Ah, okay. I get it now. All it took was a second viewing of Quentin Tarantino’s ninth movie, and the knowledge that this really is about enjoying the ride because while there is a destination it’s one that’s brought about by external forces and the calendar, rather than any internal plot devices. Fair warning, the review which follows is rambly, unfocused and full of sidelines. But if that’s good enough for Quentin…
After taking in the movie when it opened, writing a slightly disgruntled review and letting that sit for a few days, I began to read other articles on Hollywood. More than I normally would for flicks I hadn’t enjoyed, because I wanted to know what I’d missed that everyone else seemed to love so much. And for the very most part, the pieces I read didn’t fill in any particular gaps for me. They just reiterated the list of reasons I’d been dissatisfied, albeit in glowing terms.
COMMUNITY Because even among the critics’ community, the most perfunctory points here are open to interpretation. One take notes that while Margot Robbie’s Sharon Tate introduces herself at the cinema box office, she watches The Wrecking Crew incognito to soak up the audience reaction. No mate, she puts on those massive glasses to emulate her character on-screen, looking around at the audience every time ‘Miss Carlson’ gets a laugh from them. She’s trying to be recognised, that’s why she went out of her way to be noticed at the box office - no one in Hollywood knows who the hell Sharon Tate is yet. Her actual claim-to-fame came at the hands of the Manson family - something Tarantino throws in the bin as he gives the actress the Happy Ever After she was denied in our reality. A gift from a film-maker who bleeds celluloid and lives for the micro-detail of every performance he sees in every in every B-movie and supporting feature. I got that the second time. The first, I was just wondering where all this was leading.
Elsewhere, some are saying that the brutal fight finale is "classic Tarantino". It’s not. It’s far closer to something that his buddy Robert Rodriguez would do. While it’s true that Death Proof has some nasty moments, it’s Rodriguez’s flip-side movie Planet Terror that’s the really gory flick - and so is the scrap at the end of Hollywood. Truth be told, it can barely even be called a fight in the interactive sense, more the tonally justified slaughter of three absolute wrong’uns.
DEVELOPMENT And those are two tiny details to pick up on, but that’s what Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is; a lengthy string of tiny details, the minutiae of mundane lives being lived in an unorthodox business in a town famous for creating non-reality. The phrase ‘love letter’ has been flogged to death in reviews for this movie (yeah, even by me), but it’s as much a series of winks to QT’s own career as anyone else’s*1.
And yet he eschews the traditional format of cinematic storytelling. The first 25 minutes of a movie are usually used to establish characters and motivations. Here that lasts for two hours. The second act will be the part where those characters run up against an obstacle which will need to be resolved before the story can end. In Hollywood we get a caption-card that reads "6 months later". Tarantino is openly telling us that the events of 8 August 1969 have precisely nothing to do with anything that happened in the previous half year. It’s just that here they involve characters who’d been moving in and out of each other’s circles back in February. And as for the third act resolution? Well here it’s more Clint Booth meeting some barely-remembered faces from the past and everyone else meeting for the first time.
That disregarding of structure bothered the hell out of me the first time I watched this. And to a certain degree it still does and probably always will.
MY NAME IS EARL While the ‘Once Upon A Time’ in the title implies that a tale is about to unfold which isn’t beholden to historical reality, it also creates the expectation that the audience is about to be told a story - ie something with a firm structure and a roadmap - rather than just trailing along behind characters for a few days. And while there are things to look at along the way, that’s not the same as telling a story. This movie is acted, shot and cut beautifully*2. My initial problem was that nothing is happening. A second viewing excuses yet underlines this in equal measure.
Throughout Tarantino’s career, there’s been a secondary level upon which his films can be enjoyed. Not always a subtext in the regular sense, but something which, upon second, third or hundredth viewing, a viewer can dig and try to figure out what Quentin was channeling when he put the scenes together. Wondering what was going on his his mind, in addition to the main plot structure (ie the heist, the con, surviving the night or maybe just trying to assassinate Hitler). The problem facing more casual audiences here (hell, me included) is that Hollywood exists almost entirely on this other level. The main ’what’s driving the story’ element doesn’t exist*3. Stuff just happens because it happens*4. And while that’s arguably true for the likes of Pulp Fiction, that movie at least had intersecting and cyclical motifs matched with a tight pacing. Hollywood doesn’t.
