New Release: Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood (2019)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Tarantino's purest love letter to 1960s B-list action leading men and the stuntmen who helped make them, Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood is an expertly-crafted - if hardly urgent - piece of cinema.

Taking place over the course of several month during the first half of a semi-fictional 1969 Los Angeles. It follows fictional actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his closest friend and stuntman fill-in Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). Dalton is a former leading action star of B-level (or A-minus at best) movies, but his star has faded to the point that he is now playing lesser roles as arch villains in TV shows. Dalton's feelings of inadequacy are brought into even clearer focus when the house next to his is bought by arguably the hottest couple in Hollywood - the very real director Roman Polanski and his young, beautiful wife, actor Sharon Tate. While Dalton's personal story unfolds, a much more sinister situation - also based on real events - is brewing not far outside of L.A., where Charles Manson and his "family" of violent and devoted followers are hatching their plot to send a murderous message to the wealthy and glamorous of the nearby City of Angels.

It's been nearly a week since I watched Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood, and the more I dwell on it, the more I like it. Back when I saw Tarantino's The Hateful Eight, I wrote in my review about how I would love to see if Tarantino could tone himself down enough to do something a little more grounded, such as his underrated Jackie Brown back in 1997. Though this new movie certainly isn't as small-scale or grounded as that earlier picture, this one has far more authentic feeling and far fewer over-the-top, cartoonish elements to it than any movie he's done since then. Rather than the mythically simple and homicidal characters populating movies like The Hateful Eight or, to a lesser extent, Inglorious Basterds, this latest picture focuses on a character who evokes actual empathy and even sympathy, even if it is often done in humorous ways. Rick Dalton may not be the most admirable of people, but there is a genuine vulnerability to him which makes him different from nearly any Tarantino protagonist which I can think of.

The story itself is a rather fun "alternate history" re-imagining of the infamous Manson Family murders of Sharon Tate, her unborn child, and a family friend who happened to be staying at her and husband Roman Polanski's home while Polanski was away working. I also have to cite NPR film critic Justin Chang for articulating something which I only vaguely realized - that DiCarpio's Nick Dalton character can be seen as a version of Clint Eastwood, had Eastwood never really hit it big in Sergio Leone's "Man With No Name" spaghetti westerns of the mid-1960s. The result is a tale which, though obviously the stuff of pure fantasy in its liberties, is an extremely satisfying combination that probably only Quentin Tarantino could have even imagined combining in a movie.

Very much of the story is a buddy movie between Rick and Cliff,
and the chemistry between the two is endearing.

If you know anything about the cast, you shouldn't be surprised to be told that the acting is outstanding. Though most of the secondary characters play relatively limited roles, they all do them perfectly well. From Margot Robbie's turn as the wide-eyed, charming Sharon Tate to Mike Mo's performance as the iconic Bruce Lee, to all of the actors portraying the vicious little hippies at Charles Manson's eerie compound, everyone enhances the movie. Brad Pitt unsurprisingly nails his turn as straight-talking tough-guy Cliff Booth, even if the role doesn't require much of him beyond a certain easy swagger and smugness. Leonardo DiCaprio, though, has yet again proven to me that he has long gone far, far beyond the pretty boy, teeny-bopper idol whom we all saw back in the 1990s. He may spend a majority of his screen time giving us laughs with his desperation and depression over his fading stardom, but there are several wonderfully captivating sequences where he breaks down in anger or sadness, and DiCaprio completely sells every moment of it. I will all but guarantee that he will receive an Oscar nomination for this role, strong as it is.

There weren't many things that I didn't like about the movie, but a couple come to mind. One is simply that there were a few sequences that felt as if they were drawn out a bit too long. Not terribly so, but noticeably so. In particular, the moments when Cliff Booth shows up at the Manson Family compound, senses something amiss, and expresses his desire to sniff around a bit. There is certainly genuine tension built here, but at a certain point a few of the scenes felt as if they could have been trimmed a bit here or there. There were a few other moments such as this, but they hardly ruin the overall pace and fun of the film.

