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What Is The Last Film You Watched? (Newer Films)


King Mark

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I’m by no means making excuses for his later crime.  But yes, of course I have sympathy for a man whose wife and unborn child are brutally murdered and the subject of endless public morbid fascination.

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If anything, it was super predictable...fun, but a predictable coda tacked onto a different kind of movie.

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9 hours ago, publicist said:

Isn't there a spoiler police? @KK what did you get out of the whole thing? Was it random shit or artfully concealed musing?

 

I think there is some musing in there, but not so artfully concealed or communicated. The DiCaprio storyline touches on the usual Hollywood mid-career existential crisis and it seemed to suggest that Tarantino might actually have something to say. The other two "characters", if you can call them that, are there just to show us more of the world.

 

But what little substance was there, perhaps more-so in earlier drafts, is buried by the kid in Tarantino who just loves how cool hippies, Westerns and the 60s were. So the whole thing just comes across as a thinly veiled excuse to showboat production values and Tarantino geekdom. And I could live with that, if it all was just tighter in structure and rhythm. But it isn't, so sorry, "Hollywood love letter" is not good enough a pitch to sell me on this.

 

 

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3 hours ago, KK said:

I think there is some musing in there, but not so artfully concealed or communicated. The DiCaprio storyline touches on the usual Hollywood mid-career existential crisis and it seemed to suggest that Tarantino might actually have something to say. The other two "characters", if you can call them that, are there just to show us more of the world.

 

But what little substance was there, perhaps more-so in earlier drafts, is buried by the kid in Tarantino who just loves how cool hippies, Westerns and the 60s were. So the whole thing just comes across as a thinly veiled excuse to showboat production values and Tarantino geekdom. And I could live with that, if it all was just tighter in structure and rhythm. But it isn't, so sorry, "Hollywood love letter" is not good enough a pitch to sell me on this.

 

While this sounds reasonably close to the relative truth, i still have a hard time believing that - given the long development/production process - this is the plain truth. Tarantino's usual approach is to pick up certain meta ingredients for either the narrative or the characters acting in it, i. e. larger than life (etc.). That seemed completely lacking here until the end and without a set-up i really wonder what QT thought people would see in this reversal of history. What is it for? What does it accomplish? Maybe the master will enlighten us at some point.

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The Manson hippie at the end literally says that violent movies and TV raised them to be violent, so let’s go kill the people who made them. Poetic irony. Moments later she gets mauled by a dog, her face smashed to a pulp, and set on fire with a flamethrower.

 

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Spoiler

I think one thing that the ending did for me was it demythologizes the event of the murder and I think it’s QT’s way of trying to reprioritize these people in the culture, in a way. Because the Mansons remain ubiquitous while nobody really knows who Sharon Tate is or cares besides the fact that she was killed. But in the film, the Manson family, who the fuck are they? They’re just kinda pathetic, in the end attempted murderers turned into clowns. They’re irrelevant, who cares? While Tate is a beautiful up and comer, not yet recognizable (but maybe she could be!), open and friendly (she has no animosity to the hippie movement like DiCaprio, even giving one a lift and bonding with them). And QT makes a point of having the real Tate onscreen and the crowd reacting so warmly to say “Hey, she was pretty good!! She was a funny actress, maybe that’s how we should be thinking about her” and divorcing her from a reality she had no control over. That’s the fantasy, the Once Upon a Time. And having Robbie being so touched and delighted in the audience enjoying her acting, you see all this promise there which by the way is the flipside of DiCaprio’s Rick.

 

But also by keeping her sort of in the corners of the movie, this version of her is a bit like a figment, just breezing through the film, and that was hit home when just her voice comes out of the intercom after the attack. 

 

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14 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:
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I think one thing that the ending did for me was it demythologizes the event of the murder and I think it’s QT’s way of trying to reprioritize these people in the culture, in a way. Because the Mansons remain ubiquitous while nobody really knows who Sharon Tate or cares besides the fact that she was killed. But in the film, the Manson family, who the fuck are they? They’re just kinda pathetic, in the end attempted murderers turned into clowns. They’re irrelevant, who cares? While Tate is a beautiful up and comer, not yet recognizable (but maybe she could be!), open and friendly (she has no animosity to the hippie movement like DiCaprio, even giving one a lift and bonding with them). And QT makes a point of having the real Tate onscreen and the crowd reacting so warmly to say “Hey, she was pretty good!! She was a funny actress, maybe that’s how we should be thinking about her” and divorcing her from a reality she had no control over. That’s the fantasy, the Once Upon a Time. And having Robbie being so touched and delighted in the audience enjoying her acting, you see all this promise there which by the way is the flipside of DiCaprio’s Rick.

