read:
1) Mark Conrad’s essay “Reservoir Dogs: Redemption in a Postmodern World”
2) Greg Tuck’s essay “Laughter in the Dark: Irony, Black Comedy and Noir in the Films of David Lynch, the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino”
3) Essays “The Nature of Surrealism” and “Ultra Violence in Neo-Noir Film”

Then watch:
1) Quentin Tarantino’s neo-noir films Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), and Kill Bill(2003) and write a double-spaced 3-4 page Critical Essay in which you compare the way the surreal images and use of ultra violence in these three films demonstrate/reveal how the physical and emotional cruelty, suffering, and brutality experienced by those who do not conform to the “norms” established by the dominant ideology of traditional realism precludes them from living “normal” or “real” lives as “real” people (people who are not afraid to feel their real feelings and know their own real thoughts)