Movie Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

Peter Sidorkiewicz

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I thought this was Tarantino worst film.

Hateful eight was a good film let down by a s**t ending.
This film was a bad film but had a very good ending.

The ending while great didn't make up for the weak plot. A day in the life of an actor and his stunt double. Just wasn't that interesting to me. Maybe because I'm not a reality tv fan but this movie was kind of like reality tv but set in the late 60s.
 
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It's certainly a love it or hate it film.

However, it is imperative that you know about the Sharon Tate murder before seeing it, otherwise some things aren't going to make much sense.

I didn't know about her or the Manson family (in great enough detail to recognise the references) before the film. I still thoroughly enjoyed it, and it obviously makes a lot more sense now.
 
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I didn't know about her or the Manson family (in great enough detail to recognise the references) before the film. I still thoroughly enjoyed it, and it obviously makes a lot more sense now.

However, I am a big fan of films by Richard Linklater (and others) that don't necessary have a 'plot' and is more about the characters struggles/relationships etc. Besides the Manson storyline, there was a lot of this in OUATIH
 
I didn't know about her or the Manson family (in great enough detail to recognise the references) before the film. I still thoroughly enjoyed it, and it obviously makes a lot more sense now.
It definitely helps, otherwise as the viewer you wonder what the hell are all these scenes with Sharon Tate in them? When you know the horror of what happened to her it makes the ending all the more pleasing.
 

Filthy Sanchez

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Saw it Thursday night at The Astor. The Astor was the perfect place to see it and would suggest for anyone to go see it there if they can.

I am a huge Tarantino fan and have enjoyed everything he's directed from Death Proof to Hateful Eight. I have also learnt quite a lot about the Manson Family murders over the last few years and would encourage anyone to go check out some of the interviews with Charles Manson in prison on youtube.

This for me was Tarantino's worst film. The characters lacked their usual depth and the tension wasn't at its usual suspenseful best.

I liked that he went with less violence and there were good moments to enjoy.

I found the humour to be lacking quite heavily in comparison to his other films. The crowd was howling with laughter at the violence, however I didn't find any of the humour in those scenes to be anything above some rudimentary lowest common denominator gags.

To me there was way too much self-gratification and love for himself in this film. I think Hollywood loves making love to itself, it came across as very La La Land which I also hated.

I think I would be way more measured if this wasn't a Tarantino film. I think he's an incredible director and has created some amazing thought-provoking films. To me he's treaded close to this overly self-gratification line before, but I think in this film he oversteps that line way too much.
 

Filthy Sanchez

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Also we had ads for the spaghetti Western Django and a few things like a sixties cheeseburger commercial before the show. Not sure if that was part of the standard release but thought it was a really nice touch.
 
It was a very different Tarantino film - this felt sentimental from QT which many with either love it or hate it. I liked it and appreciated it - it was a creatively well done buddy film. It didn't capture as much tension as his other films have been, some of Tarantino's films are constructed into a series of strong scene (like Inglorius, pulp fiction etc) and more into a rolling degree of less tense scenes that flow a lot easier. You don't have the signature of Tarantino in closing acts and putting titles as punctuation between the acts - it was different.

I absolutely get why many will feel this being his weakest - to be honest, I place this on par with Inglorious Basterds and well ahead of Hateful 8 (long way below Kill Bill, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction).
 
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- The bait and switch with Rick and Cliff becoming the Family's targets was a little bit obvious in hindsight, but still really well done. Robbie didn't have a huge amount to do as Tate, but that kind of rung home just how random and brutal the killings actually were; she was just living her life.
- Cliff at the Ranch the absolute highlight of the film; up there with the Bar scene in Basterds for tension.
- Can understand why Bruce Lee's family are a little bit pissed off.
- The idea Cliff murdered his wife and got away with it just left hanging there without confirmation was an interesting touch.
- The final scene had the whole cinema in (admittedly guilty) stitches. Possibly the first ever use I've seen of Chekov's Flamethrower.
 
- The bait and switch with Rick and Cliff becoming the Family's targets was a little bit obvious in hindsight, but still really well done. Robbie didn't have a huge amount to do as Tate, but that kind of rung home just how random and brutal the killings actually were; she was just living her life.
- Cliff at the Ranch the absolute highlight of the film; up there with the Bar scene in Basterds for tension.
- Can understand why Bruce Lee's family are a little bit pi**ed off.
- The idea Cliff murdered his wife and got away with it just left hanging there without confirmation was an interesting touch.
- The final scene had the whole cinema in (admittedly guilty) stitches. Possibly the first ever use I've seen of Chekov's Flamethrower.

Agree with pretty much all of that.

