someone wrote: *I as well loved the part where Marvin gets his face shot off, and *Vincent's line following it, "Oh shit, I just shot Marvin in the face." I *laughed so hard I almost pissed myself. ********** I liked Pulp Fiction a lot, and I also laughed quite hard when Marvin got his face shot off. I am not criticizing the original poster, but this reaction bothers me, especially because it was intentionally elicited. The fact that around 500 people simultaneously laugh at scenes like this (myself included), and the fact that I heard teenagers talking of how much they loved the movie and how badly they want a personal copy of it because it was so fun to laugh at people being murdered and abused is very discouraging. It can possibly be argued that Pulp Fiction gives us some sort of moralistic ending via Jules and his groping toward a more pure life, or that "bad" violence was thwarted by "good" violence in scenes such as when Marsallis and the Bruce Willis character turn the table on the rapists. (I don't personally think Pulp Fiction makes any profound statements about violence. I don't feel that is the point of the film.) But Pulp Fiction, as well as other films like Natural Born Killers, revel in violence, and in fact exploit violence. Killers makes obvious comments on violence in American society and in the media, but it is so excessive it becomes guilty of the same thing it criticizes. Its power comes from the use of violence, and it would be weak without it. Eventhough a film like Killers is at least trying to bring up the issue of violence, I'm not sure that it is useful. It seems to me that the only people who recognize the use of violence as a critical cultural statement are the people who are already clued into the fact that such a statement needs to be made. There are too many people who are either unaware that they are being manipulated by images in mass media, or they are saying, "Cool...more blood." Okay, someone convince me that I'm wrong... Troy Warr [log in to unmask]