Review: Barbie

Barbie
(Spoilers)
Cert: 12A / 114 mins / Dir. Greta Gerwig / Trailer

Life is pretty good in Barbieland. Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) enjoys an idyllic existence partying, relaxing and socialising with a wide swathe of other Barbies. Beach Ken (Ryan Gosling) joins in but pines from afar, wishing their non-committal relationship could move to the next level, while also enjoying an active social life with all the other Kens. But strange things are afoot, and Barbie notices the shine beginning to rub thin on her daily activities; food tastes bad, showers are cold and she can't shake growing feelings of existential dread.

Visiting Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) on the outskirts of town, our heroine learns that her problems stem from angst in The Real World, where the girl who owns the doll is suffering a series of emotional upheavals. This discord has caused a tear in the space-time continuum, and the only chance Barbie has of putting things right is by travelling into The Real World (with Ken in tow) and bringing a little sparkle to Los Angeles before Barbieland falls apart...

BROKEN

So it seems Mattel have finally broken into the live-action movie IP business by spending $140 million*¹ in remaking The League Of Gentlemen's Apocalpyse. I mean fair play, I did not have that on my 2023 bingo card, but at least they've got the action figures on the shelves already so this is a bonus (HASBRO TAKE NOTE).

After riffing on Kubrick's 2001 as per the teaser trailer, Barbie's opening act is everything you'd expect from A Barbie Movie naturally, and archly self-aware as it is, still feels like being kidnapped by a hen party and waterboarded with Lambrini. That said, the production design is a thing of surgically precise beauty, a wry homage to the brand rather than a parody. The players are entirely onboard and carry this in the same vein, and both Robbie and Gosling are perfectly chosen with excellent comic timing. Greta Gerwig's tight direction makes the most of her script with longtime collaborator Noah Baumbach.

There are plenty of laugh-out-loud gags throughout, both in Barbieland and The Real World. A huge supporting cast are having a blast as the various branded iterations of Barbie and Ken, and Michael Cera brings his trademark anxious demeanour as Allan. America Ferrera and Ariana Greenblatt are superb as Gloria and Sasha, the mother/daughter combo caught up in the strife which has opened a gateway between planes of existence. Will Ferrell plays the (appropriately unnamed) CEO of Mattel by playing Will Ferrell™, and Dame Helen Mirren continues to channel the late John Hurt by providing a voiceover that's so cloyingly tongue-in-cheek it actually cheapens both the film and her own IMDB catalogue.

The film wears its feminist credentials on its sleeve and does so very well, even if the message feels very much on the nose a lot of the time. But the fact that this ethos has made it out of a dozen boardrooms and onto mainstream cinema screens in such a prominent style is a feat to be applauded in itself. The version of what we see could not have been made without Mattel's endorsement, and while the impression remains that the paymasters are generally in on the joke, we're also left with the feeling Gerwig and Baumbach are filing off many of their sharper edges. What's more interesting is the boxes the film refuses to tick. Despite the ferocious branding and leaning heavily into the current, financially lucrative, version of its namesake, Barbie is not a children's movie. Children can certainly watch it (within the expected 12A parameters obviously), but it's made for adults - specifically, ones who remember Barbie but don't necessarily have a house full of them any more. And yet at the same time, this isn't an empty, cash-grab nostalgia exercise. It's promoting the product definitely, but it's more about selling the idea of Barbie. Or an idea, at any rate.

POISON

In terms of the actual mechanics of the storytelling, things are a little more... well, vague. The spoilers start here, by the way. Even in a tale of fantastical allegory, the internal logistics have to work for the audience to buy-in on an emotional level. So, if Barbieland™ includes every Mattel doll that's played with then the town would have a population of billions, whereas if there's a separate, self-contained Barbieland for every girl who plays with Barbies then each one would only be populated by the dolls that girl owns. The girl in question here (it's Gloria) only has the few dolls left over from her daughter's recent childhood, not the vast array of specifically vintage and also very up-to-the-minute Barbies on display in the film. There's no clarification over why this is. The Barbieland we get seems to include one of everyone, with no details as to how many other humans are involved at a higher level or how ownership has been assigned. But okay, we'll go with it.