The only other "issue" I have with the movie is more of an observation that can be leveled at any Tarantino flick, and it is that there is no greater purpose to the film beyond being a love letter to a bygone era as well as a reminder of a brutally dark moment in U.S. history. Tarantino most likely would agree with me, but his films are never about more than watching strong, entertaining characters get mixed up with each other. There's never any greater message, deeper thoughts involved, or even any especially creative cinematic artistry. Tarantino is just exceptionally good at a variety of already-established film techniques, and he knows how to tell a ripping good story about amusing characters. In the sense that he knows how to find phenomenal cinematographers, costume designers, actors, and editors to bring his vibrant stories to life is a testament to how good a director he is, even if he offers very little in the way of intellectual or spiritual stimulation. Alas, it is a movie about movies, and that always plays well with critics and movie-lovers such as me.

I'll most likely go out to see this one again on the big screen, and I may even be able to convince my wife to join me. 

Before I Die #598: The Aviator (2004)

This is the 598th movie I've watched out of the 1,187 movies on the "Before You Die" list that I'm gradually working through. 

Director: Martin Scorsese

Despite being a major fan of Scorsese, I had somehow never watched this movie from start to finish. Now that I've put in the required two hours and forty-five minutes, I can say that it's a really solid film that I enjoyed, even if I don't count it among his very best. Bear in mind that this is no slight, given that Scorsese has several all-time great movies to his credit.

Based on a spotty biography, The Aviator tracks the key twenty-year period in the life of Howard Hughes, the infamously eccentric and undeniably talented businessman and American aviator. The movie starts with Hughes at age 21, just as he inherits the sizable tool business his parents created and ran in Texas. Hughes brings the company to near collapse as he funds a massive war picture independent of any major movie studio. Although he burns through nearly all of his considerable fortune, Hughes manages to release the movie to great success, launching him into the spotlight and on a run of tremendous business successes over the next few decades. He designs and test flies planes, buys and runs an airline company, and takes on the aviation giant of the day, Pan Am, and the powerful senator who supports it. In these two decades, Hughes essentially grows his wealth enough to poise himself to become the richest man in the country. The problem is that his own mental problems grow worse and worse, hinting at the infamously reclusive and bizarre behavior that would mark the succeeding decades of his life.

The Aviator is, like virtually all of Scorsese's films, highly watchable. The legendary director has such a keen sense of pacing, dialogue, and scene construction, that his take on such a dynamic figure as Howard Hughes was bound to be engaging, and it is. As he has shown in his most well-known films like Goodfellas, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Casino, Scorsese can take highly energetic and volatile characters and make them sing on screen. With The Aviator, Scorsese was dealing with the largest group of notable celebrities that he's ever dealt with, starting with Hughes but also including the likes of Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, and plenty of other screen legends who were noted for their strong personalities. The story sets them up to have plenty of engaging interactions, mostly revolving around Hughes's increasingly erratic and paranoid behavior. Many of the scenes are played for drama, but almost as many are played for humor, nearly all to excellent effect.

As a personal aside, I have to confess that the only element of the movie that annoyed me was Katharine Hepburn. This has nothing to do with Cate Blanchett's portrayal of the film legend, which is nearly spot-on, but rather my general annoyance at the real Hepburn's affect. I've watched a good number of Hepburn's classic movies, and I've always found her "Mid-Atlantic" accent highly grating (that bizarre, made up accent has its own odd little story, too). In The Aviator, Blanchett fully embraces the character, as she stomps around, going toe-to-toe with the equally head-strong Hughes. I actually admire Hepburn's progressive attitudes and general take on life. But that accent? I can't get over it.

One of the many scenes to display the lavish places, costumes,
and powerful entertainers seen throughout the movie. Nearly
every scene is fun to watch, even if there isn't exactly a
compelling narrative thread to tie them all together.

Back to the movie as a whole. While nearly all of the individual scenes and sequences are outstanding, there is a lack of a completely cohesive story. The nearly 3-hour film strongly hints at a few themes and clear points about Hughes, but it never completely resolves any of them or creates a single compelling arc. The only theme or trait that seems to be present throughout the movie is Hughes's increasingly severe mental disorder. However, there are still many questions left unanswered by the movie's end, as he is still functional enough to oversee much of his aviation business. When one reads a bit more about Hughes, one realizes that his truly severe mental fragmentation continued for another two decades after the timeline covered in this film. The movie thus feels incomplete, which is certainly odd for such a lengthy story. It almost seems as if a TV miniseries of 8 or 10 episodes would have done such a biopic more justice.

