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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Started by Wet Blanket, March 20, 2019, 02:35:01 PM

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Noodle Lizard

Quote from: St_Eddie on July 15, 2021, 01:33:46 AM
I think that Tarantino went to great pains to portray the Manson cult as buffoons.  Them messing up the address was an extension of that buffoonery.

They didn't mess up the address, though. I think some of the dialogue given to Sadie(?) explaining why they should kill Rick Dalton as well is paraphrased from the kind of stuff they were saying in the trial ("You taught us to kill, now we're killing you" etc.)

Thinking back on it, I wonder if the film/story would've benefited from playing with the butterfly effect more. As it is, the only thing changing the course of history is that a fictional character now lives next door and distracts the Manson goons from the Tate house, but it would've been nice if some significant "real-life" difference had triggered the alternative history - even if it was just an Easter Egg.

It's a bit meaningless as it is. Even Brad Pitt's character confronting them at Spahn Ranch doesn't have any impact on how the rest of the film plays out, when it easily could have. He's out walking his dog in the neighborhood when the Manson clan turn up - if they'd recognised him as the guy who beat up their friend, that would've provided a more solid lead-in to them opting to attack the Dalton residence first. As it is, that whole sequence at the ranch is fun but ultimately unsubstantial, and the more I think about it the third act might as well have been a standalone film since nothing in the two hours preceding it actually matters. Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill and probably other Tarantino films are all somewhat vignettey, but they develop and bounce off one another in a way I don't think OUATIH really does. It feels very first drafty. Perhaps he's addressing that in this novelisation.

I thought they were going to attack the Tate house, but when Rick came out and shouted at them, they switched targets.

Goldentony

Agree with the almost pointless/vignette feeling, closest comparison to this film that I could think of when I saw it was Cheech & Chong's Next Movie but with context free parts of Eastern Promises or something just edited suddenly into the end before Cheech flies off on space coke. I remember my sister saying to me on the way out of the cinema "I don't think i've ever seen a film like that before where there's like nothing happening for any reason".

Liked it a lot.

Magnum Valentino

If you're saying that occasionally it's fine to enjoy something that doesn't say or mean anything but is nonetheless enjoyable because of the appeal of its components, I agree.

Loved the novellisation too and recommend it to anyone who loves the film.

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Magnum Valentino on July 16, 2021, 10:28:56 PM
If you're saying that occasionally it's fine to enjoy something that doesn't say or mean anything but is nonetheless enjoyable because of the appeal of its components, I agree.

I'd generally agree with this too - in fact, I'm a big fan of "films where not much happens" (two of my favourite current directors are Rick Alverson and Joel Potrykus) - but the problem I have with OUATIH is that everything "feels" like a big plot point, and for the most part it sort of follows that conventional plot-heavy narrative structure, despite nothing actually really having any consequence whatsoever. So it feels more like a failure in that regard compared to more "slice of life" type things.

That being said, I do more or less like the film. I like some of the individual segments, and it's less annoying than some of his other films overall, but it's also Tarantino at his most indulgent in many regards and really not the kind of thing someone pushing 60 should be making I don't think. But there you go.

McChesney Duntz

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on July 17, 2021, 06:33:46 AM
really not the kind of thing someone pushing 60 should be making I don't think.

So what exactly should someone pushing 60 be making, out of curiosity? I'm not quite sure how his age has anything to do with it (though a certain kind of burnished, languid nostalgia very much seems like something somebody of encroaching years would be doing). Would this have been more acceptable to you if he'd made it 20 years ago?

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: McChesney Duntz on July 17, 2021, 04:22:40 PMSo what exactly should someone pushing 60 be making, out of curiosity? I'm not quite sure how his age has anything to do with it (though a certain kind of burnished, languid nostalgia very much seems like something somebody of encroaching years would be doing). Would this have been more acceptable to you if he'd made it 20 years ago?

I suppose what I mean by that is that it feels less refined than stuff he was making in his 20s/30s, and whereas many artists tend to fine-tune their approach over time, Tarantino has sort of done the opposite. It's a lot flabbier than something like Pulp Fiction or Jackie Brown, for instance. I think it might have less to do with age than clout, though - as far as I understand it, he pretty much answers to no one now, and he famously had final cut on OUATIH and possibly his last few with Miramax/Weinstein too[nb]Regardless, I'd say OUATIH was a big step back from The Hateful Eight in terms of cohesive, focused filmmaking.[/nb]. Not that that's inherently a bad thing, of course, but I think in Tarantino's case it allows him more freedom to indulge his worse impulses at the expense of his better ones, whereas I think in the past he (or the producers) might have been more selective - there are supposedly a few Tarantino screenplays the Weinsteins rejected outright, for instance.

To be clear, I actually don't mind the nostalgic element of OUATIH in and of itself, and would even be fine with the infamous "long driving bits" if it amounted to a cohesive story or anything substantial either way. I don't think it did, so it sits fairly low in my ranking of his films - perhaps on a par with Django, above Death Proof.

Icehaven

Quote from: St_Eddie on July 15, 2021, 01:33:46 AM
I think that Tarantino went to great pains to portray the Manson cult as buffoons.  Them messing up the address was an extension of that buffoonery.  Understandably, Tarantino did not write their characters with any great amount of affection.  I suspect a part of Quentin's power fantasy was to make a complete mockery of the Manson cult.

They didn't get the address wrong, they decided to attack him as well/instead after he drunkenly berated them and one of them recognised him.

McChesney Duntz

Quote from: Noodle Lizard on July 17, 2021, 06:36:07 PM
I suppose what I mean by that is that it feels less refined than stuff he was making in his 20s/30s, and whereas many artists tend to fine-tune their approach over time, Tarantino has sort of done the opposite. It's a lot flabbier than something like Pulp Fiction or Jackie Brown, for instance. I think it might have less to do with age than clout, though - as far as I understand it, he pretty much answers to no one now, and he famously had final cut on OUATIH and possibly his last few with Miramax/Weinstein too[nb]Regardless, I'd say OUATIH was a big step back from The Hateful Eight in terms of cohesive, focused filmmaking.[/nb]. Not that that's inherently a bad thing, of course, but I think in Tarantino's case it allows him more freedom to indulge his worse impulses at the expense of his better ones, whereas I think in the past he (or the producers) might have been more selective - there are supposedly a few Tarantino screenplays the Weinsteins rejected outright, for instance.

To be clear, I actually don't mind the nostalgic element of OUATIH in and of itself, and would even be fine with the infamous "long driving bits" if it amounted to a cohesive story or anything substantial either way. I don't think it did, so it sits fairly low in my ranking of his films - perhaps on a par with Django, above Death Proof.

Thanks. Good comments.

kngen

I didn't have a problem with them deciding to target Dalton at the last minute, as it seemed a pretty good take on (and conflation of) the ad hoc nature of the murders themselves: Manson targeted the house because a music producer (Terry Melcher) used to live there, and he was pissed off at Melcher for snubbing him when he was touting his demos around LA. The LaBiancas, murdered the following night, were an even more random target, as they just happened to live next door to a house where Manson had been at a party once. [nb]It's been a long time since I read it, but I vaguely remember in Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi's book, that Manson was actually after Tom Jones, as they had scoped his house nearby on one of their 'creepy crawls', but he was off on tour by the time they went back to Cielo Drive. He was definitely on the hit list that came out a few years later, when one of the family started talking to the press[/nb]

So the 'making it up as they went along' aspect seemed pretty close to the truth, IMO.

Dusty Substance


Delighted to see Bruce Lee fanboy crybabies on Facebook still getting upset over this film two years after it was released.