Quentin Tarantino's Manson murders movie

I'm not the biggest QT stan, but this book sounds like something I might like.

One thing I appreciate about QT - and fear it will get lost or already has in the hailstorm of negative criticisms about the man, past and present - is his appreciation and passion for the gut level experience of films as experienced in crowds, particularly b-movie level stuff. Hate him if you want but *someone* needs to stan for these things.

(Not saying that’s what people are doing here, but it’s not uncommon.)

If QT is really going to stop making films (I still highly doubt he'll actually retire), I'm fine with him focusing on writing and podcasting. His novelization of this flick was lots of fun and filled in some backstory, nice and pulpy. His podcast finds him, very true to form, alternately endearing and annoying. I think it was a wise move to team him up with Avary and especially Gala, who acts as a decent audience fill-in as someone (mostly) discovering these films for the first time.

There's another great example of him distilling the discourse in his chapter on "New Hollywood in the '70s":

But the Movie Brats were young enough to be the audiences that American-International Pictures were aiming for. They were young enough to see the films in actual drive-ins. They were the first generation of leading Hollywood filmmakers who watched Gordon Douglas’ science fiction classic Them! *because* it was about giant ants.

In a way that was the reason that the Movie Brats wrestled the zeitgeist away from the Post-Sixties Anti-Establishment Auteurs that had started the New Hollywood era that the youngsters were thriving in; the hippy directors couldn’t understand, or didn’t want to understand, that some people watch movies about giant ants and take Them! seriously.

Anyway, book is a lot of fun, not least because it doesn't take itself so seriously but also because it presents an authority built on lived, relatable experience rather.

Raymond Cummings otm. In my own case, I am neither a stan nor an anti-stan. I just have some caveats but in general appreciate the QT contribution and outlook, such as what JiC just posted.

I love his takedown of the end of "Hardcore," which ends with this:

Schrader’s "Melnick made me" excuse is not backed up by the film’s executive producer John Milius. Three years after Hardcore’s original release, I asked Milius about the production. He described it then as “A wonderful script turned into a lousy movie,” and he laid the blame on Schrader’s direction. When I asked Milius about Schrader’s studio interference excuse, Big John told me, “Nobody made him change anything, he did exactly what he wanted.”

Then, I believed Milius. But today I believe Schrader. I do believe that the head of the studio made him turn his “wonderful script” into “a lousy movie.”

But I still blame Schrader.

I blame him for giving the same spineless excuse a lot of directors of fiascos claim after the fact, the big bad studio made me.

As if they couldn’t say no.

Well, then they wouldn’t have made it.

Good.

Who wants to spend three months making a fucked-up version of their movie? Then spend the rest of their lives making excuses for it, or cringing whenever they watch it, like Schrader does on the DVD commentary?

When I reached out to Schrader, I warned him that, while I liked the film’s first half, I’m very rough on it and him in the second half.

He wrote back, “I don’t think you could be harsher than I am on the second half of the film.”

Both vmic there

Hehe true.

I’ve never seen all of Hardcore. Bailed somewhere around midpoint, which sounds like not a bad choice. Enjoyed the first half though! The opening credits are particularly great.

Tarantino coming from a pretty privileged filmmaking place and I honestly want to tell him Oh STFU about the “just tell them No” take though.

But I do see where he's coming from. If you are a writer/director that has a story to tell (Tarantino posits "Hardcore" as, along with "Taxi Driver," Schrader exploring/exorcising his love of "The Searchers"), it's kind of a paradox to have a story you want to tell so badly that you are willing to tell a *different* story. I guess the question would be, what price are you willing to pay to stick to your guns? Probably from Tarantino's perspective, after "Taxi Driver" and "Rolling Thunder" delivered the fearless goods, "Hardcore" is a cop-out, though for sure, he comes from a different era; I wonder how often or even if he has ever had to tell anyone no.

Well you might have a story to tell but also bills to pay? And you might fool yourself that you'll be able to wrangle things so that your story gets told nonetheless (as has happened many a time within he studio system) until it becomes too late and your washing your hands off the project might guarantee you won't be allowed to tell any more stories at all.

I'm not sure how y'all will greet this question, but I'll ask anyway: do you think Tarantino wrote the novelization or did he use a ghost writer?

I don't think a ghost writer would have left all those typos in.

lol fair!

I think he wrote the novelization himself.

I remain bemused by readers angry that the novelization wasn’t as novelistic (or as leashed to the structure of the movie as anticipated), but then, I’m someone who has heard the man on many podcasts. OF COURSE the book is what it is

(And I don’t say that pejoratively!)

yeah, for sure his recognizable voice comes through in the book I read.

I caught up with a few movies from his book.

Rolling Thunder: John Flynn directs this from a Paul Schrader script. It's not particularly good, but pretty intense, especially the leads (Devane and Tommy Lee Jones). In classic '70s fashion, ends with a soft rock song over a freeze frame, which is among the traits it shares with "First Blood" a few years later. Shades of "Taxi Driver" in here, too.

The Outfit: Another John Flynn joint. Slightly better made, but I dunno, mostly feels like Robert Duvall and Joe Don Baker goofing around in a dull crime tale that doesn't feel particularly thrilling. I could imagine the same story being told better with a zippier sense of direction.

