I do acid but Woodstock 99?
Marc:And I got to say –
Marc:It was a very interesting time.
Marc:It kicked in right when Rage Against the Machine came on.
Marc:And it was such a surreal – have you ever done Acid?
Marc:No.
Marc:Dude, I mean, as I understand, I've never done it since.
Marc:But, you know, everyone's high is different or whatever it is.
Marc:And dude, Rage Against the Machine was playing and some guy ran up to the stage and spilled this other guy's beer.
Marc:And this guy, and like beers were like expensive.
Marc:Water was expensive.
Marc:It was like a shit show.
Marc:It was like 99.
Marc:But I was there and this guy was pissed and he was just yelling at that guy and his whole demeanor changed.
Marc:He was just like really upset.
Marc:And the entire Rage Against the Machine, like time that they were on,
Marc:I was just staring at this guy who was probably like three, maybe five feet in front of me.
Marc:And I thought that all the lyrics of Rage Against the Machine were coming out of his head.
Marc:And I could see the music coming out of his hateful head.
Marc:And it was amazing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I can see.
Guest:But amazing is good because that sounds like that could go bad very fast.
Marc:Yes, it could have, but it didn't.
Marc:I mean, I eventually fell asleep underneath like a truck and I woke up to like Our Lady Peace was playing.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:It was a great time.
Guest:There's a scene in Gimme Shelter, the Rolling Stones documentary about the, you know, the Altamont Music Festival that goes very badly.
Guest:And there's this part where this guy is like happened to get on stage.
Guest:He's like...
Guest:just feet away from the whole band and the camera catches him and he is tripping balls and he looks like a werewolf like he's super hairy and he's like looking at his hands and he's going like
Guest:and like it is the most terrifying thing and the the fortunately i think it's like one of the hell's angels is like uh why don't we get that guy out of here and they like pull that guy it's like the the good thing the hell's angels did before they killed a guy right and uh and and but i remember seeing that when i was younger and i was like oh yeah i don't ever want to do that yeah
Marc:Yeah, I bet.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, drugs, they just never, like, seem necessary for me.
Marc:Like, I'm just like, I'm fine.
Marc:I'm going to have a nice time.
Guest:And I always go, you know, knowing, you know, having, you know, people in my family with addiction problems and that, and, you know, having worked with Mark for 20 years.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Like, my whole thing is almost like, hey...
Guest:if I lucked out and I don't have that issue, like I just take it as a gift, right?
Guest:That I don't need that.
Guest:And I don't, because I just see people get pulled into such horrible spirals with it.
Guest:But I will say, I remember seeing this movie at 14 years old and watching that very specific episode,
Guest:setup of the heroine, all the gear.
Marc:It's almost like Batman putting on his suit.
Guest:Yes, the step-by-step process of it.
Guest:And it wasn't appealing to me, but I did think this guy who, again, going back to that idea that he didn't know
Guest:his persona really at this point he was still this like wunderkind filmmaker who did this crazy movie about these this diamond heist and now he's making this thing and he's like you know with if you knew of the other things he was writing or the things his name was attached to this seems like this real like streetwise tough guy and now i'm watching this thing and this guy knows to the
Guest:microscopic level what the injection of heroin into the bloodstream looks like and he's showing you that i thought this guy was like this is the most worldly person i've ever encountered in my life and he must be the coolest dude alive and it's like when you now know quentin tarantino that he's just essentially the world's largest film nerd like the the most like prominent film nerd who ever lived and
Guest:And just somehow, through his accumulation of knowledge, knew how to make this look this way.
Guest:That's an even greater achievement.
Guest:This was not like some guy cooking up black tar heroin in his kitchen all the time.
Guest:He's like, I really need to show my life on screen here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, it's basically like...
Marc:you know, Jules and Vincent put on Quentin Tarantino's clothes.
Marc:And what does he say?
Marc:He's like, oh, look, you guys are a bunch of dorks.
Marc:Like, yes, that's Quentin.
