Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (Official Thread)

[Straw Hat Luffy]

Yes it’s fire if you’re a movie buff. Or a QT fan in the slightest.

If your attention span is built for a Fast and Furious 1st week domestic gross contributing participant then you will walk out disappointed by the end of the movie or halfway through. No explosions or car chases

QT’s dialogue here is evolved and air tight. Far removed from the excessively wordy and meandering dialogue of films in his canon like Death Proof (which I still love as the part of the overall experience of Grindhouse when it came out in theaters).


I can’t wait to watch this again


It’s not his apex but it’s a film head and shoulders above all of the shyt being passed off by movie studios today. The last great super director paired with the last movie icons

Then I'm most likely gonna enjoy it


I'm going with a friend tho... I hate watching shyt with friends when they don't enjoy it cause I can't get into it then lol.


I'm a movie buff so I'm gonna appreciate the work

 

[Big Dick]

Watching it again and imo it’s def better on rewatch

 

[Jx2]

Then I'm most likely gonna enjoy it


I'm going with a friend tho... I hate watching shyt with friends when they don't enjoy it cause I can't get into it then lol.


I'm a movie buff so I'm gonna appreciate the work

I hear you. I go to movies like this and Midsommar alone and then movies like Avengers and Spiderman with the homies


Luckily I got to this movie late on premiere night and got a seat in the last row before it sold out

 

[HHR]

Do you think, as I did, that the stronger movie, would have been one, where the murders were shown? With some restraint and malice, but real terror. I know that Tarantino has never really been that kind of director, but I thought he may have had it in him. To just shift the movies entire energy and casual, comedic violence, in contrast to the world of 60's television (I LOVE THE KILLING) to the cruel brutality of the Tate killings?

Like I said, I don't mind the alt-history twist on it's face. There's plenty of "sliding doors" foreshadowing in the movie, particularly with Rick and The Great Escape, etc, so I don't object to Tarantino's intent. I just deeply disliked the cheap presentation of the idea.

I thought he might be building to a more serious and terrifying finale after the scene at Spahn Ranch. Maybe where the Tate house is still the target, but the Family's interaction with Rick and Cliff somehow leads to their involvement and a similar alt-history climax.

 

[HHR]

Yes it’s fire if you’re a movie buff. Or a QT fan in the slightest.

I check both boxes. Big time.

I didn't care for OUATIH.

Don't paint with such a wide brush or insult those who don't respond to art in the same way as you. It's childish.

 

[Jx2]

I check both boxes. Big time.

I didn't care for OUATIH.

Don't paint with such a wide brush or insult those who don't respond to art in the same way as you. It's childish.

Enjoy your night breh. Foreword your transgressions to the studio you overly hyped up herb


Apologies for riling up @HHR

 

[Zero]

Brehs watched their first slow burning movie and think they're doing something :dayum:

 

[OmegaK2099]

I don’t know how to feel about Bruce Lee’s depiction. I can see how it came across as disrespectful or wrong, and I don’t know if I agree with how he came off but I’m gonna let it marinate for now.

Problem with that is that's not how Bruce Lee behaved. This representation runs contrary to what his personality and attitude were documented to be like at that time. He even said "showing off is the fools idea of glory".

The man overcame racism and paralysis only to get made fun of in some white revisionist fantasy

 

[GoddamnyamanProf]

So I fukked with this I can understand the criticism or complaints about it, but it was about what I expected it to be and I had fun watching it. Leo and Pitt’s characters were fun contrasts to me, while their careers were in similar trajectories (or in Pitt’s case, nonexistent) their personalities were polar opposite. Leo’s character was the more high strung, emotional half, upset at being on the downside of his career and what he’s come to (starring in Italian spaghetti westerns) whereas Pitt was more or less resolved, if not comfortable with, his life and fate. He even said point blank in one scene he was happy being Dalton’s right hand man. So it made an interesting contrast between personalities. I did feel like maybe something was missing between them, more growth or even a rift due to the difference between their personalities but that never happened.

Margot did well playing Sharon Tate I thought as well. It’s tough to really talk much about, because of her playing a real person in such a limited role (as opposed to how she was able to embody Tanya Harding in I, Tanya) but she was very sweet and likeable. I thought her

Spoiler

buying a ticket to her own movie to watch it as a fan

was a nice way of making her relatable. I wasn’t crazy about her dirty soles being all up in my face but QT gonna QT.

The looming sense of dread, tension, and foreboding doom Manson and the family brought in I thought was also very well done, particularly the scene where

Spoiler

Cliff dropped p*ssy off at the ranch and snooped around till it hit a breaking point with the tire being slashed

. Throughout the movie it never really left my mind that Manson and Tate’s paths would inevitably cross and I was curious to see how it’d happen.

