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Once Upon a [Thread]... in Hollywood

GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM!ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
edited July 2019 in Social Entropy++
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood is Quentin Tarantino's tenth (ninth if you count Kill Bill's two volumes as one movie, which QT seems to so I dunno) feature film. It came out last week. It's also very good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELeMaP8EPAA
Quentin Tarantino’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD visits 1969 Los Angeles, where everything is changing, as TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) make their way around an industry they hardly recognize anymore. The ninth film from the writer-director features a large ensemble cast and multiple storylines in a tribute to the final moments of Hollywood’s golden age.

This thread is for discussing the film. Here's my thoughts after seeing it yesterday:
Caught Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood this afternoon. No spoilers, and while I do recognize the reasons why several people would take issue with it and choose not to see it themselves, and the discourse around it is sure to be exhausting... I think it's my film of the year so far. The thing so many people are saying about it being his most humane film rings true in a lot of aspects (but not all, which would require some discussion of the ending). I also just really enjoyed briefly experiencing this nostalgic vision of an era that Tarantino clearly haves a considerable love and respect for. It's a film that I'm going to happily sit with and digest for a while because I think there's a lot to digest. Easily one of his best.

The film is not without its issues, and I'm still going back and forth on how I feel about the ending, which the Hollywood Reporter published a good piece summarizing:


However, it's still getting plenty of strong buzz. I liked this very personal review by Walter Chaw, who also praised the film's portrayal of Bruce Lee:




So, what'd you think? Is Tarantino out of steam? Did this film reinvigorate your enthusiasm for his work like it did for me? Let's smoke an acid-soaked cigarette and talk about it!

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  • YaYaYaYa Decent. Registered User regular
    it may be because I live in LA and work in the industry and just had to do a lot of research on the Tate murders recently but I completely adored this movie, easily top three Tarantino for me

    there was the occasional squicky moment but honestly overall I think this movie has a tremendous heart and optimism, which was so refreshing after Hateful Eight's nihilistic slog

  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    I wish I still had a car because if I did I would be driving everywhere I could with the film's soundtrack on blast. It's so good.

  • pyromaniac221pyromaniac221 this just might be an interestin YTRegistered User regular
    Parts of this film just completely missed me since I was not alive in the 60s and am not really well-versed in film history or the Manson murders, but when it’s at its best (Leo on set, wrestling maniacally with his flagging career and shrinking window of relevance in the industry he’s given his life to, Robbie watching her own movie and delighting in the crowd’s enjoyment, the camera sweeping down the boulevard at dusk as all the theaters light the marquees), it made me feel both excited and wistful for something unfamiliar, which isn’t something I’m used to from Tarantino and so a win in itself.

    The plot meandered for a while but I didn’t really mind since I tend not to demand that every movie be a precisely machined narrative delivery device. The ending threw me both for the violence and the ahistoricism, which I felt made more immediate sense in Basterds and seems here to be something he’s doing just because he can.

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  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    Ethan Warren at Bright Wall/Dark Room had a thread about the ending after catching it a second time. I'll post the first and spoil the relevant one but it's worth a read in its entirety.

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  • wanderingwandering Russia state-affiliated media Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    I will make like Tarantino and copypaste some dialogue from another film (thread)
    wandering wrote:
    Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood: hmm. yeah. OK.

    I've wondered what a Tarantino movie without violence might be like, and this is probably the closest we'll get. Of course, the Sharon Tate murders loom over the proceedings, but for most of the movie the upcoming violence feels remote. As the movie slowly, slowly unfolds, and we watch Leo shooting a TV pilot and Sharon Tate going book shopping and whatnot, there does not feel like much risk that Charles Manson's knife-wielding hippies will pop out and start murdering people anytime soon. During the opening scenes I felt like I was reading a Stefan Zweig novel or something: Leo's and Al Pacino's characters meet for drinks, and languidly discuss Leo's character's career, and there's no real tension or suspense or violence (unless you count the flashbacks to movie-within-a-movie violence). This movie is to the intensely suspenseful Inglorious Basterds what a lazy river ride is to white water rafting.

    Anyway as a slice-of-life movie I thought it was pretty good. It does a nice job of evoking a sense of place. And the scenes with the precocious child actor are great.

