Once Upon A Time In ... Hollywood. (18.)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Dakota Fanning, Al Pacino and Kurt Russell. 161 mins.
Even though some truly magnificent films use the Once Upon A Time ruse in their title I've never liked it. It always felt like an admission of failure, a way of getting around not coming up with a decent title of their own or a lazy way to try and associate an unremarkable but probably too long action film with the work of Sergio Leone. ….Hollywood - The 9th Film From Quentin Tarantino, isn't up there with America, Anatolia or West, but this comedy-drama about Hollywood prior to the Tate Lo Bianca murders is perhaps the first to really fit the title.
When it was announced in 2017 that Tarantino was going to make a film around the butchering of Sharon Tate, her unborn baby and four others fifty years ago in the Hollywood Hills, I imagine even his biggest fans cringed a little. QT is not a man you want filming any kind of home invasion story let alone that one. More than that, Charles Manson is not a man who needs a single further second of film or word in print devoted to. He especially doesn't deserve to get any prime Tarantino dialogue popped into his mouth. Seriously, do anything, anything, but him. But now, here it is and we needn't have worried; it's in no way gruesomely exploitative of a real-life tragedy. No, Tarantino has many other ways to push the bounds of taste.
And more than that, I can't really say. The nice man from Sony asked us not to do spoilers (if they're that bothered better not release three weeks after America when the internet will have twattered all its secrets) and I won't, but as the whole film is its third act, how it deals with events on August 8th 1969 there isn't much room to manoeuvre. I can tell you that it is a lot of fun, but even that feels like too much. And I can't enlarge on his other ways of pushing the bounds of taste.
I think it is safe to reveal that the film's main focus is the touching and comic tale of a cowboy actor and his faithful stunt double facing up to the end of the line. Former TV star actor Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) and his stunt man buddy and gofer Cliff Booth (Pitt) are struggling to find a place in New Hollywood. Dalton is becoming typecast, a gimmick; Booth is just a bit too old and bit too adept at upsetting casting directors. Dalton though lives next door to Roman Polanski and his new wife Sharon Tate (Robbie.)
(Margot Robbie's sweet and guileless Tate is a lovely tribute. The scene where the Robbie Tate goes into a cinema to watch the actual Tate in a Dean Martin Matt Helm movie is supremely touching. )
Also supremely touching is DiCaprio's performance as a man slowly coming to terms with being a has-been, though I think Pitt is even better. Booth may even come to be considered his defining screen role. The film is very interesting on the star/ stunt double dynamic. Dalton may be a surprisingly good actor and take his craft more seriously than you'd expect of an old school tough guy, but Booth is pure star. He is the real thing, has the effortless charisma the man he works under is desperate to emulate.
Hollywood is unlike other Tarantino films in that it has songs that you already know. You may not know the title and performer but I doubt there's much here you haven't heard before. Visually it looks flatter than his recent film, closer to Jackie Brown. Tarantino has lots of fun delving into the pop culture figures of the period, inserting performers into episodes of TV shows and the like. Though the moment when he casts Damian Lewis as Steve McQueen is one I can only react to with the sternest of expletives, and an Off. (He's actually pretty good but what next, Benedict Cumberbatch as Charles Bronson?)
Though he once railed against "that Merchant/ Ivory sh*t" it's worth noting that QT's now made more period dramas than most Brit directors get through. This is his fourth in a row. It's also talkier than most British directors would dare. DiCaprio and Pitt exploring the relationship between star and stunt man are fascinating and enthralling but my god do they gab on. I overheard someone compare the first two hours to an Eric Rohmer movie. Or as my wife put it "it was very very boring, and then very very violent."
It is also extremely conservative. It celebrates the certainties of Old Hollywood to a degree that is perhaps surprising. Apparently, QT wouldn't date any woman who didn't love Rio Bravo and Dalton has a hatred of hippies the equal of John Wayne's, which the film seems to share. The film is a paean to Old Hollywood but in 1969 the dramatic change about to sweep away old Hollywood, as announced by Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider, was a period of unprecedented creativity.
If this really is to be his penultimate movie than it is a decent addition to a remarkable and unique career. True, there are a couple of stinkers in there (Death Proof, Kill Bill Vol 2) and nothing has quite equalled his first two Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction but there has been nothing like him. ...Hollywood though does reveal him to be running out of ideas. The film's impact is blunted by it rehashing stuff he's done before. Once Upon a Time is a bedtime story and like all good bedtime stories you've heard most of it before.
