STEALING PULP FICTION: What The Hell Is This Movie?

STEALING PULP FICTION
(Dir. Danny Turkiewicz, 2024)

So I haven’t been babbling ‘bout movies in a while because I’m finishing work on a book project, but I’ve been wanting to get back into it so I decided that I’d view, and review a new film that’s opening today in select theaters, and debuting on digital platforms. It’s a heist comedy about a couple of quirky, dorky guys who plot to steal Quentin Tarantino’s personal 35mm print of his 1994 classic PULP FICTION.

The leads are somewhat familiar faces as Jon Rudnitsky was a featured player on Saturday Night Live a decade ago, and Karan Soni plays the Indian taxi driver in the DEADPOOL movies. We are introduced to them in a prologue that is identified with white on black titles as “Pun-Themed Businesses.” This is a Seinfeld-ian exchange over drinks at the 321 Club in Los Angeles, where the duo propose ideas about an oyster bar called “Ah, Shucks,” and a royal-themed oxygen bar called “Air to the Throne.”

Yeah, this opening bit sets the tone – for better or for worse – and we go from there to accompany them to a midnight showing of PULP FICTION at a Tarantino-owned theater, and over burgers after the screening, they hatch the idea for the theft of the film reels, which they plan to sell (“It’s as valuable as gold,” Rudnitsky says).

The constantly quipping duo decide they need a third so they rope in their eye-rolling friend, Elizabeth (Cazzie David), despite the fact that she hates Tarantino (“He is misogynistic, foot-fetished freak, who doesn’t let the women in his films speak”). Then there’s the surprising addition to the caper of Jason Alexander, the only real name in this movie, as the guys’ therapist, who is going through marital problems, and it’s odd to seem him try to match Rudnitsky and Soni’s weird energy in the most un-George Constanza manner he can render.

Now this way this whole deal plays out is really dumb, and feels on-the-fly, improvised, and oddly self-satisfied, and just when I thought it couldn’t get any stupider, boy does it.

This largely happens when an actor (Seager Tennis) playing “Quentin Fuckin’ Tarantino” (that’s how he’s credited) shows up, who is made to look like him with a prosthetic chin, and is portrayed as angrily obnoxious, which reduces who is supposed to be celebrated here into a grotesque caricature.

Okay, I’m tired of writing about the plot. I was pretty baffled, and stupefied by this flick, which has a really short running time of only 78 minutes, even though it’s padded with things like unnecessary tennis, and on overly long dance scene finale. That last part is actually one of the funnier things in the film as the laconic Elizabeth character just stands there unengaged, with her arms folded while everybody around her makes a fool of themselves on the dance floor to Tina Charles’ “I Love to Love.”

You know, actually the film’s soundtrack, which of course riffs on Tarantino’s love of ‘70s soul, is pretty good with its use of Keith Mansfield’s 1969 instrumental “Funky Fanfare,” you know, the snazzy music that was used for the “Our Feature Presentation” title cards with the psychedelic background back in the day.

Thing is, the thought I kept having while watching STEALING PULP FICTION is what the hell is this movie? It’s such a goofy, half-assed endeavor dominated by the smug-ass Rudnitsky, who seems high on his own vibe, and it doesn’t really have anything to say about Tarantino’s masterwork that it can’t even dream of holding a candle too. But it is breezy, and watchable if you are looking for an hour and a half of idiocy, which is the only way I’d ever recommend it.

These guys – writer, director Turkiewicz; Rudnitsky, and Soni – do have some spunk in this junk, and I didn’t walk away disliking them, but damn, whatta really stupidly strange experience this is. I mean, nice try I guess, but how about making a real movie next time?

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Tears In The Rain: A Tribute To My Father's Favorite Film

This post is dedicated to my father, Charles Sidney Johnson (March 7, 1936-April 28, 2025)

Okay, lemme backtrack a bit. My dad was a chemistry professor at UNC in the ‘70s. He had two kids, with the second one being particularly unbearable because he was a pop culture-addict, and would die if he wasn’t taken to whatever was the big new movie was coming out on opening weekend, who would throw a fit if he wasn’t allowed to stay up to watch SNL, and who he had to fork over a considerable amount of his paycheck to buy STAR WARS toys for. 

You see, my father was a lover of science fiction – real science fiction like Stanislaw Lem, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and Philip K. Dick. To him, STAR WARS was a pop bubblegum version of sci-fi so he relentlessly (and righteously) made fun of it a lot. Then, it hurt my prepubescent feelings, but now I find it hilarious. I remember when THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK came out in 1980, he said, “Oh great, they added a Muppet.” But BLADE RUNNER was different.

 

Ridley Scott’s 1982 adaptation of Phillip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is now considered a classic, but it took a while. When BLADE RUNNER first came out it was buried at the box office during a summer crowded by the likes of E.T., STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN, THE THING, ROCKY III, and POLTERGEIST, with even f-in’ TRON making more money than it did. 

 

At first, my parents didn’t want to take me to see BLADE RUNNER because it was R-Rated, but they relented and I went to see it with my friend Jimmy, and his parents at one of the worst theaters in history, the now long-gone Ram Triple Theatres in downtown Chapel Hill, North Carolina. As a 12-year old, I found the film a bit draggy, and while the city imagery was cool looking there were some bad effects like wires clearly being seen in one shot with the flying cop car.

