|
Mokelumne Trekka posted:I must have a nerd blind spot because I thought everyone even casual audiences expected a history-distorting twist. The whole set up is that Tate has neighbors who are fictional people. It's why I avoided spoilers like the plague. Having not thought about the movie at all or seen Inglorious since the same year as its theatrical release, it took until they started talking about killing Leo before I considered the alternative. Even there, I considered it might be a feint and at any moment they might change it into a brutal reenactment of the murders, because QT might have been fine with people leaving shaken. People are saying it's obvious that he was going to alter history, but he's only full-on did that once and even though its ancient history, the ending of Reservoir Dogs convinced me he'd be willing to do that to the audience. Edit: and the context of Inglorious was different. Inglorious was, in part, homage WW2 era propaganda movies which were describing an idealized future when they were written, which after the fact reads like an alteration of history. piL fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Jul 30, 2019 |
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 06:35
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 14:51 |
|
|
I think people who heard that they were trying to clamp down on spoilers at festivals were the ones who got suspicious, since, you know, you can't spoil history. If you don't follow that you may not be expecting it (and I definitely saw people on Twitter who were certain Tarantino would be showing the killings.) For me, I kinda had to know that it wasn't gonna play out like reality to go see it, because I would have had no interest in seeing the Manson murders recreated on screen. So I read just enough to know that part. Maybe that's not what the filmmaker wanted, but hey, I just didn't feel like subjecting myself to that particular bit of suspense.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 07:37
|
|
|
The suspense was loving killing me. I nervously folded and unfolded my ticket stub so many times it’s nearly unrecognizable.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 09:08
|
|
|
I thought this was fantastic. Incredibly shot, I loved all the driving scenes. The shots of them barreling down roads was exhilarating! Acting is of course A+, and the finale is simply perfect. When it all kicks off I was laughing so hard, it was wonderful. I know a fair bit about the Tate murders though, I think if you didn't know anything about them you'd lose a lot of enjoyment. If I had one criticism it's summed up in this interview with Bruce Lee's daughter - https://amp.scmp.com/sport/martial-arts/kung-fu/article/3020578/bruce-lees-legacy-flushed-down-toilet-quentin-tarantino I don't think even Polanski came across poorly in the movie, but Bruce is portrayed as an arrogant buffoon. Weird how Tarantino made him a joke, and I don't understand why considering his love of martial Arts movies. I watched this in HONG KONG and the audience laughed at him. drat. The actor was perfect though.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 11:22
|
|
|
Seeing it at the New Bev was a blast. They had a couple of the posters hanging around the lobby (Shoot the Gringo poster is awesome irl), and the showed a longer cut of the Bounty Law clip with Madsen before the opening trailers. The trailers they showed at the start were Rosemary's Baby, Wrecking Crew, and CC and Company. Also, don't cry in front of the Mexicans.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 12:26
|
|
|
If you want to see and hear a lot of the actual Manson family members, the 73 doc is pretty comprehensive. The filmmakers were already shooting footage of them before the murders happened so the doc shows a lot of their day to day life on Spahn Ranch and the hosed up things they were getting into up there. The soundtrack to the doc is hauntingly good, but the discussion is very frank (they were having orgies involving children and there's talk about a member commiting suicide while climaxing during sex. There's also autopsy pictures of the victims, which are pretty heartbreaking). https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VQQyBIHfr8g ruddiger fucked around with this message at 12:48 on Jul 30, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 12:42
|
|
|
Ardent Communist posted:As for that joke at the Mexican restaurant, unless I am proved wrong with a clip or the script, I'm going to think it's my way, since it's way funnier and I'm not sure if someone who killed their wife would go to a wife joke with a friend, whereas a friend would totally make that joke if he knew him well enough and enough time had passed. 100% was not a wife murder joke at Cliff.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 13:43
|
|
|