Guest:The key line is Jules saying back to him.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah, they're your clothes, motherfucker.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:He's just a dork.
Guest:That's the greatest thing is that, like, he's calling attention in his own script to the fact that he is the dork.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:That's amazing.
Guest:Speed, let's just take a minute before we run out of time here to talk about this script.
Guest:What I was most aware of watching it again this time is how he always adds the extra note in every moment that people... Go watch that scene with John Travolta and Uma Thurman at Jackrabbit Slims in the fake car.
Guest:And they are doing... In a lesser film...
Guest:It would be standard rom-com boilerplate, back and forth.
Guest:One person says this funny thing, the other has a response.
Guest:And he always allows the extra human moment to come through.
Guest:Like a person saying...
Guest:You know, well, I don't want to tell you about that.
Guest:And it's like, oh, come on.
Guest:No, I won't laugh.
Guest:And Wilma Thurman's like, well, that's the whole point.
Guest:Now I really don't want to tell you because I'm afraid you're going to make fun of me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He follows through every impulse that the characters have and allows them to say it.
Guest:I think it's probably because of his own impulsivity.
Guest:He knows that there's always another beat and he allows that other beat.
Guest:And you know who handles it the greatest?
Guest:I mean, there's everybody's performances are really good in this movie, but I was very conscious of it watching it this time.
Guest:John Travolta.
Guest:He's never given a better performance.
Guest:Never.
Guest:He is so naturally suited to following through to that next beat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think that's the thing this guy never was given.
Guest:He was always just Danny Zuko.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or Barbarino.
Guest:Let him say the funny line or the charming thing and then move on.
Guest:But the idea of the $5 shake and he drinks it...
Guest:And he's like, that's a pretty good milkshake.
Guest:And like, you could cut there.
Guest:But then to give him that extra thing, he's like, I don't know if it's worth $5, but it's pretty fucking good.
Guest:And he's, you know, he's high or drunk at the time.
Guest:You know, he's working on a bourbon and a heroin shot, right?
Guest:So like, he's all buzzed.
Guest:And, you know, he lets that sit.
Guest:And then this guy is... How did they allow this second time direct... The faith they had in this guy...
Guest:these actors I'm talking about, to know, like, I'll just let this hang out.
Guest:This guy, I trust him.
Guest:I trust him to bring it home.
Guest:I trust him to allow my performance to land the way it lands.
Guest:It's really remarkable.
Guest:And, I mean, in some cases, he had an easy job.
Guest:Like, you get Samuel L. Jackson out there who's just, you know, plowing a mile a minute on all these things.
Guest:But the Travolta thing is the one I can't get over.
Guest:How he puts all of himself into every little gesture, eating that plate of bacon and pancakes at the diner, and, oh, bacon tastes good.
Guest:Porkchop tastes good.
Guest:Like...
Guest:it made me sad that I felt people generally wasted John Travolta for the rest of his career.
Guest:Like, they didn't give him this level of care and attention because he totally could have handled it.
Guest:He was not just the guy who, like...
Guest:you know, was charming and could dance when he was younger and shake his hips.
Guest:And like, no, this guy.
Guest:And, you know, we know this from Saturday Night Fever, which is an emotionally layered performance as well.
Guest:But he had the goods and and he definitely got to show them off here.
Guest:He I wish he I wish he did more in his life like this.
Marc:Well, I think it comes down to the script, because I read the script.
Marc:I've been reading the scripts as we're going through this whole odyssey of ours.
Marc:And I read Reservoir Dogs.
Marc:I'm like, all right, that was a standard movie script.
Marc:Then I started reading Pulp Fiction, and it's as if I was touching the third rail of the subway, man.
Marc:It was electric.
Marc:It was so different from Reservoir Dogs in that it was not just five characters who were all talking like Quentin Tarantino, because that was basically Reservoir Dogs, okay?
Marc:This was...
Marc:All these characters and they were all fleshed out and they were all had their own, you know, objectives and things that they had to do.
Marc:And it was it was just beautiful.
