Popcorn (1997)

In this ruthlessly funny satire of Quentin Tarantino — which will itself become a Warner Bros. film — Bruce Delamitri is the hot young director (''the main man...the mainest, mainiest, most main mongous man of them all'') who just swept Oscar night. As Popcorn continues, however, his life begins to resemble the hip, wildly gory scenes from his phenomenal hit, Ordinary Americans, when the movie's sexy trailer-trash copycat killers show up at his mansion. With the high-wire irony and edgy narrative splicing of — you guessed it — Pulp Fiction, British writer Elton both brilliantly exploits and eviscerates his subject. He's a Nathanael West for ''young, thrusting, cool, cynical Hollywood.'' A-