Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (2019)

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Timothy Olyphant, Julia Butters, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, Luke Perry, and Al Pacino

Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Written by Quentin Tarantino

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Movie Review - The Hateful Eight

The Hateful Eight (2015)

Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern, and Channing Tatum

Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino movies piss me off...and I mean that in the nicest way possible.

As I sit and watch them (with the exception of Kill Bill which I admittedly haven't watched in a while), I often find myself cursing the writer-director for being so loquacious, adding scenes that seemingly do little to advance the plot except to showcase his (only sometimes) brilliant ear for dialog.  But by the time most of the conclusions to his films roll around, I end up giving him a pass on the preceding verboseness because he manages to tie things up on such a clever note.  Such is the case with The Hateful Eight - a nearly three-hour epic that features an awful lot of talking, very minimal sets, and a group of essentially eight actors who carry the film very adequately on their shoulders doing Tarantino's Western-Agatha Christie And Then There Were None mash-up justice.

In his eighth film as a director, The Hateful Eight unfolds across six chapters detailing how a group of people end up seeking refuge at Minnie's Haberdashery in Wyoming during a horrible blizzard in the time shortly after the Civil War concludes.  Arriving just before the snowstorm really hits is John Ruth (Kurt Russell), a bounty hunter, who has the elusive Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) in tow ready to reap his reward upon delivering her to the authorities in Red Rock.  Ruth arrives at Minnie's with Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) - a Union major in the Civil War - and Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins) - the newly appointed sheriff of Red Rock.  Pent up at Minnie's already are four men whom are immediately distrusted -- Bob (Demian Bichir), a Mexican who claims he's working for Minnie who has left to see her sister several miles away; Oswaldo Mobray (Tim Roth), an Englishman who is also a hangman; Joe Gage (Michael Madsen), a cowboy just passing through; and Sanford Smithers (Bruce Dern), a Confederate general.  With a large bounty on the head of Daisy, John Ruth questions his safety and perhaps he is justified.  As the night unfurls, secrets and motivations are revealed as one by one people begin to bite the dust.

There's no doubting that The Hateful Eight moves at a slow pace -- many of the reviews and personal comments I heard from people stated that "nothing happens" until the last hour.  While it's certainly true in that there's not much plot per se in the film's first half, there is a sense of character building that I must admit is Tarantino's forte.  We get a real sense of who these characters are by the dialog they speak and their interactions with others.  Yes, it's true that the characters present are racist misogynists (of which there was much hoopla upon the film's release), but that's Tarantino's modus operandi across his last three films (for better or worse).  And, admittedly, that's part of the reason for my first sentence of this review in that I can't help but think that Tarantino sticks too closely to what has worked for him in the past -- films broken up into chapters; films told out of order or with massive flashbacks; brash language; insanely rough violence; characters all cut from the same cloth in terms of personality -- rather than branching off in unexpected directions.  Kudos to him for finding a niche that works and sticking to it, but I do long for something new and fresh from the guy.  However, The Hateful Eight works so maybe I should just let him do what he does.

As far as the small cast, most successful at settling into their characters are Jennifer Jason Leigh (Oscar-nominated for her role) and Kurt Russell taking center stage in a film for the first time in a long time which this reviewer found to be a bit of a pleasure.  Leigh and Russell have a lot of interactions with one another and right off the bat the two click with Leigh portraying the tough as nails criminal and Russell playing the tough as nails bounty hunter, neither liking each other, but quite literally linked together by chains.  Samuel L. Jackson is certainly entertaining and a captivating entity, but he's the only one of the group that feels as if he was transplanted from a more modern time into the past.  He doesn't necessarily take us out of the era, but his character never quite clicks realistically.