Marc:And, you know, I hear what you're saying about John Travolta, but I got to say.
Marc:Bruce Willis' performance in this is also something that I feel like he hasn't done too many times.
Marc:It's John McClane and it's this that are in the top two.
Marc:And it really hammered home – I forget how many rewatches it took for me to figure out that –
Marc:When we see Christopher Walken, you know, talk about this watch.
Marc:And, you know, he realizes that his girlfriend forgot the watch.
Marc:He's going to get the watch.
Marc:He got the watch.
Marc:That this is... Bruce Willis is now in... He's not in a world war.
Marc:He's in his own war.
Marc:And this is his war.
Marc:And he's trying to kill, you know, Marcellus.
Marc:He's trying to, you know, kill John Travolta.
Marc:But...
Marc:When the gimp is there and he breaks out of his seat and he's going to get out of there.
Marc:It's that kind of mindset because of Christopher Walken's monologue.
Marc:Like a POW camp.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:He was in a POW camp and you're not going to leave a man behind.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But he also has to earn this watch.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:This is the same.
Marc:It's like the test.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's that recognition of all of the scenes that came before it that Bruce Willis is going to save the day and walk out the hero.
Marc:And I just think it's a beautiful moment.
Marc:And he delivers in that scene and all of his scenes really well.
Guest:every now and then when throughout Bruce Willis, his career, if you go through his filmography, the directors who really got that he could do these quiet moments as well as his like, you know, smart alecky John McClane persona or do the action beats.
Guest:He did all those fine.
Guest:But like, I think of something like, um, unbreakable, like, um,
Guest:He's really great in that because the movie allows you to just watch this guy working through something he's not feeling great about or not feeling sure of.
Guest:And Bruce Willis, he does that in this movie.
Guest:He's very good at the like...
Guest:I'm not so sure I should be doing this, but I got to do it anyway.
Guest:And that, you know, that's intrinsic and diehard, absolutely.
Guest:But it definitely shows up here.
Guest:That was also a thing where I noticed what a good director Tarantino was from Jump, right?
Guest:From the very beginning, you know, like we were talking about with Reservoir Dogs, how it stood out to me that that chase scene with Mr. Pink running away from the Diamond Heist was so well shot that,
Guest:Meanwhile, you usually think of Reservoir Dogs as a very centrally located, staged production.
Guest:You're in really one location and sometimes elsewhere.
Guest:But that jumped out at me that time.
Guest:And this movie has a lot of stuff like that, where that scene where Bruce Willis has parked the car and he's going back to the apartment, the fluidity of the camera that's following him is perfect.
Yeah.
Guest:You're always with him that whole way.
Guest:I think we don't spend enough time talking about how well-directed it is because everybody loves the screenplay so much.
Guest:So, okay, let's land at the place was inevitable for us in seeing this is that it's already at the top of our list, right?
Guest:Like, we're not going to drop it down, obviously.
Guest:We love this movie.
Guest:But...
Guest:I will say this.
Guest:I want to hear your reaction to it.
Guest:Watching it this time is probably the first time, and maybe it's because we're doing this exercise.
Guest:It was maybe the first time I've ever watched this film where I thought to myself, it's possible this isn't his best film.
Guest:I'm not sure yet.
Guest:I have to watch the other ones.
Guest:But I had the thought that like, okay, here's what I'll tell you.
Guest:I'll say I thought this explicitly is that everything we're talking about is true about the writing, the directing.
Guest:It all feels so, and especially at the time when you first saw it, felt so fresh.
Guest:And now you're what we're watching it 30 years later.
Guest:It's still as fun as a movie can get.
Guest:It's so fun watching this.
Guest:what really stood out to me was it is fun at the level of a 14 year old's fun that I can at 44 appreciate.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, and put myself in that zone and enjoy it for that level.
Guest:But,
Guest:There are very few notes in this film that elevate it to a higher level of humanity, of inquiry, of how do people relate to people, right?
Guest:And I'm not saying every movie has to have that, but the great ones...
