15 Years Later: Pulp Fiction

It has been fifteen years since director Quentin Tarantino brought what is still to this day arguably his masterpiece, Pulp Fiction. Pulp fiction has been bringing in movie fans ever since its debut in 1994. Pulp Fiction both revitalized the careers of some of its lead actors, such as John Travolta and Bruce Willis, but also helped truly launch the careers of others, such as Uma Thurmon and Samuel L. Jackson.

It also features very notable extended cameos from actors Christopher Walken and Harvey Keitel. Pulp Fiction continues, to this day, to be practically required watching for the film school crowd and is still considered one of the best films from the 1990s.

For those who do not know much about the movie, Pulp Fiction is a segmented film, each segment telling its own short story, but all are connected by the characters therein. John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson play Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield, a pair of hitmen who are retrieving a briefcase for their boss Marcellus Wallace, an unforgiving crime lord who is fiercely protective of his wife Mia (Uma Thurmon). Vincent is given the task of taking Mia out for a night on the town while Marcellus is out of town on business. Things go bad when Mia overdoses on some of Vincent's drugs. Meanwhile, Marcellus has paid off boxer Butch Coolidge to take a dive. Coolidge betrays Marcellus, which leads to a series of events that can only be described as weird. And the third major segment focuses again on Vincent and Jules, as Jules contemplates leaving his life as a hitman after witnessing what he believes to be a miracle.

Pulp Fiction has continued to be a pop culture phenomenon, with many of its quotes having solidified their spots in the movie watching world. It is also known for rejuvenating the careers of both John Travolta and Bruce Willis, who had both been in a string of commercially and critically unsuccessful films.

Pulp Fiction also helped repopularize surf music, as that genre is what largely makes up the music for the whole film. The film is also considered one of the very earliest examples of a post modernist film. It also solidified Quentin Tarantino's name in Hollywood, as he has been a movie making powerhouse ever since. Pulp Fiction is also the movie that many say revitalized just what it meant to be cool.