Quentin Tarantino's Manson murders movie

I thought this was a decent review, though some parts are a little off - https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/07/tarantino-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-revenge-fantasy-manson-family

And not to continually harp on the Manson aspect, but this was one of the few movies/depictions I've seen that comes close to getting the vibe of the Manson girls right. It's not just being free spirity hippy runaways. These are teen runaways who are eating acid for breakfast lunch and dinner and boning anyone who comes through the gate AND trying to survive AND impress Manson with who they can lure. That scene when Pussycat leans in through the window at Cliff and you can see right away that she's fried, flushed and twitchy, it's played so well because it's so squirmy and a little creepy and just kinda not quite right. That QT cast such young looking or irl young actresses really sets in the shock when you see them all standing together at the ranch. They're SO young. Manson was running those girls as a pimp to get over with people like Melcher, or the bikers, or whoever else he needed to get over with. And it doesn't need explaining -- you can see it plain as day as Cliff takes it all in.

catching up on some earlier thread:

I haven't seen either so have been debating which one to watch; I'll probably do the 4 parter.

yeah, do that: I haven't seen the standard version, but enjoyed the roadshow cut and liked the tweaks & format of the episodic edition. Most of the changes are just small indulgences due to the running time allowed by the episodes, or additional / overlapping dialogue that didn't reveal anything we weren't told about the characters elsewhere. But there's one substantial new scene which expands the audience's perspective on events and characters, and that scene benefits from its positioning relative to an episode break.

The best reason to watch it, though, is alleviation of longeurs, as noted. What was rich and immersive on 70mm, between velvet curtains, in a 700-seat 1935 art deco theatre, doesn't hold the focus as compellingly on a $20 tv off Craigslist. Watching 50 minutes a night worked well & left me keen to return at the start of each episode.

(Also, disregard Josh - the whole title sequence doesn't play each time. If you want to run straight through, Netflix gives you a basic end credit roll, enough to have a wee or put the kettle on, then picks up with the narrative again.)

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

Burn After Reading.

(although you might call that moving in caricature.)

He's better here.

I didn't think the credits of the extended Hateful 8 weren't skippable or something, my understanding was just that their combined runtime (rather than new or longer scenes) accounted for the biggest boost in the movie's total runtime. Or so I read multiple places, I haven't seen the extended cut myself.

I can't imagine anyone sticking around for The Hateful Eight credits without wanting to nuke the theater.

Didn't catch that Clu Gulager was the bookstore clerk when Robbie goes in and asks for Tess of the d'Urbervilles (People you thought were...)

Was Tess a reference to the Polanaki rape case?

Polanski directed the movie of Tess and supposedly he got the idea from Sharon Tate lending him the book

i believe the film is also dedicated to Sharon

hoping the Scorsese film will be a meal at Rao's after you've all gone to Chuck E Cheese with this one

The Scorsese will be terrible, get real

just see the movie morbs you’ll probably like it

it's possible; i wouldn't say likely

xp

no flappy, i vote by withholding my dollars

Held up well a second time--some ambivalence remains, a few things got better. I really don't care, but I was thinking afterwards I could see it winning the Best Picture AA. 1) It's making lots of money; 2) They can look after the lifetime-achievement thing for Tarantino; 3) (most important) It deifies Hollywood. Hollywood literally prevents the Manson murders and saves the day. And not the big-star, clueless-elite, right-wing caricature of Hollywood--an even more appealing rank-and-file Hollywood, a washed-up actor and his stunt-double. I know there's the violence, but excessively violet films have won Best Film, no? And the violence really amounts to 10 minutes or so.

"excessively violet films"--You know, Purple Rain, The Purple Rose of Cairo, those films.

Was this filmed in 70mm? The 35mm projection looked very nice.
If you put Steve McQueen and Bruce Lee in the first act, shouldn’t they do a buddy cop sequence by the last? No Oscar for that oversight!

"hoping the Scorsese film will be a meal at Rao's after you've all gone to Chuck E Cheese with this one"

is scorsese doing a tate film?

I'm hoping the second weekend box office dive will be at least 65% (unless the screen count is going up)

it was shot on 35

Having no interest in Tarantino is one thing, but holding out Scorsese--based on his body of work the past 20 years at least, especially the films that aren't documentaries--as something to aspire to, I don't get that.

Silence was great!

Yeah, clem, Silence was easily his best since The Age of Innocence.

otm

I thought it was pretty good like Age of Innocence was pretty good (and, for that matter, like Phantom Thread was pretty good)--expertly made, and a dim echo of what I loved about Scorsese's great films up to Goodfellas. (We probably shouldn't get into that here, though.)