Dirty Harry: Definitely good discussion fodder, but not that great of a film (iconic bits and pieces aside). Coasts on Clint and the weird charisma of the baddie, though perhaps better remembered/regarded for the trends it set in motion than for what it actually achieved. There's a scene in here with the AG lecturing Harry about Miranda and stuff, which is I think meant to infuriate audiences but in fact reminded me of the pedantic doctor speech at the end of "Psycho."

Malibu High: This movie is pretty bonkers, at least on paper, and might have made for a good satire had any of its satirical elements a) been intentional (which I doubt) and b) handled with any degree of skill. It's filmed and acted like an educational film that was made over a weekend. Half the scenes feature ample traffic noise. But there is something interesting about it: a bit of score used for the world's most boring foot chase was repurposed for "The People's Court"!

Gonna watch "Deliverance" tomorrow. It's another one I only know by way of reputation and individual bits.

I just confused Rolling Thunder with Blue Thunder and could not compute.

"Blue Thunder" is John Badham, right? I used to watch that movie a lot on cable as a kid (at a friend's house). And the TV show, too! Which, until watching this trailer, I had no idea co-starred Dana Carvey!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROZpwD7kQys

Hell I saw the movie way back when and forgot Daniel Stern was in it!

I saw it as some kind of bonus screening for a film class a week before it premiered, which is why I was so sure of the release date.

OK, now "Deliverance," that's a movie. I guess I kinda agree with Ebert's contemporaneous review, in that there's not really as much going on as the movie perhaps thinks it has going on, but like fellow violent fantasy "Dirty Harry," there's still enough to talk and think about. Also like "Dirty Harry," I see echoes of it in tons of stuff that came after, right up to the present, both good and bad, and cross-genre (though especially horror). The big difference is that unlike that aforementioned list, including "Dirty Harry," this one is extremely well made by a director that really knows what he's doing and a DP that really knows how to make it look great, though I suppose "Dirty Harry" gets nearly as much out of its urban setting as this one gets out of rural Appalachia. And more importantly, no annoyingly omnipresent folly work. Boorman is smart enough to frequently let the relative silence speak volumes.

assuming folly=foley

Ha, yeah. The other more inept movies had more folly work.

Rolling Thunder is particularly good imo. Weirdly sensitive and soulful piece of work for what should have been a basic piece of revenge exploitation. Fantastic performances in it too. Some talk about it in a Paul Schrader thread here recently.

https://deadline.com/2023/05/once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-star-rick-dalton-dead-quentin-tarantino-declares-1235373860/

Rick Dalton, 1933-2023

Is he alright?

no, he’s dead

For how long?

As someone who liked this film a lot the idea that we need to be filled in on Rick dalton lore feels depressingly wrongheaded

Both QT books look unreadable — he’s a bad writer — but I agree that it’s silly to expect different even if I’m not familiar with his podcast work (just the fact that his career finds its rightful place there is perfect, it’s his destiny on the radio)

I was surprised to enjoy almost all of Cinema Speculations and not surprised to find Once Upon a Time in Hollywood intolerable after two chapters

I agree he is often a poor writer--particularly when he's trying extra hard to play Quentin Tarantino--but Cinema Speculations is very readable because just as often he has interesting things to say.

"dirty harry isnt well made, the director doesn't know what he's doing" is a shockingly terrible take and if it's not a knowing attempt at challops should really see repercussions like you shouldnt maybe be allowed watch things and state things afterwards about them

His worst take is that he doesn't rate Hitchcock but likes movies that are Hitchcockian

tbc im not talking about a tarantino take there

As someone who liked this film a lot the idea that we need to be filled in on Rick dalton lore feels depressingly wrongheaded

the kayfabe on the first episode is so good that it feels like the entire series was a long game just to get them practised up to do this

i listened to a bit of it (as i check in on the podcast here and there) and couldn't hang at all. whole enterprise is corny.

I haven't listened to it yet, but I think it's exactly the nerdy deep dive I'm excited to hear (then again, I was also the kid dreaming up entire fake label discographies and band histories).

As a creative exercise, it seems likely to be a warm-up for the next movie more than QT thinking it was time to respond to incessant public clamour for the Rick Dalton Chronicles

I’m glad Rick Dalton died. That one movie was more than enough.

It appears that Leslie Van Houten may finally be paroled. She's 73 years old.

“closer” insofar far as being *recommended* for parole…but it’ll prob go to supreme court & long court battles blahdy blah so she is still a long way from being irl paroled

Watched Hollywood again the other day for something I was doing--fourth time? I won't change or even bother checking anything I posted above, but I do find Tarantino's deep attachment to pre-Manson Hollywood oddly moving. I say oddly because I have no attachment to that specific moment (Matt Helm movies, TV westerns, etc.) whatsoever--to the time period, yes, but not to that corner of it. But the film does move me, even the wildly self-indulgent conceit of the ending--loved how Sebring and Tate are improbable Rick Dalton fans at the end.

“Hey, are *you* Rick Dalton?”

And DiCaprio plays the scene beautifully. I've been knocking him a lot recently for his Scorsese work, but I think he's really good in this.

Fully agree, his acting is amazing throughout the film, and that final shot is one of the most haunting and beautiful things Tarantino has done.

I really do think the what-if scenario, which purports to be some kind of shallow wish fulfillment, is actually a way to really underscore the absolute abhorrence of the real life tragedy, and the magnitude of the loss.