CTJ Roundtable: Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood

don't self identify as it. You come from the earth. You're just dirt. I did accidentally get a French vanilla coffee mate creamer, and you dumped it in. They're not happy about did you dump it in there? I dumped it, dude. It's in too late as it committed. No, it's no. All right, Well, go get you another coffee if you want to miss out on No, I want a really good discussion. I'm ready for this. I'm primed, all right.

So we have all seen the film Once upon a Time in America the new are they calling it the eighth of the ninth film America? How you say by yeah? Classic? What do I say in America Jesus was already off to a bad start. I meant, Once upon a Time in Mexico, another great classic. Uh, we've all seen the film. You've seen it twice, right, case you've seen it twice twice,

seen it twice, once, once and once. So I figured we'd start off just by getting level setting here on a we do thumbs on the show between one and five thumbs. Casey, just let's see what you'd say, do thumbs up front, up front thumbs. I want a level set to see where we all are. Then we'll dive in and just it's a free for all, al right, Casey, I'm going to give it the full five five thumbs. I'm gonna give it three and a half thumbs. This

is gonna be good. I'm going with three and a half thumbs, um veering towards four thumbs, so like like like a hitchhiking hippie thumb. John Roderick does that unfriendly fire. Yeah, it's always this many things and then like and a tattered up you know, because they use a different rating system that it's very funny bit. But I'm gonna do the same thing. I'm gonna copy you in Roderick, and I'm gonna say, uh, three point seven five thumbs and

like a thumbnail almost at four thumbs for me. And I will say this, my initial thumbage would have been three point five hard. But as a little time went by and I started reading some things and started hearing some commentary, having some conversations, uh, it added on to my to my score same here mine was mine was actually a hard three and then it went up to three point five after the second viewing. After the second viewing and as a veering towards three point five to four. Yeah,

I've been enjoying reading. One of my favorite things to do is see a film that I really love and reading the criticism afterward. Yeah, And I'd never do it before now, but I will go after and read a lot of different people's takes and sometimes I can sway my feeling. I think it did a little bit in this case. Yeah, I mean I had the same experience.

I liked it a lot the first time around, but it really wasn't until I saw it a second time that I kind of like, I feel like I gotta handle on what it was really doing and what was he doing? Give me? Oh boy? Well, what is it doing. It's it's like a meditation, like the end of the sixties and and the passing of one time, one era into another. Um it's also a work of you know, I guess we're gonna go all out with the spoilers here, right, there's no point talking about this movie if we're going

to try to tiptoe around it. So obviously it's it's a kind of revisionist, fantasy version of history. It's it's what maybe we wish would have happened, rather than what did happen. And the tension as you're watching the film for the first time if you're somebody that knows a little bit about the Manson because I know there's there's a whole generation that's seeing this movie that doesn't really know that much at all about the case, and I think that obviously is going to affect a great deal

of like how they experience it. But yeah, yeah, but you know that that in history wise, it ends up with Sharon Tate being murdered. As you're watching the film, there's like this creeping dread that it's like, I'm really enjoying this. This is such like a fun, kind of pleasant, loose experience. I really, I'm going to be bummed out if like the last scene is just like them all getting stabbed to death. So yeah, it's just like, how

is that dramatically going to be satisfying? It didn't. It didn't set any of the kind of groundwork for for that kind of big moment. Like everything in it was either sort of silly or kind of heartwarming or over the top or like kind of scenery chewing fun, you know, like it would have been an absolute departure from the tone of the movie for that to happen. But I was expecting it just because if anybody can would be willing to do that kind of tonal shift, it would

be Tarantino, you know, Dan Glorious Bastards. Yeah, and so I I was fully expecting the murders to sort of play out exactly kind of as they happened in real life. Well, don't get me wrong, there was an absolute tonal shift. I mean that final sequence is absolute over the top schlock, you know, splatterhouse violence, you know, no question funny. Oh,

it was absolutely funny. And I heard a really great commentary on on a podcast called red scare Um where they're talking you know, like, I know, it's sort of like an edge kind of podcast. It's a great episode and like it's I can't it's I'm kind of new to it. But they were talking about how it's like the violence towards women that Quentin Tarantino is maybe getting

shipped for that sequence. People forget that. It's like, these are women who were going to murder a pregnant woman, you know, and the worst thing, and who who were like plotting the most you know, horrible, despicable crime. However, in the world of the movie, they haven't done that. So in the world of the movie, all of the all they've done is broken into somebody's house, you know, And that's why it's very complicated. It complicates Cliff Booth, this was a B and E that ended in a