Guest:truly interrogate us as a species.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, and make you kind of, you know, the, the famous Ebert line is that movies are a machine that generate empathy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I'm not asking for every movie to have to ring out, you know, the, the, you know, the innermost feelings of the human soul.
Guest:It's sometimes good to just feel like this is a fun time, which is what this movie is.
Guest:But,
Guest:but everything is at the, is fun at the level of like a kid.
Guest:Like, and the thing that where this has become so clear is the one character where you could say, Oh, that character's there.
Guest:There's something happening there that's elevated, right?
Guest:There's something there that's a little more spiritual.
Guest:And I say spiritual, not in the religious sense, just totally of the spirit of the soul.
Guest:And,
Guest:And that's Samuel Jackson playing Jules, that he's going through this crisis, this almost religious crisis, that he feels he has to change the direction of his life.
Guest:And when he is telling Vincent about this at the diner, and he says, and it's the funny line that everybody remembers and quotes, that he wants to be like Cain in Kung Fu and walk the earth.
Guest:John Geralt says, what you mean walk the earth?
Guest:And he says, you know, go around, walk, go from place to place, get in adventures.
Guest:And I'm like...
Guest:This is a child's version of what a, you know, let's not say a child, but a very youthful of spirit version of what a kind of ascetic religious experience would be.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it's basically like, oh, I'm going to run away from home and I'm going to tie a polka dot shirt together on a stick and go on adventures.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But I do believe Quentin Tarantino in his 20s at the time honestly thought the best way to kind of like really get the most out of life would be to be like you see in the movies or on TV shows.
Guest:Like that was what his brain was geared toward.
Guest:And that overwhelms the whole movie.
Guest:not in an oppressive way, not in a way that makes the movie unenjoyable.
Guest:But there are no notes in this movie where you're like, oh, actual human adults are involved in this.
Guest:These are all characters that have been created by this fantastically imaginative person.
Guest:And I love them for, I love who they are.
Guest:I love every bit of them.
Guest:But this might as well be Star Wars.
Guest:right this might as well be that level of fantasy and because of that I do think like in my memory of his other movies particularly Once Upon a Time in Hollywood but then also like possibly Jackie Brown right and
Guest:maybe Django Unchained, but I feel like they deal with some... I feel like they deal with humanity with more maturity than this movie, despite how great this movie is.
Guest:And I don't know.
Guest:We'll see when we get there.
Guest:I mean, I think the crazy thing about Jackie Brown is that...
Guest:it got graded on the curve, right?
Guest:It got graded on the curve of this movie being such a fun time.
Guest:And then also it got demerits because he was so public by that time, right?
Guest:This is 1994.
Guest:And then you got three years later, he's been on Margaret Cho's sitcom, right?
Guest:Like he's directing episodes of ER, right?
Guest:Like he was everywhere.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I wonder, it will be very interesting next month to see Jackie Brown with fresh eyes, especially after having just watched Pulp Fiction.
Guest:And I don't know.
Guest:I'm not going to say anything's going to knock Pulp Fiction off the perch for me, but I'm curious.
Marc:I don't know how you feel about it.
Marc:I feel like that feeling you have of, oh yeah, you know what?
Marc:This may be not, this might not be the best movie he's ever done is...
Marc:what people were thinking at that time, at least, you know, again, I didn't have a premiere subscription, so I don't know.
Marc:But like, I feel like people were like, this is the best is yet to come.
Marc:This guy just made this little independent movie.
Marc:He's gonna, he's gonna, like the sky's the limit for this guy.
Marc:So I feel like that's how people were perceiving it.
Marc:And when Jackie Brown hits and it's not at that same level,
Marc:fucking level as Pulp Fiction, I feel like the wind gets knocked out.
Marc:And like, so I feel like you're kind of in that same ballpark where you're going chronologic and you're like, well, I think this, you know, this is just on the rise, you know?
Guest:But I don't know, Chris, because when I saw this movie, I was pretty certain it was the greatest thing I ever saw in my life, right?