We're told a portal has opened due to a Barbie-fan having a hard time in The Real World, yet in the real world boardroom scene we're told this has only happened once before. As if a lot of people in the real world who've got Barbies aren't having a hard time a lot of the time precisely because of how the real world works. There'd be portals everywhere. But okay, we'll go with it. Likewise, we're told that Weird Barbie has become eccentric because her owner/handler/God went a bit crazy and drew on her with pens, cut her hair with scissors and wedged her legs into permanent splits. Again, kids are gonna be kids and there'd be a lot of these Barbies around town. But okay, we'll go with it.

We don't see the actual, plot-critical portal itself, just a recurring vehicle-montage through Barbieland then the travellers being on Venice Beach, Los Angeles; and vice-versa to return. Barbie and Ken manage to take Gloria and Sasha back through with them, so we'll accept that regular humans can make the reverse trip with no ill effects. But Will Ferrell and the entire Mattel board of directors also manage to surreptitiously follow them, so we've got to assume that it's accessible to anyone on-foot from Venice Beach, yet nobody else has accidentally wandered into this portal that's been open for the duration of the entire storyline. How much more of this do we have to go with?

The Crocodile Dundee, fish-out-of-water routine with Barbie and Ken in LA is executed very well, but doesn't last for long as the pair are soon heading back, as noted above. Meanwhile, most people in the Real World seem remarkably calm about the human iterations of two actual dolls walking around, especially the ones who know exactly what's happened. You'd think this absolute upheaval of mundane reality and revelation of a parallel universe might be a bigger deal, somehow. Similarly, when Ferrell and the gang find themselves in Barbieland, the cultural offset is mined for almost zero reciprocal material. Indeed, the screenplay has no idea what to do with these characters so just forgets about them until the climactic Beach-Off where they have pretty much no constructive part to play (the board's overall plan to 'fix' the situation by putting Barbie back into a branded packaging-box is also weirdly indistinct). For a movie that's genuinely funny, it's staggering how much comedy-potential is wasted here.

Despite all my snarking though, Barbie is good. I don't think it's quite everything it wants to be, but it succeeds in being the film that it (and its audience) needs. It's certainly more than Kenough. It is entertaining and it does also carry a worthwhile message. The feminism, however, is not its subtext - that's very much The Text. Deeper meaning is perhaps more rudimentary than a fuchsia-fuelled crusade for girl-power...

RATT

The inhabitants of Barbieland seem vaguely aware that they're dolls and that The Real World exists, but they know next to nothing about it and show little desire to change this. It's not in the dolls' capacity or programming to realise the limitations of their surroundings or question anything outside of them, and so they're completely unable to deal with deeper philosophical problems about anything that can't be quantified in colourful plastic and simple, methodical activities. Even Margot Robbie's Barbie needs to be railroaded into knowledge by McKinnon's older, cynical sister. When peace and regularity is restored to Barbieland at the end of the third act, this is performed largely by reverting to the status quo prior to the first.

Barbie herself (the Margot Robbie one) finally rejects this of course, like a Tyrell Corp replicant now aware of its lifespan and wanting more. Having understood that revolution won't (or can't) work in her hometown, Barbie opts for evolution instead and journeys to live as a human in desaturated, complicated, messy meatspace. As we close, Barbie's future is an open road, albeit a markedly and necessarily less pleasant one in the process. But she's chosen hope and possibility. Gloria and Sasha's lives may be better as the credits roll but they're not that different, and we all know that Will Ferrell's character will still be Mattel's CEO on Monday morning and Gloria will still be working for him. Stereotypical Barbie was the only character in the movie to take a chance, to make a choice that bold, that permanent. And the choice is open to everyone on-screen of course, but the availability of that choice to everybody? That's the feminism, here. That's the equality. Because of course, the price of that freedom means having to accept that some people will decide they want things to not get better...

Back in Barbieland, the remaining collective of Barbies and Kens (okay, and Allan) also have wider knowledge of how things really work now, and they choose repair their society by setting all this to one side and carrying on as before. They're not ready to make the change, yet. Similar to Never Let Me Go, this might be the most profound point the film makes - that the Barbies' and Kens' perfect, repetitive, superficial lives are our lives, as we blankly rush through our ingrained routine to spend disposable income being distracted by a two hour dopamine-boost in a cinema. Or at a party. In a restaurant. At a shopping mall. In dream houses full of wonderful organised, covetable, accumulating stuff, always thinking about tomorrow and never appreciating the nuances of today, just as we recoil in horror whenever someone mentions the truth that we will not talk about: that fact one day soon, we will die.