 

I watched it with my dad for the first time when it came on HBO in 1983, and appreciated it a little more, but my dad absolutely loved it. Over the years, the movie gained stature via runs on cable and videocassette rentals and developed quite a following, particularly in nerd-centric communities. BLADE RUNNER’s reputation intensified when the 1992 Director’s Cut, which did a number of things to clarify plot points (and they fixed that flying car shot) was released theatrically, and that’s when my dad declared the movie to be his all-time favorite film.

 

I remember it distinctly. It was at a dinner at my parent’s house with my mother, her mother (my grandmother, Lilian) and my then girlfriend, where, upon talking about the then recently released Director’s Cut, that my dad declared that BLADE RUNNER was in his opinion, the greatest movie ever, and then he quoted the speech that one of the film’s characters gave at the end:

 

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off (the) shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

 

Now, I’ve never known my dad to ever quote movie dialogue – like, I don’t remember him ever saying “may the force be with you” – but his recitation of what has come to be known as the “tears in the rain” speech, I’ll never forget. And, I didn’t know this until now, the speech has its own f-in’ Wikipedia page. It’s that iconic.

 

In 2007, yet another version of BLADE RUNNER was released, THE FINAL CUT. I went with my father to see it at the Carolina Theatre in downtown Durham, and the experience was wonderful. It was very special for a number of reasons as the screening was of one of only four 35MM prints in an extremely limited run, it was the first time I’d seen the movie on the big screen since 1982, and, yes, mainly because I was seeing the film with my dad, who had not wavered in considering it a masterpiece.

 

I remember when it started, right as the vivid imagery hit the screen, he said, “wow, it’s like a time machine.” 

 

BLADE RUNNER will always be a crucial, touchstone film for me largely because of my father. It served as the connective tissue between my STAR WARS loving kid self and the more thoughtful film lover I like to see myself as now.

My dad scoffed at the silly space fantasy of George Lucas’s creation, but I know he acknowledged that, without it, such a cerebral sci fi film as BLADE RUNNER wouldn’t have been made. I mean, it got financing from having one of the stars of STAR WARS as its lead!

 

As I am heavily dealing with the death of my dad, I thought I’d share on my film blog my recollections of his favorite film, which I’m about to go watch again. I’m not sure which version as there are five: the Theatrical Cut, the International Cut, the Unrated cut, the Director’s Cut, and the Final Cut. I really don’t think it matters, because as the George Harrison song goes, “any road will take you there.”

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Full Frame 2025: Day Four

Full Frame 2025 wraps up at the Carolina Theatre in Durham, North Carolina, last Sunday night.

This is my third and final post about the 27th annual Full Frame Documentary Film Festival which took place last weekend. I only have a few more films to babble about, from day four, and these are quicker takes than before as I’m pretty exhausted, and overstuffed with  all the non-fiction infotainment I devoured, as well as the multiple trips to downtown Durham.

My Sunday morning began with Alix Blair’s HELEN AND THE BEAR, which concerns the marriage between Helen Hooper (nicknamed “Helen”) and Pete McCloskey (nicknamed “The Bear”). McCloskey, who passed away last year at age 96, was a Republican politician that ran for President against Richard Nixon in 1972; Hooper, who is 26 years younger, was a free-spirited hippy during that era (and still is today), but their shared love of nature, the environment, and conservation brought them together. 

Hooper’s diary entries, old photos, and home movies give us fleeting bits of back story, but Blair’s doc largely focuses on the 70-year old dealing with her partner’s imminent death after suffering a stroke. Helen’s reflections on the couple’s ups and downs, including her affair with a woman, whose face is blurred in pictures from decades ago, are touchingly free from sentiment, and emphasize how full of contradictions, and complicated this lady is. A lovely, and lovingly shot portrait of love that’s gone through the wringer.

Next up, I took in a doc short: Alison McAlpine’s PERFECTLY A STRANGENESS, which was presented with the Full Frame Jury Award for Best Short at the Awards Barbeque at the Durham Armory around noon today. 

The 15-minute film features wide shot cinematography that beautifully captures three donkeys walking around an abandoned astronomical observatory (Chile’s La Silla). A visually poetic experience in which nothing much happens, but it's immersive nonetheless.

The last film that I saw at Full Frame was Jennifer Tiexiera, and Guy Mossman’s SPEAK., which received the Kathleen Bryan Edwards Award for Human Rights earlier that day. The film, which was screened on Saturday and given a Sunday evening encore after its win, follows five teenagers (Esther, Mfaz, Sam, Noah, and Noor) as they prepare to compete for the National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA).

It’s fun to watch these kids try to perfect their public speaking skills on such subjects as the stigma of being handicapped, LGBTQ rights, and suicide, with Esther, a child of Nigerian immigrants and the two-time national champion, stealing the doc at every turn. Though it doesn’t go very deep, it was nice to end the fest with such an uplifting, funny, and overall good feeling doc about determination.

So that’s Full Frame 2025! There are many other docs from the fest I didn’t get to like THE WHITE HOUSE EFFECT, SEEDS. THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR, COEXISTENCE, MY ASS, COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT, and many others that I look forward to seeing in the days to come.

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