King of Hollywood

Chapter 118: Chapter 118 ‘Pulp Fiction

When the article from “Daily News” originally came out, it indeed caused some trouble for Adrian. In order to secure the Best Actor award for Pacino, “Scent of a Woman” was scheduled for release at year’s end. Publicizing it too soon could easily dampen their enthusiasm. At this point, immediate marketing for an early release or simply ignoring the rumors until they faded would potentially jeopardize the entire plan. Moreover, “Pulp Fiction” was about to be showcased at the Cannes Film Festival, which might also be affected.

Fortunately, Laverne quickly devised a strategy: stir the waters first, then keep the public engaged with the topic. This way, if they could maintain interest for a few months until the movie was released, these issues would disappear. However, the execution was tricky. While the release date was slightly moved forward from Christmas Eve to Thanksgiving Eve, it still required a significant workforce to carefully navigate public opinion.

Luckily, up to now, Laverne had managed quite well. But as “Pulp Fiction’s” release approached, the focus inevitably had to shift to the new movie, prompting Laverne to propose temporarily sidelining “Scent of a Woman” for a few weeks. However, he forgot the nature of “Pulp Fiction,” which would inevitably escalate the controversy, making this approach inappropriate.

Nonetheless, Adrian promptly offered a solution—keep the suspense going. Controversy in a film was good, provided the topics were appropriate and manageable. Many young directors and actors had entered the mainstream spotlight using this tactic.

Although Adrian no longer needed such methods to boost his fame, inciting the right controversy was still beneficial for the film’s promotion. Of course, much depended on how Laverne handled it. He not only had to manage public relations for “Pulp Fiction” at the film festival but also plan subsequent promotions, which wouldn’t be easy.

Laverne raised this concern, yet Adrian, with a gesture, reassured him to simply do his best—a sentiment genuinely from his heart. If this had occurred two months earlier, he wouldn’t have settled, having planned and calculated for so long that only success was acceptable.

However, after speaking with Claude on the golf course, Adrian’s perspective broadened. No matter how calculated or informed about the future, it was impossible to control everything. Just like he initially thought that robbing the Soviet Union would yield ten times the profit, yet Claude brought him a hundred times more.

Adrian was well aware of this. He was just seizing every possible opportunity before any potential butterfly effects might arise. So, he now told Laverne that, as long as he did his best, he could accept any outcome.

After wrapping up this year’s events, Adrian considered providing Laverne with better treatment to keep him committed to his role. Having thought this, he felt calmer and more rational.

Well, these thoughts were better left for later. As moviegoers entered the auditorium, the film was about to start.

================================

The movie opened with Little Rabbit and Little Pumpkin plotting a robbery in a diner, then shifted to a scene where Travolta, playing Vincent, and Jackson, playing Jules, drove and talked. Honestly, this beginning wasn’t very good—it dragged on for minutes and was mostly trivial—well, not entirely trivial. Adrian had made a small change here.

In his previous life, he had heard an assessment about two directors who both liked to propel their films through dialogue replete with “fuck”: Guy Ritchie’s dialogues, though plentiful, were all relevant; Quentin, on the other hand, filled most of his screen time with nonsense similar to the idle chatter of street bystanders.

Since he had already replicated “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” it was only natural that this closely related film should not stray too far. Thus, Adrian rearranged the dialogues when writing the script, incorporating various street jokes while linking them more closely to the plot.

Even though his achievements were based on plagiarized works, Adrian had edited numerous scripts. Just like the old saying: “Read three hundred Tang poems, and you won’t be a poet, but you can recite,” he was quite familiar with scriptwriting, having revised many scripts in his previous life. The effect was evident from the soft chuckles occasionally erupting from the auditorium.

Luckily, now that the internet had not fully developed, audiences were generally more receptive to such beginnings. In his previous life, many found the film boring precisely because the internet accelerated life’s pace, causing most people to dismiss any movie that didn’t captivate them within the first few minutes.

As the screen characters finally dealt with some young gangsters collecting debts, the story reached a small climax, particularly as Jules recited a Bible verse before shooting someone, intriguing the audience enough to elicit low gasps.

