Pulp Fiction vs Shawshank vs Forrest Gump

^ I cannot disagree more with you here, Mosh. When Pulp Fiction came out I had seen most of Godard's films, but this didn't give me the slightest impression of PF being a Godard - or whatever - rip-off. I don't even understand how you can say this. Of course, there are nods to other films (as in all of Tarantino's work, and his Grindhouse copies being the worst he has done), but claiming this to be a rip-off is more a sign of blatant prejudice than of something else.

When you want to talk about rip-offs, Shawshank Redemption and Forrest Gump use all the classic and conventional Hollywood codes of storytelling. Yes, they do that in a very good and efficient way, but it remains very conventional Hollywood storytelling, without any cinematographic challenge added to that. Pure Hollywood rip-offs, in that sense. Pulp Fiction breaks away from that classic Hollywood, like Godard, indeed, broke away from classic storytelling and the conventionality of cinematic codes. What a refreshment!