Quentin Tarantino's Manson murders movie

"Patiently meandering"--if you were to take a half-full view toward it, that's exactly what I meant by weirdly flat. It'll just depend how you feel about the pacing.

lol sorta disappointed to find out the wikipedia plot spoilers upthread were false

Wait what were the false spoilers? The ones I read match the updated synopsis iirc

nvm, tracked them down

Loved it

I liked a lot of scenes but this ended up being one of QT's worst IMO.

Qualified rave from David Edelstein:

http://www.vulture.com/2019/07/once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-review-quentin-tarantino.html

"world-building" needs to go to hell

also what a steaming pile of hypocritical crap Wolf of Wall St was

He'll have Susan Atkins and Leslie Van Houten debating whether Green Acres or The Beverly Hillbillies is better.

― clemenza, Wednesday, July 12, 2017 9:16 AM (two years ago)

I think I was actually pretty close here when Tex Watson and Patricia Krenwinkel start comparing notes on Dalton.

I thought this review made a good point comparing this film to how Westerns treat history.

Good review. One line I'd take issue with: "Most of all, Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood is the first Tarantino film to feel like the product of an older director." I think that was a very big part of why Jackie Brown is so great--followed, unfortunately, by a retreat back into the safety of juvenalia. (Which I realize is also central to Tarantino at his best.)

I won't retract my misgivings stated above, but I should say how much I liked Brad Pitt, some combination of the character and the performance. He's especially great in the Spahn Ranch scene--so much so that I won't dwell too much on the fact that, in getting the Mansonite to fix his flat, he blithely hands over a rather lethal weapon. You just kind of go with that, I know.

liked a lot of this but the ending was dumb as hell.

i'll never get the ilx hate for Django. that's prob my favorite of his since JB. or at least tied w IB for that honor.

HAteful 8 is hot garbage tho

the ending was disappointing esp for the jarring return to Inglorious ultraviolence, the core parts of what I liked were the bittersweet bromance, Pitt's easy way, Leo struggling to be a good actually, him and the girl talking books, Tate watching herself at the movies, etc

Might have made a better two-parter, like Kill Bill.

Kill Bill would've been a better one parter

If this were my company, think I'd be keeping some extra stock on hand.

https://res.cloudinary.com/teepublic/image/private/s--CfMatkE_--/t_Resized%20Artwork/c_crop,x_10,y_10/c_fit,w_423/c_crop,g_north_west,h_626,w_470,x_-23,y_-33/g_north_west,u_upload:v1462829024:production:blanks:a59x1cgomgu5lprfjlmi,x_-418,y_-358/b_rgb:eeeeee/c_limit,f_jpg,h_630,q_90,w_630/v1556063801/production/designs/4703264_0.jpg

Pitt's wardrobe throughout is amazing

Second Tarantino stunt person movie. Wonder what he thinks of The Stunt Man. My guess? A fan.

Pitt's most amiable performance. Clemenza is otm about the ranch sequence: he can finally move in character.

the shots of Tex riding the horse back to the ranch were pretty exhilarating. the entire ranch sequence is probably my favorite of the film and Bruce Dern was great.

really liked Bonnie the dog

I wish Pitt and Scrunchy Face had more sides that the dialogue would reveal.

One thing I wondered about--that I really could not formulate an answer for; I could see one extreme or the other--is how Sharon Tate's surviving family members would feel about this. I know they've been dutifully going to parole hearings for 50 years, and that they put out a book on Tate a few years ago.

I just read a small item in the paper that Tate's sister 1) really likes Margot Robbie's performance, and 2) was appreciative that Tarantino sought her out to talk about her sister (a first, she said).

I'm a little surprised (glad, but surprised) because, to me, the violence at the end, no matter in what context, would be another reminder.

yeah she was originally very against the movie and then after she met with him she changed her mind (presumably when she learned how he treats Tate's fate); she also gave him feedback on the script and loaned out her jewelry to Robbie.

One thing that puzzles me--and I can see where this would really upset people--is the way Tarantino basically stays clear of Manson himself. The normal explanation would be that he wants him to be an unseen, sinister presence, but in the one scene where he does get him in there, Manson is anything but. If the whole driving force of the film (this seems obvious) is that Tarantino hates how the murders put an end to a world, imagined or otherwise, that he loved, and that his rewrite is a form of revenge, it seems really strange that he essentially lets the guy most responsible for it all off the hook.

having not seen it yet, maybe reducing him to an afterthought is the ultimate revenge?

Given how, well, to repeat the word, amiable the film is, the garishness of the third act violence struck me as incongruous.

I don't think understatement is one of Tarantino's strengths.

It is, as his best films demonstrate.

