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| gromit |
 Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2019 2:40 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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Hmm ... I wasn't really thinking of watching it.
Interesting response. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2019 5:57 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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gromit wrote: Hmm ... I wasn't really thinking of watching it.
Interesting response.
That would be a gargantuan mistake. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:09 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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Agree with Billy; "Once Upon a Time. . . . " is Tarantino's most satisfying and entertaining achievement. Extremely well written and perfectly cast. A delightful blend of nostalgia with wish-fulfilling fictionalization. Lengthy scenes with high-pitch intensity seem to be Tarantino's forte. Excellent performances from Brad Pitt and nine years old Julia Butters. You will not be disappointed.
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| Befade |
| Posted: Sat Aug 03, 2019 4:51 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 3784
Location: AZ
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You know I was loving OnceUpon until it got to the end. I thought it did a fantastic job of displaying a time and a place in our cultural history. Before cell phones and social media. People making tv shows: Westerns. We knew things were about to change. Because we remember that time and those people and those songs and those movies and what was happening. Tarantino made it so vivid down to Brad Pitt fixing Kraft Mac’n Cheese for dinner. And we knew where it was leading. We knew what the horrific ending was going to be.
I think the impact of the film would have been much more meaningful if he had just ended it before The Horrific Event. I guess I fault him for loving violent scenes too much. What happened then wasn’t a goofy, crazy continuation of what came before. I did not need to see his distortion of facts. I needed to sit with the knowledge of what really happened. And just feel it. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sun Aug 04, 2019 9:39 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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I think the first 4 words of the title were sort of a clue as to the narrative path. When Cliff goes to the Spahn ranch, an exquisitely shot and tempo perfect scene, I had the feeling of entering an alternative reality.
I'm not a big Tarantino fan, but I liked this one. Great ensemble, having some fun with it. I still don't like the way Tarantino handles violence, he's still the kid who watched too many martial arts movies and comic books, still obsessed with the style of violence more than where it comes from, but in a dark comedy like this, set in a mirror universe, with a nostalgic feel for the gratuitous, it seemed to fit. As Cliff says when he lights his acid cigarette, "and away we go!"
And Cliff's dangerousness is weirdly authenticated by his encounter with Bruce Lee. It's one thing to hear rumors someone killed their wife, another to see them hurl Bruce Lee into the side of a car. It's a dumb scene, really, but again, it works if you're making comedy. In a drama you wouldn't know what's going to happen. Here it's just another punchline on the inherent fakery of Hollywood. Tarantino says, unabashedly, I like the phony baloney stuff, I like tall tales. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Sun Aug 04, 2019 9:44 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6958
Location: Black Hills
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| And yes, Julia Butters was wondrous. A precocious child actor. Well, you'd have to be. |
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2019 5:41 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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I appreciate that you guys didn't dislike "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood." But seriously--seriously--any opinion of this movie that doesn't acknowledge its place in the pantheon of great films is insufficient for me. The ending? Perfection. The casting? Perfection. The atmosphere? Perfection. The playlist? Perfection. The Pitt-DiCaprio chemistry? Perfection.
An instant classic, the best Tarantino movie, on my all-time top-ten list. I could go on and on. I adore every single nanosecond of this film. Seen it twice and counting.
And--oh, yes, almost forgot--some people are knocking the film because younger people (under 40, say) do not know about the Manson murders and get kinda boooored. Oh, dearie me and goodness gracious. Wondering whether those youngsters know that we landed on the moon that summer. Have they heard about Woodstock? The Manson murders were a watershed event. To those who don't know about them, I hereby flip you all off.
SPOILER ALERT FOR BARTIST'S FOLLOWING POST!!! HE SAYS, "SPOILERS, I GUESS." THERE'S NO "I GUESS" ABOUT IT. SPOILER HAPPENS BIG TIME IN THE FINAL SENTENCE. DO NOT READ! |
Last edited by billyweeds on Tue Aug 06, 2019 9:49 am; edited 3 times in total |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2019 9:15 am |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
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Location: Black Hills
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SPOILERS
SPOILERS
BIG SPOILER IN SECOND-TO-LAST SENTENCE OF THIS POST
DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE FILM ONCE UPON A TIME ETC. OR YOUR LIFE WILL BE RUINED AND YOU MAY BE TEMPTED TO PURCHASE AN EASILY OBTAINABLE FIREARM IF YOU LIVE IN THE USA AND END IT ALL BEFORE ANY HYPOTHETICAL RED FLAG LAW IS SET IN MOTION BY FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS CONCERNED FOR YOUR APPARENT DESPAIR!
