Just saw it and enjoyed it a lot. There were many times when it felt more like a Wes Anderson movie than a Quentin Tarantino movie - and I mean that as a compliment.
Brad Pitt really did inhabit that role. I totally forgot “it’s Brad Pitt”, which, again, I mean as a compliment.
I had the same thought. Having killed Hitler early, and saved Sharon Tate and her guests, will QT next visit Dallas in 1963? Then maybe Ford’s Theatre in 1865, and Sarajevo in 1914…?
I loved it. All of it. Can’t remember a movie I enjoyed like that in years.
Ohhh…I took 1963 to mean before the Beatles but I kind of forgot about JFK.
Tarantino apparently really liked The City on the Edge of Forever, so maybe moments before the one Big Bang we know of? 
The wife and I watched this yesterday. Loved it.
Not that I go around staring at dog penises, but in one scene Brandy, referred to in the move as “she,” clearly has one.
Liked the background newscasts on the radio.
Tarantino has come out to respond to critics of his characterization of Bruce Lee. Lee’s family has claimed that Bruce wasn’t that arrogant to claim he could beat Cassius Clay and that there’s no way that Pitt’s character could have beat Lee.
Tarantino, said he knows for a fact that Bruce was that arrogant and that Lee had actually made the claims about Cassius Clay in real life. He also said that Pitt’s character, Cliff Booth, is a fictional character that he created, and in that fiction Cliff Booth could’ve kicked Bruce Lee’s ass.
I think we’re given plenty of reasons to understand that Cliff acted with serious and justified intent. We know he’s a veteran but he also has a dark side and he’s been given due cause to be suspicious of the entire Manson clan after his experience on the ranch. He’s also high as a kite, be it on acid or something more dangerous (who knows what that cig was really laced with?). So putting those family members out of commission in an unambiguous way is completely consistent with his character and his skills of threat assessment in the moment, particularly given his already-altered state.
But Rick’s response is completely different. All he sees is a woman, already seriously injured, crashing through his back window and blindly falling into his pool, screaming in agony and shooting off a gun in a dangerously haphazard manner. He doesn’t know anything about her intentions or that she’s a member of some scary-ass cult.
All he knows is that she’s one of the “dirty, fucking hippies” who were making a noise in his driveway early. Also, hippies are a group we’ve seen him disparage plenty of times before in the film for no other reason than that they disgust him.
So after he escapes the back patio, do we see him call the police or check on his wife or ask Cliff, “Hey dude, who the fuck is the girl who’s practically drowning in my pool out back? And oh shit, can I call you an ambulance?” No, we next see him flame-roast her with a god-damn flamethrower with exactly the same kind of relish we saw him toast Nazis in his WWII movie. This is not a proportionate response to the situation, but it’s one that’s supposed to be satisfying to the audience (who knows what a threat she was) and it’s deeply satisfying for him because he gets to be the villain-killing hero of his own story instead of the special guest bad guy that his career has now relegated to him.
This is somehow framed at Rick’s moment of redemption (albeit probably brief). He gets to rub noses with Hollywood’s It Girl, the starlet next-door neighbor he’s only seen from afar. But like in his real life, Cliff does most of the actual dangerous stuff while Rick gets the glory and the “money shot”. But the sadism of that moment struck me as gratuitously over-the-top given the actual situation. It’s like Frank Drebin accidentally mowing down two pedestrians with his car who just happened to be drug dealers. YMMV, of course, but that left a sour taste in my mouth. Leo plays it just like he should, but QT’s conception of that scene seems a way to get his rocks off while also using a tragic historical fig leaf as cover.
For me, there’s plenty to like about the film, but its demerits (which I consider significant) equate to the whole being far less than the sum of its parts, no matter how artfully rendered some of them might be.
Hey, I agree. The flamerthrowering did seem ridiculously unnecessary. But knowing it is fictional, that ridiculousnessocity made it hilarious. My whole point was that it was irrelevant what gender the target was.
I knew that flame-thrower was going to make an appearance later on when I saw it casually leaning against the wall of his shed early on. Call it Chekov’s flame-thrower.
But it has to be seen in the context of the following scene (and the ones in the caravan the next day) showing that LDC’s emotional life makes Pitt’s look full in comparison.
The radio says something like ‘no smog today’ - maybe the Tarantinoverse requires this for all its beautiful colours.
