Saw it a second time and, to my surprise, it went by even faster. Man this was a good time. Knowing the ending lessened the tension considerably, but it made me appreciate the construction that much more.
“You’re a good friend.”
“I try.”
I was recently searching for anything related to my family’s Oldsmobile dealership from before I was born. The one thing that popped up?
It was a matchbook with the dealership info and phone number inside.
Yep. Most younger people today were brought up in an era of tobacco warnings and the sense that smoking is a deviant behavior, rather than a norm, People my age were brought up in exactly the opposite climate, where smoking was expected and people who did not smoke and did not take cig breaks with their colleagues and who refused an offered cigarette and didn’t carry a lighter to offer lights to others were seen as somewhat antisocial.
Everything is/was more fun when there are/were half as many people. I went to a beer release party once not even all that long ago, like a decade, and it was a chill affair, we just walked up, put our lawn chairs down at the end of the line and hung out drinking and talking until they opened the sales. People walked up and down the line sharing rare beers and whatever they’d brought, and it was great. Five years later I went back and it was hell. Waited over an hour to get into the now fenced-off event. People everywhere, no outside food or drink. Waited another hour in the line to buy beer. Loud live music from three stages. Pretty much everything starts out cool, and you just keep adding people until it blows.
I think it’s still like this to an extent in Japan! The fairly ubiquitous smoking was pretty much the only thing about that place I didn’t enjoy when we were there last April.
Interesting to know. The only time I was in Japan was a long time ago, when I was a child (c. 1965). I really don’t know much about their current pop culture.
My understanding is that especially in company settings smoke breaks are akin to the more widely known after-work drinking culture in that it’s a milieu where the usual social strictures are relaxed and things that might not normally be possible can be accomplished outside of regular channels.
Is this one of the best QT movies? The trailers do not reveal that much, so wanted to see what you guys think.
You could read the thread replies that are already posted to find out.
Just saw it and had a couple of thoughts to add:
- You should review the history of the Manson murders before seeing it. It’s like a reverse thriller in that it works best if you know what’s going to happen.
- DiCaprio is the real deal. Dude can fucking act. Pitt was Pitt doing Pitt. Zoe Bell, like always, stole the tiny scene she was in. She needs to lead more films. Robbie is goddamn luminous. Margaret Qualley is holy shitballs awesome. Interesting to see this turn after her morose run in The Leftovers.
- This movie was basically Mulholland Drive by way of Hail, Caesar and any number of other Hollywood movies about Hollywood. There’s kind of a weary familiarity to it–leathery actors, sun bleached plants, deserted movie lots inhabited by murderous cults, rusty neon signs and Polaroid skies over cracked and weedy pavement.
… - And I’m not sure what the point of the film is. I often feel this way after a Tarantino flick. What was the point of the Bruce Lee scene? Are we meant to identify with Cliff? He’s a thug. What was with the weird Kurt Russel narration? The scene where Rick imagines himself in the McQueen movie?
Kurt Russell was a child actor in the early 60s (and he got his start in TV, like Rick Dalton). By 1969 he was the lead in The Computer Wore Tennis Shows and was on the rise. He’s perfect to narrate this movie.
It’s just weird he also shows up in a completely different role, too.
Cliff and his wife are obviously a Natalie Wood scenario.
And, yeah, DiCaprio. Movie star.
This is for you:
-Tom
She and Christopher Walken need to battle dance each other.
Holy crap; now we know where QT got the idea for the pool scene I guess.
If you didn’t know, her mother is Andie McDowell.
In a way, that’s what they’re doing, since both Kenzo World and the Weapon of Choice are Spike Jonze. :)
SPOILERS, SO STOP READING IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE, IN WHICH CASE WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING IN THIS THREAD?
I might be misunderstanding you, but that’s not Qualley in the pool at the end! She’s not among the four murderers. However, you will see Maya Hawke from the latest season of Stranger Things as the, uh, least committed of the murderers.
One of the wistful elements of the movie’s alternate reality is that this Charles Manson isn’t necessarily a murderous psychopath. I think the implication is that Tex is lying about being given instructions because he wants to get revenge for being humiliated by Cliff. In the alternate reality of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where America doesn’t lose her innocence, Manson and his group may just be a bunch of weird hippies living off the largess of a senile George Spahn.
-Tom
Use the spoilers blur!
:) I love that video.
I like the idea of this, but Tex had no way of knowing that Cliff would be there, or even worked there. It’s true that in the car, Sadie just seemed like a drug-addled hippy, spouting off about destroying fascists, rather than a member of a cult trying to start a race war. It’s clear that the film doesn’t care about Manson (who, in our reality, personally murdered Gary Hinman and Donald Shea. Shea was an erstwhile stuntman who worked for George Spahn, tried to get Spahn out of the clutches of the cult and humiliated one of the cult members who was trying to spy on him for Manson…) Tarantino seems more interested in preserving Sharon Tate. The LaBianca’s don’t figure in the film at all.
You’re totally right, and I didn’t catch that. It’s weird though. I get the sense that the movie wants us to like Cliff, but he’s a manly man doing manly man things. Affable, but completely willing to speak with his fists. He can even kick Bruce Lee’s ass! A true buddy… who just maybe killed his wife. Sadie makes the comment in the car that everything on the screen that’s not I Love Lucy is violent, which is teaching them to be violent, which I feel is important, but I’m not sure about the film’s relationship to that statement. Violence is the catharsis the film provides. It’s the solution to all of the characters’ problems. Even including when Rick demonstrates his chops by throwing the girl on the floor.
And I feel like the meta-joke about the flamethrower went just one note too far.
Huh. Goes to show how unperceptive I can be (or how my facial recognition skills suck, which is not that great considering I’m a teacher!). But the moves were the same at least!
Yeah, this threw me a bit too. I mean, at one level, you could maybe think that QT is pondering his entire oeuvre, and rethinking his love of violence, but, um, nah. In the theater, the audience was cheering/laughing during the final fight scene, which was both creepy and weirdly exciting at the same time (the audience, I mean, though I guess the scene too).
Actually, I was too worried about the dog’s safety to pay as much attention to the people as I probably should have.
You don’t think he might have figured it out with the help of Pussycat and George Spahn? I agree that this isn’t explicit, and it’s entirely possible this is one of those collapsed world situations, like Butch idling at the same crosswalk Marcellus Wallace is using to cross the street. You’re also right that this was an awfully lucky night for Tex to show up, since Rick and Cliff have just come back from being in Italy for a few months. But why doesn’t Tex react with surprise to see Cliff? There’s no sense of “hey, you’re that guy who I personally approved as being safe when I was guarding the ranch, only to have you prove me wrong when you beat up one of my buddies”. Cliff is certainly surprised to see Tex.
That’s really the only internal support I have for this idea, but unless I’m missing something – entirely possible – Tex’s lack of surprise seems pretty conspicuous.
-Tom