    I am...less enthused about the ending.
    What I normally like about Tarantino's violence is how he'll pull you in two directions at once. When the Bride fights Vernita Green you are, on the one hand, rooting for the Bride to win, but on the other hand, horrified when she kills Green in front of her young daughter. With this movie, tho, it just feels like you're meant to root for some brutal violence, full stop, no ambiguity. Just 'woo fuck yeah let's watch some assholes get fucked up'. Not really my thing. And also the violence at the end kind of feels..tacked on? Like the Manson killers aren't really connected to the main characters in any meaningful way. And thematically I don't see how the killers are tied to the movie's overall theme of midlife crisis, feeling washed up, etc.?

    But hey, at least the toddler who was sitting beside me seemed to like the ending. As the main characters brutalized the group of (mostly female) home invaders, he was laughing right along with the rest of the audience

    Edit: also: list of the 56 theatres in the US showing the movie on 35mm film (and, in a few cases, on 70mm, although I'm pretty sure it wasn't shot on 70mm? so I'm not sure what the point of that is): https://www.indiewire.com/2019/07/once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-35-mm-70-mm-movie-theater-locations-quentin-tarantino-1202160721/

    wandering on
  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    Regarding your thoughts on the ending...
    the Manson family murder plotline is supposed to act as this looming spectre over the events of the film, as the Tate murders are seen as marking this sort of loss of innocence for America at large but also Hollywood in particular (I'm just rambling based on stuff I've read, this is all fairly new to me). It has more to do with the film's themes than you think. It's less that they tie into feeling washed up, midlife crisis, etc, but they do tie into the film's other theme of time passing by, history leaving certain people behind (like Rick), and inevitable change. The entire time you're watching the film, you know how it's supposed to end if you know your Hollywood history. It seems like a foregone conclusion that this melancholy hangout sesh we've been enjoying is going to come to a screeching, violent halt. But then Tarantino switches things up on us and offers a revisionist history not unlike Inglorious Basterds.
    Sorry of this doesn't make sense! I'm still working through it myself.

    I came here to post about Shannon Lee's comments about the film's portrayal of Bruce Lee, actually. In short, she wasn't thrilled even though she acknowledged the performance itself is very true to the real man:

    I don't think Lee's response is unfair or invalid (she's his daughter for crying out loud), but I also don't want to say that she has the last word on Lee's role in the film. More in spoilers.
    Like I said in the movie thread, Lee's fight with Cliff ends in a draw, with both men winning a round in a best of 3 fight. They're interrupted before they can have a third. That feels intentional on Tarantino's part to me. It feels like he's inviting the audience to question the myth of Bruce Lee, and ask if he really was the superhuman martial artist that pop culture has crafted him to be since he died. It feels very true to the spirit of the film as a whole, and how it plays with historical fact and popular culture and mythology and how they influence each other.

    And also, it's a flashback from Cliff's perspective. So we're already looking at an unreliable narrator.

  • Mr. GMr. G Registered User regular
    I was teetering for the whole but the end pushed me over into full on “fuck this”

    It’s so ridiculously overlong, stylistically inconsistent, self-indulgent, and incoherent

    Cut it down to an hour 45 and maybe it’s something

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  • BlankZoeBlankZoe Registered User regular
    Regarding your thoughts on the ending...
    the Manson family murder plotline is supposed to act as this looming spectre over the events of the film, as the Tate murders are seen as marking this sort of loss of innocence for America at large but also Hollywood in particular (I'm just rambling based on stuff I've read, this is all fairly new to me). It has more to do with the film's themes than you think. It's less that they tie into feeling washed up, midlife crisis, etc, but they do tie into the film's other theme of time passing by, history leaving certain people behind (like Rick), and inevitable change. The entire time you're watching the film, you know how it's supposed to end if you know your Hollywood history. It seems like a foregone conclusion that this melancholy hangout sesh we've been enjoying is going to come to a screeching, violent halt. But then Tarantino switches things up on us and offers a revisionist history not unlike Inglorious Basterds.
    Sorry of this doesn't make sense! I'm still working through it myself.