As much as I enjoyed this the second time round (and I did), I still stand by every one of my niggles from the first. I’ve long maintained that you should be able to get something new out of seeing a film again, that’s why I do second-pass reviews and beyond. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is a prime example of how and why that re-evaluation is possible.
Although by the same token, I don’t think you should have to watch any movie twice to enjoy it once. But here we are…
Well, that’s the question isn’t it?
What have you seen that’s like this?
It is, with a certain amount of caution.
It is.
Yeah let’s not go mad, okay?
Even though I’ve now changed my mind re-ordered my opinions on this, still yes.
I don’t normally change scores between viewings, but I’m happy to make an exception here. While this and my previous review are obviously subjective (as every review is), I obviously couldn’t go so far as to say the film is badly made. But there are aspects of it which I did not enjoy, and that is a fact. Appreciation is one thing, but it’s not everything. And that’s more what the number is in this case. Not how ‘good’ I think the movie is, more how it made me feel. Last time it was a frustrating 4, this time it was a 6.
My own change of heart certainly makes me wonder what the long-term response to this movie will be, and how much expectation will be placed upon QT’s tenth (and allegedly final) film…
*1 In no particular order: the aerial shot of the Pan-Am plane is a throwback to Kill Bill, Funky Fanfare from QT’s Grindhouse days plays at the drive-in next to Clint Booth’s caravan, the airport interior is a nod to Jackie Brown’s opening sequence, the saloon section is an obvious reference to Django Unchained and the ‘Die You Nazi Bastards’ scene likewise tips its hat to Inglourious Basterds. And unless I’m very much mistaken, the crossroads at which Clint Booth is waiting when he sees Pussycat for the first time is the one from Pulp Fiction where Butch runs into Marsellus Wallace. But I’m going to have to wait for the Blu-ray to confirm that one, because I’m not downloading a bootleg just to do a side-by-side, okay? [ BACK ]
*2 The sequence in the shack at the Spahn Movie Ranch is camp perfection in itself. The undeniable tension as the wildcard ’Squeaky’ sits slumped in front of the TV. Clint padding around the old dilapidated house holding unknown dangers, the feint of a false climax, the music from the suspense show becoming the scene’s diegetic soundtrack. Wall-to-wall gorgeous. It’s just a shame that it’s not actually needed because there’s no story for this to fit into. [ BACK ]
*3 Even though there’s a lot of literal driving around in this movie. And it’s not aimless, ‘take in the scenery’ driving, but it’s not plot specific A-B driving either. It’s mostly the characters on domestic journeys like going to work or running errands. And y’know that’s fine but Quentin, mate, I’m not going to let this one go: nothing happens in this movie until the end. [ BACK ]
*4 Or, to be more cynical about the whole thing, Rick Dalton needs to have a conversation about a flamethrower early on to explain away the fact that he’s got a working flamethrower in the house for the finale. Likewise, Clint Booth needs to be shown as a skilled stuntman to explain the fact that he’s instinctively competent at combat and self-preservation even when he’s off his face on acid, and he needs to be on acid to explain away the utter brutality with which he smashes his assailant’s face off every damned surface in the living room. It’s almost - almost - as if the movie’s climax was written first and the whole thing was ret-conned from there. That said, if QT has fully shot any of the TV episodes we see clips of or produced amended episodes of the ones he’s altered, and if any of those are squirrelled away on the Blu-ray extras for the movie, all will be forgiven… [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
I'll cut to the chase, the jury at Blackout Towers is out on this one. It's not that Once Upon A Time In Hollywood failed to meet my expectations - I didn't really have any expectations. While I'm definitely a fan of Quentin Tarantino's work to the point of being forgiving of his worst excesses, I was impressed that the trailer is a kaleidoscope of cool which reveals very little of the actual story. It's only after watching the movie that I realise that's because there is no coherent story.
