By Jared Curtis jared@dmcityview.com
‘From Paris with Love’
Directed by Pierre Morel
Rated R, 92 minutes
John Travolta has had a confusing career. After starring in a number of good films (“Saturday Night Fever,” “Grease,” “Urban Cowboy”), he stunk up the ’80s and early ’90s. He had two good films in the ’90s (“Get Shorty,” Pulp Fiction”) but mostly his later career has been crap (“Battlefield Earth,” “Wild Hogs”). So I was surprised at how much I enjoyed him in his latest film, “From Paris with Love.” I don’t know why more directors don’t let Travolta fly off the hangers, because his best work comes from it. In “From Paris with Love,” mild mannered CIA operative James Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is teamed with the wild and crazy Charlie Wax (Travolta) to stop a terrorist attack on Paris. The film is kind of blah, but the action, thanks to co-writer Luc Besson (“The Professional”), is giddily over the top and makes this trip to Paris better than expected.CV
‘Pulp Fiction’
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
1994, Rated R, 154 minutes
Although he got the ball rolling with 1992’s “Reservoir Dogs,” it wasn’t until 1994 with “Pulp Fiction” when the world took notice of Quentin Tarantino. Never before had anyone used a nonlinear storyline with such effect like Tarantino did. His iconic mixture of humor, pop culture and extreme violence was a kick to my film-digesting stomach; I never watched a movie the same way again. And such a huge reason for the film’s success has to be Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson), two of the coolest collectors ever to grace the big screen. Whether it was discussing the foreign name of a Big Mac with Cheese or the fundamentals of a foot massage, “Pulp Fiction” brought Travolta’s talents to an entirely new audience, as Tarantino threw down a filmmaking gauntlet that has been unmatched to this day. CV
