3. Pulp Fiction (1994)
Quentin Tarantino has been known for his (very) eclectic soundtracks. When he was looking for songs to use in "Pulp Fiction," he went through his record collection. Either the music is so integral or Tarantino is proud of his soundtrack and wants to inform audiences on what he used. Or for another reason, there are two scene selections on the DVD and Blu-Ray. One is the standard scene selection. The other brings you right to the scene with the song you select. One of the genres he looked through was surf rock. Dick Dale's "Misirlou" set the spirit of the film in the opening credits. Loud and blaring, get ready for something big. Following "Misirlou" is "Jungle Boogie" by Kool & the Gang. This transitions the movie from the opening credits to the rest of the movie, also turning "Jungle Boogie" from non-diegetic to diegetic. The heroin montage is one of the best ever, and "Bullwinkle Part II" by The Centurions made it surreal and somewhat psychedelic. John Travolta's character Vincent Vega shoots himself before a joy ride that almost seems like a dream. Travolta did a great job in the sequence. As someone who had never used heroin himself, Travolta met with a recovering heroin addict that Tarantino knew personally. The addict told Travolta, without using heroin itself, to get hammered on Tequila while lying in a hot tub. He also told him that doing so would barely touch the feeling of what it's like to be on heroin. Another iconic sequence was the dance contest at Jack Rabbit Slim's. Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman), the wife of Vincent's boss, wants to enter the contest but Vincent really doesn't. He gives in due to what his boss told him to do. Mia tells him, "I do believe Marsellus, my husband, your boss, told you to take me out and do whatever I wanted." Middle-aged women probably drooled over this, hoping to see the Travolta of the late 70s shake it. They were treated to 60s rock with Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell," while Vincent and Mia boogied. It was suave and cool. The vignette "The Gold Watch" had arguably the tensest scene. Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) can't find his father's gold watch that was given to him by his dad's friend and fellow POW Captain Koons (Christopher Walken) because his girlfriend forgot it, even though he told her that was the one thing to not forget. Being hunted by Marsellus Wallace and his men, he has to go back to his apartment, knowing that someone could be looking for him there. After finding the watch exactly where he told his girlfriend to find it, he gets out alive after unloading an Uzi on one of Marsellus' men. A nice relaxing drive to "Flowers on the Wall" by The Statler Brothers is interrupted by the sight of Marsellus himself. After the two are caught in a spider's web in a seedy pawn shop with a gimp, Butch escapes while Marsellus gets raped by Zed, an officer, with his friend looking on. His friend is the spider that owns the pawn shop. Hearing the activity in the other room, Butch breaks free and knocks out the gimp and leaves the basement in the shop. Before leaving, Butch decides to try and make amends with his boss, possibly because there's no guarantee that after the raping Marsellus won't stop searching for Butch. A pawn shop probably has something that can beat or kill a man. Butch first grabs a claw hammer, then replaces it with a baseball bat. The bat, in turn, get replaced by a chainsaw. But on the top shelf Butch finds something that somehow manages to be more lethal than a chainsaw. Butch slowly goes down back into the basement and kills Maynard, the spider. It only takes a swing across the chest and a jab to the gut with a samurai sword. Zed is taken aback and later shot by Marsellus with a shotgun. All this is choreographed to "Comanche" by The Revels, noticeably the sighting of the sword and slaying of Maynard. After "The Bonnie Situation" ends and comes together with "Vincent Vega & Marsellus Wallace's Wife" and "The Gold Watch," it goes out smooth. Just like Jules (Samuel L. Jackson), Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer), and Pumpkin (Tim Roth), "Surf Rider" by The Lively Ones is like Fonzie. It's cool.