fucking blowtorch like horror movie. Well, I think I think that is you know, I would argue that in the world of the movie, we still have the extra knowledge that is extra film mak that is outside that is historical basically. But I think, I mean, I think that's what Tarantino is doing. I think he's doing kind of it is kind of postmodern in that way that it assumes or it plays with what we know about history, what we assume to be true, and then it does

something different. But it is kind of like a weird pre crime, kind of like the thing that happens where like, yeah, and the logic of the film, in the internal logic of the plot, all they've done is breaking in er. But of course extra filmically we know like and I think he knows that. So it's kind of brilliant in a way. But here's my deal, dudes, I figured this one out a year ago and not oh, I cracked the case, but I knew it was about the Manson

thing intersecting with an actor and his stunt man. And the very first thought I had a year ago when I heard that was he's gonna do the same thing he did and inglorious and the same thing he did in Django. So I'm kind of like that, I might as well go ahead and say that's. One of the things that dinged it for me was Tarantino's tendency to sort of repeat himself and get locked into this like, well, I'm just gonna rewrite history in all my movies now, and so that bothered me a little bit, but it

was still satisfying. So I'm torn, you know, And I do think in this film the revision of histories is a little bit different than it is in Django and in Bastards because in those films, like in Inglorious Bastards, when they take it to the Nazis and not, these are just seen as kind of this this blanket, all encompassing face of evil, whereas in this film, it's it's specific, it's specific to the the Manson family, those those people who are going to murder Sharon Tate and company, and

specific to a specific person, Sharon Tate. So it again, it complicates it because it's much easier short to just be like, oh, we're gonna take out all the Nazis, you know, and that's much more gratifying. And it also requires that you know that backstory, that you know that context. If you don't, then it's very it's a lot less satisfying, and it's it's borderline confusing. Yeah, I mean, I think in Inglorious Bastards the effect of this rewriting of history

is almost a little bit more juvenile. On Tarantino's part. I think he's kind of it's almost like a joke. He's having with himself Visa VI like some of the criticisms of his use of violence over the years. So he's like, what what use of violence could be more justified than slaughtering a bunch of Nazis? Right, So the fact that he does it in such a leaful like uh way that kid in a candy story. Yeah, yeah, it's just like it's yeah, it's so over the face

until it wasn't a face. These sort of he's sort of, you know, daring the audience to reject in any way what he's doing because he's like, I'm just killing a buch of Nazis. That's like the best thing you could do, you know, And so how dare you point a finger at me for enjoying violence? Because this is completely justified,

you know. Um. In this film, I think it has a much more like emotional character to it, the kind of almost like resurrection of Sharon Tate, of giving her a life beyond the one that she had in reality that it just suggests because well, I'm sure we'll get into this, but you know, there's there's been a lot of discussion about does she have enough lines of dialogue and so on, and talk about it and I would just say, in my opinion, to to give her a

bunch of lines of dialogue number one would not have been difficult for Tarantino to do. He's written plenty of

like strong female characters and the past um. I think he was really trying to honor like the real person of Sharon Tate that we really don't know that was kind of an unknown quantity that was not we don't have the same impression of Sharon Tate that we have of like a Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio or any of these stars that we follow over the years and we see interviews with and we have like whether or not it's accurate or all, we have some idea of

who they are as people. Sharon Tate was really just like this passing impression that kind of like, was you know her because she got murdered? Yeah, exactly. I don't know about her work necessarily. I'd never heard of the film that she was featured in, which it wasn't a very big good movie, but she had a lot of promise and she was able to take joy in that fact by watching the movie, and you as an audience got to see her and it and it didn't seem

self indulgent. She didn't seem like a shitty Hollywood type person. She seemed like a genuinely free spirited, like lovely human being. You know she was she was, you know, like there's there's been a lot of critics who have written on that scene where she goes to see the wrecking crew and she's in the theater, she's watching it, and some have kind of characterized it as her being this egotistical person, which I think is completely wrong. She's she's enjoying the work.