The Hateful Eight will never be a film for everyone -- it's undoubtedly a Tarantino film and if they're not your cup of tea, this will not be for you either.  Yes, it's too long and that harms it, but it's definitely on par with the director's efforts as of late which have all been quality flicks that would all fare a little better if an editor tried to trim things a little more.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Django Unchained

Django Unchained (2012)

Starring Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, and Samuel L. Jackson

Directed by Quentin Tarantino

There aren't any surprises in Django Unchained.  This is just like every other Quentin Tarantino movie you've seen.  The dialog is clever.  The acting is all above average.  The violence is outrageously over-the-top.  The direction is off-the-wall at times, but totally enjoyable.  In other words, Tarantino doesn't really bring anything new to the table here, but what he does provide is a flick that you know is inherently his own.  I will admit that I have to be in the mood to watch one of this auteur's films simply because they walk the fine line between serious film and B-movie exploitation, but admittedly that tricky balance is what makes Tarantino the filmmaker he is.  While Django Unchained is much too long for what is an incredibly simplistic story (perhaps his most basic to date), the thing still works...as long as Tarantino is your cup of tea.

Despite stretching to nearly three hours, the story of Django Unchained is relatively simple and lacks the epic scope of most movies this length.  German bounty hunter King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) has come to mid-1800s America for the prospect of making some easy money capturing bad guys and the biggest baddest guys of them all are the trio of the Brittle brothers.  The only problem is that King doesn't know what the Brittle brothers look like.  However, he soon discovers that the brothers recently sold away a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) and King decides to set out to find him in order to have Django assist in capturing his former captors.  [It should be noted that all that story above occurs before the movie and is simply implied.  I only include it to show you how measly the rest of the story really is.]  King meets up with and frees Django, discovering that the former slave has a flair for shooting guns and utilizes him to assist him in making a boatload of money.  In an effort to show his appreciation, King agrees to help Django track down and attempt to free his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) from the clutches of plantation owner Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).

And that's it in a nutshell.  Two sentences stretched out over three hours pretty much sum up what we see onscreen.  Somehow, though, Django Unchained works because of clever sequences filled with witty repartee and wordplay.  Still, it's quite obvious that the film didn't need three hours as there were certain scenes that, while enjoyabe, could have just been completely snipped out without any damage to the overall product.  At the heart of the story is Django's desire to be with Broomhilda, but we never even make it to the Candie Land plantation until over halfway through the film.  With the emotional crux of the film riding on Django's reunion with his wife, it's just too long of a tease to get to that point.

While the film is called Django Unchained and I will admit that this is one of the few roles in which I could actually stand Jamie Foxx as a performer, the film belongs to Christoph Waltz who once again makes the most out of a nice role written for him by Quentin Tarantino (Waltz placed second on my 2009 Best Actor List for his Oscar-winning work in Inglourious Basterds).  Whereas Waltz's Hans Landa had meatier villainous tendencies behind him, his King Schultz is conceived a bit one-note, but Waltz makes the absolute most out of what he is given, hitting just the right amount of humor and a surprising amount of heart.

Mr. Dicaprio takes on a different role than we're used to seeing from him as the rather disgusting Calvin Candie who has a penchant for watching his slaves fight to the death in brutal one-on-one boxing matches.  Considering this is the first image we see of Calvin, his deviant nature is apparent right from the beginning.  DiCaprio, however, imbues Calvin with an odious Southern charm -- his sly smiles attempt to hide his repugnant nature.  It's a nice change of pace for the actor.  The film also contains some nice work from Kerry Washington and a surprisingly strong turn from Samuel L. Jackson whose role is actually surprisingly deep.  As Mr. Candie's head house slave Stephen, Jackson takes on a complicated character who proves to be just as damaging to his fellow African Americans as their Caucasian owner.

Ultimately, I respect Quentin Tarantino for who he is as a director and writer.  However, with the exception of Kill Bill (which I'm due to rewatch to determine whether it's as good as I hope I remember it being), I'm not sure Tarantino has it in him to create anything more than fun romps.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with a cinematic jaunt, but a "jaunt" implies something fleeting and Tarantino does need to learn how to trim his ideas into something a bit more cohesive.  Still, Django Unchained is a good film filled with everything Tarantino does best...though it may certainly not appeal to all.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Starring Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, and Quentin Tarantino

Directed by Quentin Tarantino

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

I came to the party late on Reservoir Dogs which probably caused the flick a little bit of harm in the grand scheme of things.  I'd heard that it was this fantastic piece of work filled with clever dialog and great performances.  While I'd agree with that to a certain extent, I have to be in the mood for Quentin Tarantino's writing sometimes and at the start of this heist-gone-bad film, I just didn't dig what I was hearing at all.