    I came here to post about Shannon Lee's comments about the film's portrayal of Bruce Lee, actually. In short, she wasn't thrilled even though she acknowledged the performance itself is very true to the real man:

    I don't think Lee's response is unfair or invalid (she's his daughter for crying out loud), but I also don't want to say that she has the last word on Lee's role in the film. More in spoilers.
    Like I said in the movie thread, Lee's fight with Cliff ends in a draw, with both men winning a round in a best of 3 fight. They're interrupted before they can have a third. That feels intentional on Tarantino's part to me. It feels like he's inviting the audience to question the myth of Bruce Lee, and ask if he really was the superhuman martial artist that pop culture has crafted him to be since he died. It feels very true to the spirit of the film as a whole, and how it plays with historical fact and popular culture and mythology and how they influence each other.

    And also, it's a flashback from Cliff's perspective. So we're already looking at an unreliable narrator.
    I am aware that you enjoy the movie and I am not trying to, like, just shit in your thread but the idea of not letting the man's daughter have the "last say" over his portrayal versus Tarantino is not something I get at all

    Whatever message Tarantino may have been trying to relay doesn't really matter much when his daughter said "hey this portrayal of my dad was well performed but his role in the movie and how he was written made me super uncomfortable and were not accurate at all"

    Bruce Lee wasn't a fictional character, he was a real person and Tarantino trying to trade in some sort of American Mythology shit doesnt mean he gets a pass for an extremely short sighted and offensive portrayal of the man

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  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    Okay, and that’s a fair stance to take. I won’t fault anyone for it. I just think it goes deeper than that, for the reasons I outlined. The question is far more complicated than “is it racist / not racist.” That’s all I’m getting at.

    Here’s some assorted thoughts I’ve read that show the complexity of it:





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  • BlankZoeBlankZoe Registered User regular
    I mean

    Those random Twitter folks may hold those views but I lend way more weight to Bruce Lee's own daughter, and now wife who has joined in with her own displeasure over the film, than MovieTwitter folks

    At some point the fact that his literal relatives are going "no this is very offensive and wrong" has to matter more than random folks or critics because he was a real person they knew better than anyone and that supercedes whatever Tarantino may have been trying to say with Lee's mythology or how the American public views him because he is an old white man who only knows Lee from his movies and maybe, like, interviews?

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  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    What do you want me to say, Blank? I don’t think the discussion starts and stops at what his family members think about it. I acknowledge they have issues with the representation. I’m sure seeing their father/husband on screen is a strange experience, especially when it doesn’t line up with how they knew him. But I also don’t think there’s any way that the character could’ve been done that wouldn’t generate backlash one way or the other. EDIT: And there’s thousands of other people seeing the film in the meantime who are each having their own response to the character, some who definitely think it’s racist, and some like Chaw (who is not a rando but in fact a pretty well regarded film critic) who thought the portrayal was honest and powerful.

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  • EtchwartsEtchwarts Eyes Up Registered User regular
    What do you want me to say, Blank? I don’t think the discussion starts and stops at what his family members think about it. I acknowledge they have issues with the representation. I’m sure seeing their father/husband on screen is a strange experience, especially when it doesn’t line up with how they knew him. But I also don’t think there’s any way that the character could’ve been done that wouldn’t generate backlash one way or the other.

    Why not

  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    What do you want me to say, Blank? I don’t think the discussion starts and stops at what his family members think about it. I acknowledge they have issues with the representation. I’m sure seeing their father/husband on screen is a strange experience, especially when it doesn’t line up with how they knew him. But I also don’t think there’s any way that the character could’ve been done that wouldn’t generate backlash one way or the other.

    Why not

    Because that’s not how viewing, discussing, and interpreting film works

  • EtchwartsEtchwarts Eyes Up Registered User regular
    I think it is how portraying a real life person works, though

  • milskimilski Poyo! Registered User regular
    What do you want me to say, Blank? I don’t think the discussion starts and stops at what his family members think about it. I acknowledge they have issues with the representation. I’m sure seeing their father/husband on screen is a strange experience, especially when it doesn’t line up with how they knew him. But I also don’t think there’s any way that the character could’ve been done that wouldn’t generate backlash one way or the other.

    Why not

    Because that’s not how viewing, discussing, and interpreting film works

    When it's "is this portrayal fair and honest to a real person" it's pretty close, though. Whether Lee is thematically appropriate or whether his use in the film works with its overall look at the mythology of golden age Hollywood can't be decided by his family, but that's a different question that can't paper over the honesty or lack of honesty of the portrayal.