Django Unchained
Inglorious basterds
Directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Dakota Fanning, Al Pacino and Kurt Russell. 161 mins.
Even though some truly magnificent films use the Once Upon A Time ruse in their title I've never liked it. It always felt like an admission of failure, a way of getting around not coming up with a decent title of their own or a lazy way to try and associate an unremarkable but probably too long action film with the work of Sergio Leone. ….Hollywood - The 9th Film From Quentin Tarantino, isn't up there with America, Anatolia or West, but this comedy-drama about Hollywood prior to the Tate Lo Bianca murders is perhaps the first to really fit the title.
When it was announced in 2017 that Tarantino was going to make a film around the butchering of Sharon Tate, her unborn baby and four others fifty years ago in the Hollywood Hills, I imagine even his biggest fans cringed a little. QT is not a man you want filming any kind of home invasion story let alone that one. More than that, Charles Manson is not a man who needs a single further second of film or word in print devoted to. He especially doesn't deserve to get any prime Tarantino dialogue popped into his mouth. Seriously, do anything, anything, but him. But now, here it is and we needn't have worried; it's in no way gruesomely exploitative of a real-life tragedy. No, Tarantino has many other ways to push the bounds of taste.
And more than that, I can't really say. The nice man from Sony asked us not to do spoilers (if they're that bothered better not release three weeks after America when the internet will have twattered all its secrets) and I won't, but as the whole film is its third act, how it deals with events on August 8th 1969 there isn't much room to manoeuvre. I can tell you that it is a lot of fun, but even that feels like too much. And I can't enlarge on his other ways of pushing the bounds of taste.
I think it is safe to reveal that the film's main focus is the touching and comic tale of a cowboy actor and his faithful stunt double facing up to the end of the line. Former TV star actor Rick Dalton (DiCaprio) and his stunt man buddy and gofer Cliff Booth (Pitt) are struggling to find a place in New Hollywood. Dalton is becoming typecast, a gimmick; Booth is just a bit too old and bit too adept at upsetting casting directors. Dalton though lives next door to Roman Polanski and his new wife Sharon Tate (Robbie.)
(Margot Robbie's sweet and guileless Tate is a lovely tribute. The scene where the Robbie Tate goes into a cinema to watch the actual Tate in a Dean Martin Matt Helm movie is supremely touching. )
Also supremely touching is DiCaprio's performance as a man slowly coming to terms with being a has-been, though I think Pitt is even better. Booth may even come to be considered his defining screen role. The film is very interesting on the star/ stunt double dynamic. Dalton may be a surprisingly good actor and take his craft more seriously than you'd expect of an old school tough guy, but Booth is pure star. He is the real thing, has the effortless charisma the man he works under is desperate to emulate.
Hollywood is unlike other Tarantino films in that it has songs that you already know. You may not know the title and performer but I doubt there's much here you haven't heard before. Visually it looks flatter than his recent film, closer to Jackie Brown. Tarantino has lots of fun delving into the pop culture figures of the period, inserting performers into episodes of TV shows and the like. Though the moment when he casts Damian Lewis as Steve McQueen is one I can only react to with the sternest of expletives, and an Off. (He's actually pretty good but what next, Benedict Cumberbatch as Charles Bronson?)
Though he once railed against "that Merchant/ Ivory sh*t" it's worth noting that QT's now made more period dramas than most Brit directors get through. This is his fourth in a row. It's also talkier than most British directors would dare. DiCaprio and Pitt exploring the relationship between star and stunt man are fascinating and enthralling but my god do they gab on. I overheard someone compare the first two hours to an Eric Rohmer movie. Or as my wife put it "it was very very boring, and then very very violent."
It is also extremely conservative. It celebrates the certainties of Old Hollywood to a degree that is perhaps surprising. Apparently, QT wouldn't date any woman who didn't love Rio Bravo and Dalton has a hatred of hippies the equal of John Wayne's, which the film seems to share. The film is a paean to Old Hollywood but in 1969 the dramatic change about to sweep away old Hollywood, as announced by Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider, was a period of unprecedented creativity.
If this really is to be his penultimate movie than it is a decent addition to a remarkable and unique career. True, there are a couple of stinkers in there (Death Proof, Kill Bill Vol 2) and nothing has quite equalled his first two Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction but there has been nothing like him. ...Hollywood though does reveal him to be running out of ideas. The film's impact is blunted by it rehashing stuff he's done before. Once Upon a Time is a bedtime story and like all good bedtime stories you've heard most of it before.
Django Unchained
Inglorious basterds