Spoiler

The final 20 or so minutes where the Manson family home invasion were excellent at paying off the building tension into a satisfying climax where the good guys won in bloody glory, more typical of a QT flick. It was nice seeing it happen, if only because in a way it made you forget the cruel outcome that night had in real life.

I don’t know how to feel about Bruce Lee’s depiction. I can see how it came across as disrespectful or wrong, and I don’t know if I agree with how he came off but I’m gonna let it marinate for now.

Overall this was like a 7.5-8/10 for me. Despite the fun I had with this and how much I enjoyed Pitt and DiCaprio’s characters, it felt like it was missing something. Maybe a more direct build to the final scene, maybe a missing central conflict between Cliff and Dalton, more fleshed our character building between the two. I dunno but for as long as the movie was it just has a missing element to it. I dunno how it’d rank in the grand scheme of Tarantino’s filmography as a whole, but I enjoyed this and look forward to seeing it again.

Problem with that is that's not how Bruce Lee behaved. This representation runs contrary to what his personality and attitude were documented to be like at that time. He even said "showing off is the fools idea of glory".

The man overcame racism and paralysis only to get made fun of in some white revisionist fantasy

I havent read the thread and just jumped to the last page, but Im hoping someone has pointed out by now that all the Bruce Lee stuff (except the brief scene of him training Sharon Tate for her fight scene) was all a dream scenario. Its easy to miss but the entire sequence of Cliff going to the studio and the whole convo w Rick and the director about Cliff and the flashback stuff about him killing his wife qnd the Bruce Lee fight and the director's wife throwing him off set was all Cliff's daydream on the roof. It just suddenly cuts back to him like ..."nahhh" as he opens a beer and fixes the antenna, so that whole thing was him speculating about how it would go if he went down there trying to get hired.

So I wasnt rocking with it either, but that made the whole depiction more palatable because it was literally Cliff's white man fantasy in the film, rather than how the film actually presented Bruce Lee.

 

[OmegaK2099]

I havent read the thread and just jumped to the last page, but Im hoping someone has pointed out by now that all the Bruce Lee stuff (except the brief scene of him training Sharon Tate for her fight scene) was all a dream scenario. Its easy to miss but the entire sequence of Cliff going to the studio and the whole convo w Rick and the director about Cliff and the flashback stuff about him killing his wife qnd the Bruce Lee fight and the director's wife throwing him off set was all Cliff's daydream on the roof. It just suddenly cuts back to him like ..."nahhh" as he opens a beer and fixes the antenna, so that whole thing was him speculating about how it would go if he went down there trying to get hired.

So I wasnt rocking with it either, but that made the whole depiction more palatable because it was literally Cliff's white man fantasy in the film, rather than how the film actually presented Bruce Lee.

Yeah the movie did a poor job of clarifying that it was only a dream, to the average movie goer it seemed like a flashback. Bruce would often be challenged to fights onset and avoided them rather than actively seeking them out to prove himself.

 

[HHR]

I havent read the thread and just jumped to the last page, but Im hoping someone has pointed out by now that all the Bruce Lee stuff (except the brief scene of him training Sharon Tate for her fight scene) was all a dream scenario. Its easy to miss but the entire sequence of Cliff going to the studio and the whole convo w Rick and the director about Cliff and the flashback stuff about him killing his wife qnd the Bruce Lee fight and the director's wife throwing him off set was all Cliff's daydream on the roof. It just suddenly cuts back to him like ..."nahhh" as he opens a beer and fixes the antenna, so that whole thing was him speculating about how it would go if he went down there trying to get hired.

So I wasnt rocking with it either, but that made the whole depiction more palatable because it was literally Cliff's white man fantasy in the film, rather than how the film actually presented Bruce Lee.

It wasn't a dream, it was a flashback. That was the set of The Green Hornet, not Rick's new show.

He's still likely an unreliable narrator, but it's not a dream.

 

[keond]

It was ok. My wife fell asleep twice and she never falls asleep in movies. I know QT joints are wordy but the trailers made this shyt seem action packed. Manson, Steve McQueen and Bruce Lee were wasted IMO. Way too much focus on the fictional characters

 

[g-ice]

I enjoyed the film very much. Some characters were wasted though. It felt like it was edited to meet a time restriction of sorts.

Am I crazy for saying this film felt like Tarantino was trying to make his own version of a PTA film? Like for example the violence in the final act felt over the top (even for Tarantino) in a PTA type of way.

 

[re'up]

I thought the "Nahh" was like "I'm not going to work out working for/with Randy, I may as well enjoy the day on the roof". Dalton says the guy that runs the job on his new show is close with Randy, who likely won't hire Cliff, for reasons explained in the rooftop, flashback sequence.

 

[FlyRy]

Nope. Didn't really like it. Kind of shocked about that. Right now...it's on the bottom of my QT rankings...by a healthy margin.

I reject your hypothesis :smugquentin: :tarantino:

Spoiler