Like many of Scorsese's best movies, this is one in which the individual scenes are so masterfully crafted and entertaining, that you could channel surf your way into any part of it, settle in, and just ride it all out by enjoying each sequence. I've read some original reviews that weren't terribly impressed with DiCaprio's performance, but I found him to be excellent, right along with the rest of the supporting cast. Such acting, along with a tight script and under the guidance of an all-time great director, make for a highly enjoyable film, if not exactly a historically brilliant one.

That's 598 movies down. Only 589 to go before I can die. 

Retro Trio, Christopher Nolan Edition: The Prestige (2006); Inception (2010); Interstellar (2014)

This little themed set of reviews started with a late-night viewing of The Prestige, and ended up with my discovering that I had never reviewed Inception, which I did re-watch only about a month ago. From there, it was a small jump to add Interstellar, which I only saw once when it was released. 

The Prestige (2006)

It speaks well for a movie when you put it on late at night with the intention of watching maybe 30 minutes while you drift into sleep, and then you realize that it's past midnight and you have every intention of watching every last second of the remaining hour of the movie. This is even more impressive when it's a movie you've seen several times already, as I had with The Prestige before this most recent viewing.

Coming out a little over a year after his true breakout smash hit, Batman Begins, this movie solidified just what Christopher Nolan can do with a large budget. Though completely different in subject and presentation than his take on the famous DC superhero, The Prestige bore all of the hallmarks of Nolan's writing and directing: a non-linear narrative; a surprise ending; a dark general tone; extremely slick visuals; Michael Caine. Nolan's films virtually all blend these elements into solid films.

The Prestige tells the tale of two rival magicians (or "illusionists", as Gob Bluth would demand) in the early 20th century who become viciously obsessed with defeating each other, at first professionally but eventually in every way. Getting their start together as assistants to a more established stage magician in London, one of them accidentally has a hand in the death of the other's wife. This sets of a chain of events in which each one attempts to sabotage the other's act while establishing himself as the premier stage magician in London. The sabotage attempts grow ever-more-dangerous, even leading to maiming and an eventual arrest for murder.

Borden and Angier, two budding magicians before their lethal
rivalry develops. There is refreshing shift in just who is the
more sympathetic character as the plot progresses.

The story has plenty of intrigue built into it already, but Nolan enhances it with his narrative choices. Similar to his approach in Memento, he tells the story by alternating between past and present, giving us a chance to see the steps that led to the deadly opposition between two past colleagues. And not unlike that earlier movie, this is one that is likely to inspire you to want to see it again immediately after your first viewing, just so that you can follow the meaning of the earlier parts of the movie better, once you have the complete picture. I always appreciate how Nolan has fun with how he orders his narratives, and he has a strong enough grasp of the technique that it adds solid entertainment value.

This isn't to say that the movie is flawless. Similar to other Nolan movies, the romantic relationships are never really fleshed out. Despite having very good actors in the key roles - Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Scarlett Johannsen, and Rebecca Hall - the romance between the different pairs never feels completely natural. It's hardly the most essential part of this movie, but it is relevant enough so that the lack of completely authentic emotions results in a dulled impact at certain moments in the movie.

I suppose the one other minor criticism that I can level at the movie is that there is a truly supernatural element thrown into a movie which is otherwise all about the art of slight-of-hand. This element of the truly fantastic works quite well, given how it is introduced and used, but I would understand if some viewers find it more than a little out of place. Perhaps even as a slight bit of cheating, even.

Among Christopher Nolan's films, I would actually rate this among his very best, which for me are The Dark Knight and Inception. Anyone who happened to miss this one would do well to go back and watch it.

