Taking Sides on Films of the 90s Pt.5: "Trainspotting" vs. "Pulp Fiction"

On the other hand, it's a bit unfair to say "Trainspotting loses because it's nothing like the book it's adapted from" when you're comparing it with something that wasn't an adaptation anyway.

Pulp Fiction would be a better film if it was half an hour shorter.

Pulp Fiction is better, but they're both two really good teams who came out tonight to play. You can't fault either one of them.

there are some nice moments in Pulp Fiction that still make it worthwhile after all the hype, such as when travolta blows a kiss to uma's back as she walks away after their date.

Pulp Fiction? I enjoyed it, but I don't really have any desire to see it again. Trainspotting is more visually interesting to me.

So, for purely subjective reasons, Trainspotting be winning this one.

Call me callous, but I find the brains much easier to take.

Trainspotting:

Pro:

1. Brilliant Opening, lust for life right before it became a cruise ship commercial jingle combined with the "choose life" monologue

2. Talking like Sean Connery, is always funny. Always.

3. IT'S SHITE BEING SCOTTISH!!!!!!!!!!!

4. Well acted and well thought out

Con.

1. As will be repeated 700 times in this thread, the book was better.

2. The baby creeped me out, I realize it was supposed to, this does not change it's con rating.

Pulp Fiction

Pro.

1. There may never be a movie character that is more fun to quote as Jules:

I'm a mushroom cloud layin' muthafucka, muthafucka!!

That is some fucked up, repugnant shit

Chill that bitch out!!! Tell that bitch to chill!!!!

2. I love Quentin Tarantino movies, largely because I love Quentin Tarantino movie soundtracks. Pulp Fiction was the best soundtrack I had ever heard at the time, I think the two Kill Bill soundtracks are even better.

3. I have an image of thousands of people opening the Bible for the first time in years (or ever) to find that the actual text of "Ezekiel 25:17" is "And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them" and going...huh? (Fun Fact, Tarantino did not make the speech up, he took it off the opening crawl from a Sonny Chiba movie from the 70s, CLEEEECK.)

4. Walken!!!

5. Pulp Fiction was the first movie I ever saw which caused me to leave the theater going "wow." I realize its a little indulgent and overlong and blatantly cribbed from Tarantino's influences, but I was hugely entertained by it, and I cannot imagine going past it if I found it while flipping channels.

Con:

1. Tarantino the Screenwriter, excellent, Tarantino the Director, Very Good, Tarantino the Actor...embarassing. Embarassing for all involved (except when he gets shot in the face in Desperado, one of my favorite movie scenes ever).

2. Tim Roth annoys me, he just does. I was actively rooting for Jules to blow Ringo's head off.

3. Did I mention Tarantino can't act?

I like Trainspotting a lot, but typing this out has reminded me that I really love Pulp Fiction. It might be my favorite movie of that decade, though I'd need to see a list of prominent flicks to make sure.

and to anyone who saw all of Tarantino's reference points first....

I dunno, this seems like a moot point to me, the "novel is better" bit.

I'd say Trainspotting is a much deeper film, with some truly disturbing and enthralling scenes (dead baby detox, falling into the carpet, the squalor of the junkie with AIDS) that PF never approaches (or tries to), just as much quotable (if not great) dialogue, though the "Choose Life" monologue got run into the ground almost as much as "Royale w/ Cheese" or the faux-Bible quotations. The framing and palette is much livelier in Trainspotting, Tarantino seems weighed-down by his desire to be a super-cinematic director in the Scorsese sense. (I guess a common criticism of Tarantino is that he turns pulp into white elephants?)

Trainspotting successfully managed to equate Ecstasy with "Born Slippy" in my head. I don't know if that's a positive or a negative.

I once had a flatmate who regularly had nightmares about that baby.

Seriously? Isn't that like walking out of Jaws thinking a shark would make a nice pet?

(Renton is way more of an asshole in the book, yes - his "redemption" doesn't really happen until "Porno")

Trainspotting shows you cool funny and good-looking people doing heroin and not working!!!11

that film was frightfully unmemorable.

I'll say this: the soundtrack to Trainspotting -- in my opinion -- takes a giant, runny, post-heroin-comedown shite all over the soundtrack to Pulp Fiction. Shove yer Dusty Springfield.

yep.

how is that 'frightful' shakey?

1. Causing disgust or shock; horrifying.
2. Causing fright; terrifying.

x-post

Speaking of which, I can't remember another movie that made me hold my breath so many times than Pulp. The scene where Vega plunges the needle into Mrs. Wallace and the moment where Butchie has one foot out the door, but turns around to save his nemesis both took years off of my life.

I humbly apologize for my abuse of the word "frightfully". In the future, I will endeavor never to confuse you with hyperbole, sarcasm, or other exaggerations for effect. Please let me know if there are any other words I should avoid that might alarm you or make you uncomfortable.

sincerely,
Shakey Mo

Isn't that the case with just about everything that could be described as anti-drug?

don't fake the funk on a nasty dunk.

sincerely,
blount

Trainspotting
Probably not as fun as Pulp Fiction (and yes, it's not as good as the book -- everyone agrees, right?), but it's still a great film. Not sure everyone agrees, but I certainly didn't see it as a glorification of heroin. More squeamish moments than Pulp Fiction, but I suppose that's to be expected. I thought the dead baby on the ceiling during Renton's home-bound withdrawl looked laughably fake, incidentally. The discovery of the dead baby is indeed harrowing. Welsh himself makes a cameo -- in an Exploited t-shirt!

Pulp Fiction
More laughs. More quotable lines. More story threads. More bullets. Great fun, but not as visceral. Lots of filler. Lots of crap cameos (why is Julia Sweeney in the film? She serves no purpose). Revitalized Travolta's career (ummmm....in retrospect, probably not a good thing).

Trainspotting wins.

that's the way the book ended, it wasn't a new chapter, except in US printings.

anyway, trainspotting is significantly less played out for me so I choose that one. also, it isn't as long as Pulp Fiction which is always good. However, Tarantino never went on to make anything as bad as Millions, so I'd still give him the edge as far as a director whose work I enjoy.

i'm a Trainspotting devotee, but defending it is hard to do without invoking my own anglophilia. it was my first exposure to junkie culture, and still the poppiest and shiniest example i can think of (my intense flirtation with it encompassed Burroughs, Trocchi, Velvets et al, and still Trainspotting ranks as the most seductive)

Re: "Shallow Grave." Haven't seen this since a few weeks before it was released and hated it. If you have a pair of lunatic, murderous roomates sequestered in the attic ... leave!!! It's the "Amityville Horror" falacy. "Get out. Get out!!!" OK, i'm out.

stan the man3