- Definitely Tarantino's most mature film to date. Not surprising as he gets older though.
- I though Robbie did a pretty good job given there wouldn't have been much in the script to work from.
- DiCaprio's work in the middle act is pretty special. I find him generally a little bit overwrought, but his breakdown scenes were pretty special.
- Loved the Family members half singing/half chanting one of Manson's songs at the start was a suitably creepy introduction to them.
- I'd like to have seen more of Manson as a character, but perhaps that was taking away from Rick and Cliff who carry the narrative.
- Yeah, it was long, but i'd be interested to see a directors cut
- After the general lakc of violence throughout the fillm, those final scenes hit me harder than I expceted in terms of their savagery.

Initially after coming out of the cinema, I thought there was too much fat in the film. Yet, two days later, all I want to see is more.

I also echo the thoughts of others - a bit of reading about the Manson family is probably a good thing.
 
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Tarantino's early movies were special. His last two have been ordinary.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood has some good moments, like at the hippie ranch, and the scene at the end in the house - but it was mostly disappointing. I liked the homage to 1969 Hollywood movies and TV shows. Leo and Brad were great but the rest of the cast like Damian Lewis, Pacino, Robbie, Olyphant, Dern were wasted. The plot was unfocused. I didn't really care about Leo's character. I liked Brad's character but the movie wasn't about him. It only got my attention when I remembered the name Sharon Tate but the movie wasn't about her. It wasn't about Charles Manson and the family either. The Bruce Lee scenes seemed a bit random. I hated the '6 months later' followed by the voice over scenes.

6/10
 
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crafty_bernardo

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Love how the first page of this thread everyone is talking about how they love the Bruce Lee performance given it's a giant racist caricature.

I haven’t seen the film, but read Bruce Lee’s character is from a characters narrative point of view? Or am I completely wrong.


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I haven’t seen the film, but read Bruce Lee’s character is from a characters narrative point of view? Or am I completely wrong.


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You are completely correct. It's from Cliff Booth's perspective.

It is in no way a racist caricature either.
 
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You are completely correct. It's from Cliff Booth's perspective.

It is in no way a racist caricature either.
He was an arrogant person anyway so it wouldn’t had been too far fetch that he was like that on the sets

I did like how he called him out for his small man syndrome ...found that hilarious
 

RobbyRoy

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It should be noted that the Bruce Lee scene was literally a day dream from Cliff's perspective. I get the Lee family being upset but we have to remember Tarantino isn't adverse to doing things like warped perspective or unreliable narration so it's fair to say what we saw was an idealistic memory of Cliff's.
 
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Sketi

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I definitely think I would have enjoyed it more were I more familiar with the Sharon Tate story.
At the end I was just thinking what was the point of her whole story line, which never joined up with Rick and Cliff. Then it clicked what had happened.

Duh.
I feel I kinda missed out because I wasn't aware of the building tension. Still enjoyed it though.
 
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It should be noted that the Bruce Lee scene was literally a day dream from Cliff's perspective. I get the Lee family being upset but we have to remember Tarantino isn't adverse to doing things like warped perspective or unreliable narrator so it's fair to see what we saw was an idealistic memory of Cliff's.

I think that's a valid observation. But when questioned about it Tarantino doubled down, claiming that Bruce Lee was arrogant and that he said he could beat up Cassius Clay. Both claims are disputed by those who knew Bruce Lee.

He also commented on the scene - that Cliff was a fictional character so it's valid that Cliff could beat Bruce Lee in a fight, like Dracula could have. Of course that is true, but the mixing of real and fictional characters didn't work for me in this movie.
 
I think that's a valid observation. But when questioned about it Tarantino doubled down, claiming that Bruce Lee was arrogant and that he said he could beat up Cassius Clay. Both claims are disputed by those who knew Bruce Lee.
Out of interest, all who knew Bruce Lee disputed it, or some who knew him?
 

RobbyRoy

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I think that's a valid observation. But when questioned about it Tarantino doubled down, claiming that Bruce Lee was arrogant and that he said he could beat up Cassius Clay. Both claims are disputed by those who knew Bruce Lee.

He also commented on the scene - that Cliff was a fictional character so it's valid that Cliff could beat Bruce Lee in a fight, like Dracula could have. Of course that is true, but the mixing of real and fictional characters didn't work for me in this movie.
Yeah fair enough. Tarantino isn't exactly humble himself, and often seems to enjoy some combativeness with the press, so I'm still not reading too much into it.

The only problem I had with the scene in the context of the film was that I didn't feel Cliff's background was built up enough. Tarantino just decided to drop some back story as he went alone, such as the fact Cliff was a former Green Beret. That kind of info may have helped some accept the fact he could handle Bruce Lee. But then again, Tarantino couldn't care less how easy it is for us to accept.
 
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