We could live more, feel more, choose the genuine thrill of uncertainty. But it's easier to choose not to. Stereotypical Barbie has chosen to truly live, and in doing so has chosen death. And this is a final theme upon which Barbie does not dwell of course, because it doesn't do to be overtly reminded you're wasting your life by a toy advert...*²

*¹ Wikipedia lists the film's budget (production, not including marketing) at $128-$145m. And while that obviously is a lot of money, it has to be said that bringing in a Hollywood-grade film with a production-design this polished and featuring this cast for under 150 large ones is pretty damned impressive, especially looking at the box office returns it's making... ^{[ BACK ]}

*² There is a very strong chance I've over-thought all this of course, but please do bear in mind that I'm the one who interpreted the U-rated Boss Baby animated movie as being a study of infant-mortality induced PTSD... ^{[ 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.

Review: Babylon

Babylon
Cert: 18 / 189 mins / Dir. Damien Chazelle / Trailer

Roll-up roll-up then - if you will - for a sizzling period-piece epic from a celebrated, eclectic auteur of a film-maker; an arch, blistering love-letter to Hollywood starring Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt, where everything happens all the time for three hours but without a coherent central narrative. Again. Welcome indeed, to Babylon...

A sprawling tale of path-crossing and deal-making in the golden age of cinema, writer/director Damien Chazelle seems to have been at something of an impasse over what genre he wanted this to occupy, and has instead gone for 'as many as possible, please'. Comedy meets drama meets high-camp head on, and even horror waits to be found in Los Angeles' seedy underbelly.

WEAVING

Taking the concept of all-star casting to admirable levels, the film spends its time weaving between the intersecting lives of jaded heartthrob Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), rising starlet Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) and aspiring producer Manuel Torres (Diego Calva). All the people they all meet over the next five years seem to be included here, played by a sea of familiar names and faces all happy to blag their 15 seconds onstage at this party. Beginning at the end of the silent-film era in 1926, Babylon's own excess earns that 18 certificate (no mean feat for a non-horror piece in 2022), some of it necessary for the story but most of it not.

To his absolute credit, Chazelle is a master of note-perfect, gloriously long takes, showing off not only the skill of his cast but also a tight reign over rehearsal and production discipline. One of the funniest segments centres around Nellie trying time after time to nail the perfect take of a very simple scene, channelling Alden Ehrenreich's turn in Hail Caesar but no less endearing for that. It's also one of the only parts of the film with any sense of form.

BOSS

Obviously Chazelle has merely created the illusion of 189 minutes of self-indulgent chaos, but that doesn't make the final product any more orderly (the lone title-card arrives over half an hour into the movie for approximately no reason). Visually sumptuous, technically stunning, narratively desolate and morally agnostic, this is a three hour Rorschach test; the cave on Dagobah, with glitter.

Packed to the rafters - again - with subtle references, direct references, themes and actual lifted plot points of his favourite film, I fear that if someone doesn't let Chazelle just remake Singin' In The Rain he may very well expire*¹, although ironically this is perhaps closer in overall tone to De Palma's Scarface. For clarity, none of it is overtly bad, in the same way that watching a kid play happily with all of their toys at once brings a smile to the face. But only one of you is actually having fun.

ICE ICE

On occasion, this film thinks it has something meaningful to say about artistic yearning and the darker side of showbusiness. It doesn't*². Babylon is mawkish and manipulative, full of straw-man arguments for hypothetical dinner parties, with Chazelle scripting as if he not only holds the answers but has also been the first to come up with the questions. As a result, this really is a film for audiences who think that explaining artifice is the same thing as telling truth.

And yeah, points are coming off because it ends with a greatest-hits reel of its own first act. Nailed-on celluloid onanism.

In his labour of cinematic love, Damien Chazelle may well have captured the very soul of tinseltown; Babylon is engaging, exciting, eviscerating, and even by the time the end-credits start to roll it means absolutely nothing...

Perhaps that's the real lesson.

*¹ Spoilers, highlight to read: Look, I'm as much of a fanboy of the Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly classic as everyone else in here - really, I am - but the first two and a half hours of Babylon are a hyperactive retooling of Singin' In The Rain, then the final 30 minutes are the main character literally sitting in a cinema and watching Singin' In The Rain and crying at all of the sequences that have been ham-fistedly referenced earlier. This might as well feature Chazelle walking past the bottom of the screen holding a placard which reads 'do you understand yet? It is this. I want to make this'.