She she's looking around and listening to is the audience laughing? Are they enjoying this? Are they having a good time? Oh? Okay, good I did I did a good job. Like that scene connected, and she's behaving like a real person, just kind of being vulnerable and just being like I hope they like the humble Yeah, and especially it's it's contrasted nicely with right before she goes into the theater when the ticket woman says, okay, I take your photo and

stand by the poster so people will know who you are. Yeah, And she doesn't like throw a fit or anything. She's just like, oh yeah, of course, you know she she gets it. Um, Yeah, I don't know that she needed a ton of dialogue to do what he clearly wanted to do, which was to shine a light on her and have her be the shining light of the movie. She everywhere she went, she was smile ing and hugging people and warm and like it was a bit of a love letter to her without like, I mean, she

wasn't the main character, you know. Yeah, And so I mean I think I think it was on I'm losing track of which podcast this was on, but yeah, yeah, yeah, it might have even been on Red Scare. But they were talking about there was another Sharon Tate movie out earlier this year, and Sharon Tate is like the protagonist and it completely changes a story where apparently Sharon Tate knows all about Manson and knows Manson is like coming

for her, and it's just like this kind of revisionistative. Yeah, but it's but it's it's way grosser because it's kind of like it's still it's it's uh, it's making a spectacle out of this horrific thing that happened in reality, and it's not trying to, you know, think through it at all. Is the reason that Manson targeted that house

because of the Denny Wilson. I think so, because he was, like the previous he wasn't in the cult, but he was cult adjacent kind of with Dennis Wilson for a little while, trying to break into the music and like Dennis Wilson. That's that's what to me is so interesting

because correct me if I'm wrong here. But the fact that the Manson family went to murder the people in that house, the fact that it was Sharon Tate and the other people staying there, was kind of random, right, Like he didn't have any personal vendetta against Sharon Tate or the or J. C. Brand. It was just they just wanted to do a murder that would make a big splash and make it look real witchy or what. And I guess. And maybe these people who are rich

and well off and represent the excess of Hollywood. Perhaps. But what's interesting about the movie and what's so fascinating is when the Manson family, and here's where the revisionism comes in, where Rick Dalton comes and yells at them, and all of a sudden and a great scene, they decide they changed their plan and instead decide to go murder Rick Dalton. I thought that was a little weak it.

I like that. I love that scene, but I thought that, like, hey, they're the ones in the media that's been I was like, all right, they were, they were all that they were they were. So that's the point, though they're very easily swayed. Let's have these half baked, half baked ideas. Come on, man, you know, it's like they're the you know, they're the real bad guys. They taught us how to kill. Let's kill the ones that taught us how to kill. Man.

To me, presumably they're on acid at the time, you know. But what's interesting there is is how they in that moment decide to change their plan. And Tarantino seems to be aware of the fact that Sharon Tate's death was so sort of arbitrary. She just happened to be in the wrong house at the wrong time. And how if one little thing had gone differently than night Sharon t

Sharon Tate might have lived, ye might have lived. And then it also it's unspoken, but maybe you know the course of Plansky's life could have been different as well. Like there's there's a lot going on. I mean, it kind of suggests that Rick Dalton might appear in the next Plansy film, because you know, no, I totally I

think it hints it that for sure. So it's sort of it's just, yeah, I mean, it really is saying that the sixties were still probably going to end at some point, but maybe they could have been prolonged a little longer. Maybe that innocent stage of Hollywood could have maybe need longer. Maybe the Manson murders not happening changes

the course of American history and some lace. Yeah, I mean, it's it's tricky because obviously, like what we do when we're when we're doing history is we kind of look at past events and we generalize, and we kind of zero in on a certain specific event and used that to symbolize some greater societal shifts. So like all those shifting forces would have still been in play had this one event not happened. There probably would have been some

other thing for us to point to. And people pointed, like the Altamont concert with the Rolling Stones is another kind of um. So you know, it was it was coming one way or the other, like there was going to be this new Hollywood. The old system was kind of stagnant and it kind of lost its way, so there was going to be this big shift. But um, how cool isn't that Like their headquarters. The Manson family's headquarters was an abandoned ranch where they shot all of

these anachronistic old old style Western TV show. I really like that sequence spot it was so loaded with tension and then but the whole the funny thing about it all is like it it was exactly as they said it was because you go in, you expect him to be dead, he's not dead. Then he's like basically confirms everything the dumb story that sound like he has to take a nap so he can stay up or else to be mad because he can't watch TV. Then when he paired it that back, I was like, that's that's

kind of great. And that's the thing he did that consistently throughout the movie, where he flipped your expectation of what was going to happen and like constantly time and time me and again that's why I like I. When I walked out of the movie, I was like, Okay, that was good, not great. But as a couple of days days have gone by and I'm thinking more about it. In terms of the bigger ZEITGEISTI kind of discussion the more.