I think reducing Manson to an afterthought is a solid move, and tbh I think if anything this alternate universe version of what happened doesn’t so much avoid the truth but makes it more tragic in an oblique way. idk maybe similar to the unexpected emotions my wife had while watching Inglourious Basterds at the end.

I might agree that his best film, Jackie Brown, demonstrates a capacity for understatement, but I have failed to see it in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, or Inglourious Basterds - at which point I gave up on him.

Leaving out Manson is exactly the same as leaving out what’s in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction.

Except for the part where the entire audience has a pretty good idea of what's in Manson.

The only thing is, if you leave Manson out of the equation, the villains then become Watson and the teenage girls he recruited. And that's where I think he's going to run into some sharp condemnation. I haven't seen Mary Harron's Manson film yet, but my sense is that her approach is the exact opposite, an attempt to restore some humanity (if that's the right word--they did murder) to Van Houten and Atkins and Krenwinkel, or at least some kind of context.

There's even that weird thing where Watson turns to the other two and says "Either Charlie told me to do this, or else I'm making it all up--who do believe?" It's almost an invitation to believe that Manson wasn't in fact behind everything.

QT knocked it out of the fucking park

The ending was an almost out of body experience for me and my family, it's by some distance the best scene in the movie. If movies are dreams reconstructed, this is the sweetest justice ever served.

Haven't read any reviews yet but really looking forward to seeing ppl twist themselves into knots moaning about QT "brutalizing women" who happen to be MASS FUCKING MURDERERS. They deserved it and I had a blast watching those three scum fucks die!

Don't care that he repeated the IB rewriting history bit. And the Manson murders are 50 years old, I don't think it's insensitive at all, especially knowing he got the approval of some of the family

People complaining about foot shots? Come on... he likes feet, so what...

He refrained from using his favorite word for the first time ever I think

Best movie of the year besides The Image Book

Thank you QT

They deserved it and I had a blast watching those three scum fucks die!

I agree up to a point--but you don't see a problem with that on the one hand and portraying Manson as not much more than a genial, slightly dazed hippie out looking for his friend?

No, I think as someone said upthread, QT properly reduces Manson to an afterthought, a footnote. Besides, he's hardly genial in the *one* scene that he's in. He's a menacing wannabe.

Okay...I didn't find him very menacing in that one scene; he just seemed lost. And I don't see how he can be reduced to a footnote. I mean, dramatically you can make whatever choices you want. But historically, to say he's just some insignificant nothing that you can write out of these awful murders, that doesn't make sense to me.

Loved this. Could have happily watched a 6 hour cut.

I got emotional and teared up at the ending, the aerial shot seeing them all come out of the house to meet Rick, mentally reminded of the actual scene at the house by that time. I thought it was a unique & good way to honor their memory.

Charlie doesn’t need to be in the movie calling the shots. His presence is felt from the moment Cliff encounters the first girl. The movie doesn’t give him a pass at all - he’s THERE by proxy, you know that everything that comes out of their mouths is his spoonfeeding. That’s plenty. The mythology of him is already stupidly powerful - giving him any more screentime would weigh the dreamlike fairytale tone of the movie down too much imo.

i thought this was boring & i don't really understand why it was made

(xpost) That defense makes more sense to me than the idea of him as a footnote, that the best way to get revenge on a vainglorious blowhard is to ignore him--cf. current president.

i thought this was boring & i don't really understand why it was made

to make money

That's exactly what I meant - Manson himself is reduced to a footnote (he's not ignored, he does appear). VG otm, we all know the history and it hangs over every scene. that's what makes the ending so thrilling. Obviously QT isn't saying that Manson was insignificant - this is a fairytale, a dream like I said. And a triumphant one.

xxxp @clemenza

I think we're gonna have to disagree (or at least I'm going continue seeing it as a puzzling choice). If I understand Tarantino's reasons for rewriting history, then take a blow-torch to Manson too. I agree it would be a mistake to have him in the film much more than he is--it's not a film about him, plus what VG said about knowing all that stuff already--but in the film's universe, Manson lives and he's still out there walking around. I don't mean to get all stodgy and literal, least of all with this film, but that just doesn't seem right to me.

In clicking around today, found out that the part of George Spahn was originally given to Burt Reynolds...not sure if I knew that at any point in the last two years.

I loved the way QT spun Tex’s actual line from the murders — making them look as pathetic as they were

Cliff - (something like) “What was your name again?”

Tex - “I'm the devil, and I came to do the devil's business"

Cliff - “Naw it was dumber than that. Rex or something?”

Funniest line in the film.

There was almost an hour in the middle of the movie where nothing happened. It just dawdled with none of Tarantino's esprit.