The reel
by meg weichman
ONCE UPON A TIME IN … HOLLYWOOD the lion king
I
This might be the movie where I finally breakup with Quentin Tarantino. Like so many a film student, I fell for the game-changing virtuosity of Pulp Fiction and followed him from there. And sure, there have always been things that bothered me about his subsequent films, from the use of the N-word and dehumanization of women to the glorification of violence (you can say it’s satirical all you want ... ), but the films were always somehow more than the sum of their parts. It is with his latest and most personal film, Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood, that I feel things finally don’t add up. Which is surprising, considering this “love letter” to Tinseltown dwells on many things many of us share a personal affinity for: nostalgia for a Golden Age of Hollywood that never really was, mid-century Los Angeles, Sharon Tate’s murder, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, and so on. But it is maybe my interest in all these things that gave me the perspective to see how indulgent, how festish-istic this film about the film industry — from a man who built his career off of film references — actually is. So while it might have undeniable creative verve, eye-candy design and cinematography, a perfect bop of a soundtrack, an intoxicating mood, and a stellar only-Quentin-can-get-out-of-an-actor performances, when combined with meandering plot, empty characterizations, and the abhorrent depictions of women and people of color, well, you’ve lost me. Set in 1969, a time when movies were still pictures, and the studios were in free fall as they tried to keep apace with the changing times, the film is a pseudo buddy comedy of sorts, focused on down-sliding actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double/driver/all-around guy Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). Dalton was once the star of a Gunsmoke-style success of a TV series called Bounty Law, and after trying his hand at a movie career, he’s been reduced to taking TV guest spots. Meanwhile Cliff isn’t wanted on the set (he supposedly killed his wife and got away with it), lives in a sad trailer behind a drive-in movie theater, and other than Rick, his only other friend is his loyal Rottweiler. DiCaprio and Pitt are maybe the last two true Hollywood stars, fading remnants of a lost era of filmdom that this film so exalts, which, as much as I may want to glamorize, I do also have to remember it was (and still pretty much is) an oppressive system of white male power.
n the circle of life, The Lion King has come back around to write Disney another king-sized check. This new “live-action” (I guess that’s what you call a bunch of CGI animals with creepily moving mouths and celebrity voices?) adaptation of the beloved film has already had the ninth-largest global debut of all time. Yet, while it is another undeniable financial success, of all the recent remakes of the Disney Renaissance films, this is the mostly likely to set Disney back. Directed by Jon Favreau (The Jungle Book, Elf), the film begins on a discouragingly low note. Though it seemed impossible to do, Favreau’s nearly shotfor-shot remake of the classic opening scene is emotionally lackluster; in the original film, it had been the most stirring part. While visually impressive, the hyper-realistic animation of the animals ultimately hurts this adaptation, stripping the film of the creativity and imagination that gave the original so much heart. Yet, if it was Favreau’s agenda to simply make a stunning moving portrait of animals, I’ll admit that The Lion King is pretty. But too much of the screen time is devoted to apathetic-looking but spirited-sounding animals, making it difficult to appreciate the visual beauty. And the hyper-realistic savannah is also drab and desolate, and it never seems to truly come alive. So if you really want to enjoy the majesty of the natural world, just skip this film and go watch the sunset at Bryant Park.
