True Romance

True Romance or Pulp Fiction – which should I do first?

I was attending New York Film Academy when Quentin Tarantino was becoming a player, and he was a topic of many of our conversations.

Here’s the scuttlebutt and it’s pretty accurate.

Tarantino was working as a clerk at Blockbusters when he was writing Reservoir Dogs (1992), True Romance (1993), and Pulp Fiction (1994).

Harvey Keitel walked into the store one day and Tarantino asked him to read the script for Reservoir Dogs – and sonavabitch – Tarantino instantly became a screenwriter.

By the way, Harvey Keitel starred in Reservoir Dogs and, later, in Pulp Fiction.

Now Tarantino’s got True Romance and Pulp Fiction ready at the same time. He wants to direct both, but doesn’t the cash to pull it off. He’s in love with Pulp Fiction, so he sells True Romance (1993) to get the cash to make Pulp Fiction (1994).

He wrote both scripts in chronological order – but chopped the shit out of Pulp Fiction – took me 3 or 4 watches to enjoy it.

Tony Scott directed True Romance and laid it out in 1, 2, 3 order.

Mentioned the star-studded cast yesterday.

Tarantino has “only” 29 writing credits – but quite a few big hitters.

In case you never saw True Romance, here’s a thumbnail from IMDB: “In Detroit, a lonely pop culture geek marries a call girl, steals cocaine from her pimp, and tries to sell it in Hollywood. Meanwhile, the owners of the cocaine, the Mob, track them down in an attempt to reclaim it.”

I love the movie.

I’m America’s Best Crime Writer and I approve this message.

Amazon hammered me on the new Cleopatra book – titled the paperback Lew Kaminski: Cleopatra Murdered – and the eBook Cleopatra Murdered: Lew Kaminski.

Plus they released the paperback now – but holding the eBook until Feb 20th – like an eBook takes an extra four days to print.

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