 

But also by keeping her sort of in the corners of the movie, this version of her is a bit like a figment, just breezing through the film, and that was hit home when just her voice comes out of the intercom after the attack. 

 

 

Yeah I enjoyed that he made a point of portraying Manson family members as dumbasses.  Dangerous, but just a bunch of dirty dipshits.  The demystification of them was key.

 

Also, this movie has Leonardo DiCaprio in a silk robe drinking frozen margarita directly out of the blender while yelling at filthy hippies.  Masterpiece.

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The end is a trivial attempt to copy the finales of his prior films. The dark parody excuse is pointless in this case. Covering the actual murders would have been too new for the old Tarantino, relying completely on nostalgy and his trademarks.

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9 hours ago, mrbellamy said:
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I think one thing that the ending did for me was it demythologizes the event of the murder and I think it’s QT’s way of trying to reprioritize these people in the culture, in a way. Because the Mansons remain ubiquitous while nobody really knows who Sharon Tate is or cares besides the fact that she was killed. But in the film, the Manson family, who the fuck are they? They’re just kinda pathetic, in the end attempted murderers turned into clowns. They’re irrelevant, who cares? While Tate is a beautiful up and comer, not yet recognizable (but maybe she could be!), open and friendly (she has no animosity to the hippie movement like DiCaprio, even giving one a lift and bonding with them). And QT makes a point of having the real Tate onscreen and the crowd reacting so warmly to say “Hey, she was pretty good!! She was a funny actress, maybe that’s how we should be thinking about her” and divorcing her from a reality she had no control over. That’s the fantasy, the Once Upon a Time. And having Robbie being so touched and delighted in the audience enjoying her acting, you see all this promise there which by the way is the flipside of DiCaprio’s Rick.

 

But also by keeping her sort of in the corners of the movie, this version of her is a bit like a figment, just breezing through the film, and that was hit home when just her voice comes out of the intercom after the attack. 

 

 

That's the most probable interpretation, and also proof why it doesn't work: a) in stark contrast to IB, changing the chain of events is puzzling because 80% of the audience doesn't know Tate  - she is a blond starlet who happens to be with Roman Polanski - and isn't really familiar with Manson and his gang either - the movie doesn't tell you why they really were out to kill these people but invents its own reasons - , and b) you open up that whole can of worms hippies=Manson, which is a rather wicked/loaded argument to make by QT and c) the chain of events is changed by people who are connected arbitrarily, even worse, by way of an invention of this very movie.

 

Things like that drive me nuts because it probably would have been a better movie without that showy stunt ending but a fitting resolution of the main storyline. But i think that's enough focus and probably a better outcome in the sense that at least it had me thinking instead of being too bored to even write about it.

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4 hours ago, publicist said:

Things like that drive me nuts because it probably would have been a better movie without that showy stunt ending but a fitting resolution of the main storyline. But i think that's enough focus and probably a better outcome in the sense that at least it had me thinking instead of being too bored to even write about it.

What drives me nuts is the incredibly forced and inaproppriate violence. It doesn't fit in the film and neither is it realistic and reflective nor is it exaggerated and entertaining - it is just exploitative and disgusting, which is a new feature of Tarantino flicks since The H8ful Eight.

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2 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

What drives me nuts is the incredibly forced and inaproppriate violence. It doesn't fit in the film and neither is it realistic and reflective nor is it exaggerated and entertaining - it is just exploitative and disgusting, which is a new feature of Tarantino flicks since The H8ful Eight.

 

Funny 'cause I felt that way about parts of Inglorious Basterds, so it's genuinely interesting to me that you feel like he crossed this line later on. I know you and I heavily disagree on a lot of movies, buy I'm curious to know what "flipped the switch" for you.

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9 minutes ago, Koray Savas said:

Tarantino movies have always been ultra violent. How can one complain about this but not the buckets of blood in Kill Bill and Django Unchained?

 

Speaking for myself, It's not about the literal amount of violence but  about the underlying tone and feeling of why it's there (generally speaking, as I haven't seen Once Upon a Time).

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Tarantino's revenge flicks have very simplistic, questionable morality, but he tells his stories with panache and intelligence.  My eyes are open and I voluntarily choose to just luxuriate in his aesthetics.  See Frank Capra for the same issue from a very different direction: a way oversimplified sociopolitical outlook, but I can't help being charmed and voluntarily choose to ignore questioning the implications of his hyper-individualism.

