Pulp Fiction

There are a million stories in the City of Angels, and the craziest seem to revolve around John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson’s deadpan-deadly duo of contract killers, who wax philosophical in between pulling jobs for crime kingpin Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). Along the way there’s Uma Thurman as a coke-sniffing gangster’s moll; Bruce Willis as a prizefighter having a really, really bad day; and a lovey-dovey pair of bandits who pick the wrong diner to hold up. Quentin Tarantino’s ingeniously plotted instant classic crackles with spot-the-reference pop-culture allusions, a retro-cool soundtrack, and endlessly quotable dialogue, delivered rapid-fire and uninterrupted in seamless walk-and-talk Steadicam shots. An NYFF32 selection.