Inception (2010)

One could divide Nolan's movies into "original" and "adapted" groups. While the former group would include the Dark Knight trilogy and a remake like Insomnia, Inception would fall into the latter category. And like few directors, Nolan's originals are equal to or arguably better than his adapted films.

If you haven't seen it, Inception focuses on Cobb, an expert in the field of extraction - a method of entering another person's dreams and retrieving ideas. Cobb's services are highly prized by corporate raiders who seek to pull valuable corporate secrets out of the minds of their competitors. However, Cobb is on the run from U.S. law enforcement, as he is the prime suspect in his wife's murder. To clear his name in order to return home to his children, Cobb accepts a highly risky but possibly life-changing job of performing the questionable act of inception - the technique of implanting, rather than extracting, an idea into a person's mind. Cobb assembles a team to help him create a complex series of dream worlds through which they can enter their target's mind and incept the appropriate idea.

In keeping with the stories that Nolan usually tells, Inception unfolds on several levels. Early in the movie, we are introduced to the concept of extraction and even the notion of a dream within a dream. In the third act, though, we eventually are watching a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream (that's five levels, if you didn't count). It can be a bit disorienting or even frustrating, if you're not paying close attention. If you are, however, it can be a really fun and creative ride. Each dream takes place in a distinct environment with its own look and feel, with each one offering some new insight as to how the concepts of inception and extraction work. It helps that there is a tension and urgency built into each dream level, allowing the suspense to pull us along. Nolan has always had fun with how he plays with narratives, and it seems like he was having a blast with this one.

The dream-world hotel hallway fight scene is one of the most
cinematically dazzling sequences in recent times.

The visuals are possibly the best in any Nolan film, which is saying something. He has done some spectacular things on film, but Inception probably features several of his most iconic images. From the folding cities to the slow motion world explosions to the fight in the rotating hotel room, this movie offered a ton of scenes and sequences that are unlikely to be forgotten once seen. Add these to the sleek look and feel of every shot and frame typical to Nolan's pictures, and you have a movie that is visually wondrous to behold.

Upon this most recent viewing, something else finally dawned on me - the terror in the concept of being infected with an idea that you cannot banish. And if that idea is urging you to kill yourself and your loved ones? That is truly the stuff of nightmares and insanity. Inception teases this idea out and drives it home in dramatic fashion, and it was only recently that I recognized just how disturbing it is.

I remember really enjoying Inception  when it was first released, while still having a few gripes about it. There were a few questions I didn't feel were fully addressed, and some parts of the movie tried my patience a bit. Now that I have re-watched it a few times, though, I find it easier to accept the flaws as minor. The movie is actually a rarity for the last decade - a high-quality, big-budget movie that is completely original. Nearly every other mainstream, popular movie has been adapted from a book or series (Harry Potter, anything YA), has been a remake of an earlier movie or franchise (Star Trek, Star Wars), or is a sequel to a previous blockbuster (The Fast and the Furious, among others). This fact makes me root for movies like Inception and appreciate them all the more.

Interstellar (2014)

Nolan shot for the literal and figurative stars with this one. My original review is here.

Upon a second viewing, this film holds up fairly well, and I felt a tad more forgiving about a few of the elements which puzzled or annoyed me back in 2014. Matthew McConaughey's voice is still a nuisance, but a few of the performances which I previously questioned no longer agitate me. And I actually found a little more enjoyment in a few sequences which I felt dragged during my first viewing.

I still consider Interstellar one of Nolan's weaker movies, but this is very relative. Even his worst films are considerably better than most large-scale, epic Hollywood films. Curiously, I think that it will ultimately be looked upon by future viewers much more kindly than the previous year's critical darling Gravity - a movie which amazed me once but which I have never felt the need to watch again, and whose weaknesses are jarring and more obvious with every passing year. I do not foresee such a fate for Interstellar. It's not 2001 or Tarkovsky's Solaris, but it is strong enough to earn a mention and some comparison with those titans of science fiction films about space exploration.

I generally haven't changed my original feelings about the movie, except for one main aspect. I've come to a slightly better acceptance of the forces which bring Cooper back in touch with his daughter. Slightly. I do still find it rather sentimental to use the premise that love spans any breadth of space or time, but I appreciated just how the story is organized and weaves the concept into the overall tale.

