PULP FICTION (Quentin Tarantino, 1994): Reservoir Dogs was such a spectacular guy-movie debut, we were all waiting breathlessly for Quentin Tarantino's follow-up film. Rumors were it was going to be something big and impressive, something monstrously macho. Something called Pulp Fiction. The first news came when it rocked the Cannes film festival, picking up the Palme d'or. From screenings in Europe, reports kept trickling in about how spectacular it was. Here in America, we had to wait.

I got the first word of an American screening from a buddy of mine who worked in publicity for Miramax. He was there for a sneak preview before an audience comprised primarily of inner-city teens. For nearly 2 hours and 40 minutes, they were hooked, laughing, cheering, and rising to their feet with applause at the film's conclusion.

That was when I knew the picture was going to be huge. A darling of critics in Europe and the U.S., and tremendously appealing to a young urban audience with presumably short attention spans? Oh yeah, this film was going places.

For all the build up, when I finally saw the film myself, there was no disappointment. And how could there be? Four stories (a couple of lovey-dovey robbers, a dangerous date with the boss' wife, a boxer getting on a gangster's bad side, and two hitmen with a little problem on their hands) seamlessly intertwined in a funny, exciting, relentlessly hip motion picture. And of course the cast: Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Ving Rhames, Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Christopher Walken . . . amazing.

Director Tarantino did things that film school professors have been saying for years you're not supposed to do: like the two minute shot of Bruce Willis just sitting there, not even reacting, as Ving Rhames speaks to him about throwing his upcoming boxing match. Didn't anyone tell this guy that film is a visual medium?? Nope, looks like Tarantino told them a thing or two.

After Pulp Fiction, Tarantino started getting a little overexposed, doing things like appearing in lousy movies and on Saturday Night Live and Broadway shows, and only making one feature in five years, the entertaining Jackie Brown. But before we start treating the guy as a laughingstock, let's remember that Pulp Fiction is masterful piece of cinema. And if he never again creates a work as powerful again, it's still a hell of a contribution to cinematic history.