I'm like, God, that was pretty fucking genius, and it was like a lot of it was very intentional, very spot on, a juxtaposition of like the old kind of bleeding into the new, and even like the metallness of like Rick Dalton walking through those pearly gates at the end, almost like a different kind of heaven. Of course, he gets accepted into the new Hollywood system was famous for, like, you know, giving people a new life, that career, and

so that's exactly what potentially that represents. You know, he's the Trivolta to his pulpicture. Absolutely. I also think that that sequence of a Spawn Ranches is really great just cinematically because the movie basically turns into a western, you know, the whole movie, you see them making fake westerns and off the way it's shot, you know, he's walking through the dusty street the porch. That's such a western, like yeah, and then he goes and he confronts Bruce Stern And

this is interesting. I didn't know this because I only had a very passing I only had a passing knowledge of the Tate murders and everything, but my girlfriend who listens to like every Manson podcast and knows this story very well. In fact, the guy brew Stern plays, George Spawn that that was all pretty true, that he did live there when the Mansons were there and all the girls slept with him to kind of, I guess, keep him happy her right, and um and the Dakota Fanning's character,

I think he called her squeaky. There was a real Yeah, she was real and she did not look like herself at all. I didn't realize that. I had no idea. I didn't realize that was her until I haven't been done him popping up. Yeah sort of threw me out of the movie for a minute, I gotta admit, But you know, she was good, she was fine, and it

was just temporary. And then the beating that guy gets the move to pick up the guy by the hair and continue to punch such a hardcore thing, which which we haven't really talked about, but that was really the first even you know, remotely ultra violent moment in the movie, and there really wasn't any other except for that final sequence, which is what made it like hit so hard too, because it was over the top, Like I think The only other moment of violence was like very comical with

the Bruce Lee character. But that wasn't like bloody violence. It was just like a little too. There's a lot of I'm sure you've all seen a lot of Habian made. Yeah, here's the deal with me. And the Bruce Lee scene is now that I look back at it, and it's not even so much because it was like, uh, a caricature, Asian caricature, even though I'm sure there are Asian people that are offended by that and that's brutally understandable. Has come out and saying he made my father look like

a caricature and a cocky asshole. Well, my whole thing was like, why go back because he loves Bruce Lee, Why go back and make Bruce Lee look like a dumb a dummy who gets his ass kicked? Like I don't know, And all right, it was too long, so that's another reason I dinged it. I think it was, Um, I have a problem with his length of movies in general, and you could have cut thirty minutes out of this movie and made a much tighter story. And and the Bruce Lee stuff is like I think he just sort

of cutting room floor. Why is it even in there? What did it do for the story? Why he got boot been blacklisted? Well, he was already kind of blacklisted, but it's like what I'm saying, it was blacklisted because of the scuba thing, which it's another thing to talk about him spirit. Yeah, it was the kind of the

perfect way to film that it'll leave it ambiguous. Well, yeah, I mean that that's that's a conscious kind of reference to the whole Robert Wagner Natalie Wood story, which is interesting because third person on that boat, Christopher Walking, who's been in Tarantino movies before, but it's not represented in this film. It's only two people in the boat. Um,

maybe he was down below at the time. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean yeah, I think I think most of the theories about whatever went down on that boat where people don't know Natalie Wood drowned, uh in this incident and it's never really been clear what happened when she pushed, did she fall? If she did fall, could they have helped her? And they did in etcetera, etcetera. So um, but the way it's actually filmed in the movie, if you pay very close attention in that scene, there's all

kinds of like little clues. It's like its own little mini like thing you can pick apart and kind of construct. Because Pitt is extremely intoxicated. He opens a beer that kind of sprays all over me. He has this kind of old reaction. He's got the harpoon gun in his lap.

It's kind of pointed in her. Could have also been an accidental trick because as it as it goes to cut, you hear like the sound, the rushing sound of like a wave, kind of like crusting, and so it's like did they hit a rough wave and it went off by accident, sort of like a pulp fiction. And the guy is not a mastermind. I mean, he got away with it quote unquote probably because it was involuntary manslaughter or whatever. I mean, I don't know, I'm just putting

that forth. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think I think what that scene is doing is it's kind of like it's it's gesturing towards this like broader secret history of Hollywood that everybody who works in the industry. There's all these open secrets, that's all this stuff that people kind of know, and it's like still get work. Yeah, yeah, exactly, And it's like people are gonna it might be it

might be harder for you to get work. There might be people on set who are kind of whispering and sort of being like, you know, like I killed his wife, right, um. But but yet you hear these things about people, and there's there's no way to definitively prove did it happen did it not happen? So he just kind of shrug and you're like, I don't know. I guess maybe this