Cooper and his crew on a new planet. This was arguably the
most stunning sequences among several strong
contenders. Nolan never slacks on visuals.

One other merit which I failed to fully appreciate on my first viewing was the music. The score, composed, by longtime movie score maestreo Hans Zimmer, is wonderfully affecting. Maybe it's just my love of organ music, but I could find myself watching some of the visual sequences multiple times just to take in the pairing with the music.

Nolan's movies make up an unusually high percentage of the rather small number of movies that I own (out of the 30 blu rays that I have, 4 of them are Nolan films). I'm obviously someone who enjoys his films enough to splurge for them, knowing that I will watch them repeatedly. Yet I still feel no need to buy Interstellar. I think it is a good movie, but not one that I will need to watch again any time soon, if ever. 

New Release! The Revenant (2015)

This movie poster offers a sample of the breathtaking solitude
that is as much a part of this movie as any character or
plot point. 

Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

It lives up to the hype, but don't expect any kind of feel-good adventure tale with The Revenant.

What you have in this movie is a rather basic tale of survival for the sake of revenge. Like most great stories, though, it is less about the basic plot and more about how it is told. In the case of The Revenant, the strengths lie in the stunningly beautiful, terrifying, and isolated landscapes; the world-class acting; and the brilliant cinematography and overall direction.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Hugh Glass, a scout for a band of fur traders in the Montana/South Dakota regions of the U.S. in the 1820s. After a brutal surprise attack by a native American tribe, Glass and a handful of others, including his half-breed son Hawk, narrowly escape and begin a log trek back to the safety of the nearest Army outpost. Along the way, Glass is attacked and severely wounded by a grizzly bear. He is eventually left for dead by another member of the survivors, the cunning and ruthless John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), who also murders Glass's son in front of his eyes. Glass spends several brutal weeks recovering from his grave injuries, avoiding hostile natives and other hunters, and slowly making his way back to the outpost, where he hopes to catch up to Fitzgerald.

The film is, as you might guess, incredibly brutal. My lasting impression is of Leonardo DiCaprio wincing and grunting in pain for much of the movie. You feel every ounce of his struggle through the camera's eye, and this is exactly as director Inarritu wanted it. Similar to movies like The Grey or basically anything by Werner Herzog, a major theme is the simultaneous beauty and pitilessness of nature. Humans like Glass can be honorable and unbelievably tough, but the natural world, including people given to their most animalistic instincts, have no sympathy. It is hardly a heart-warming message, though one well worth considering now and then. It is especially worth considering when framed in such an expertly-constructed movie.

A scene towards the end of the camp raid. Apparently, this
sequence was so complex that it required a month of
rehearsal before they could actually film it. 

Director Inarritu had his great break-out last year with the singular movie Birdman. While The Revenant is a vastly different movie in many ways, there is a vitality and mastery that it shares with Inarritu's other films. In Birdman, the director showed his skill with using extremely long, unbroken takes. He employs the same technique to one of the opening scenes, in which the fur traders are attacked by a regional tribe. It is one of the most intense and amazing sequences I've ever seen. It was a combination of the opening chaos and ferocity of Saving Private Ryan with a dark version of Dances With Wolves, only producing something which is somehow more stunning than either one of those predecessors. This was just one of the earliest and most striking sequences through the movie.

Lest you think that the movie is a dull sequence of pain and misery, it should be clear that it far transcends the physical travails of its main characters. A few of the encounters and nearly all of the landscapes take on a dreamlike (sometimes nightmare) quality that can have a near-hallucinatory effect. There are times when a viewer is likely to completely forget about Glass's mission of vengeance and become rapt in the majesty of his surroundings. If one is in the right frame of mind, this movie can provide an experience that only the most artistic and well-executed movies can offer.

The Revenant is not for everyone, as this review might imply. It's message (if you can call it that) is a dark one, and the violence is brutal and unflinching. However, the visuals are some of the absolute best you will ever see in film. I don't feel the need to see it again any time soon, but I can foresee a cold, wintry night on which no movie but The Revenant will satisfy me.