In my opinion, the reason we only hear Tait’s voice after the thwarted attack, rather than see the actor(s), is to avoid being too ghoulish. YMMV.
I’m not sure, it felt like a reference to something to me. I’m not enough of a film buff to know though.
Good point about the murderous use of the flamethrower. But that doesn’t make the story flawed - it makes the story much deeper and more nuanced than first appears. It’s a story about stories (Hollywood stories and fairy tales, good guys and bad guys, as is explicitly stated during the makeup scene). A character who appears, or who believes himself to be, a hero, or even just one of the good guys, may in fact be one of the worst characters in the story. In fact Rick may only be second in evilness to the almost mythological Charlie without it compromising the quality of this film.
The bit with the harpoon on the boat is clearly a joky reference to the going over a bump bit in Pulp Fiction.
Since, some people really have it coming,
The characters in the film, especially.
Don’t have to jump on every bandwagon.
:rolleyes:
That’s just a restatement of an affection for violence as a solution to problems.
Speaking as someone with a common background in the law, I’m not impressed by your use of ad hominem argument.
I saw it today. Took my parents, who have never seen a Tarantino film before, to see it. Both of them, especially my mother, were familiar with the Tate murders, so while they enjoyed QT’s style, they were confused by the ending, Mum, actually said to me on the drive home that she never knew that the Manson family attacked a home next door before the murders!
I enjoyed it. Better than Hateful Eight, by far. The film was vintage Tarentino. The ending was telegraphed a mile away, after Inglorious Basterds no one was being surprised by the twist, but the ending sequence of events was well written and excellently executed.
A couple of questions,
Who was the women in the yellow bikini? Cliff’s wife? Can’t recall seeing her anywhere in the film, but I did go to the bathroom for a minute mid film so, yeah maybe.
The “Steve McQueen” bit, was Damien Lewis, McQueen or Hef?
Speaking of McQueen, did the movie suggest that DiCaperios character was originally supposed to have been “Cooler” Hilts?
And then was sacked?
I will say, they did a seamless job of placing Leo’s head on McQueens body in the clip.
It was Cliff’s wife. That flashback (within a flashback) is the only time we see her.
Hef wasn’t shown at all in the mansion scene.
Dalton tells Jim Stacy that for a brief moment McQueen considered passing on the role, and in that brief moment Rick and 3 others (George Maharis, George Chakiris and George Peppard, the “three Georges” he mentions) were considered. The Great Escape scene was either Dalton imagining himself in the role, and/or Tarantino showing us what Rick would have looked like in the role. Obviously McQueen was the right choice.
If anyone in Chicago is interested, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is playing at Navy Pier IMAX starting today. Hobbs and Shaw had been playing there. They must have had a contract which is why OUATIH didn’t play there when it opened everywhere else. I’ve seen it 5 times but I’m seeing it again there on Sunday. Maybe twice! Bless you AMC A*List!
If both men had been there, then maybe the real life would have played out like the film.
McQueen was actually mugged that night, and very calmly went to his car, got his gun, and pistol whipped his mugger senseless. Decided against going as a result of the mugging,
McQueen had been in the Marines and had plenty of experience as a street fighter in his youth. He would not have been an easy victim if he was inclined to resist.
I actually wonder if QT got the idea from this hypothetical.
Finally saw it today.
I liked it. Kind of a fun minimal-plot story. Very funny, funniest Tarantino movie except Inglorious Basterds, which is still his best movie by a lot.
The final sequence with stoned Brad Pitt fighting was awesome.
Lots of fun and laughs throughout.
I just saw it, and loved it. Soooo many pop culture references: music, TV, radio stations, movies. (I was a big Paul Revere and the Raiders fan at the time.)
What was up with all the shots of footwear & feet??
Pussycat looked terribly familiar – thanks to you guys, I think it’s because she looks like Andie McDowell.
The dark-haired killer also was familiar and I had a hard time using IMDB to place her: because her character is listed by her Manson family nickname (Sadie), instead of the real name we now know through the trial (Susan Atkins). (She’s the eldest daughter on Better Things.)
Favorite line:
“What’s your name…?”
“I’m the devil, here to do the devil’s business.”
“Naw…it was stupider then that.”
Brad Pitt is so freakin’ cool.