Once Upon a Time in Hollywood...

[cjlasky7]

I don't really want to talk about the movie... just the ending.

As you all know, I've been having a hard time lately. It's not going well. I won't go over the particulars, because it's just a pain to go over them again. Let's just say it's the type of situation that will bring out the hidden cracks in a family.

My wife and son are upstate visiting a family friend. This was planned out weeks ago, and there was no reason to cancel. To be honest, I think they need a break from me. I'm not great company right now.

So, when all my business for the day was done, I decided to take in QT's latest.

(Spoiler alert, but I'll try to be as vague as possible.)

Tarantino has gotten into the habit of slipping in a little "alternate history" into his narratives, to give his audience a sense of satisfaction and payback in situations where that would be impossible. So you have the Jewish resistance fighter roasting Hitler and his generals in Inglorious Basterds and Django destroying the plantation in Django Unchained.

I'm not sure how I feel about this tactic. As the son of a Holocaust survivor, the Inglorious Basterds wiener roast came off as cheap wish fulfillment with a bit of egomania attached. "Hey Nazi victims! Don't sweat it--Quentin's got your payback for you."

Well, in this movie, he does it again.

And I loved it.

I'm not going to be specific about the incident he changes. Suffice to say it's one of the most infamous tragedies of late 1960s Hollywood. I think what makes this work when the others don't is that Tarantino has foreshadowed it for the entire movie, and the last 30 minutes of the movie is the night of the tragedy. He's steadily ratcheted up the tension in the midst of what's generally a relaxed kind of movie, so when things don't play out as pre-ordained, it's a release.

The revised event plays out in a way that is very true to the characters DiCaprio and Pitt have been playing throughout the film. So, despite the weird left turn and the extreme violence, it felt very true and organic. And it was extremely funny. I laughed and laughed hard during those final scenes. It was the first good laugh I'd had in a while. And I finally felt good enough to post here.

Take care folks.

Comments

[shadowkat]

Interesting.

I agree on Inglorious Bastards and Durango.

I've been thoroughly spoiled on the movie via yourlibrarian's review of it. She did not like the movie. Actually, you are the first person I've seen that liked it.
And apparently the ending is rather controversial.

I'm thinking it is subjective thing? Humor is. And possibly a timing thing or a mood thing? I just saw a five to six minute cartoon short that comes after the credits of Ralph Breaks the Internet, it is after the first group of credits -- that made me laugh really really hard for five minutes. So I get it.
I really needed that laugh. And no, I'm not sure anyone else would find that little bit of ending at all funny. But I did.

Not having a good summer myself. I hope things get better for you soon.

[cjlasky7]

Thinking about it a little more:

Another reason the ending works (for me) is that Tarantino has already set us up to think that this is (sort of) an alternate 1969 with his elaborate backstory of DiCaprio's Rick Dalton and how his presence subtly shifts the events around him.

And the entire ending can be taken as a loud, Tarantino raspberry to the social guardians who think extreme violence on TV and in movies warps the moral fiber of our youth. The weirdoes marching up Cielo Drive decide to kill Rick (ironically?) because his cowboy movies taught America's children how to murder. They wind up being subjected to the most graphic, cartoonish violence outside of an episode of Itchy and Scratchy.

Can I see people hating this sequence? Oh definitely, for a number of reasons. But I found it very funny. I guess I needed the laugh--and even though I was spoiled for the AU ending, Tarantino caught be off-guard enough so I could surrender to the moment and enjoy it.

I needed that.

[shadowkat]

Interesting take, the reviews from others who saw it -- were a bit less positive. Many felt it didn't make sense.

I'm waiting for it to pop up on "On demand" - because I was advised it worked as well if not better on television.

But what you wrote above is even more amusing in that Rick is a fictionalized version of Burt Reynolds, and Cliff is a fictionalized version of Hal Needham (Reynolds best friend and stunt double) -- also Reynolds was slated to play the Bruce Dern role. So, if you keep in mind all the violent stuff Reynolds did in his films, that makes it even more interesting.

I want to see the movie for that reason only -- it's Real Person Fanfic about Burt Reynolds and his stuntman saving us all from the Manson cult.

[cjlasky7]

I can see the Reynolds/Needham parallels, especially since Reynolds started out in TV westerns and made B movie oaters like "Navajo Joe" until he hit the A list in the seventies.

But Rick Dalton and Pitt's Cliff Booth draw on a lot more than Reynolds and Needham. Tarantino folds in the career paths of just about every aging TV cowboy: the villain roles (so the younger heroes can look good), the Italian spaghetti Western phase, the cringeworthy commercials...

And Cliff? I don't know about Needham IRL, but Cliff is an incredibly sketchy character, even though he has Brad Pitt's charisma. There's a flashback to Cliff and his wife on their boat that has creepy Robert Wagner/Natalie Wood vibes all over it.

ETA: Best wishes to Wales. Hope she feels better soon.

[shadowkat]

Thank you. Best wishes to your family as well, hope things get better there as well.

From the other review I read -- it seemed that Cliff was also based on another stuntman, who was killed by Manson, and had been associated with Tate, and had a sketchy background. (yourlibrarian's review). Ponygirl's complaint was that the camera mainly seemed to be focused on everyone's feet. (LOL!)

I think he probably combined a few actors/stunt men from that era, since yourlibrarian stated neither were depicted in a nice way. Also, it 's telling that it was supposed to be Reynold's last movie role -- so I think he deliberately changed a few things. There's an article on Google comparing the two people's lives, but how accurate that is...I don't know.

[cjlasky7]

QT's foot fetish is on public record. (He's usually not this obvious, though.)

For more ridiculously minute details about this movie, check out the AV Club's "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.... Annotated." It covers a lot of ground, but it could be double the size and still not get everything.

[shadowkat]

LOL!

Yeah, her review on FB was hilarious. She said that she felt sorry for all the actors who must have been excited to finally get a part in a Tarantino film. Only to have no lines, relatively little face-time, and a lot of closeups of dirty feet." She said that it was the first Tarantino film that she felt was boring.

[cjlasky7]

Personally, I don't think it's boring. It meanders, especially at the beginning, but once Rick shoots his guest spot on "Lancer" and Cliff picks up his hitchhiker, the movie gathers momentum and sustains it to the end.

(Speaking of actors in the movie for one scene: Damian Lewis--from the criminally underappreciated TV series "Life"--looks so much like Steve McQueen, his cameo as McQueen actually startled me.)

This movie is immersive. It's kind of like Blade Runner, but instead of enveloping you in the LA of the future, Tarantino creates an idealized LA of the past, where the war and the cultural shifts are held at bay just a little while longer, so the icons of his childhood can play. If you see this on TV in the future, I imagine you could jump in at any point and enjoy it.

[cactuswatcher]

I hope things start improving for you, too.

[cjlasky7]

Thanks, CW. It's always good to know I have friends here.