Honestly, I think it's ok that Tarantino made a film that is kind of niche, and is going to speak deeply to the part of the audience in the know (about Manson, about classic Hollywood, about TV westerns and actors in transition and the rising New Hollywood and the Italian film market of the 60's and 70's and and and...) but may fly over the heads of others. Like I see that as a positive rather than a negative, because if the film opted for handholding to explain who the Mansons or Tate & co were (and it does do a little bit of that) then it would be nowhere near as strong or intimate. I'm kind of surprised "intimate" isn't a word that's coming up more often, nor is "empathetic," but I'd describe overwhelmingly as both of those things. If you think the movie "didn't have a point" I'm sorry but it just flew straight over your head. It's such a deeply woven story about film, mythology, transition and death. It's absurd in all the ways that Tarantino excels at, but it's also his most mystical. That ending is straight up fairy tale/Twilight Zone as many people have said. Honestly I can't imagine discussing the movie without it, which makes the spoiler-phobia in the mainstream channels so frustrating: Rick Dalton, our symbol of a bygone Hollywood -- one of minor stars who faded into obscurity, who never became legends, but who worked and fought and created forgotten bodies of work that have outlived them even as they dwell in obscurity -- being led through the Gates by a St. Peterly Jay Sebring to meet and embrace with the four high profile Manson victims as that music from Judge Roy Bean plays and the camera lifts to the stars in a loving, distant crane shot. I can't put my finger on an example, but it's that spiritual ending we've seen so many times: the ghost who doesn't know he's already dead walking into the light to live with the spirits of his friends and family for eternity. What a beautiful loving finale, and it's a deeply personal moment for Tarantino it seems, whose dedicated his life to this artform.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 14:56
|
|
|
I've been going back and forth on OUAT and enjoying the discussion in this thread a lot. However, I've also been following some interesting discussions on Twitter regarding the film and this one caught my eye: spoilers:  Obviously YMMV as to whether you feel like that's a persuasive reading, but I do find it compelling to think about how this is Tarantino's first post-Weinstein, post-MeToo film and it's kind of about how loving coooool Hollywood is. The only important women in it are either Angelic Others (Tate, the Precocious Girl) who exist to validate or assist the male protagonist or else Murderous Tricksters. Cliff maybe murdering is bitch of a wife is one of the funniest running gags in the film, and the film is having its most fun when two of the Manson Family women are brutally tortured to death. Apart from analyzing the film, it does raise some interesting questions about QT's state of mind as women all over Hollywood are making trouble for his friends and taking some of the power back.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 16:05
|
|
|
TrixRabbi posted:Honestly, I think it's ok that Tarantino made a film that is kind of niche, and is going to speak deeply to the part of the audience in the know (about Manson, about classic Hollywood, about TV westerns and actors in transition and the rising New Hollywood and the Italian film market of the 60's and 70's and and and...) but may fly over the heads of others. Like I see that as a positive rather than a negative, because if the film opted for handholding to explain who the Mansons or Tate & co were (and it does do a little bit of that) then it would be nowhere near as strong or intimate. I originally found the ending to be super abrupt, but this post genuinely changed my mind.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 16:16
|
|
|
TrixRabbi posted:Rick Dalton, our symbol of a bygone Hollywood -- one of minor stars who faded into obscurity, who never became legends, but who worked and fought and created forgotten bodies of work that have outlived them even as they dwell in obscurity -- being led through the Gates by a St. Peterly Jay Sebring to meet and embrace with the four high profile Manson victims as that music from Judge Roy Bean plays and the camera lifts to the stars in a loving, distant crane shot. I can't put my finger on an example, but it's that spiritual ending we've seen so many times: the ghost who doesn't know he's already dead walking into the light to live with the spirits of his friends and family for eternity. What a beautiful loving finale, and it's a deeply personal moment for Tarantino it seems, whose dedicated his life to this artform. I’m really not sure how I feel about real murders being put on the same level as DiCaprio and Pitt’s gentle decline into obscurity.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 16:22
|
|
|
I think what's left out of the discourse is that the manson family were literally trying to start a race war.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 16:23
|
|
|
Equeen posted:I think what's left out of the discourse is that the manson family were literally trying to start a race war. I was surprised this wasn't brought up in the film considering how race heavy his last 3 movies were.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 16:27
|
|
|
Equeen posted:I think what's left out of the discourse is that the manson family were literally trying to start a race war. Yeah I was going to say if you took them at their word they could be seen as as bad as Nazis. Also Manson himself committed rape , statutory and otherwise, multiple times. It’s disingenuous to equate the Manson family with all hippies. Of course, you probably shouldn’t take a bunch of people out of their mind on acid and belladonna root at their word, and there’s plenty of fault to find in QT’s portrayal of women in general. Many sides, many sides.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 16:31