guy killed what. I'm not really sure when when it was brought up to in that scene with the Bruce Lee character, the guy who mentions it says, you know, he's kind of famous, right He guy killed his wife and got away with so he totally couched it in

terms of fame and that Bruce Lee. Getting back to the Bruce Lee sequence, it does sort of in terms of what it does for the plot, I guess it does show you how badass Brad pitts he needed that either, you know, and I thought it was indulgent and he was just like, man, I want to put Bruce Lee

in my movie because he trained Sharon Tate. Yeah, and I think he's start of Playboy Mansion and did Steve McQueen because he wanted that to happen, because that whole sequence was just to explain the deal with Sharon Tate and Roman Plansky and Jade se bring that. Yeah, that that sequence. So watching it a second time, I like the sequence, except for sticking Steve McQueen, Like, I think he could have explained all that just with no doubt, like just with maybe glances or you know, through the

vision wanted to put Steve McQueen. I wonder if it's you know, a cool a guy doing a Steve McQueen impression. Yeah, it was good. But um and again for the for the people who kind of point to Tarantino's uhha, we shall we say touchy relationship with depictions of women, It's like, here's a sequence where you have a guy explaining, oh, well, what's going on in the woman's life and whatever. I also thought he could have lost the um great escape sequence.

Yeah that, I mean, it's not really like it funny, it's just kind of Paul and I did have an interesting Paul an interesting theory about this about you know, what, what really might be going on in that scene in terms of why On the one hand, uh, DiCaprio's character is kind of denying that he was ever in the running for that role. I would argue, maybe he actually was in it and shot a couple of days. That's what Back to the Future who didn't get can and

like that footage exists. That's what I thought too. Yeah, he was covering his track. Yeah, that he's basically basically got fired from he got really embarrassed and wasn't giving the full story clearly makes sense. Yeah. It also would make sense because there were no other like fantasy sequences like that, So that would have been very out of character for that to have been a fantasy seeking in this year. Yeah, but that's what I thought. Yeah, I mean,

it's it's possible either way, but it's interesting. I think it becomes more interesting if that is the case, because then when he's telling Timothy oly Fonts character, oh, I

was barely even considered. It's because he's so ashamed of the fact that he got that he got fired from the set, presumably because nobody wants to say like, oh, actually I worked two weeks on that picture and then they shook hand me, like you know, you just need to say, oh, I was in the running but you know, it never kind of came together and Matt Well and his ego is already I mean, and that's one of the great things I loved about this film was Leonardo

DiCaprio and the I mean, I love seeing like the insecure actor behind the scenes. It's really funny to me because the joke that all actors are so insecure, which is true in a lot of cases. Um, but the breakdown in the trailer, so the eight uh three four had to have eight Oh god, it was good. But then when he's like looking at himself in the mirror, the shot of him looking in the mirror is looking at you like he's looking in the mirror. But then

that's what I thought. It was super smart because it's like him yelling at you kind of you know, it's like you're the stand in for his like insecurity. I don't know, it's way of breaking the fourth wall a little bit. Yeah, for sure. What did you guys think

about the fact. I'm sure you've read that his character is supposedly bipolar and that they'd never used the word, but that was the deal, like this guy is bipolar, to just play him that way, or at least, Yeah, I think it's something that like dicapre used to kind of inform the character where he felt like he has something to play in scenes where he might just be mostly listening to somebody or doing some bit of behavior

because he had ticks. Yeah, but he could kind of like you know, it's just like an extra layer of

of reality to kind of work off of. He has like that, um, I don't know, it's not really a stutter, but he kind of when he's not acting in scenes where he seems to be a little bit nervous, like when he first meets Pacino's characters, he kind of has a little bit of like a a hesitation stutter in the way he talks, which I think is a really cool choice for him to do, and it adds another layer of vulnerability to his k and that just showing his lack of confidence ultimately, and he's being told from

every direction that like, you know, you know what you are, you're sort of a has been from the fifties cowboy era, and you need to change your your career path quick.

And it is also it's getting to that idea that actors we see them in these heroic roles, but they're speaking usually somebody else's words, and and just the fact that we identify them as that person, but yet they are an actor playing a role, and we tend to confuse the actor with the role quite a bit, especially a movie star, like an action star that kind of you know, we we think of Tom Cruise sort of as the guy in those Mission Impossible movies or something.

