Pulp Archives - Sean Kelly On Movies

Best known for their 1995 hit song “Common People,” British rock band Pulp stopped playing around 2001-02. With frontman Jarvis Cocker wanting to give the band a happy ending, they reunited for a tour of the UK in 2012. Pulp: a Film about Life, Death & Supermarkets follows the band as they prepare to play the final show of the tour in their hometown of Sheffield. Pulp was one of the bands to emerge from the Britpop boom of the early-mid 1990s. I admit that, of the bands from this era, I was probably more of a fan of Oasis and Blur, though I was a fan of Pulp’s songs “Common People,” “Disco 2000,” and “This is Hardcore” (all of which are featured at some point within the film). While the film does feature many performance scenes from the band’s Sheffield concert, the film is much more a standard documentary about what it feels like for the band to get back together for this tour. Jarvis Cocker in particular talks about always being a shy person and how Pulp was started as a way for him to cope with his shyness. In many ways, Pulp: a Film about Life, Death & Supermarkets is pure fan service and people unfamiliar with the band will likely not get what all the fuss is about. The film does not hide the fact that “Common People” is Pulp’s most well known song; the film both begins AND ends with Pulp’s performance of the song at the concert and song also appears a couple other times throughout the film, including a performance by a woman’s a cappella group. As a minor fan of Pulp, I will say that this film overall should please the band’s fanbase. 7 | FAIR Screenings: Sun, May 4, 7:00 PM – Royal Cinema