|
|
|
Cacator posted:I was surprised this wasn't brought up in the film considering how race heavy his last 3 movies were. Right? I really enjoyed the movie, but why the sudden 180? The complete lack of black people was pretty weird, too lol.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 16:32
|
|
|
QuoProQuid posted:I’m really not sure how I feel about real murders being put on the same level as DiCaprio and Pitt’s gentle decline into obscurity. Do you mean the actors themselves or the characters? Cause the actors themselves are the A-Listers: The Cary Grants and James Stewarts and Bogies and Clark Gables whose legacies have transcended decades. The characters are the Troy Donahues and Tab Hunters of 50's Hollywood. I mean, it's a fair criticism either way. But I also see Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth as more symbolic figures for an entire era, and in turn looking at the Manson victims as themselves figures elevated into modern mythology. Recasting them here not as victims, but as friendly specters -- ones who we see live their lives as real human beings, and at the end as somewhat angelic spirits. Tarantino gets his revenge fantasy in there, literally placing his fictional characters as a physical intermediary between the Mansons and Tate/Sebring/Folger/Frykowski (as well as the unmentioned Steven Parent). Metaphorically, as Hollywood creates myths, here it is also able to destroy myths -- undoing the decades of Satanic mystique that's been built around the Mansons and bringing them down to a humiliating, cathartic ground. Tex Watson's line "I'm the devil and I'm here to do the devil's work" is something he allegedly actually said during the Tate killings, Cliff Booth is there to tell him that line is dumb as poo poo. We're fully aware of how young these killers are, how deluded they are, how much they themselves have been shaped by the culture around them (and the Manson killings are undeniably shaped by pop culture from The Beatles to The Beach Boys to the western movie set they lived on). If the use of real life murder victims as symbols here doesn't sit well with you, well I don't really think I can argue against that. But I really feel that the depiction here is respectful and loving, and that final shot so beautiful as they live on forever in the movies. Coming from someone like Tarantino, whose filtered his entire worldview through film, it's the utmost tribute.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 16:48
|
|
|
mary had a little clam posted:I've been going back and forth on OUAT and enjoying the discussion in this thread a lot. However, I've also been following some interesting discussions on Twitter regarding the film and this one caught my eye: Doesn't Steve McQueen say that Polanski is a prick and will inevitably gently caress it up with Sharon Tate? I don't think choosing to save Tate means that he's "saving" Polanski at all. I think it's telling that Polanski and Manson both have incredibly similar roles and presences in the film. I don't know, I feel like any argument I've seen tying this to #MeToo or being anti-millenial/zoomer has been a real stretch. It's definitely a reactionary film though, so I'm open to the idea of it, I just haven't seen any that weren't giant leaps.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 17:46
|
|
|
TrixRabbi posted:Honestly, I think it's ok that Tarantino made a film that is kind of niche I mean seriously: if somebody is upset that Tarantino made a film where it helps if you know a bit of pop culture history they can always elect to go to one of the many seemingly non-stop supply of films where you have to understand the subtle relationships between several factions and interpersonal relationships of superheroes and criss-crossing multiverses and timelines across 28 companion films and countless volumes of comic books instead.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 17:57
|
|
|
LesterGroans posted:Doesn't Steve McQueen say that Polanski is a prick and will inevitably gently caress it up with Sharon Tate? I don't think choosing to save Tate means that he's "saving" Polanski at all. I think it's telling that Polanski and Manson both have incredibly similar roles and presences in the film. Don't forget the scene where Cliff asks for age verification from the Manson girl which seems like a pretty self conscious thing to include in a movie featuring Polanski.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 18:01
|
|
|
Yeah, it's heavily implied in the film Sharon and Jay were going to get back together, which is very possible though the reason they broke up in the first place was Sebring's liking for kinky sex that Tate was never comfortable with so who knows. Regardless they had a much healthier day-to-day relationship together. But in real life Polanski was also a terrible adulterer even when he was with Tate, and he did NOT treat her well. John Cassavetes almost got into a physical brawl with Polanski on the set of Rosemary's Baby over how Polanski talked about cheating and that [paraphrased] "no man could spend his life just loving one woman." There's no way that marriage was built to last and Polanski would have either hosed up and assaulted some other poor girl eventually or at least left endless tears from broken marriage to broken marriage. Anyway, how many of y'all are on board with Rick and Cliff totally being gay for each other?
