The career of Quentin Tarantino instantly became the stuff of Hollywood legend. Of course, winning an Oscar, Golden Globe and numerous critics' awards for Best Original Screenplay for the groundbreaking and much-imitated "Pulp Fiction" (1994) added significantly to his luster. Not bad for a high school dropout who picked up much of his film education while working as a video store clerk. For better or worse, the entertainment press selected Tarantino as the symbol of a new generation of young, hot directors. Hailed byas "the video store generation of filmmakers,” these would-be auteurs learned what they know about moviemaking and film history by watching VHS tapes on television; not at film school. A minimum wage job behind a video store counter became a road to a treasure trove of cinematic expression – particularly if one worked, as Tarantino did, at a well-stocked outfit like Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, CA. Cinephiles rather than cineastes, these young buffs tended to have rather catholic if idiosyncratic tastes. One could see influences of everything from arcane Hong Kong action titles to French New Wave classics in all of Tarantino's work.