    I ate an engineer
  • BlankZoeBlankZoe Registered User regular
    I don't want you to say anything I am just saying that I think countering Lee's family's public displeasure over the depiction with folks on Twitter talking about the fine details of his role in the story is missing the point

    The idea that there was no way to handle it that wouldn't have had some backlash isn't something I necessarily agree with, but there bare minimum that should have been achieved is the depiction of Bruce Lee not actively disgusting and upsetting his surviving family members. Its basically the worst possible reaction and when people close to the real man are outraged by it that is more important than it playing an interesting role in the film or not being quite as bad as some people are describing it.

    It is comparable to saying Green Book's depiction of Don Shirley is good because Ali does a good performance and it won Best Picture even though Don Shirley's family actively fought against the film being made and have publicly declared their disgust with the movie and how it misrepresents his legacy.

    If you think that Bruce Lee in the movie is interesting enough to outweigh his family's complaints then more power to you but that is not something I can agree with at all.

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  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    I think it is how portraying a real life person works, though

    It’s not a biopic

  • BlankZoeBlankZoe Registered User regular
    I think it is how portraying a real life person works, though

    It’s not a biopic
    That is irrelevant

    Just because a film does not set out to be a precise account of a real person's life does not make it immune from criticism for inaccuracy

    If Tarantino wanted to tell this story he could have easily made a Bruce Lee analogue, not a stretch given the two leads are fictional characters, and while it still would have been problematic it wouldn't have brought in the baggage and expectations that come with using the real man.

    If a filmmaker decides to put a real person in a movie, then they are taking responsibility for depicting that person how they choose. In some cases making a wildly inaccurate version is very effective, like satirizing a horrible person of power, but if what the filmmaker is trying to say with their depiction A) doesn't come across clearly and B) actively offends the real person's friends and family and that was not their intention then they have failed. Doubly so when the person is a minority icon like Bruce Lee and the filmmaker is a super white guy with an already problematic history.

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  • milskimilski Poyo! Registered User regular
    I think it is how portraying a real life person works, though

    It’s not a biopic

    That doesn't matter.

    I ate an engineer
  • ChincymcchillaChincymcchilla Registered User regular
    You don't get to make a film that portrays a real person and do it however you want because you're not claiming authenticity

    If the portrayal is offensive to those close to that person you don't get to just say "well yes but see I'm using that person as a metaphor to say x", you still made an offensive portrayal of a real person to the people who knew him

    The "point" doesn't matter

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  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    Blankzilla wrote: »
    I think it is how portraying a real life person works, though

    It’s not a biopic
    That is irrelevant

    Just because a film does not set out to be a precise account of a real person's life does not make it immune from criticism for inaccuracy

    If Tarantino wanted to tell this story he could have easily made a Bruce Lee analogue, not a stretch given the two leads are fictional characters, and while it still would have been problematic it wouldn't have brought in the baggage and expectations that come with using the real man.

    If a filmmaker decides to put a real person in a movie, then they are taking responsibility for depicting that person how they choose. In some cases making a wildly inaccurate version is very effective, like satirizing a horrible person of power, but if what the filmmaker is trying to say with their depiction A) doesn't come across clearly and B) actively offends the real person's friends and family and that was not their intention then they have failed. Doubly so when the person is a minority icon like Bruce Lee and the filmmaker is a super white guy with an already problematic history.

    We’re at an impasse then.

  • akajaybayakajaybay Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    My wife and I caught the movie last weekend. I mostly liked it, my wife really liked it.

    At the same time it deserves/earns the vast majority of it's criticism. It is indulgent film industry wank from someone who romanticizes it all in one of those, the good old days style approach. It's just really well made wank, and I can enjoy that.
    Movies using notable celebrities and pop culture figures for their own purposes accurate or not is pretty common place and people probably don't generally care as much what their families thought about it. A lot of movies could probably get away with an unflattering depiction of Bruce Lee. I think it's got a lot to do with who's making this, and where they're coming from that is going to put a lot more people on edge.