Oh, and that meta-flash-forward at the end where Manuel imagines visions of iconic cinema yet to come, intercut with clips of the greatest films of all time (plus Avatar)? I notice you couldn't get the rights to Star Wars, Damien... [/End] ^{[ BACK ]}

*² For the record, I genuinely believe there are points to be made about art vs entertainment vs consumerism, the intersections between the three and when it is and isn't helpful to define them. And for the record I genuinely believe that this movie hits precisely none of those marks... ^{[ 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.

Review: Birds Of Prey

Birds Of Prey
And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn
Cert: 15 / 109 mins / Dir. Cathy Yan / Trailer

I'm not going to lie, the latest DC movie was on a sticky-wicket before I even sat down in Screen 5. Anything with "fantabulous" in the title is going to have to work pretty hard to win back the goodwill it's already started to fritter away at the marketing-stage, and Birds of Prey is not a film that's trying to win people over.

A loose follow-up to David Ayer's Suicide Squad, we follow Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) after an acrimonious split with The Joker, as the inadvertently puts together a kickass team with The Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Black Canary (Jurnee Smolett-Bell), Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) and Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco), to bring down criminal kingpin Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor) and secure a stolen diamond (and not just to return the stone to its original owner). And on the mean streets of Gotham, this can only end one way: with maximum carnage.

CAST

The movie is bright, violent, sassy and moves like shit off a shovel, so what's not to like, right? Well, Birds Of Prey is what happens when a strong cast are absolutely fantastic at portraying an array of anti-heroes so irritating that all jeopardy is removed from the storyline. Because the audience isn't supposed to care about the diamond, and the prospect of these characters dying before achieving their goal becomes a growingly acceptable payoff, not least since we'd then get to spend less time with them. Birds Of Prey feels like a lock-in at Wetherspoons with a cosplaying hen party. Fine if that's your thing.

Admittedly, a large part of the problem is that while I love Robbie as a performer, I don't like the character of Harley Quinn, and that's certainly not the fault of anyone involved in the project. But as noted, this film will do little to change an audience's mind.

SLEEPER

Quinn voiceovers her way through the carnage like an Accessorize Deadpool, the script around her veering wildly between banal chitchat, hoping-to-be-memorable pullquotes and grinding exposition. All backed with a ferocious needle-drop backing so eager to shift soundtrack albums that it's apparently happy to switch tunes mid-scene.

The film is enthusiastically acted, over-produced, over-directed but crucially under-written, DC hoping that an ADHD-approach to narrative will paper over the cracks in a team who aren't particularly interesting on an individual or group-level. Then again, it's hard to fully paint a character when you're introducing six of them in fifteen minutes...

MENSWE@R

By the end of the second act, Birds Of Prey has become so haphazard that it's actually boring, the cinematic equivalent of white noise. It's well shot and choreographed with visual effects and wardrobe meeting the bar, but the editing is slave to the erratic nature of the story and its narrator. The audience knows where all the main players are at any given moment, but it's less clear why.

There are some great technical aspects to the film, but it's let down by a screenplay which feels a bit first-draft or worse still, first-screenplay*¹.

But I get the impression at least that Birds Of Prey is exactly the movie it's supposed to be.That's just not something made with me in mind.

Which is fine.

This is the New Look to Suicide Squad's Hot Topic.



If you're going to, you likely will regardless of what I say.



Stream it.



Nope.



That's likely.



Not that I heard.



Level 1: Obi-Wan Kenobi is in this.





*¹ It's not, of course. Birds Of Prey is written by Christina Hodson, who penned the hugely enjoyable Bumblebee. Then again, she also wrote 2017's Unforgettable; a movie which I only remember seeing by virtue of having written a review of it afterward... ^{[ 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.

Review: Bombshell

Bombshell
Cert: 15 / 109 mins / Dir. Jay Roach / Trailer

Oh, is it awards-season already? No sooner have the Golden Globes taken over Twitter discourse*¹ than we begin with the raft of Worthy™ films, released in January because voting committees have notoriously short memories when it comes to listing the favourite things they've watched.

And opening this year's lectures is Jay Roach with Bombshell, the Charles Randolph-penned screen rendering of 2016's media-scandal where everybody suddenly realised that Fox News was being run by some right old wrong'uns. Charlize Theron leads as presenter Megyn Kelly, with Nicole Kidman as outgoing host Gretchen Carlson and Margot Robbie as incoming harassment-target Kayla Pospisil. John Lithgow stars Roger Ailes, the touchy-feely Darth Vader to Malcolm McDowell's Emperor Rupert Murdoch.