Then the screen went black, followed by old-fashioned music indicating the start of the first chapter. The real story now unfolded: after Vincent and Jules returned with the suitcase, the boss, Masha, and Butch struck a deal, after which Vincent was sent to accompany his wife.

Monica came onto the scene portraying Mia, and honestly, her appearance was standard—neither terrible nor particularly remarkable. Moreover, her performance was somewhat stiff, but thanks to adept editing and montage techniques, it turned out acceptably. However, during the subsequent classic swing dance, Monica immediately redeemed herself. Her years of modeling had taught her how to best showcase her curves in various situations.

Thus, her swing dance performance immediately captured the attention of everyone in the screening room, multiplying the allure of her sensuous movements exponentially during the dance. Even Adrian, who had seen the edits countless times and had played with her in bed numerous times, couldn’t help but marvel at the scene. And if he felt that way, it’s needless to say how the others reacted. By the end, someone even let out a whistle, eliciting a wave of subdued laughter.

“See? They’re drooling over you,” Adrian whispered teasingly into Monica’s ear.

While watching the screen, Monica didn’t say a word, but the slight upturn of her lips clearly conveyed her pleasure to those around her. With a light chuckle, Adrian kissed her earlobe and then returned his attention to the film.

After the iconic dance, came the humorous segment about the drug overdose. The scene where Vincent was talking with the drug dealer in his house and injecting Mia evoked quite a bit of laughter, especially during the moment he injected her, making many in the audience snort at the dark humor.

“Please say something.”

“What.”

Vincent, looking disheveled and hoping to hear something from Mia indicating she was awake after she’d jumped up screaming and then calmed down, got nothing but the noun “what” for his troubles!

Well, regardless, the first story with its touch of romantic comedy wrapped up like that, and onto “Golden Watch” it went.

This story began with Butch’s father’s comrade returning from Vietnam and presenting the golden watch to him when Butch was just a few years old. The audience didn’t feel discomfort watching it; after all, the first story had temporarily concluded. They were merely chilled by the manner in which the golden watch was showcased.

Then, time quickly shifted to the present, and the second story officially began in the locker room of a boxing ring where Butch was resting. Butch killed his opponent and won the payout, hastily jumping out a window to grab a cab to find his girlfriend.

Here, Adrian faithfully replicated the original filmmaking techniques by using black and white frames to depict the taxi in motion, giving the audience an impressively surreal yet refreshing feel, which made a lasting impression.

Alright, as the story evolved, Butch was planning to take off with his girlfriend, everything seemed ready. Unfortunately, his bewildered girlfriend had left his much-prized golden watch back at home. An infuriated Butch, despite realizing the minor chance, had no choice but to risk going back for the watch, inadvertently having a face-to-face encounter with Vincent.

While all the audience was anticipating a scene reminiscent of typical gangster movies where the two characters would engage in a big fight, retrieve the golden watch and Butch would make a frantic escape with Vincent giving chase for another round of fight, ending with a grudging respect and releasing Butch, unfortunately, they all guessed wrong. The next second, Butch pulled the trigger and turned Vincent, who couldn’t even utter a word, into a sieve.

It was stunning. The audience was totally shocked, knowing how in the previous story, Vincent ought to have been the protagonist, yet here he was getting shot to death by Butch, and in such a humiliating way, right after leaving the bathroom, with the event even involving his own gun!

Sitting with his film crew, John Travolta laughed his head off, clearly delighting in the audience’s reaction.

However, that wasn’t even the most bizarre part of the story. After Butch got the watch and was leaving to return to his girlfriend, he unexpectedly encountered the gang boss Masha buying breakfast while crossing a traffic light—trouble indeed followed him. Then, a car crash, a run, and the two stumbled into a music store, only to be apprehended and tied up by the shop owner, who then called a cop. Little did they know, both the cop and the shop owner were gay and twisted, and in an unexpected twist, Masha ended up tragically violated.

The plot had reached such a weird point that the audience didn’t know whether to laugh or how to react. It was only at the end, when Butch broke free and saved Masha, and Masha declared their issues resolved warning Butch to keep quiet about the incident, that the long-suppressed laughter finally erupted in the screening room.

(To Be Continued, for more about what happens next, please visit www.qidian.com, more chapters available, support the author, support authentic reading!)