    My own issues with the movie comes from the, well misogynist material. Like I was gonna go with sexist but I think it's well past that. Women are either tempting sex traps, harping shrews, or iconic madonnas of innocence (Mothers in fact).
    And the more I think about it the worse it looks.
    The wife killing is played essentially for laughs and so is the repeated brutal violence of the last act. If these were isolated things maybe it'd be something I could get over. But all of it together combined with knowing stuff about Tarantino and past works, nope. That's what's gonna have me backing into the bushes slowly away from this movie and I'd not reccomend it to people without some huge caveats. There's stuff in there I enjoyed. I even like the revisionist twist of taking a movie that's all about building a fun times vibe marred by looming dread and knowing something terrible is gonna happen. But then it doesn't and it's a happy ending instead. It's a Hollywood ending. I get it. That's fun. But in execution, just shit man, that's too much for me.Tarantino's also got a casual racism to a lot of his films. Generally around the idea of, well these characters are racists, so they're going to say racist things, people do this all the time. But there's so much of it throughout his films, I get why people would sideeye Tarantino trying to depict any liked non-white real life figure. But I think part of his good old days view of old Hollywood also includes, remember how good it was when it was just us guys and we didn;t have to listen to all these women complain? And the final act happy ending is what if we just beat the shit out of and brutally murdered them instead. If only it was that easy, I guess it's only true in Hollywood.

    akajaybay on
  • A duck!A duck! Moderator, ClubPA Mod Emeritus
    I think it is how portraying a real life person works, though

    If Dick Cheney's kids weighed in on his various portrayals how much truck would you give them?

  • akajaybayakajaybay Registered User regular
    A bit more to vent.
    Bruce Lee is here to basically prop up Brad Pitt's character. He could even hold his own against Bruce Lee. He's a man's man. He's the hero of the film. He's got a cool tough dog. He's a bros best friend.
    And as the hero of the film, he killed the shrew and got away with it, he resisted the temptations of the harlot, and murdered the angry women who came to ruin this world.

  • EtchwartsEtchwarts Eyes Up Registered User regular
    A duck! wrote: »
    I think it is how portraying a real life person works, though

    If Dick Cheney's kids weighed in on his various portrayals how much truck would you give them?

    "My dad, the war criminal, is portrayed as a mean guy in this movie" isn't the same as "This portrayal of my father seems to exist for white people to laugh at and that sucks"

    I appreciate that you didn't go with the first draft where you typed "Hitler" instead of "Dick Cheny" though

  • A duck!A duck! Moderator, ClubPA Mod Emeritus
    A duck! wrote: »
    I think it is how portraying a real life person works, though

    If Dick Cheney's kids weighed in on his various portrayals how much truck would you give them?

    "My dad, the war criminal, is portrayed as a mean guy in this movie" isn't the same as "This portrayal of my father seems to exist for white people to laugh at and that sucks"

    I appreciate that you didn't go with the first draft where you typed "Hitler" instead of "Dick Cheny" though

    Thank you for recognizing my discretion.

  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    akajaybay wrote: »
    My wife and I caught the movie last weekend. I mostly liked it, my wife really liked it.

    At the same time it deserves/earns the vast majority of it's criticism. It is indulgent film industry wank from someone who romanticizes it all in one of those, the good old days style approach. It's just really well made wank, and I can enjoy that.
    Movies using notable celebrities and pop culture figures for their own purposes accurate or not is pretty common place and people probably don't generally care as much what their families thought about it. I think a lot of movies could probably get away with an unflattering depiction of Bruce Lee. But I think it's got a lot to do with who's making this and where they're coming from that is going to put a lot more people on edge.

    My own issues with the movie comes from the, well misogynist material. Like I was gonna go with sexist but I think it's well past that. Women are either tempting sex traps, harping shrews, or iconic madonnas of innocence.
    And the more I think about it the worse it looks.
    The wife killing is played essentially for laughs and so is the repeated brutal violence of the last act. If these were isolated things maybe it'd be something I could get over. But all of it together combined with knowing stuff about Tarantino and past works, nope. That's what's gonna have me backing into the bushes slowly away from this movie and I'd not reccomend it to people without some huge caveats. There's stuff in there I enjoyed. I even like the revisionist twist of taking a movie that's all about building a fun times vibe marred by looming dread and knowing something terrible is gonna happen. But then it doesn't and it's a happy ending instead. It's a Hollywood ending. I get it. That's fun. But in execution, just shit man, that's too much for me.Tarantino's also got a casual racism to a lot of his films. Generally around the idea of, well these characters are racists, so they're going to say racist things, people do this all the time. But there's so much of it throughout his films, I get why people would sideeye Tarantino trying to depict any liked non-white real life figure. But I think part of his good old days view of old Hollywood also includes, remember how good it was when it was just us guys and we didn;t have to listen to all these women complain? And the final act happy ending is what if we just beat the shit out of and brutally murdered them instead. If only it was that easy, I guess it's only true in Hollywood.
    The issue of Cliff and the did he or didn't he re: killing his wife is definitely one of my quibbles with the film. You can handwave it and suggest that it's merely implied, for sure, and one of my friends argues that the film is trying to do something deeper with it, but... I don't think I can give Tarantino credit for that scene right now.

