Pitt smashing that whore's head all over the place is easily the best thing Tarantino has ever made. Pure kino
But my favorite part is actually a little before that. When Cliff sees the third girl pointing the knife at him, and he says "shiiiiit". I can't explain why but I lost my shit there. Almost as good as this:
Fantastic acting. Serious talk, it will never happen but Pitt deserved the oscar. But he is not even going to be nominated.
I liked it, though it was a bit too long. A few too many 'driving around in the (admittedly cool, interesting) set-up of the time' shots, and there felt like some unnecessary meandering. The cast was terrific, though, there were a lot of really good scenes, and by the end of it I really enjoyed it.
One thing I read about it was that, gratuitous as Tarantino's feet thing can be, Sharon Tate was known for not wearing shoes, even when she should be, and things like the hippies putting their dirty feet everywhere told just as much about their characters as they did about Tarantino liking feet. So it mostly didn't feel as gratuitous as it could. He also got to indulge his fetish for classic Hollywood - I loved how all the billboards and TV shows weren't the iconic classics that endured, but the sort of day-to-day TV shows and movies that would be around at that time, the average works involving actors, and popular genres, that were of their time.
And I loved the scenes of Leo's character acting, and the exchanges with the girl actor; that scene with (RIP) Luke Perry when he's acting the bad guy in the TV western was genuinely terrific, I thought.
What I thought made the shortened third act so effective is because the entire film feels like a build up to a horrific real-life event. And he heightens that considerably by the hour-by-hour countdown of where everyone is. So the tension came from knowing what was going to happen and bracing myself for watching something horrific - and then having the expectations subverted by him rewriting history in a much more pleasing way.
One of the things the film captured was just how nice Sharon Tate apparently was, and by changing the ending it also makes her limited presence in the film make complete sense; in Tarantino's version of events, these aren't the foreboding final days of a doomed actress, but just the everyday actions of a woman who happens to live next door to a home invasion one night.
It's also why the comic @Commander X linked is so goddamn stupid - oh, no, two teenaged Manson girls who were out to murder people, and in real life helped murder several women including one who was eight-and-a-half months pregnant, get violently dispatched. How dare violence against violent, crazed murderers be celebrated.
But of course, there had to be people who literally did things like count all the lines spoken by women in a nearly three-hour film just to show they didn't have as many lines as the men, as if that means a single fucking thing in reviewing a film, and that a movie can only be worthwhile if there's some kind of gender parity. Identity politics is a fucking blight on entertainment analysis and engagement, and it can't go away fast enough for me.
Edit: And Armond White is legit crazy. His take on movies is so completely insane that he's mostly seen as a curmudgeonly contrarian. The idea that there were pedophilic overtones with the child actress is ludicrous, and his takes only ever seem to accidentally hit on a truth on their way to a conclusion no-one else could ever reach.
It's almost like Tarantino saw Tumblr Antifags using gifs from Inglorious Basterds and wanted to make it very clear, "Hey, I don't like the Nazis, but I fucking hate you, too."
Just finished watching it. Damn good movie, with less campiness and more serious tone. The dark humor scenes were greatly appreciated. I also agree with many of the assessments posted here, it definitely feels like Tarantino uses allegory as a main storytelling device to show many flaws in Hollywood and how, in a way, the movie takes place in an era that was "the beginning of the end".
I agree with this as well. My only quirk is that the soundtrack, while cool and all, was too overbearing for my taste. Other than that, it was great.
So now I see why the hate boner against this movie, they can fuck right off. The pitbull fucking up the hippies was hilarious.
Tarantino openly mocks them. He doesn't even hide his contempt for these people, so the feeling is mutual. Their wokeshit is failing so they have to grasp at straws.
It's almost like Tarantino saw Tumblr Antifags using gifs from Inglorious Basterds and wanted to make it very clear, "Hey, I don't like the Nazis, but I fucking hate you, too."
I think the book store and movie theater visit (and most of that character period) is one of the hardest bits to sit through. Sure, you're showing how the culture used to be, you're showing feet because you're a sick fuck..but what in the goddamn shit is the point to it in terms of how it interacts with the rest of the movie? At not one single point in the entire movie does that character even HAVE a point other than just existing until right at the very, very, very end. I wouldn't call that good storytelling even if you're a director who's being a bit self indulgent.
They explored nostalgia and helped to expose Sharon Tate's true character to the audience.
The book store was what people in the 70s were nostalgic for. A place of passion where some bookworm decided to open a shop because he loved literature.
The movie theater is what people today are nostalgic for. A single theater showing a single movie with PR pictures on the wall and a manager in a suit at the door. The employees knew movies but they weren't in love with them the way the bookworm owner was. Things were already starting to degrade.
Sharon Tate up until those scenes was portrayed as the ditsy sexpot that was furthering her career through her relationships. Both scenes reveal that she was actually as a dorky girl who could've ended up as one of Charlie's girls if she was in the hippy scene instead of the New Hollywood scene.
The end was Rick saying goodbye to the 50s man's man archetype of Cliff Booth and being accepted by the 70s New Hollywood sect of Tate.