You know, Like there's this confusion that happens between reality and fiction that I think the film is definitely working around. And also that it's just an observation that Tarantino is making that even one of the characters says, the girl that Brad Pitt gives a ride to in the car, she's like, oh, you're a stuntman. That's even better because you really do it, And the other people just kind of say lines. So, you know, I think he's by by showing that DiCaprio is off screen persona is very

different than like what he portrays on screen. It just

shows that there's multiple layers of of reality happening. It was a really nice moment in that when he's doing that um that Western I think it's a pie blet where he does finally nail the take with the Little Girl and Luke Perry and all that, where it was actually the fact that he's Leo Leonardo DiCaprio is playing a guy who's not necessarily a very good actor who has to show how bad he is, but then also has to like show that he can be a somewhat

good actor. That's really great acting on Decapito's part to show all that he's elevating his performance, like I mean in terms of like he's doing something, he's trying something new, Like I think the implication is that he was never a particularly good or like nuanced actor, and to play those like kind of like broad roles in his westerns,

he just kind of have to do one thing. But to be this more nuanced like villain and really go over the top like that, that was him like at his best in his character, and he like really owned it. And he's like, yeah, Rick, and the only direction he's getting is from that directors, just like yes, sexy Hamlet, give me sexy Hamlet. Yeah, I forgot I think it

was evil. Oh no, you're right, sorry, him her own and then he apparently improves some of that stuff where he says like I don't know exactly, yeah, but I love the dynamic between him and that little girl because she's so hardcore and she represents like the future future of Hollywood, right, because like she represents like the method and Meisner and all just like you know, really um heady ways of thinking about acting as opposed to it

just being kind of like this blunt instrument approach. Right. But the fact that that Dalton kind of takes her advice he performance. He could have just been like, do you think you are a little girl on fucking Dalton? Instead he liked internalizes that and like really starts crying. And I think that's the bipolar part we're seeing, is when is when he gets so down like that, and then when he's up, he's just looking up and like totally like you know, can't be um, you know, taken

down or um. Another thing that bothered me, and I hate to keep harping on those, but I think we can all talk about the things we loved, which will do more of. But the things that bother me are that that when he that third act, when he really ramped up the use of the narration, it just felt a little weird to me, maybe not lazy, but just kind of like, well, I gotta, I gotta get to it. It felt like a thing they fixed and post a

little bit a little bit. I I did feel that way as well, and that was Kurt Russell, right, Yeah, yeah, I mean to me, I think all of Tarantino's films have this like shaggy dog kind of lumpy nature. They're they're very rarely can you point to like a perfectly structured, like three act kind of progression. They They're filled with these like weird digressions and like things that kind of don't seem like they really matter that much to the

core of the story. Um, but I feel like either you embrace that stuff as just going maybe towards character or towards period, or or just Tarantino just Tarantino stuff, like because it's funny, or or because you know, for one reason know that he has this fixation on this detail that he's like got to get in there. And I don't know, Like when the narrator came into me, it just felt like the movie shifting into a different gear.

It's it's obviously it's full of artifice, but I feel like the film is really like that is one of its main things that it's doing is foregrounding so much of the artifice without at the same time like maybe Godard trying to remove the pleasure of viewing when the foegrounds out artifice, Tarantino fourgrounds the artifice. But it's still a movie and it's still fun, it's still enjoyable. Um yeah, So I think I think it's just one of those affectations.

I mean, the title being Once upon a Time in sort of like hearkening towards like fairy tales, and um just I don't know. To me, it's slayered of like story time. It's sort of like, yeah, now we get a narrator. It does in terms of like the running time. Obviously it allows him to cover a lot of ground

quickly without a lot of awkward exposition. But I also just think it's it's one of those kind of like left turns that Tarantino likes to make and kind of introduce this new element that has only barely been in the film. At the very beginning, there's like one throwaway voice over line about Rick crashing his car and that's why Cliff has the driving me right now. Um yeah, I don't know. I like that kind of eccentricity that

that Tarantino has. Man, it's a good point. I do like one specific moment in the voice over near the end that I really enjoy is when um, it shows Sharon Tate and her friends eating at I think a Mexican restaurant and yeah, and and Kurt Russell's voiceover says, you know, good times were had by all except for

Sharon Tate, who is experiencing she's feeling particularly pregnant or something. Yeah, pregnancy induced melancholy and the stifling heat made it that much worse, which I think is like a nice sort of moment of giving her an internal characterization, because otherwise in the movie she's depicted as being just warm, bubbly, all these great qualities, and here it gives her just a little bit of nuance, which I think it's nice. Which all that happened to they went to okayote, yeah dinner,

I remember who it was. But some kind of got you journalists confronted Tarantino about making her one dimensional or like giving dialogue and you know, implied that there was some misogyny at work, and he just responded with his great lines that I reject your hypothesis, and her hypothesis being that she needed to be treated in a certain way, and that by by treating her the way he did, he was giving her short shrift. But I think we

all agree that that's not the case at all. That she's kind of this specter that hovers over the proceedings as opposed to be being like part of the main action.