Guest:And I didn't know that I'd ever watch a better movie.
Guest:And I kind of have carried that with me my whole life, like since then.
Guest:If I did that letterboxed for movies that they do with people on the red carpet, this would be on it.
Guest:And so it's very surprising to me to sit there watching it last night and think, wow, this might actually not even be his best movie.
Guest:let alone one of the four greatest movies ever made, as I would have seen it, right?
Guest:And I don't know that that's the case.
Guest:That's the other thing.
Guest:I have to kind of interrogate a little bit with the other movies to see if it gets there.
Guest:Because I just feel like all the things that landed for me landed, right?
Guest:The way they've landed every time.
Guest:And yet maybe it's just age and maybe it's just my expectations of how to actually feel satisfied by things in life.
Guest:I left it for the first time thinking that it's missing some heart, right?
Guest:And what does that mean for me?
Guest:Because there's a lot of life and humor in the movie, but the heart and soul, where are they?
Guest:And what is heart and soul when I'm looking for it in a film?
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I wonder if it's in his other movies and I'm going to find it there.
Guest:And if I do, does that alone supersede how great this movie is on all other levels?
Guest:Because this thing just hits, hits, hits, hits all the way through.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, for me, I don't think there's a movie as good as this.
Marc:A movie of his?
Marc:A movie of his that is as good as this.
Marc:But you're definitely giving me something to chew on, something to think about.
Marc:And it's something that I definitely will think about when Jackie Brown happens next month.
Marc:All right, well.
Marc:Wait, hang on.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:We'd be remiss if we didn't talk about Samuel L. Jackson, right?
Marc:Yeah, we didn't talk about him enough.
Marc:You're absolutely right.
Marc:This is one of the best performances in a movie ever.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, and also a definitional performance.
Guest:like just the same way like Marlon Brando in The Godfather became a thing like now anybody thinks of like The Godfather your first thing you go to is like make him an offer you can't refuse like this it's like Samuel L. Jackson
Guest:is a thing, right?
Guest:He is not just a person.
Guest:He is not just an actor.
Guest:He is a force.
Guest:Like Samuel L. Jackson is an ethos that you can have in your life, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just like so much so that that that children's book was made.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Go to fuck to sleep or whatever.
Guest:Like the entirety of Snakes on a Plane existed because of his persona.
Guest:And people just now know what that means.
Guest:If you bring up Samuel L. Jackson.
Guest:Whatever his great performances are in other things, this is his epitaph, right?
Guest:It will always be this performance because it created something that didn't exist before.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:I mean, he's associated with a Bible verse now.
Marc:Like, it is his.
Guest:Not an accurate one, but correct.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But, like, that is the best performance I've seen.
Marc:And was he even nominated for Best Supporting Actor?
Marc:He was.
Guest:He lost to Martin Landau in Ed Wood.
Guest:And why don't you just go ask him about it?
Guest:Because he will absolutely tell you.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Oh, he goes on and on about it forever.
Guest:Anybody ever asks him about it, he's like, yeah, I should have won that.
Guest:Like...
Marc:Well, you know what?
Marc:I think he should have.
Guest:Probably, in hindsight, absolutely.
Guest:I mean, I do think that that Martin Landau performance is great.
Guest:But yeah, in hindsight, this is one of the great film performances ever.
Marc:When he's in the backseat of that car, picking up little pieces of brain, I mean, first of all, the interplay between John Travolta and him is just the... It's like children, you know, just like...
Marc:Yeah, schoolyard argument.
Marc:Schoolyards.
Marc:And like, it is so entertaining.
Marc:And I always wish it could go longer because they're just so good.
Marc:That's why it's good because it doesn't.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:And, you know, like I was saying, he's the one character that has some kind of real like kind of emotional arc.
Guest:I mean, I guess you have the Travolta conundrum over, you know, how he's going to handle Mia Wallace.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, that allows for some growth as well.
