Pulp Fiction (Blog Assignment 8*)

Pulp Fiction was an Oscar nominated movie written by Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avery in 1994. It has a star studded cast including Samuel L Jackson as Jules Winfield, John Travolta as Vincent Vega, Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace and Bruce Willis as Butch Coolidge. This movie is considered one of the greatest American made movies of all time. The Library of Congress placed this in National Film Registry in 2013. Pulp Fiction is considered a work as Post-Modernism and grossed 213.9 million dollars in the box office.

This movie is a based on a multiple crimes occurring at one time. Some of these crimes include the buying and using of drugs, murder, robbery, kidnapping, rape and the fixing of sporting events.

This movie begins in a diner when Pumpkin played by Tim Roth and Honey Bunny played by Amanda Plummer try to rob a diner. At this diner Jules and Vega are eating. The movie switches gears and the diner is not seen again until then end of the movie.

Jules Winfield and Vincent Vega are two hit man who work for their mob boss Marcellus Wallace who is played by Ving Rhames. During the movie the two hitmen make money runs for their boss and also commit murder for him. Also during the movie Vega is told by his boss to take his wife Mia out for a date while he is out of town. After the date at a 50’s themes restaurant where the saying “Dance like Uma “Mia almost passes away after Oding on Vegas heroin which he thought was cocaine.

Butch Coolidge was a long time boxer who agreed to take a dive in a boxing match for Wallace. In return he would receive a large sum of money from Wallace. After a string of events Butch decided to not throw the match and takes off running from Wallace’s people. Later Vega goes to Butches house to kill him but Butch is not home. Butch later returns home to retrieve his gold watch. Vega at the time is in the bathroom and is then killed by Butch.

After Vega is dead Butch goes to get his girlfriend and leave town. He is spotted by Wallace and there is a chase landing them in the pawnshop. The owner of the shop Mayner played by Duane Whittaker kidnaps the two and then bounds and gags them. Mayner begins to rap Wallace until Butch brakes free and saves him. Wallace allows Butch to live if he leaves town and tells no one about the rape. Butch gets his girlfriends and leaves town.

The movies ends by going back to the diner scene. Jules is telling Vega he is planning to leave the crime business before Pumpkin and Honey Bunny attempt to rob the diner. While Vega is in the bathroom Jules is held at gun point for his brief case that he and Vega retrieved for Wallace. After a series of events Vega and Jules gain control and Jules says a bible passage he said before killing people but they let the two go with the money but not the suitcase.

This movie starts with one scene shifts gears to work backwards to original scene. It moves from one characters crime filled actions to the next but makes it appear that their happening at the same times. I think this was an effective way to keep the audience on their toes and wanting to know what is going to happen to each character next. The movie did a good job bringing all the plots together at the end and showing how all the different charters were connected. I would give this movie a B+. I only took points off because at times I did become confused but at the end it all made sense.

Everybody Loves Raymond and Product Placement (Blog Assignment #6)

For this blog I watched the first episode of season four of Everybody Loves Raymond.  This episode was named the “Boob Job” episode. In this episode Ray and Debra go to their children’s schools PTA meeting. During the meeting Debra and Ray meet a mother who just had a breast enlargement surgery. This leads to Debra wondering if she needs breast implants. When she bring the idea up to Ray she receives a displeasing response. As the episode goes on Ray leaves for a week long business trip and as he returns Debra has created a test to see if Ray wanted her to get the surgery. Ray fails the test terribly but by the end of the episode the conflict has turned to Ray being self-conscious about his body.

Now that I have summarized the episode I will get to the main part of this blog. The purpose of this blog was to watch a sitcom and try to find clearly placed products in the show. After the products are found we must discuss how they relate to product placement. During the episode of Everybody Loves Raymond I found only two name brands clearly displayed.

The first was Golf Digest which is a magazine which is dedicated to the game of golf and golf products. During the series it is made know that Ray is a big golf enthusiast. During this episode Ray is shown choosing an edition of Golf Digest out of a pile of unmarked magazines. Also later in the episode another edition of Golf Digest is shown in Ray and Debra’s bathroom. Although Golf Digest or even golf was never mentioned or discussed during the episode Golf Digest was clearly displayed on multiple of occasions. This is an example of product placement.

As the last product was more specific to the specific to the episode the next product is associated with the entire along with the episode.  During this episode only two drinks with labels are displayed. These drinks are Orange Sunkist and Canadian Ginger Ale. Both of these drinks are made by the RC Beverage Company. RC Beverage Company paid to put their products in the show.

If one was to watch a season or two of Everybody Loves Raymond they would see a common company placing their products in episodes. Ray’s favorite drink was a Canadian Ginger Ale and he drank a Ginger Ale in a majority of the shows episodes. Ray drinking a Canadian Ginger Ale created promotion for RC Beverage and their product. For the series the money RC Beverage Company helped them with production coasts.

Everybody Loves Raymond was on for Six Seasons and for each of these seasons their viewer ratings were high. This is why Companies like Golf Digest and RC Beverage would pay to have their products places in the series’ episodes.