Steyn's take on Tarantino... Interesting.
Posted on 09/30/2019 6:32:04 AM PDT by Rummyfan
I am no fan of Quentin Tarantino, having dubbed him "the Mantovani of mayhem" and endured the reactions of an outraged comments section that in turn dismissed me as a squaresville snob out of touch with flyover country (of which Mr Tarantino would seem an unlikely avatar). Still I do my best: My boys wanted to see The Hateful Eight, so I dutifully tagged along and fell asleep for a good forty minutes of its three-hour length. And in the four years since I have never felt the least inclined to see what I missed.
To be honest, I also dozed off during the similarly prolix Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood. But this time I was interested to see what I'd missed, and, finding it on offer in my hotel room some weeks later, I clicked play and settled back. The film was released during Kathy Shaidle's summer sojourn as our Saturday-night movie queen, and so I thought I'd put in a belated word for it now. Unlike The Hateful Eight, on this picture Tarantino is not in his Mantovani-of-mayhem mode: There is none of his exquisitely choreographed violence until the final quarter-hour, by which point it is both cathartic and a jest on posterity. If his career has to date been a sustained double-act between blood-soaked carnage and pop-culture nostalgia, this is the picture in which, despite the title's hommage to Sergio Leone, the Dean Martin of nostalgia ditches the Jerry Lewis of carnage and goes solo.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
Steyn's take on Tarantino... Interesting.
It was a terrific film.
It wasn’t in the movie theaters very long.
Wonderful imagery and soundtrack, as always.
Exceptional acting.
But a silly plot/story.
'The counterculture became the culture - to the point that there's now no culture for a counterculture to counter.
'we've cannibalized everything and left nothing.'
'Tarantino programs not the Mamas and Papas' "California Dreamin'" but José Feliciano's version, darker and broodier and foreshadowing today's Los Angeles, where "all the leaves are brown and the sky is grey", and even that simplest pleasure of car rides with pop songs is denied, because the town's filthy and disease stalks the tent cities and it takes you three hours to get anywhere'
Brilliant. One of Steyn's best. It is to Steyn's previous articles as New Hollywood is to the Old, as Bonnie and Clyde and Midnight Cowboy are to Dr. Doolittle--frightening in its implications.
My son wanted to see it, so I went with him, not knowing at all what to expect. We enjoyed it. Since I starting coming of age in the late ‘60s, I got the cultural references, as well as the cultural then-and-now point that Steyn mentions.
WtH? I remember Hullabaloo and also Shindig. Back when there were cool bands. And very few chances to actually see them, even if usually they were lip syncing.
Your referring to Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood i hope. What I saw of the hateful eight movie was vile and disgusting IMO.
I watched Inglourious Basterds, and was uninspired to see any of his others.
Yes I am. TH8 was intended to be vile and disgusting as per the period. It wasn’t a whole lot of fun though.
“The counterculture became the culture - to the point that there’s now no culture for a counterculture to counter.”
Steyn nails it here. Movie directors of that ilk, including John Waters, David Lynch...all those guys grew up with the post-WWII conservative culture and spent their entire careers spewing hate for normalcy, deconstructing American culture and throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Well, we had free tickets and went. Dislike duh caprio for his phony hypocritical muvver erf crap but the boy can act. It was an enjoyable outing. And, I do remember the original Sergio Leone movie. :-)
Had to turn it off.
This was a very good movie.
What a brilliant metaphor!
This is the essence of the cultural divide in the USA today.
Whether or not, throughout America, all the leaves will turn brown and they skies gray, as they have in the once sparkling, vibrant, ascendant city of Los Angeles, or whether President Trump and his supporters will be able to pull America back from the brink of self-destruction, reverse her course, and send her soaring into a new era of ascendancy, vibrancy, and sparkle;
Whether or not it will be the Manson Family or Donald Trump who will serve as arbiter of America's future,
The American People will determine,
And only time can tell.
Great film.
Spoilers!!!!
The ‘Hollywood Ending’ where Sharon Tate and her guests were never attacked made the movie all the more sad IMO. We watched the Manson family members get brutally killed all the while knowing it wasn’t true, poor Sharon and the others died horrible deaths in real life. The happy ending is a Hollywood tradition, and Tarantino used it to contrast fantasy with reality.
Side note, Tate’s sister said the portrayal of Sharon was perfect, even the characters voice was exact. She said she was grateful she got to see her sister one more time (remember, nothing bad happens to Tate in the movie).
Side note 2, woke critics hated the movie. It was too white it was too masculine, and Tate wasn’t portrayed as an angry woke feminist. The fact it focused on a very specific event in history made no difference, everything must have a socialist message (Uncle Joe Stalin would be proud).
Side note 3, the fictional deaths of the Manson women, Krenwinkel and Kasabian in the film was portrayed as an example of violence against women by some woke critics. Typically they sympathize with the criminals more than the victims.
“Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, two actors of rare talent playing a couple of journeymen. They do it very well”
They would, wouldn’t they.
“Terrific film”
I’m not sure that word means what you think it means.
;)
How’s it stack up against Smokey and the Bandit?
“fictional actor Rick Dalton. Once upon a time Dalton was the star of the hit horse opera “Bounty Law”, but the TV series ended and what he calls his “rinky-dink movie career” never quite took off, though he enjoyed incinerating a bunch of Nazi generals and the studio let him keep the flamethrower”
I saw the movie and I thought this was kind of Tarantino’s meta-parody of his own career. “Bounty Law” = Django the Bounty Hunter, “incinerating Nazis” = the ending of Inglorious Basterds. The serious western movie Dalton stars in featuring a hostage plot = “The Hateful Eight”. The stuntman buddy = Stuntman Mike from “Death Proof”. I’m sure there are similar references to his other films in there if you dig around.
Well, you have to expect some shock value in Tarantino films, that’s just par for the course. What disappointed me about TH8 really was just how boring it was. Too many characters, too much exposition that goes nowhere, and no real good payoff. It’s like listening to three hours of some mediocre jazz guy past his prime doodling on his horn.
To me that was the low point of a downhill slide he has been on for a while, but I liked this last movie and hopefully he will start making better movies again.
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