As decades must, the 1990s had a beginning, a middle and an end. But in the spirit of Quentin Tarantino we’re going to launch our big summer series 90s, Baby smack in the middle, with 1994’s Pulp Fiction, the most original, exciting and influential movie of its era. On 35mm. Preceded by surf guitar band The ReViberators performing live!
A pop post-modernist and voracious cultural magpie, Tarantino came out of nowhere (well, Video Archives), who was hailed as a new god of filmmaking overnight. With Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction and his screenplays for True Romance (1993) and Natural Born Killers (1994) he electrified 90s film culture, changing the way movies sounded, the way they flowed, and how they connected with an audience already saturated in media and schooled in video stores. His emergence coincided with the advent of the world wide web, and Tarantino constructed his genre hybrids from a wide array of international influences — French new wave, American noir and 70s exploitation pictures, Hong Kong action cinema — rewriting the rule book as he did so.
Pulp Fiction scrambles the chronology of three interlocking narratives, as if in homage to Godard’s observation that a story should have a beginning, a middle and an end, “but not necessarily in that order”. Revitalizing the careers of several flagging A-list stars at a stroke (John Travolta, Bruce Willis and Harvey Keitel), Tarantino unleashed a torrent of black comic verbal riffs and repartee. If the tone is glib, the characters are vivid, and the momentum never flags throughout the 154-minute running time. Backed by Miramax Films, the indie company that dominated movie talk in the 90s (even as it was bought up by Disney), Pulp Fiction won the Palme d’Or and broke the $100 million barrier at the North American box office, ushering in the era of the “mini-major”, through which the studios co-opted many of the best and brightest of the independent sector.
The ReViberators is an instrumental surf rock trio from Vancouver featuring Kitty & The Rooster’s Noah Walker on guitar and Jodie Ponto on drums and bass. Since the passing of surf legends Dick Dale and The Ventures, The ReViberators answered the call to keep this wild raucous music alive by taking a deep dive into surf music’s first wave. The band plays the early 1960s surf guitar hits alongside their own originals with an intensity and authenticity rarely heard today.
Join us at 6:30 for The ReViberators live set followed by Pulp Fiction at 7:45.
Film Content Considerations: Graphic violence
It is everything you have heard, and many things you haven’t. Audacious, outrageous, indulgent, extreme. Mischievously brutal. Giddily visceral. Wildly enthusiastic. More fun than a barrel of monkeys. Mad, bad and dangerous to know.
Rob Salem, Toronto Star
Co-Presented with
Media Partner
The ReViberators
Jun 19
6:30 pm
VIFF Centre, VIFF Cinema
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Film Credits
Screenwriter
Quentin Tarantino
Cinematography
Andrzej Sekula
Editor
Sally Menke
Production Design
David Wasco
Art Director
Charles Collum
90s, Baby!
Ten years. 11 weeks. 90 films from the 1990s. This summer, 90’s Baby! takes a deep dive into a defining decade of cinema.
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
A bona fide classic and arguably the greatest Canadian film of the 90s, Girard's dazzling deconstruction of the biopic gives us the mercurial pianist Glenn Gould as Picasso might have rendered him, a cubist portrait combining multimedia vignettes.
Dazed and Confused
The last day of high school in May, 1976: seniors debate party politics while next term's freshmen run the gauntlet of brutal initiation rites, barely comforted by the knowledge that they'll wield the stick one day.
Short Cuts
Altman's adaptation of Raymond Carver short stories, Short Cuts weaves between 8 or 9 overlapping storylines and 22 characters. it's a teeming, caustic and compassionate human comedy; a singularly astringent, often cynical view of America and Americana.
Three Colours: Blue
The first of Kieslowski's acclaimed Three Colours Trilogy, inspired by the French Revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity and the French flag, the Tricolour. Blue stars Juliette Binoche as a young woman grieving her husband and child.
Schindler's List
One of the most acclaimed films of the 90s, Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark is the story of a German industrialist whose conscience is stirred to save his Jewish workers from the camps.
Free event.
Three Colours: Red
Irène Jacob plays Valentine, a runway model living in Geneva, who crosses paths with a retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant) who's a bit of an eavesdropper. Initially repelled, she becomes intrigued by this man, as do we... Kieslowski's sublime adieu.
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings begins with an onslaught of fucks. It's the first signal that this rom-com will break from tradition, despite the ritualized structural conceit described in the title. The witty screenplay is by Richard Curtis — it's still his best.
The Lion King
With its beautifully drawn East African setting, its humour, pathos, and engaging characters, as well as its stirring songs, The Lion King stands as the pinnacle of traditional Disney family entertainment.
Image: © Disney, 1994
To Die For
Buck Henry (The Graduate) wrote this acidic black comedy about a ruthless weather girl on the make (Nicole Kidman in her breakout role). A young Joaquin Phoenix is the dim teen she seduces on her way to achieving stardom.
Casino
Revisiting the wise guy milieu for the third (but not the final) time, Scorsese tells the story of Ace Rothstein and Nicky Santoro (Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci), two New York hoodlums who become major players in the history of Las Vegas.
Andrea Superstein Sings Burt Bacharach + Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery Film Screening
Local hero and Anglophile Mike Myers scored a massive comedy hit with this spot-on spoof of James Bond and his many imitators. Before the yucks, Andrea Superstein treats us to a set of timeless Burt Bacharach tunes.