charm shines, and the whole thing kinda feels like cruising with the windows down and the music up. And if you’ve been wondering how the film is about the Manson murders, it really kind of isn’t. Or it really kind of is. Facts are that Rick lives on Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, which, as any true crime-loving person of any salt knows, is where Sharon Tate was murdered. So early on in the film we see Sharon and her husband, director Roman Polanski, move in next door. The film kind of follows Sharon, on the days of February 8 and 9, months away from the looming August fate. We see her attend a party at the Playboy Mansion and go watch herself play a klutz — in the real Tate film The Wrecking Crew — with an audience at a local theater (the Bruin, in Westwood). It’s an incredibly slight depiction. I would love to see Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate, but I don’t think she really got to do that here. She mostly just dances and listens to records in the same way Rick and Cliff just drive cars to music. But I do hand it to Tarantino, because it’s hard not fall under the spell of the exuberant way he matches image to music as he takes us on a vibrant and often beautiful pop-culture joyride. The stories, however, never really come together. And in addition to Tate’s less than fully formed human depiction, we get a scene that suggests Cliff might have killed his wife because she was a nag who deserved it. And when Cliff marries again, his Italian wife, Francesca, is presented as nothing more than a burden. Plus, there’s Tarantino’s well-documented predilection for women’s feet on full display, only adding to the troubling male gaze. Because the bulk of the film takes place on the aforementioned two days in February, we have to fast-forward six months to Aug. 8 and 9, and it all feels tacked on and rushed, leading us to a controversial ending that is both a twist and somehow not surprising in light of Tarantino’s penchant for historical revision. In the end, it seems the film is not about the Manson Family, or Sharon Tate, or even Dalton or Booth; it’s about Tarantino, and all the stuff he likes.
And there’s really not much more by the way of plot. The film meanders from one vignette to the next, encountering a couple of showstopping set pieces along the way (Rick on set with a child actor, a phenomenal Julia Butters; Cliff getting into a hilarious fight with Bruce Lee; and a shot of classic neon signs of L.A. coming to life that will knock your socks off).
Violence in a Tarantino film has never really bothered me before, but here it is used so sparingly, and largely at the very end, that it really leaves an impression — that impression being that the supremely giddy and horrifying violence against women (I get it, giddy violence is pretty much the Tarantino way) does not offer any promise of catharsis, but only seems glib. It capitalizes on a real tragedy to uphold the illusory and patriarchal power of Hollywood, leaving me feeling terribly empty and thinking this was certainly no fairy tale.
It’s a real hangout movie, of idiosyncratic character beats and chill vibes. Pitt’s laid-back
Meg Weichman is a perma-intern at the Traverse City Film Festival and a trained film archivist.
30 • august 19, 2019 • Northern Express Weekly
the art of self-defense
T
his wasn’t a film I enjoyed. I think it’s for a very particular type of person. And it’s perhaps not without merit but was definitely not for a wide audience. A dark satire — satire I say, because it is supposed to be funny — Jesse Eisenberg stars as Casey, a meek, mild-mannered milquetoast kind of guy who works as an accountant in a bland office and lives a lonely life in a drab apartment with his dachshund in Anywhere, USA. After being attacked by a roving gang of motorcyclists, fate takes him to a mini-mall dojo to be trained in the art of karate. There, he comes under the spell of the sensei, played by Alessandro Nivola, and the sensei’s hypermasculine pseudo spiritualism, as a new and disturbing “Fight Club”-esque world of testosterone displays opens up to him. From its stilted and awkward dialogue to its painfully deadpan approach, The Art of Self-Defense takes a humorous approach but is never really that funny. Attempting a fairly obvious critique of toxic masculinity, the film takes you on some very dark, twisted, and bizarre turns, but ultimately it doesn’t really go anywhere.
stuber
D
ark Phoenix (the latest and penultimate film in the 20th Century Fox X-Men saga) is a film that feels both rushed and sluggish. Advancing the overall arc (and setting up the final installment) is pretty much all this film accomplishes, which is disappointing considering all it has to work with. Set roughly 10 years after the events of the previous film in the series (2016’s X-Men: Apocolypse), Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy, bald telekinesis guy in wheelchair) has finally seen his life’s dream accomplished: a world of respect and tolerance of mutants. But then one of his do-gooders, Jean Grey (Game of Throne’s Sophie Turner, normal-looking telekinesis lady) absorbs a weird energy field on a mission in space that amplifies her powers to an uncontrollable degree. So what happens? Fightin’, of course, and lots of it. There are a few decent set pieces where everybody gets in their licks and we get to see the full suite of everyone’s powers and abilities. And for those few minutes of action, you sort of forget how boring the rest of the film has been. But just when you’re feeling warmed up, it all ends rather abruptly. I honestly can’t tell if that’s due to the story itself or that we’ve all been conditioned to expect superhero films to last upwards of three hours.