She's on the periphery of it, So it doesn't you don't need to hear her having a big conversation or having some crisis or having like these you know, she is this kind of like she's like the theory of Hollywood, Like she represents like everything that's good and pure about that period, and you get that in vibe more than you do from like, you know, dialogue, and she's like, I think it's just like the Princess and the Castle

or something. You know. Well, in Tarantino clearly wanted to make a movie about Burt Reynolds and how need him like the guy, the tough guy and his stunt man and being on set in Hollywood, Like that's what he wanted to make a movie about, and that's what he made a movie about. He could have made a movie that was really about Sharon Tate that ended in the same way with her as the main character. But um, I don't know. I mean this, this is a fun movie.

It was one of the people in the in the movie Crushers Page said it best for me, which was like, I don't know that I've seen a movie where I enjoyed so much of it as a collection of scenes, but as a whole. Like when he said, when I got to rewatch it, there will be scenes I want to fast forward through, uh, which I sort of get

a little bit. I I the first time watching it, I had a similar experience, but seeing it the second time where it's all about those digressions, it's all about UH, basically being a hangout movie for the majority of it. Once I sort of accepted that it made everything much

more enjoyable. Although I do have some issues with how the movie is edited, not necessarily that I thought it should be way shorter, but there are some odd editing choices in the movie, just in terms of when he cuts between the different Sharon Taede sequences versus Dalton's versus booths, just in terms of pacing, which I think I think he really misses. Um. Sally Sally Mankey, who is his editor on all his movies, and she passed away a

few years ago. Uh. Not not to take anything away from the actual editor of this movie, but yeah, yeah, I'm with you. I mean, I certainly think most of its seems can can be trimmed, but that's a link thing as well, And I think I don't know, man, I just I want I always want a tight story, and Tarantino never gives me a tight story. So it's like, can I just go in though, knowing that and taking

it for what it is. They're not regular movies or Tarantino movies, so you know what you're getting walking in. He's not gonna do Reservoir Dogs again, guys. I'm mean, I feel like when when you're watching this film, moment to moment, there's always something happening on screen, even if it feels like it's downtime. I'm if it's those scenes of like people driving around Los Angeles, which were great,

which were great, right, There's there's nothing narratively. I mean, you could just cut from one location to the other, but you would lose the kind of sense of movement you would lose and mood, the mood, the period, the tone, all that stuff. So I feel like in this film, like I'm never bored. Like there might be stretches where I think you could probably get from A to B a little quicker and cut out a few of these things, but I think you would lose the sense of just

really like living and absorbing that period. Well. And that's the thing too, Like we haven't even talked about the production design and like the set deck and all that mean out of control. I believe ninetent to practical real builds, Like no, maybe I would love to see this when an Academy Award for production over like some you know costume. I think we've all been to l A. You know, lived in l A for a long time. I've been a good bit and since I was younger. Have you

guys been to Los Angeles? But it's like, I mean, there's a certain hugeness to Los Angeles that you can't

really personify very easily. Like so many movies are shot in l A. But it's just kind of like a stand in for anywhere, you know, But like with this one, it's like you're in Los Angeles and the fact that you see Cliff Booth drive from Hollywood the Valley and you see that journey and you see him drop off his boss's nice car and get into his shitty beater car and then go to his like trailer home behind

a drive in movie theater. That is what really gives you the scope and the scale, what it means, and how long it takes to make that drive. And it's not easy. There's no like getting around easily in Los Angeles, you know. And that's like a little autobiographical detail. The car that Cliff Booth drives, the shitty one, was the same car that Tarantino's father drove, and so there's these

kind of personal details. Tarantino also apparently lived close to a drive in theater and would also be able to kind of look out his window at night and watch stuff that he was like too young to see. Born and raised Los Angelina, Yeah, I think he grew up in the valley. I'm not mistaken. Some of those scenes

they're talking about sort of extraneous material. If you look back on the movie, very very little of it is extreaneous, Like the scene where you see Cliff go back to his trailer home and just like hang out with his dog and you know, the dog's waiting to eat the shitty looking canned dog food, establishes that snap relations the dog is very well trained, you know, and that that comes back at the end of the movie. You see it put bull in neck one it's going to go off.