Quentin sets up his core characters, then just sort of bimbles along aimlessly, going off on lengthy tangents which add to the character-building but do almost nothing for the narrative. You remember when Tarantino was famous for driven pacing and snappy dialogue? Well those days are long gone, mate. This begins languidly where each scene is around 30% longer than it needs to be, and pretty much keeps that up for the entire movie. Meticulous yet thoroughly unfocused, this is the absolutely unfiltered Tarantino of 2019, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing. Self-indulgent as absolute fuck, even by his standards.
WESTERN There's an entire, lengthy saloon-scene where actor Rick Dalton is filming a western, which might be more quirkily entertaining if Quentin hadn't already made Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight. Has he still not gotten spit-and-sawdust out of his system? But there are too many unanswered questions elsewhere. A sporadic narration comes from Kurt Russell. But he's also in the film as a big-shot director. Is it supposed to be his character who's narrating this? Why? How would his character know of events which went otherwise unwitnessed? Wasn't the whole "once upon a time means it's a fairytale and I can subvert your expectations from real-world events" used up on Inglourious Basterds?
Why have big names like Al Pacino and Bruce Dern been hired for a cameo roles which add nothing to the final movie? Why has Leonardo DiCaprio been edited into The Great Escape for a cutaway scene, but Margot Robbie hasn't been given the same digital treatment in The Wrecking Crew when she's playing the actress Sharon Tate watching Sharon Tate in a film? Because the Sharon Tate in those clips is clearly not Margot Robbie, so why put them in at all? I know that ultimately the film is a tribute to her, but it's glaringly noticeable that she's not watching herself. Why am I even thinking about these things when I'm meant to be enjoying a movie by a director I love?
IN SHOW Don't get me wrong, there are some great things in this, I just don't think it's a great movie. I definitely had that dissatisfied feeling leaving the auditorium where I'd apparently been waiting for something that Quentin wasn't going to deliver. Because while the climactic fight is inordinately, gleefully, brutally good fun, the actual narrative payoff afterward feels like a weak punchline that doesn't support the grandiose, bar-room, shaggy dog story which went before it. It turns out the journey was more important than the destination, but you weren't able to focus on that because the driver had been rabbiting on for the entire journey.
This is Guy Ritchie giving us Revolver, James Cameron's Avatar, Spielberg with Ready Player One. It's not devoid of merit, but by no means what Quentin is best at - and this has happened because there's now nobody to tell him 'no'. The bottom line is that if any other writer/director had made Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, I'd be calling it out as a rambling, first-draft mood-board. In fact I still am. Because since each movie ultimately has to stand on its own merits, where does that leave this? But now I know what to expect, another viewing is called for, that's for sure.
^^ This may be subject to change after the next viewing.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Okay, this is your spoiler-break. Everything after this section will tell you far more than you need to know if you haven't already seen Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.2, and besides that, won't make a lot of sense. I still stand by the full-marks I gave the film in my first-pass review. While the story does little to advance the thread of Thanos trying to get his mitts on All Of The Infinity Stones, GotG2's an enormous amount of fun and boasts actual character development across the board, which is not to be sniffed at.
There's just a few things niggling at me. Here be spoilers...
Fractious and fragmented.
Firstly, there's the pacing and flow of the movie. In order to properly facilitate that character development (and there's something for pretty much everyone other than Drax and Groot, who are just amplified versions of their last appearance), the gang needs to be split up. But when this occurs, the film's momentum suffers, since the best Guardians scenes are where they're fighting side by side. The audience spends the first-act watching their friends bicker, the second watching them be unhappy apart, and the third watching them reunited, but notably subdued. And there's no doubt it makes for an interesting film, but that's not necessarily what audiences are expecting from Marvel.
Leaving so soon, Yondu?
And then there's the blue-guy. It's always fun watching Michael Rooker onscreen, but he was a supporting character in Guardians, at best. My only real complaint this time is that I wanted to see more of him being part of the team, rather than helping out on the periphery then carking it for a reason which could have been easily avoided at screenplay-level. His character-arc and ultimate send-off here are nice, but feel way too rushed. Don't forget that other than a very brief flashback montage in this second film, we've really seen nothing but the pirate and his protege complaining about each other. The emotional connection that Peter (re)establishes with Yondu feels like it should be happening in the third part of a trilogy, not the second, and while his bonding with Rocket is an unexpectedly nice touch, that feels as if it needs to be reinforced into the next film, too.
