Kill Bill Vol. 1 (September 17th. at the CWRU Film Society, Strosacker Auditorium)

[KILL BILL VOL. 1 screens Saturday September 17th at 7:00 pm and 9:30 pm at the Case Western Reserve University Film Society, Strosacker Auditorium.]

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

Hard to recall now, but there was a time when Quentin Tarantino seemed like a two-hit wonder. After the cult-immortal RESERVOIR DOGS and the popular smash PULP FICTION the fellow had a high-profile yet paradoxically rather muted decade. His underrated, mature crime drama/character study JACKIE BROWN didn't quite thrill his fanbase, and he made mostly cameos in his friends' movies (FOUR ROOMS, anybody? Didn’t think so…), spearheaded re-appreciations of overlooked genre stuff and imports like SWITCHBLADE SISTERS, FIST OF LEGEND and DETROIT 9000, and looked alarmingly as though his most actively productive era was behind him.

Pulp Fiction (April 1 at 7 and 10 p.m. at the CWRU Film Society, Strosacker Auditorium)

[PULP FICTION screens Friday April 1 at 7 and 10 p.m. at the CWRU Film Society, Strosacker Auditorium.]

Review by Charles Cassady Jr.

If I'm ever found dead, arrest my wife at once. She did it. We're incompatible by any definition. The real proof is that we violently disagreed on two movies that came out in 1994. She preferred FORREST GUMP, which I still haven't forced myself to sit through all the way. I liked PULP FICTION instead.

Anyone need an introduction to PULP FICTION? Listen kids, when this thing came out the critics were writing whole book-length homages to Quentin Tarantino - even though he had only two movies to his name. It's still kind of a high point in his career, and his career has hardly turned out to be a disappointment. The multi-layered, funny and hyperviolent 1994 magical-realist hitman saga spawned numerous imitations, revived John Travolta's career, and proved a near-impossible act to follow. Hard even to summarize, and I remember the infant internet of the mid-1990s (all text, online at 1200 baud, 2400 baud if you were rich) filled with user discussions and FAQs of PULP FICTION's symbolism. Only the BLADE RUNNER FAQ made better reading.