Silence following The Wolf of Wall Street is one of the best runs this decade imo, two phenomenal films for obviously different reasons

I've followed most of this thread--has anyone mentioned Rick Dalton's stutter yet? Intriguing. Fantastic: Tate's daydreamy look as she drives along to "The Circle Game." Was also thinking that, like Midnight Cowboy, whatever you think about everything else, there's a great friendship at the core of this film (even if a subservient one--that Dalton tries hard to smooth over).

i was intrigued by the stuttering too! ... and you can see in his interactions with the girl on the Lancer set that he’s pausing before troublesome words to mitigate the stutter

second time around i noticed his speech patterns and tone is very similar to Kurt Russell, especially in that opening Bounty Law promo interview

Silence following The Wolf of Wall Street is one of the best runs this decade imo, two phenomenal films for obviously different reasons

agree w this, was a p unexpected one-two punch with two great and entirely different movies

(xpost) Obviously one of the film's best lines: "I don't like names like 'Pumpkin Puss,' but since you're upset, we'll talk about that some other time."

https://screenrant.com/once-upon-time-hollywood-movie-soundtrack-songs/

lol well the headline literally sums it up. dunno why but i was hoping for something a little more in-depth/insightful than just “here are the songs & when they happened in the movie”

I wrote this a few days ago, VG. Much of my ambivalence has to do with the soundtrack, so you won't agree with some (most?) of this.

http://heardjustwhatiseen.wordpress.com/2019/07/26/a-dragonfly-inside-a-jar/

Didn't catch that Clu Gulager was the bookstore clerk when Robbie goes in and asks for Tess of the d'Urbervilles (People you thought were...)

He has a plaque designating his preferred seat (near the back, right section, in from the aisle) at the New Beverly. When his wife died in 2003, he started going there most nights, and as of two years ago could be found hanging out and chatting about the films in the lobby with other patrons afterward.

(Tarantino didn't buy the building until 2007, and didn't take over programming until 2014, so Gulager's patronage of & association with the place isn't connected to Quentin.)

hard to miss the Maltese Falcon in that antique/book shop, did anybody spot anything else?

xpost clemenza— yeah i think we part ways pretty drastically on the soundtrack :) i like your writeup nonetheless though!

maybe I just need to write my own thoughts bcz i havent seen anyone go in the way i want them to

Do it! I'd love to read it

I'm sitting here furiously googling the difference between a flamethrower and a blowtorch because I've never heard of one of the latter than can shoot flames over ten feet

I think I can google up a photo that'll explain the difference between a blowtorch and a blowhard, if that's any help.

could really use all the help I could get

This is easily my favorite Tarantino since Jackie Brown. The ultimately illusory prospect of a "mature" Tarantino that JB hints at--which is probably due entirely to the source material--still makes me wistful for wasn't to be. But this one comes pretty close to that.

I didn't think the historical revisionism of IB was cathartic but somehow it is here. Maybe it's more personal? Maybe making it about one instance (albeit a culturally significant one) of tragedy rather than a world-historical tragedy makes it easier to swallow the sentiment? Possibly also because rather than feeling like "revenge" and nazi killin' this is more about preventing a tragedy from happening in the first place rather than avenging one that already happened?

Just read a Facebook post from a guy who wrote a recent book on Manson: Manson's second favourite band was the Moody Blues. Never knew that! Not the best choice, but far from the worst if the window is the late '60s.

I know some of you (all of you?) don't like the Red Letter Media guys, but they made an I think good observation that Tarantino is kind of the last auteur whose movies get wide theatrical releases and big audiences. Am I overlooking someone obvious?

Wrt the soundtrack I'd say he's using music in a slightly different way this time than he has before, which is to pin down a time & place. It seems as if he's using more diegetic music than ever before - much of what you hear is coming from the radio, TVs, record players, etc. And I guess that somewhat constricts his options, since, for example, he has to choose songs that would plausibly be on the radio, and so on.

XPS Karina Longworth touched on that in one of the You Must Remember This Manson eps, even pointing out lyrical similarities between his songs and ones by the Moodies.

Christopher Nolan but he's even more conservative and safe than QT

xxp

Tarantino is kind of the last auteur whose movies get wide theatrical releases and big audiences

Are Fincher & Nolan too mersh or something?

Wes Anderson movies routinely make healthy profits these days.

red letter media guys in being huge dumbasses shocker

Nolan and Fincher I think of mostly as technicians, but Wes Anderson is a pretty good example.

PTA hasn't been in multiplexes this century, and he's arguably the preeminent American auteur and his biggest success was There Will Be Blood with $76m worldwide. QT's highest gross, for Django Unchained, was $425m.

xp Wes Anderson also hasn't been in multiplexes since... Tenenbaums? Rushmore? Was he ever? Anyway, his highest gross is $100m for Grand Budapest Hotel.