Daddy issues.
But my main issue is Peter's dad. The non-Terran half of Star-Lord's physiology was hinted at pretty boldly at the end of the first movie*1, so I'd certainly expected it to be addressed in the sequel. But the whole thing seems to be wrapped up both neatly and quickly, here. The character is introduced, transformed and despatched all within one movie, giving his relationship with Peter no time to resonate with the audience (and barely even with Peter himself). From a screen-time point of view, Ego may as well be Whiplash from Iron Man 2.
In terms of his character-development, there's clearly something amiss from the start as Gamora thankfully notes. And since the audience is with her on this, there's no 'reveal' when things go south and it turns out the guy's a planet-sized sociopath (his name's 'Ego', it was hardly subtext). Finding it impossible to warm to him, I had no emotional commitment when it came to the inevitable blows in the third-act. A big part of this comes down to the casting; I have no strong feelings either way on Kurt Russell the actor, but he's playing a psychotic narcissist with a history of luring innocents into a trap, exploiting their pride and vulnerability while knowing he's more powerful than them, casting aside their corpses when they fail to meet his expectations, and who finally meets his match when he picks on the wrong group. That's basically his Stuntman Mike character from Tarantino's Death Proof, and Russell plays it almost identically, especially in the scene where he's breaking down the lyrics to the song Brandy. Except the Guardians aren't out for Revenge™, so it's not as satisfying to see him finally lose.
Besides all that, Ego says that he needs his son's power to help execute his galactic plan, but he also says that if the core of the planet (ie Ego himself) dies, Peter will lose his demigod-abilities. Well it can't be both, can it? If Star-Lord's a separate entity in his own right, capable of boosting the raw power of Ego, then he'll continue to be so after the Celestial collapses, otherwise his father will only have been tapping into energy he had access to in the first place, and he could have just done it on his own.
I still love the film, though.
Anyway, discuss...
…Guardians Of The Galaxy.
You'll certainly need to have seen the first movie to begin with, at least.
You should.
It does.
Whether that's what it should have been setting out to do is another discussion.
Probably not best, but…
Let's find out.
Still didn't hear one, no.
Help me out here folks....
Level 1: Missed a trick last time, didn't I?
This film features Seth 'Todo 360' Green as Howard The Duck.
Always read the credits, Yen; you're there waiting for extra scenes anyway...
*1 And speaking of which, at the denouement Guardians, Nova Prime tells Peter that the non-human half of his lineage is "something very ancient, we've never seen here before". But the galactic community knows what Celestials are, don't they? In that same film, Knowhere (the location of The Collector's dealership) is stated by Gamora to be the head of a long-dead Celestial. Are Marvel just making this up as they go along? [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Expectation was always going to be the enemy of James Gunn's Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.2. There are no audiences to surprise this time, it's a return-trip to the well. The ticket-buyers might not know exactly what to expect, but they have boxes they want ticking. So how does the movie fare against this?
Short version: satisfyingly well. The sequel is consistently funny, dynamic and engaging, upping the ante of the first film without coming off as fan-service. Sure, the run-time is probably a little too long at 136 minutes (a quarter-hour above the first movie), the eagerly-awaited soundtrack is a little more 'needle-drop' this time around, and Drax's foghorn-humour has been turned notably up, as has Groot's playfulness. But crucially the film is more than enough fun to cover the occasional raising of an eyebrow. Integral characters from the first installment return, and several new ones are introduced (with a couple of classic-Marvel cameos to boot). Things are left typically open-ended, but there's significant character development all round.
As usual with this sort of thing, the film's a sensory bombardment the first time you watch it. More words will be written after future viewings, but in the meanwhile rest assured that if you enjoyed the first Guardians Of The Galaxy, there is plenty in here for you…
Oh, and if you're a bit OCD when it comes to your playlists, this is the movie-used order of the soundtrack album:
Brandy (You're A Fine Girl) - Looking Glass Mr. Blue Sky - Electric Light Orchestra Lake Shore Drive - Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah The Chain - Fleetwood Mac Southern Nights - Glen Campbell My Sweet Lord - George Harrison Come A Little Bit Closer - Jay & The Americans Bring It On Home To Me - Sam Cooke Wham Bam Shang-A-Lang - Silver Father And Son - Cat Stevens Surrender - Cheap Trick Flash Light - Parliament Guardians Inferno - The Sneepers (I didn't notice The Sweet's Fox On The Run playing anywhere in the film itself, so that could be a trailer-only track, as Spirit In The Sky was last time around.)
