Friday, August 02, 2019

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

Three of us attended. And three of us thought it was a nearly complete waste of time.

A story-beat-free picture populated by dozens of mostly-pallid caricatures and one character.* I have coffee table books with more zip in 'em — and fewer feet.
"Dude, THIS is what the people are PAYING FOR!"
How three leaden hours of self-indulgent bloat could somehow manage to twitterpate so many critics-on-a-paycheque is beyond my ken. Maybe I am (could it be??) the one who's off-base?

*Leonardo DiCaprio applies an uncommon focus that, it must be said, salvages his role (if not the movie).

7 comments:

Joel Swagman said...

I haven't seen it yet. I probably will wait for it to come out on TV, but I imagine I'll be seeing it at some point. I mean, when everyone's talking this much about a movie, you feel like you have to see it eventually.

Whisky Prajer said...

My wife says I overstate the case -- she doesn't consider the movie a waste of time. Neither do I, tbh. I am gobsmacked, however, by how much lurv it's getting. It's not that good. I've still no clue how the first two-thirds of the movie inform or are somehow redeemed by the final act.

pdb said...

Didn’t have any idea what flick this post was referring to when I read it earlier this week. Only this morning did I put it together — caught a tweet (I’ll have to see if I can find it now) direct enough to get me to pause and reflect that I’ve seen Tarantino’s name more than once or twice, could be he’s got a new one out …

Whisky Prajer said...

You're in a good headspace, I'd say.

pdb said...

Alright, only took a second to find it. No idea how fairly he’s responding to the film here, but I ‘liked’ most of the thread even so — seemed a safe enough bet.

https://twitter.com/DavidOBowles/status/1159818170422702081

Whisky Prajer said...

Well ... Bowles isn't wrong, exactly. But I think I'll follow Ebert's golden mean through this particular labyrinth: "It isn't what the movie is about; it's how the movie goes about it." BTW Ebert lost the thread from time to time. See his review of Bronson's Death Wish for an example.

Whisky Prajer said...

But that does seem to be how people want to critique Tarantino. He's also been criticized/given credit for generating toxic wokeness.