CAST

And it's good in a sort of solidly linear fashion. The story is compelling (although this has more to do with the real-life actual events) and the cast are fantastic (although it's a fantastic cast, so we'd expect nothing less). Roach brings the social urgency of The Post and the wry outlook of The Big Short, always taking the subject seriously but with some of its aspects requiring a full fourth-wall-break to convey the required incredulity*².

But the film spends quite a lot of its runtime winking at the audience (whether that's the glaring "STAY IN LANE" road signs during Kelly's deliberations over how to react to the developing situation, or Ailes' withering line of "me too..." during his firing, followed by five seconds of pointed silence in the room). Bombshell often feels like the dramatised-reconstruction sequences of a documentary without the documentary and made for an audience who already know the story.

THE LA'S

Which brings us to Bombshell's biggest problem, a searing dose of Daniel Blake Syndrome. It's never entirely clear what point the film is trying to make which wasn't made by the 2016 news reports or the subsequent flow of reactions and think-pieces. And it's even less certain whose mind film is going to change.

There'll be no sexists watching this thinking "Hey, I've asked attractive young women to undress (and more) in my office before, but y'know that seems more than a bit creepy now I've watched Big Roger doing it!". Similarly, the liberal (and let's be fair, 'target') audience are already sympathetic to the cause. While there's plenty of justifiable outrage, there are few revelations here. With the very best will in the world, Bombshell is two hours of confirmation-bias*³.

Yet at the same time the central message of the movie is still very much relevant. The issues the movie addresses are still ongoing and show no real sign of being resolved*⁴. Bombshell exists in 2020 because it needs to exist.

Here endeth the lesson.

On the shelf with Vice, Spotlight and The Big Short.



Cinema's not quite its natural home, no.



Stream it. There's not really a lot of re-watch value here.



Not with a cast as solid as this one.



That's likely.



There isn't.



Level 1: NPR Radio Drama Yoda is in this. And he makes a Jabba The Hutt reference.





*¹ Okay, that's probably more the thrust of my social media feeds than your own. Yours probably have far more serious (ie depressing) subject matter to infuriate your lunch hour, but there's only one of us who can change that... ^{[ BACK ]}

*² I must admit that during Theron's opening whistle-stop 'to-audience' introduction of the Fox News building, the style and pacing had me believing we'd cut to a shot of Ron Burgundy any moment and it wouldn't be played for laughs. ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ Although to be fair, Bombshell does at least challenge the cosseted liberal audience in one regard, with its idea that Fox News apparently employs people who a) aren't absolute arseholes to begin with, b) somehow aren't aware of the absolute arsehole problem at Fox News, and c) are fine with putting a roof over their heads by actively contributing to the continued success of some absolute arseholes. Of course I know it's not that simple. But of course I'd still walk away from someone in a pub if they told me they worked for one of "those" outlets. In a movie about every single voice having an essential and cumulative effect, it seems odd to be forgiving people who go with the fetid flow for an easy life. Even the guy just mopping up the blood is still keeping the abattoir in business.

Although bear in mind that next week I'll be watching the new socio-political drama from Mr Clint Eastwood, so my leftie-righteousness will be stretched the other way as I'll doubtlessly sit going 'DO YOU THINK THIS POMPOUS CONSERVATIVE HOGWASH IS GOING TO CHANGE MY MIND?' for two hours. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ Because even in 2020 people are still awful, in case you hadn't noticed. ^{[ 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.

Review: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (second-pass)

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (second-pass / SPOILERS)
Cert: 18 / 161 mins / Dir. Quentin Tarantino / Trailer


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.



There is.



Level 1: The voice of Cad Bane is in this.



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.

Review: Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
Cert: 18 / 161 mins / Dir. Quentin Tarantino / Trailer


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.

All I'm saying is that it's coming to something when Drew Goddard is making better Quentin Tarantino films than Quentin Tarantino…

Honestly? I have no idea.



Probably, yes.

Although I could feel the casual-audience around me growing increasingly restless and fidgety throughout.



I know I'll be adding this to The Collection either way, although I may well wait until the price has dropped to something more reasonable.



At this point, I genuinely don't believe it is.



Oh yes.



There is, it's in the first scene and it's absolutely textbook.



Level 1: The voice of Clone Wars Count Dooku is in this.



^^ 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.