However, by the time the halfway point rolled around and "Quentin Tarantino, The Actor" took a backseat to folks who can actually act, I began to see what all the fuss was about.  Granted, I'm still not quite sure why it's revered as much as it is because to me now it seems just like every other Quentin Tarantino flick with its pop culture dialog, hip oldies soundtrack, and time jumping editing.  But, perhaps in 1992 this was new to the scene.  [Although now it really shows me that Tarantino is kind of a one-trick pony and while I may like his tricks, he really doesn't bring a whole lot new to the table in terms of technique in his films.]

The tale of a failed jewelry store robbery is filled with some solid performances from Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, and Michael Madsen as part of the group of men tasked to steal a load of diamonds and it's these performances that really make the movie work.  Sure, they've got a nice script from Tarantino that had a mild twist or two for the actors to sink their teeth into, but this is really a low budget actors' showcase.

In the end, I enjoyed Reservoir Dogs, but I probably would have enjoyed it more had I seen it fifteen years ago before every college student raved on and on about it thereby increasing expectations exponentially.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Time to admit I was wrong. Just checked out this flick again on dvd and Tarantino has crafted a witty and thoroughly entertaining film. Scenes that I thought were much too long seemed to flow much better upon a second viewing. Pitt, Waltz, and Laurent were great. Yes, it's gimmicky at times and yes Tarantino goes over the top too often (that "music video" scene introducing the last chapter is ridiculously silly), but (in the complete opposite fashion of the last time I viewed this) the 150 minutes flew by.

So, I grossly misjudged this flick back in August '09. Take a look at my old review and the new rating below.

Original Post: 8/24/90

Starring Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, and Mélanie Laurent
Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Admittedly, I'm not a Tarantino savant. I've only seen Pulp Fiction (which I think is good), Kill Bill Vol 1 (which I think is amazing and near perfect), and Kill Bill Vol 2 (which I think is a pretentious pile of you-know-what). The problem with Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds is that I feel like he's only copying himself. Nothing about this new flick feels original. You want long scenes of dialogue that are essentially about nothing? They're here. You want violent deaths? He's got you covered. You want moderately cool camera shots and odd musical accompaniment? He doesn't let you down in that regard (even though he's copying these camera shots and reusing some music he's used in his other flicks). The thing is that even though I've only seen three other Tarantino movies, I've seen all this stuff before...and it's getting old.

As my fellow movie-goer and I were discussing after the flick last night, the movie wants you to think that this movie is about this group of Jewish-American soldiers headed by Brad Pitt's Aldo Raine known as the Basterds who trek across Europe killing and scalping Nazis. However, the flick really focuses on Christoph Waltz's Nazi "detective" Hans Landa. At the start, Landa is seeking out Jewish refugees, but as the flick continues, Landa starts to track down the Basterds.

Although that's a short summary for a movie that's over two-and-a-half hours long, that's really all you need to know. Tarantino peppers his movie with incredibly long scenes of loquacious dialogue that, admittedly, end with something cool happening, but force the viewer to sit through interminable chitchat. There's probably 45 minutes of good (even great) stuff in this flick, but it's nestled amongst 110 minutes of pretentiousness.

And that's the thing -- there is some really super stuff here. The last reel of the film is amazing. Nonstop entertainment and a fitting end to the flick. Additionally, all the acting is pretty top-notch. I was dreading director Eli Roth as a Basterd (because if Tarantino's acting in Pulp Fiction is any indication of directorial acting chops, Roth was in trouble), but he was oddly funny. Christoph Waltz is also quite good in what I'd consider the lead role of the film. Unfortunately, it's during his scenes where the dialogue never seems to end. The two ladies of the flick -- Diane Kruger's German movie star working undercover for the Allies and Mélanie Laurent's Jewish movie theater owner with a stunning revenge plan against the Nazis -- were also enjoyable to watch.