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8 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Tarantino's revenge flicks have very simplistic, questionable morality, but he tells his stories with panache and intelligence.  My eyes are open and I voluntarily choose to just luxuriate in his aesthetics.

Yes, that is what he normally does, but in his new movie it all seems so out of place, like he just shows violence for the sake of violence. It has questionable tendencies towards torture porn in this case. It felt like Tarantino felt that he had better fulfill the expectations of his fanboys. It would take a lot of time to explain why the violence in IB and DU is different, therefore I just emphasize that it is. Crossing the line is not the problem, being pointless is the problem.

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9 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

Crossing the line is not the problem, being pointless is the problem.

 

Fair enough that it's lengthy to articulate, but just to clarify I meant "crossing the line" into exploitative and gratuitous violence--I have a very strong mental image that's been with me since Inglorious  Basterds that I'll do the favors of sparing everyone. 

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1 hour ago, Nick Parker said:

 

Fair enough that it's lengthy to articulate, but just to clarify I meant "crossing the line" into exploitative and gratuitous violence--I have a very strong mental image that's been with me since Inglorious  Basterds that I'll do the favors of sparing everyone. 

Just because a scene of violence is a real punch in the stomach for you, doesn't mean it is exploitative or gratuitious - let's distinguish between those aspects. In the case of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: it put my stomach into dice AND I felt it was exploitative and gratuitous afterwards. Inglourious Basterds has several very disturbing moments, I won't ever deny that.

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Just now, Brundlefly said:

Just because a scene of violence is a real punch in the stomach for you, doesn't mean it is exploitative or gratuitious - let's distinguish between those aspects. 

 

I don't know what you're saying here. Are you referring to me specifically, or are you using "you" in the general sense? 

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5 hours ago, Nick Parker said:

I don't know what you're saying here. Are you referring to me specifically, or are you using "you" in the general sense? 

Both. Just wanted to point that out. Such things often lead to wrong conclusions.

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In that case I hope you see the irony and presumptuousness of your statement. You're speaking from this weird guise of objectivity that doesn't have a solid ground to stand on, as well as jumping to conclusions yourself.

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8 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

Just because a scene of violence is a real punch in the stomach for you, doesn't mean it is exploitative or gratuitious - let's distinguish between those aspects. In the case of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: it put my stomach into dice AND I felt it was exploitative and gratuitous afterwards. Inglourious Basterds has several very disturbing moments, I won't ever deny that.

So you’re mad at an R-rated Tarantino film, who’s previous works’ violence disturbed you, for being too violent?

 

I don’t get it, Big Dan. 

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Now I know why I normally never make an effort to discuss anything in serious manner on this forum. People are just too aggressive and unrefined. I say something and someone else poses a rhetorical question implying I said something that has nothing to do with my actual statement.

10 hours ago, Koray Savas said:

So you’re mad at an R-rated Tarantino film, who’s previous works’ violence disturbed you, for being too violent?

 

I don’t get it, Big Dan. 

Of course you don't get anything. You'd better return to your "Idiot!"-posts.

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57 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

Don't blame me, I havent done anything this time!

This time... ;)

 

 

5 hours ago, Sweeping Strings said:

Good Boys - sort of like if the Inbetweeners had been 12 year old Americans. Pretty funny.

Did they punch any fish?

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Crawl - this 'OH SHIT, 'GATOR-INFESTED FLORIDA FLOODWATERS!' flick is basically a classier version of the sort of thing that regularly clags up the SyFy/Horror Channel's daytime schedules. Quite fun, and at a snappy (sorry) 87 minutes it doesn't outstay its welcome.   

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That is irritating, even if it's unsurprising. But I'll watch it; the first part was effective enough as a kids gang epic, and it just about managed to keep me engaged. But for some weird reason, and it is pretty darn key, that movie -- a so-called 'horror' -- wasn't scarey in the slightest. That was my biggest disappointment with it, and it's a hell of a failure on the part of the filmmakers. The old Tim Curry version was arguably more competent in that regard. 

 

God knows why user Joey gets a hard-on for this remake, though. It's a clearcut 3 starrer.

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Yeah, I found the 'American small town in the 80s' stuff in Chapter 1 much more engaging than the Pennywise stuff, which apart from a couple of moments wasn't particularly frightening. And I can see my patience with that being stretched to breaking point over a near 3-hour runtime. Maybe three 105-120 minute movies would've been the way to go instead.     

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