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 18:24
|
|
|
The one short scene we had of Polanski, alone, showed that he didn't even appreciate the unconditional love of a dog. The movie doesn't have much to say of him beyond "look at this miserable dude, drat, what's Sharon diggin on here?" That and Real(er) Dudes don't jump at the chance for underage strange and act responsibly. As if Polanski himself shouldn't be considered more than a snide footnote to the lives presented.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 19:05
|
|
|
Yeah, exactly. He gets one moment where Rick Dalton praises him for being the hot shot young director everyone reveres -- which in 1969 he absolutely was. And it has that air of dramatic irony that we know where his career goes later.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 19:30
|
|
|
mary had a little clam posted:I've been going back and forth on OUAT and enjoying the discussion in this thread a lot. However, I've also been following some interesting discussions on Twitter regarding the film and this one caught my eye: The Manson family: just some hippies who don't deserve the same treatment as literal Nazis. 
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 19:35
|
|
|
There's an interesting theory posited by one of Manson's biographers that the whole "race war" thing was just dramatic flair to distract from Manson thinking he'd killed a black acquaintance over a bad drug deal. Not to say Manson wasn't racist, just that his motive may have been a bit more mundane and self serving.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 20:00
|
|
|
Vince MechMahon posted:The Manson family: just some hippies who don't deserve the same treatment as literal Nazis. Wellll.... I think you could make the case that a bunch of drugged out gently caress-ups are qualitatively different than a genocidal state apparatus but point taken That Dang Dad fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Jul 30, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 20:12
|
|
mary had a little clam posted:Wellll.... I think you could make the case that a bunch of drugged out gently caress-ups are qualitatively different than a genocidal state apparatus but point taken There was not a single nazi in Germany that didn't spend their days high out of their loving mind by the end of the war. They literally handed out meth like candy. E: like it's a matter of historical record that the primary animating factor for building the camps was that the death squads kept getting too hosed up to do mass killings properly anymore
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 20:20
|
|
|
Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:There was not a single nazi in Germany that didn't spend their days high out of their loving mind by the end of the war. They literally handed out meth like candy. I don't accept the Nuremberg defense for either group. Yes they were both indoctrinated and yes they were both following orders from someone else. But at a certain point I don't care. And the point is well before stabbing a pregnant woman 16 times.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 20:22
|
|
Vince MechMahon posted:I don't accept the Nuremberg defense for either group. Yes they were both indoctrinated and yes they were both following orders from someone else. But at a certain point I don't care. And the point is well before stabbing a pregnant woman 16 times. I'm not defending either one, just pointing out that "drugged out gently caress ups" is a fairly perfect descriptor for the OG Nazis.
|
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 20:24
|
|
|
Babysitter Super Sleuth posted:I'm not defending either one, just pointing out that "drugged out gently caress ups" is a fairly perfect descriptor for the OG Nazis. Oh I know. Sorry for the confusion. More an addendum to your statement than an argument.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 20:31
|
|
|
I wonder if some people were geared up to hate this movie because they expected it to depict the murders as they occurred but in an exploitative way and are grasping at straws now. I can’t think of any other reason why people would be angry that the movie vilified the loving Manson family.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 20:40
|
|
|
Drunkboxer posted:I wonder if some people were geared up to hate this movie because they expected it to depict the murders as they occurred but in an exploitative way and are grasping at straws now. I can’t think of any other reason why people would be angry that the movie vilified the loving Manson family. "Hippies" is being super reductive about who they were and as far as I'm concerned isn't even accurate. Rick calls them that cause he's a prick and doesn't know any better, but calling them that in your "woke" criticism of the movie is dead wrong. They were a white supremacist cult who killed half a dozen people, including a pregnant woman, in order to start a race war. gently caress the Manson family and anyone who's defending them in their hot take on this movie in any way.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 20:46
|
|
|
Vince MechMahon posted:"Hippies" is being super reductive about who they were and as far as I'm concerned isn't even accurate. Rick calls them that cause he's a prick and doesn't know any better, but calling them that in your "woke" criticism of the movie is dead wrong. They were a white supremacist cult who killed half a dozen people, including a pregnant woman, in order to start a race war. gently caress the Manson family and anyone who's defending them in their hot take on this movie in any way. I guess that’s a risk you run when you rage against the morality of something without any cultural context. Drunkboxer fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Jul 30, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 21:44
