Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (spoilers!)

Lots has been said about Tarantino's newest film, and I don't pretend I have something entirely new to say about it. I enjoyed the film, but two weeks after seeing it I notice I don't really remember much about it. This is a totally different reaction from Reservoir Dogs (which, admittedly, I saw three times in a row) or Pulp Fiction or even Django, which I enjoyed a great deal, though I had given up on Tarantino after being bored watching Kill Bill (which I haven't rewatched).

But I keep thinking about the new film. There's something I can't quite put my finger on. The narrative is very loose, there really is no plot (I think this is something people who didn't like the film are complaining about) and there are scenes that don't usher the story on. The ending has also been criticized, a friend of mine said it was an adolescent fantasy. To me it was possibly the point of the whole film. As everyone probably knows already, the Sharon Tate murders don't take place in the world of Tarantino's film. This is because Brad Pitt kills Charles Manson's cronies in a frenzied battle after they've gone to a wrong house! Shortly before we've witnessed Sharon Tate watching her film (the Matt Helm vehicle The Wrecking Crew) in a state of happiness and joy. The magic of cinema is so strong that it can even give you the world where Sharon Tate was not killed! This is pure poetry to me, and a proof that Tarantino really loves cinema and is not simply a movie buff showing off.

Or then the ending scene could be fiction, imagination. Just before Manson's killers enter the house, Pitt drops some acid. I think it's entirely plausible to say that Pitt just imagined the whole thing. It might also explain the weird scene with Bruce Lee.

I was also thinking about the films that are being watched or are visible in other ways, i.e. as posters on the wall. Almost none of them seem to be very good  (for example, The Wrecking Crew), but it seems to me Tarantino has affinity towards all of them. See these links: Ten films you need to see to appreciate Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood and Tarantino's curated list of the films to go with OUATIH. This is a work of true love.

Inglourious Basterds

I was finally able to see Quentin Tarantino's war film Inglourious Basterds last night. I watched it from my small TV set, so it wasn't quite the experience it might've been. 

The film got some bad reviews here in Finland and I wasn't very eager to see it, since I'd hated Kill Bill 1 so much and was mildly bored with by Kill Bill 2 and Death Proof. But now that I liked Django Unchained a great deal, I thought I should see this. It's better than Kill Bill and Death Proof, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the Django film. I'm probably in minority here as far as Tarantino fans are concerned. 

Inglourious Basterds could've been ripped out of the headlines of vintage men's adventure mags: LUSTY FRAULEIN HELPED US DESTROY NAZI MOVIE THEATER! THEY ESCAPED THE NAZI DEATH CAMP WITH HUNDREDS OF KRAUT SCALPS! It's all done with great visual verve and great dialogue - Tarantino can really write a scene. They are sometimes a bit too long, but they are never boring. I should probably try to watch Kill Bill and Death Proof again... 

Tarantino's influences come from violent and even trashy European war movies and such. They are usually (or, shall we say, at times) incoherent and not very well made. Tarantino seems to maintain the incoherence, but makes everything else better than his predecessors. There's not much continuity or character development in Inglourious Basterds. There are only dozen to fifteen individual scenes in the whole film, into which mix Tarantino throws some comic-like flashbacks or ironic info dumps. The hell with continuity, says Tarantino. He goes for spectacle, not plot or story or any of that serious stuff. This is probably something some critics will never get and it will irritate them for years to come. 

And this is also the reason why I liked Django Unchained more than this: it's more a drama, more a story, it's no mere spectacle. But I did enjoy Inglourious Basterds in all its glorious silliness. 

Django Unchained and The Paperboy

Sorry, I've been quite busy lately trying to work out some new books. Here's a quick post of two films I saw recently and thought might be of interest to the readers of Pulpetti.

Django Unchained: the first Tarantino I really liked since Jackie Brown. I hated Kill Bill 1, liked the second part slightly better and was pretty bored with Death Proof. (I haven't seen Unglourious Basterds yet, but I'll try to watch it soon.) In Django Unchained Tarantino's grandeur that veers toward bad taste is in good balance with the drama and there are some very good moments throughout, not to mention some very good actors. I liked this a lot.

The Paperboy: gritty neo-noir film about some low-life trash and some idealistic newspapermen in the deep South in 1969, based on a novel by Pete Dexter. I liked this, too, but there seems to be something missing from the film and I can't quite put my finger on it. Nicole Kidman and John Cusack are brilliant in this, they walk on the edge of overacting all the time.