My generation's work of art

Rating: Null/10 (22 March 2001)

I and most of my friends use this movie to separate peers into two groups- those who understand something and those who don't.
Us: "So what do you think of Pulp Fiction?" Them: "Yeah, yeah. I saw that in high school, it was funny. But did you see Shawshank?!"
Thus, in the above episode, "Them" has placed him or herself squarely within the group of people who do not understand.
This is the first movie that everyone my age saw, besides maybe "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles," that made you believe in its profound relevance no matter what it did. Two characters discuss MacDonalds in Europe, and you believe. A woman traces a visible rectangle in thin air with her fingers, and you don't know why, but you believe. The confidence of the dialogue, perhaps, or the sublimely offhanded complexity of the plot.
It also features career-making performance from every one of its actors. This is the movie that defined comeback with John Travolta, and that defined Samuel L. Jackson in the first place. Uma Thurman could walk off the screen and you wouldn't notice. Bruce Willis makes you realize who Bruce Willis really is. And in a Tarantino tradition foreshadowed by "True Romance," Christopher Walken's one scene is achingly nuanced and hilarious, the closest thing I know of to perfect.
Pulp Fiction is simply the most important and best movie of the 1990's and, therefore, since the 70's. If you haven't seen it and you're older than 16, you must must do so, right now.
And I like Shawshank a lot, by the way.