|
|
|
Vince MechMahon posted:"Hippies" is being super reductive about who they were and as far as I'm concerned isn't even accurate. Rick calls them that cause he's a prick and doesn't know any better, but calling them that in your "woke" criticism of the movie is dead wrong. They were a white supremacist cult who killed half a dozen people, including a pregnant woman, in order to start a race war. gently caress the Manson family and anyone who's defending them in their hot take on this movie in any way. They killed a half a dozen people to enslave black people after the race war and live as god-king/queens.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 22:06
|
|
|
Timeless Appeal posted:Hey hey hey let's get our facts straight. poo poo your right. I forgot their core belief that black people would be too stupid to run society so they would beg them, the unwashed desert cult, to rule over them.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 22:14
|
|
|
Equeen posted:I think what's left out of the discourse is that the manson family were literally trying to start a race war. yeah and that's something that feels like it gets left out of a lot of discussion about Manson. The Helter Skelter prophecy was basically The Turner Diaries.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 22:22
|
|
|
Couple of questions Dalton's stutter/speech impediment was subtle but great. Was that in the script or something added later? Also, was I hearing things or did that last piece of music over the last shot of the movie have traces of the theme from Rosemary's Baby? At first I thought it was the theme itself, but it was way more uplifting, but every once in a while I'd catch hints of it in the melody.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 22:23
|
|
|
mary had a little clam posted:I've been going back and forth on OUAT and enjoying the discussion in this thread a lot. However, I've also been following some interesting discussions on Twitter regarding the film and this one caught my eye: I guess it shows how different readings of a film can be, because right up until the climax I was questioning whether or not QT was trying to actually justify the Manson's actions in some way.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 22:35
|
|
|
There's not much difference between the Manson family and those Children of God assholes from the same time period (read up on them if you haven't). The amount of gurus that came out of the 60's and 70's, and number of ruined lives left in their wake is pretty nuts. The whole drugged up free love hippie movement may have been incredibly naive, but it had its head in the right place concerning issues like police brutality, capitalism, the war, etc. And it was always being co opted by bad actors using it as an excuse to play messiah. Even former Mansonites said it was really a power trip about getting high and manipulating people for sex until Manson went off on his "Helter Skelter" race war. It's the same with the "hippies" in Mandy, who are ruled by a leader that drops the mystical facade once the party's over and reveals how empty and weak the whole thing is. You can tell Tarantino hates these people, but not because they represent the death of Hollywood's purity (the film acknowledges that Hollywood is already full of fragile, insecure people and is a place of vast wealth and power inequality). They aren't there to represent "youthful change", they're just the garbage that always acquire some kind of power and use it to cause pain to others for no real reason other than their own aggrandizement. Like a Weinstein.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 22:59
|
|
|
For what it's worth, I do think the film kind of requires you to either know about the Manson murders or listen to the You Must Remember This podcast beforehand. The crimes of the Manson family are not as well known as that of Nazi Germany or the United States. As much as they're compared, Django and Basterds are very different in how they treat their bad guys. Django really hammers home just how despicable, craven, and vile slave owners and many/most white Americans were at the time. Basterds at times plays with getting you to sympathize with some of the Nazis before pulling the rug from under you and reminding you that these people are indeed monsters. The Manson family gets the Basterds treatment with Charlie's one appearance showing him to be pretty harmless. The sense of dread comes from the audience imposing their own knowledge. Similarly, the family is shown to be benign and fun or at least relatively harmless. And I don't know if that's the right choice? Basterds is a trip because we--well most of us, well those of us that matter--know that Nazis are irredeemable, QT plays with the notion that this is not true for at least one Nazi, and then ends with no, gently caress Nazis. The ending of the film is similar to the KKK scene in Django in that the Manson family is shown to be buffoonish and are easily humiliated. In Django, QT just puts white supremacists on the screen, renders them with no cinematic flair, and lets them come off as the dumbasses they are. In fact the only real villain who stands as an actual foil for Django is Black. The Manson Family, by contrast, is actually given some care in the film. The scene on the ranch goes back and forth between horror movie and straight-up Western. Strangely in the Western context, it's Cliff who's cast as the villain--the outside who