I did like the movie, as sentences like "an exquisitely shot and tempo perfect scene, I had the feeling of entering an alternative reality" indicate. There are no bad frames, and the vignettes are of a quality where I think many will find favorites that they go back to see again. It may well be Tarantino's best film to date. I've upped my opinion of the film, a couple days post-view, because I am still thinking about it and the Manson nightmare as a possible demarcation point in the conclusion of the groovy trip part of the sixties. As for the younger audience, I would be pretty disappointed by someone who selected this film and had never heard of Charles Manson. One hopes no one enters the theater expecting a history lesson, and leaves thinking the Manson cult was thwarted by a stuntman, his dog, and a drunk fading tv star with a flamethrower. I suppose there is a risk inherent in telling a tall tale in that particular way, but I'm glad he took it. |
Last edited by bartist on Tue Aug 06, 2019 11:10 am; edited 1 time in total
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He was wise beyond his years, but only by a few days. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2019 9:50 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: New York City
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bartist wrote: SPOILERS, I GUESS...
I did like the movie, as sentences like "an exquisitely shot and tempo perfect scene, I had the feeling of entering an alternative reality" indicate. There are no bad frames, and the vignettes are of a quality where I think many will find favorites that they go back to see again. It may well be Tarantino's best film to date. I've upped my opinion of the film, a couple days post-view, because I am still thinking about it and the Manson nightmare as a possible demarcation point in the conclusion of the groovy trip part of the sixties. As for the younger audience, I would be pretty disappointed by someone who selected this film and had never heard of Charles Manson. One hopes no one enters the theater expecting a history lesson, and leaves thinking the Manson cult was thwarted by a stuntman, his dog, and a drunk fading tv star with a flamethrower. I suppose there is a risk inherent in telling a tall tale in that particular way, but I'm glad he took it.
BART--I urge you to amend your final sentence. It's a HUGE spoiler, and I would have been incensed had I read that before seeing the movie. Thanks! |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2019 10:47 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9010
Location: Shanghai
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I shouldn't have said I didn't plan to see it.
I just hadn't heard much about it, and it wasn't yet really on my radar at all.
I usually don't like Leo much. But I'm a fan of Pitt.
Tarantino I generally like when he's not off on a violent rampage.
It's too bad when this came out, otherwise it would likely have shown during the Shanghai Film Festival and I would have been able to see it on a big screen.
The SH FF is usually the last week of June or first week of July, seemingly timed to coincide with the rainiest part of the year. |
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Killing your enemies, if it's done badly, increases their number. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2019 1:46 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4742
Location: Upstate NY
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2019 8:46 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Thanks very much, Ghulam. Posted it on Facebook. |
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| knox |
| Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2019 11:42 am |
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Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1246
Location: St. Louis
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SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY - READERS SHOULD ASSUME ANY CHAT ABOUT A MOVIE'S PLOT WILL HAVE SPOILERS AND WAIT UNTIL THEY'VE SEEN THE MOVIE
The first lines of Hart's piece could speak for me.
"I have never exactly been a Quentin Tarantino enthusiast, only because — as far as I can tell — my sensibility rarely coincides with his. But I have never doubted his talent. I applaud his insistence on the endangered cinematic virtue of closely crafted storytelling..."
But I part from him in finding much glorious rage in the imagined instant karma of the Manson monsters. I appreciate the moral impulse while at the same time wishing we could all better understand that our nation's Manson monsters are sad, sick people who are invariably the result of horrendous neglect and abuse from caregivers. Smashing and burning and mad dog biting might give the pleasure of seeing a movie damsel saved from distress, but it won't fix the American crazy, and the cruelty is still cruelty, no matter what nasty person it's directed against.
All the perfections, as laid out by Mr. Weeds, are there. But I still don't like Tarantino. To each his own. Can I say that a movie informed by a directorial vision I don't like is a great movie? Of course. It's the way I felt about Inglorious Basterds, too. IB had the decency to be completely absurd, a rewrite of history so complete and so almost pornographically satisfying in its obliteration of Hitler and the Nazi high command, that it could be enjoyed as a quasi science-fictional alternate universe. |
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| Ghulam |
| Posted: Wed Aug 07, 2019 4:33 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Upstate NY
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You are welcome, Billy.
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| knox |
| Posted: Thu Aug 08, 2019 11:28 am |
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Joined: 18 Mar 2010
Posts: 1246
Location: St. Louis
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Ghulam,
I read your link and responded to it. |
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