You're welcome.
And the business-end:
• Is there a Wilhelm Scream? Didn't hear one yet.
• Is there a Stan Lee cameo? Yes.
• Is there a mid-credits scene? Yes, several.
• Is there a post-credits scene? Yes.
It's close to their previously high-watermark, but maybe not quite up to it.
That will depend on why we're disagreeing.
Not that I heard, but there are many viewings for me to unearth it, should it be there.
Level 2: Zoe Saldana's in this, and she was in those Star Trek movies with Simon 'Unkar Plutt' Pegg.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Sixteen. As someone who spends a not-inconsiderable amount of time in the cinema, I've seen various trailers for Fast & Furious 8*1 and, as a result, had wondered how many times the word "family" would appear in the final script. It's sixteen times. I counted. To put that in 'cinematic catchphrase' context, the second Paul Blart movie featured A Fat Man Falling Over a mere eight times. Make of that what you will, but I'm at least glad that Peggy Mitchell's secured a job as a screenwriter.
So despite my thinking that the F&F series really should have been laid gently down after part seven, it's evident that it may well be the last great franchise that Universal have. It's certainly the best vehicle (no pun intended) for the dubious talents of Vin Diesel*2, who at least has the rest of the cast to share the limelight and ease the burden of the script (which is frequently excruciating, but who's here for the dialogue, right?).
The film is, in pretty much every sense, exactly what you expect it to be (and no less than you'd expect from the eighth installment of any series). From the opening race around the streets of Havana in which Diesel pushes an old banger literally into the red, this is impressively ridiculous stuff. Things take a predictably mawkish turn when the aforementioned 'F'-word rears its head, but the faux-sentimentality doesn't get in the way of what is essentially a petrol-burning action flick. Old faces and characters appear like at a reunion party, past transgressions not necessarily forgiven, but put on hold out of general goodwill. And once more, the screenplay takes the same cavalier attitude to technology and hacking as it does to the general laws of physics*3. F&F8 may not be everything it could be, but it's certainly everything it needs to be to meet its own selection criteria.
Best line is awarded unapologetically to Jason Statham for "Let's go, Scarface. These arseholes aren't going to kill themselves…".
Fast & Furious 8 is largely an immense amount of fun*4, albeit the perfect definition of Bubblegum Cinema™. It's brightly-coloured and distracting, of no real nutritional value, and after a couple of hours you realise it's pretty much without taste.
Plan your viewing schedules accordingly.
The movies which preceded it.
If you like your testosterone and burning rubber to be on a massive screen, yes.
Pretty much.
Whether that's a good thing is up for debate.
It's not even the best of its series, to be fair.
Nope.
Not that I heard.
Level 2: This film stars Michelle Rodriguez, who performed voice-work in Turbo alongside Sam 'Windu' Jackson and Bill 'BB-8' Hader.
*1 And seriously Universal, you attach the tagline "Fate of the Furious" to the eighth movie in the series and not one of you thinks to type it "F8 of the Furious!" on the poster? You had one fucking job, mate. And don't even go thinking about 'Fast10-Furious, because a friend of mine's copyrighted that shit already. [ BACK ]
*2 Although obviously he's more than acceptable when he has three words to say as the voice of an animated tree. Make of that what you will, as well. [ BACK ]
*3 Notwithstanding that the film's centrepiece of an EMP-device which not only disables electronic devices but magically shuts down wholly mechanical engines and opens all locked security gates (y'know, the setting you'd definitely have in the event of a power-cut), Vin Diesel's car is clocked doing over 200mph to get onto the boarding ramp of a moving plane, yet he manages to come to a stop within 40 feet once he's in the cargo hold… [ BACK ]
*4 That said, I'll admit that the bits about the unstable egomaniac who's set to launch nuclear warheads just to prove a facile point tasted a touch more bitter than they were no doubt intended. Maybe I should have seen the movie before last weekend, to be fair… [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