comes to town, menaces the women folk, and gets away before the hero triumphantly rides his horse in. And I get why they're presented that way. It's supposed to be a trick. You're meant to see them as these epic and scary forces only to see them easily handled, humiliated, and horrificly killed. But the reality is that Charles Manson was a stinky bad singer and a white supremacist. The actual reality of Manson is itself a joke. The film has to take part in a certain level of aggrandisement to pull the rug out from under you. But what I would argue is the sense of justice seems a bit wonky or not as strong as in his prior revisionist films. I'm not going to defend the Manson family, but let's be clear that these women were in a cult. Their treatment was at best abusive and I would argue was sex trafficking. gently caress them for being white supremacists. gently caress them for killing Sharon Tate and others. But I do think it's a bit obtuse to not see as much fun in broken and abused people getting their heads smashed in by a man who may have very well killed his own wife as opposed to seeing Nazis set on fire or slave traders blown up. The historical revenge of sorts exists more in the subtext than the actual acts of violence. Charles Manson himself, the denial of his historical relevancy, is the actual revenge. But that's not really shown on the screen. More than that, to rehash an earlier point, I think the revenge is stronger if you see Hollywood as being doomed regardless of what Manson did. There is tons in the film to point to the notion that the old ways are dying. The choice of focusing on the Taco Bell sign is historically accurate but seems oddly anachronistic. The present is encroaching on the past. Rick's role as a Spaghetti Western star might be meaningful, but we see it flicker out so quickly. But more than that, it's the ultimate revenge on Manson. The film lays out the case that he didn't matter. Manson didn't destroy Hollywood, that already happened. All he did, as Tarantino humanely ends on, was hurt some nice people. With that in mind, the violence itself doesn't seem necessarily cathartic. I think one justification for it is that another option like Cliff just overpowering them and calling the cops or Rick just scaring them away would in some ways disempower the women themselves. For as horrific as they are, QT doesn't depict them as cowardly or submissive --despite the fact that in real life, they very much were to Manson. The problem with that is that it doesn't really jive with the ranch scene. These women are simultaneously blood thirsty monsters that fight to the end in the climax and passively stand there--even when there are a good dozen or two of them--out of fear of Cliff hurting them. It just seems like a weird inconistency. This isn't all to drat Tarantino or the movie itself. It is definitely not intended to seek sympathy for the Manson Family. It's just that as I digest it, I think it was an interesting movie, but didn't really work the same way some of his other historical pieces have worked.
|
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 23:14
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 14:51 |
|
|
I went into the movie relatively blind about the plot. I knew about the Manson killings in general, but didn't remember the details or the name of Sharon Tate. I'm generally a QT fan, so I had high expectations going in and I was extremely disappointed. I have no idea how people thought those 3 hours flew by, as I found it plodding and at times groan-inducing. I expected levels of self-indulgence, but I think this was over the top. There was probably about 20-30 minutes of footage of Quentin's loving recreation of classic Hollywood. I think this would've worked better for me had the plot itself moved along or if most of the on screen scenes actually went anywhere. Frankly, they could've cut out almost the entirety of the Sharon Tate/Roman/Jay scenes plus the Manson house stuff and still gotten to most of the same result. I feel like there's a really good 90 minute buddy film about Rick and Cliff that was stretched into a masturbatory 3 hour film that threw in a lot of random, albeit very well made, tropes and ideas because QT felt like it. Even the climax, which I enjoyed, felt a bit like he decided to throw in a M Night. Shyamalan twist to the actual events with gratuitous violence to spice it up. I also didn't like how when the last phase of the movie started, it went super heavy on the narration (was that Kurt Russell?) for exposition purposes to explain the plot development that QT didn't properly deliver in the first 2 hours of the movie. I found myself laughing at unintentionally funny bits like the 2 big shots of women's feet that came outta nowhere. Also, what's the deal with Cliff's wife murder? Did his sense of vigilantism at the Manson ranch serve as a means to show that he committed justifiable murder previously? I didn't really get what his motivation was supposed to be, aside from being the white guy in a horror movie who just needs to investigate things despite it being clearly a unnecessary, sketchy and probably risky proposition. Like if George had been captive or murdered, was he going to take them all down? Finally, I'll admit, I enjoyed the final confrontation quite a bit. It almost made up for the meandering plot, but while it was good, it wasn't that good. Anyway, quite a few people walked out of the showing I was at. I feel about the same about this movie as I did Birdman. This will probably mean that QT will finally get his big Best Picture award iamsosmrt fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Jul 30, 2019 |
|
#
?
Jul 30, 2019 23:22
|
|
