Pulp Fiction

People always acted shocked when they found out I’d never seen Pulp Fiction. Blasphemy! I just never got around to watching the acclaimed cult classic that put Quentin Tarantino and Miramax on the map. In a sense, it’s not really an ‘indie’ film… I mean, it cost QT $8.5 mil, and features the A-List talents of John Travolta, Samuel L Jackson, Uma Thurman and Bruce Willis! Yeah, maybe they weren’t as well-known at the time, but Tarantino definitely dropped a fortune to have their public appeal. No doubt, this was a good choice…

Travolta and Jackson make for an irresistably dynamic duo as the right-hand men of a big crime boss. Drugs and debt run their business, and business is good. Tarantino regularly takes the opportunity to shock the viewer with the violent nature of their jobs, but these bloody sequences are fairly iconic of his work. The most memorable scene (perhaps) was Thurman’s mistake of snorting a line of HEROIN instead of cocaine. Silly Uma. The drug wreaks havoc on her body, and Travolta eventually must plunge a shot of adrenaline, through the breastplate, into her heart… You really can’t help but flinch. But that’s the point! (more…)

Michael Jai White is Black Dynamite!

Back in the day, films like Shaft, Foxy Brown and Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song styled funkalicious jazzy soundtracks, tough black heroes and heroines and corrupt white cops and politicians. A new genre was born, both celebrating and exploiting black culture, targeting urban African-American audiences with its style and subject matter. Some of the best of these films have become cult favorites, and have influenced new filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, whose Jackie Brown was an explicit homage to the genre he’d grown up on and loved.

Shaft was remade in slick Hollywood fashion by John Singleton (Boyz ‘n The Hood) in 2000, featuring Samuel Jackson in the title role. But for the original low budget style and campy flair you had to go to the bargain bin DVD versions, until now.

Scott Sanders’ blacksploitation spoof Black Dynamite premieres this year as one of the “Midnight” films at Sundance. If this trailer is anything to go by, the funky magic and excitement appears to be back. Black Dynamite looks hotter than TNT:
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