    Same with the ending. I think the violence is incredibly gratuitous and hard to watch at times, but it was simultaneously really funny at other times? Like, I lost it when Rick came out with the flamethrower. But again, that immediately turned into "holy fuck" when he torched the girl in the pool. It's a tricky one. I don't blame anyone for looking at it as a whole and saying 'fuck that'.

  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    I think there's definitely room in the world for more stark depictions of Bruce Lee than the hagiographies and legends that surround him. He was a complex man, almost universally agreed to have been arrogant and pretty shitty to his wife. Since he never fought publicly, there's not a lot of evidence either way as to whether he could fight in a practical sense. I think it's fair to say that a 100% accurate depiction of him according to the sources we have would also not thrill Linda Lee Potter, and I think that's honestly fine.

    I don't think that means we can't be critical of a movie where Bruce is the only non-white character and is used solely as a comedy moron who gets whooped by the lead. Like it or not, Bruce Lee is a symbol of Asian excellence (specifically physical excellence) and I don't think it's a reach at all to call this portrayal (from what I've read about it) pretty disrespectful and in bad taste.

  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    Tube wrote: »
    I think there's definitely room in the world for more stark depictions of Bruce Lee than the hagiographies and legends that surround him. He was a complex man, almost universally agreed to have been arrogant and pretty shitty to his wife. Since he never fought publicly, there's not a lot of evidence either way as to whether he could fight in a practical sense. I think it's fair to say that a 100% accurate depiction of him according to the sources we have would also not thrill Linda Lee Potter, and I think that's honestly fine.

    I don't think that means we can't be critical of a movie where Bruce is the only non-white character and is used solely as a comedy moron who gets whooped by the lead. Like it or not, Bruce Lee is a symbol of Asian excellence (specifically physical excellence) and I don't think it's a reach at all to call this portrayal (from what I've read about it) pretty disrespectful and in bad taste.

    I mean this with all due respect, but did you see the film? He does not "get whooped." He is goaded into an attack that Cliff takes advantage of to beat him once in a best of three (which, from what I understand, is fitting with Lee's arrogance which you point out he was guilty of). Cliff gets knocked on his ass in the first round. There is no third round.

    And if we accept, as others have pointed out, that the film's representation of Lee is accurate to his character and mannerisms, is it still the film's (or Tarantino's) fault that some audiences are laughing at him? Or is it something that, like Walter Chaw points out, is more representative of Western audiences' perception of Asian people?

  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    No, and I'm not going to see it. I don't think your correction materially changes my point, but that's for you to decide I suppose.

  • A Dabble Of TheloniusA Dabble Of Thelonius It has been a doozy of a dayRegistered User regular
    edited July 2019
    I've been typing this different ways to try to phrase it .

    It's weird to me that his daughter says it's an inaccurate portrayal and we're like ok yeah she was 4 and it was almost 30b years ago, she probably knows best.


    However! I think there's plenty of meat on the bones of the portrayal being iffy! Even if I disagree with the quick take of "white dude beats Bruce Lee". It still felt a bit squicky

    Edit - further -

    I think "nobody shall beat him in media ever" is dumb and bad. However, his use in this movie being the only Asian there and it being a scene that establishes Pitt, it feels off. Feels undeserved? I dunno. It's complicated and I'm bad at movies

    A Dabble Of Thelonius on
  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    It is complicated, and that's fine.

  • akajaybayakajaybay Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    I'm just kind of surprised that the problematic elements of the Bruce Lee scene are getting more play here than the fact it could have the top slot in a MRA Red Pill movie marathon.
    Like I wouldn't say the Lee stuff is nothing, but that its problematic elements seem a bit more incidental and thoughtless. It's like the exploitative through line of I guess much/most of his stuff. But now it's a real person instead of a film trope.

    akajaybay on
  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    How do you square that first point you made with how the film presents Sharon Tate, though? I think making a blanket statement about the film's treatment of women means you either minimize the negative aspects of how Cliff's wife and the Manson murderers are depicted, or minimize the affecting, almost tender way Tate is depicted.