Guest:But the real kind of, you know, character transformation is Jules.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And so Samuel L. Jackson is the one guy who gets to sink his teeth into some thoughtfulness around the character.
Guest:But he's also just lightning strikes over and over and over again.
Guest:It's like he's that, you know, Spider-Man villain, Electro.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:firing lightning out of his fingertips for this whole thing just like the way to turn certain phrases into like now that's the way i'm going to say that curse for the rest of my life yes every time i sink my teeth into a burger that is a tasty burger all the time yeah goddamn everything stuff i shouldn't even be saying like yeah like he's just the best well like it like
Guest:I, I, you know, it's one of those movies too, where some certain things get said and I'm like, oh, that's where I got that from.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like, like when he's like, just when he's trying to keep everything together in the diner and then suddenly John Travolta is standing there and he says something about like, if you give that guy the money, I'll shoot him on general principle and everything looks like it's going to go to shit.
Guest:And he's like, no, no, no, no, no, we're not gonna do anything.
Marc:Vince, shut the fuck up.
Yeah.
Marc:In that cadence.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I have said that to my detriment, my friend.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's so crazy because it'd be very hard to pull out, you know, the best performance in the movie because they're all so good.
Guest:But you really do have to give it to that one.
Marc:like that that's that's the it's all it's just the same thing with like with brando and the godfather it's the one that rises above the actual film it becomes it transcends yeah and yeah we have to give him flowers because man everything he said is a is a is a hoot and his reaction just the look in his eyes when he is sucking down some sprite is something i i i can see it in my mind it looks like like a puppy dog i could draw it i
Marc:I can make a tattoo for you if you want.
Guest:I'm not a tattoo artist, but I could do it.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, suffice it to say, it remains at the top of our Tarantino list, but we will go back at this next month.
Guest:And I think it's a good one to go back to.
Guest:I mean, we're not going to go to something out of the chronology.
Guest:But chronologically next is Jackie Brown.
Guest:We will watch that next month and we will talk about it here and we will see if it moves up our list or down our list.
Guest:That would be surprising.
Guest:Why don't you tell, do you have your list in front of you, Chris?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Why don't you tell us what your list, where your list stands?
Guest:I mean, we haven't moved anything, but just so people get in here our earlier episode, what is your ranking?
Yeah.
Marc:So, starting from the bottom, number nine, Death Proof.
Marc:Number eight, Hateful Eight.
Marc:Number seven, Reservoir Dogs.
Marc:Number six, Django Unchained.
Marc:Number five, Kill Bill.
Marc:Number four, Inglorious Bastards.
Marc:Three, Jackie Brown.
Marc:Two, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Marc:And number one, with a bullet, Pulp Fiction.
Guest:All right.
Guest:And so I have Death Proof at the bottom, then Kill Bill, Inglourious Bastards, The Hateful Eight.
Guest:Now for five, number five is where I have Jackie Brown.
Guest:So we will say that's got some potential for movement, I think.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:I can't wait to talk to you about this.
Guest:We will see that next month.
Guest:Then number four, Django Unchained.
Guest:I moved Reservoir Dogs up to number three after we watched it the last time, although I'm skeptical about its ability to stay there.
Guest:Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is number two and Pulp Fiction at number one, but with a question mark next to it, I would say, for myself.
Guest:That'll do it for the Friday show this week.
Guest:If you've got anything to add about Pulp Fiction and your memories of it as we approach the 30th anniversary of its release at Cannes in May and in wide release in October, we're going to be doing these Tarantino episodes once a month as we get up to that October anniversary of Pulp Fiction.
Guest:But if you have anything to add, just go to the comments page that's right there in the episode description.
Guest:Click on it.
Guest:You can send us something.
Guest:You can also listen, as we mentioned, to Chris's Thurston Moore episode playlist.
Guest:He went crazy and put 94 songs together based on the things that Mark and Thurston Moore talked about on this week's episode.
Guest:So click on that Spotify playlist and enjoy.
Guest:And until next time, this is The Friday Show.
Guest:I'm Brendan, and that's Chris.
Peace!