The film, however, belongs to Brad Pitt. After watching the previews, I was not looking forward to Pitt's performance at all, but Pitt seems to realize that there's no point in taking himself seriously here. He's over-the-top, but not so much so as to remove the viewer from the "realism" of the flick. With the recent Burn After Reading and to a lesser extent Mr. and Mrs. Smith and the Oceans flicks, Pitt definitely has a knack for comedy and he needs to pursue humor much more than the emotional melodrama of Benjamin Button.

As I'm watching the film, Tarantino just begs you to ask the question, is he a good director because he mimics other filmmakers/techniques/ideas and mashes them together into one movie? Or is he simply a copycat (even of himself, at times) who is adept at fooling people into thinking they're watching something original? Maybe that's a little harsh, and, if I'm being honest, I don't really ever want to see a "normal" straightforward Tarantino film. Despite the fact that I may not be effusively praising this flick, I would still much rather watch Tarantino at least do what he does than watch nearly any other action flick that came out this summer. But he's really kind of a joke to me now...he needs to expand his horizons a bit. Lord knows it's not as if he's making a movie a year, so maybe he needs to take some time and try something a little different on his next venture.

So, Inglourious Basterds is a conundrum. There's some really good stuff here, but it's too few and far between. The rating below is not going to fall into the "recommendation" category, but I actually urge folks to go and see it simply because, if you're a movie fan, it's worth viewing simply to be able to have a discussion post-movie. This movie commanded the longest post-movie discussion between me and my pal since My Sister's Keeper (you may think that's a joke, but the post-screening talk on My Sister's Keeper went on for over an hour). And should you watch the flick, I ask you this question...what exactly is Tarantino saying about film in general? The movie is very focused on the notion of cinema and what it can do to/for the masses and I don't necessarily think he's saying something positive (I'm sure he thinks he's cool because he's ironic in that regard...).

The RyMickey Rating upon initial release: C
The NEW RyMickey Rating (as of 2010): B+

Movie Review - Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (2009)

Directed by Mark Hartley

As the poster to the right correctly states, if you wanna see boobs and pubes, this is the movie for you. The boob and pube ratio is, by far, the highest per minute of any film I've seen this year. That being said, this documentary detailing the first twenty years or so of Australian cinema was incredibly interesting and I certainly learned something about an aspect of film that I knew nothing about.

Apparently in the early 1960s, the Australian movie industry was nonexistent -- one of the few "modernized" countries that failed to embrace the art form. With the help of some tax breaks created by the government, some folks decided to take a stab at making movies and the results were sex romps, cheesy horror flicks, and biker gang films. While not a single movie presented in this documentary looked good, they all looked hilarious and I'm certainly tempted to rent a few.

Whether it be the sex pic where the lady is lying next to a five-foot purple penis, or the horror flick where a woman becomes a marsupial and a rat-like creature comes out of a pouch in her stomach, or the incredibly cool scene in a biker flick where a guy lights himself on fire and jumps off an eighty-foot cliff, all of these movies provided a pretty neat glimpse into this crazy Australian culture (however "true" it was to the "real" Australia) of the sixties and seventies.

The film moves along pretty darn quickly and the anecdotes told in first-hand accounts by the participants of the flicks were interesting. True, Quentin Tarantino makes an appearance (multiple times, actually) and openly admits to copying things for his movies, but, I even liked him in this. He's a film geek, and, to a certain extent (even though I wish he would be a little more independently-minded in his filmmaking process), I've got to respect that about him. He certainly knows about cheesy cinema and he openly loves it.

So, in the end, if you're looking for a fun documentary where you'll learn about the fact that they actually shot real bullets at actors while making these movies, or that Dennis Hopper was a complete drug-addled nut in the 70s (big surprise), or that when making fake vomit, you need to mix in lemonade for that extra added fizz, Not Quite Hollywood is for you.

I had a fun time and certainly recommend this if you're even the slightest bit interested in exploring a typically unexplored genre of film.

The RyMickey Rating: B+