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  • akajaybayakajaybay Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    I think she fits pretty well in the wheel of sexist archetypes. She's the perfect innocent one in the film, and a mother to be. She's youthful and vibrant, mostly silent. She's the idealized woman. She the one that stands above apart from the rest in the movie and one that's under threat from the new generation. Granted there's other women in the film: the driven young actor, Tate's friends, the theater ticket seller. It's not absolute, but those are mostly minor roles and the actor is a child. The creepy Manson family is mostly women in the notable roles. Tex doesn't factor into the ending material nearly as much as the women do.

    akajaybay on
  • ChincymcchillaChincymcchilla Registered User regular
    akajaybay wrote: »
    I'm just kind of surprised that the problematic elements of the Bruce Lee scene are getting more play here than the fact it could have the top slot in a MRA Red Pill movie marathon.
    Like I wouldn't say the Lee stuff is nothing, but that its problematic elements seem a bit more incidental and thoughtless. It's like the exploitative through line of I guess much/most of his stuff. But now it's a real person instead of a film trope.

    I think its just the current discussion

    There are a couple really good articles already going around about how gross the film and its creator is towards women

    https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/once-a-time-hollywood-quentin-tarantinos-violence-women-problem-1227406

    https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a28538449/quentin-tarantino-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-fails-sharon-tate-female-characters/

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  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    akajaybay wrote: »
    I think she fits pretty well in the wheel of sexist archetypes. She's the perfect innocent one in the film, and a mother to be. She's youthful and vibrant, mostly silent. She's the idealized woman. She the one that stands above apart from the rest in the movie and one that's under threat from the new generation. Granted there's other women in the film: the driven young actor, Tate's friends, the theater ticket seller. It's not absolute, but those are mostly minor roles and the actor is a child. The creepy Manson family is mostly women in the notable roles. Tex doesn't factor into the ending material nearly as much as the women do.

    fair enough.

  • HobnailHobnail Registered User regular
    A duck! wrote: »
    A duck! wrote: »
    I think it is how portraying a real life person works, though

    If Dick Cheney's kids weighed in on his various portrayals how much truck would you give them?

    "My dad, the war criminal, is portrayed as a mean guy in this movie" isn't the same as "This portrayal of my father seems to exist for white people to laugh at and that sucks"

    I appreciate that you didn't go with the first draft where you typed "Hitler" instead of "Dick Cheny" though

    Thank you for recognizing my discretion.

    It was a fairly heroic non-invocation of Hitler well done

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  • akajaybayakajaybay Registered User regular
    edited July 2019
    Stuff I did like:
    Great use of music. I was impressed by the integration of the music, the commentary on the radio, all the show references, the landscape and storefronts and scenery all making for a really great sense of time and place.
    Pitt and DiCaprio were really good. The entire sequence of Dalton on the Lancer set was great. It's funny, it's very funny. The sequence where Tate watches her movie and delights in the audience reactions was great.
    All the clips of Dalton in different TV shows and movies mimicing the exact feel of an old fifties or sixties production. Including the scene where they watch his FBI guest spot and commentate across it. The flame thrower is a good callback,
    Basically all the tv show and movie making stuff, and the general soaking in sixties Hollywood atmosphere.

    When the harpoon flashback scene happened and they started talking about Cliff's past I was thinking they were maybe going to take a dark turn with him later. It's a comical scene with a dark meaning. But to the movie it's just comical I guess. Like the more they showed of Cliff's life I thought it was gonna go somewhere very different with it. Most of my issues percolate up from the ending on. And the violent comedy is gross, but funny. But with everything else it stops being funny for me and ends up just gross. Then the more I think about it later on, the worse it gets.

    I still think the bit with Lee where he talks about how his hands are lethal weapons and if he gets in a fight and kills someone he'd go to jail and Cliff's retort is "Anyone who gets in a fight and kills someone goes to jail, its called manslaughter." is a good bit.
    There's a lot I liked. And I can often deal with entertainment that's problematic because there's stuff there that I like regardless. This one either just goes too far or I've just changed to a point where my thresholds are lower now. Probably a bit of both.

    akajaybay on
  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    I did see someone else point out that the reason Cliff rattles off the definition of manslaughter like that might be because, well, he probably used that defense when it came to his wife...

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