And or the flamethrower. The flamethrower I called that too. Yeah, that's called Chekhov's flamethrower. When when we see was in the pool and he jumped out and ran I leaned to remote, but he went flamethrower because you could just see it in the corner of that one shot, like the prop that he kept. Yeah, I think I called it a blowtorts earlier flamethrower. Definitely a flamethrower. No, No, you're right, Like I mean, nothing was wasted, like I mean,

there was very little that was entirely self indulgent. I mean, again, you could argue that the level of vine lens in the end was a little self indulgent, but again based on like who the victims were and what that represented and how even that was like meta Hollywood schlock in real life kind of you know what I mean, I mean, like represented like we've seen him on all these sets and now they're kind of getting to live out that cowboy fantasy in real life, but to the extreme. You know,

what's your take on the end? The way it went down was still a comedy to me. It was over the top, cartoonish and funny. They put bread Pitt on acid. They made him like the true romance character on the couch. Yeah,

he was Floyd basically, and that all makes it. They play it for laughs, and the way they do it is so over the top, Like would it have been it would have been completely different, but the choice to do that as opposed to uh what it had been real and there was a struggle and it was violent

and real and scary, like completely different movie. Well know, like you know, people people have very different kind of polarized reactions to that scene because I know, like if you watch it, he he dispenses with text pretty quickly. It's mostly the dog that does it, and and you know he's on the ground and he's kind of out of the picture pretty quick, and he really takes his

time with the other two women. And I mean it is absurd in a way that he's like bashing her into like the glass ever, and then like the phone receiver, which is like this metal it's really like the fireplace and like a table, so I mean it's way over the top. A lot of you know, some people, I think, really struggle with that scene because it does seem like Tarantino is basically just gleefully filming the brutal killing of

these two women. Um, and there is certainly like a heavy, heavy, over the top character to it that maybe that scene would not have played so one sided for some people. Had texts also kind of like had a little bit more of a yeah. For me, what the experience of watching that scene is very conflicting because I can't deny how satisfying it was, how much of a thrill it was, and the humor adds to that where it's like this great release as you're watching in the cartoon it's a

bugs Bunny cartoon. But I can't deny that makes me question myself, That makes me question why am I so satisfied by this? Why are we why do we have such a blood lust as viewers? Or why do I have that? You know, it's and I don't know the answer to it, right because him calling the cops on them after he goes down and yells at them in the cul de sac, and the cops coming over and arresting them accomplishes the same goal. Why do we want

to see them get brutalized? Like what's cathartic? Right? Right? Yeah? And I mean I think this is this is what Tarantino. I think Tarantino enjoys violence on just like a superficial level. It's like a texture or a color that he likes

to play with. There's no morality attached to it. It's just kind of like violence is fun to watch for him, especially like the kind of like cartoonish extreme violence, because I think he's done violence in his films as well that is really difficult and unpleasant to watch, even something like in Resero Dogs where um, he's torturing the cop and he's cutting his ear off, Like that's not pleasant to watch. I don't think. Um, I don't know, I

could be wrong. Maybe people do, just like gleefully enjoy that scene, but with the music's with you and all that, Yeah, I mean he's at the same time, it's still kind of like it's very brutal, So I don't know. I I think Tarantino has has an approach to violence on screen that it just he does not weigh it the

same way. A lot of filmmakers would weigh it necessarily, and I think he I think the reason that the tone shifts so distinctly in the film, it's just he wants to give us that that sense of catharsis that sense of like almost like transcending history or or or

this like definitive break with the historical record. Um, just to kind of again remind us that we're in a fantasy and none of this is real, and these are all actors playing a part, and they're gonna be fine, and they're gonna be joking between takes, and nobody's actually getting hurt here, but we're seeing them get hurt on screen.

But it is essentially all make believe, and I think some people put more weight just on the actual representation versus this sort of knowing like it's all a movie, man, don't you know, don't take it too seriously sort of, I mean absolutely, Like I don't know if you've heard this clip, but this kind of sums it up about the way you wanted. Why the need for so much grusome graphic violence. Why not let us did so much fun? Jan? Get it? Who is that? Because it's so much fun? Jan?

You know, I mean, it's true. It is about like it's on screen, it's Catharsis, it's released. It's also like, I think a little bit of a push back against like can soil culture and like this idea of people needing to always mind their peas and cues all the time in terms of not offending literally anybody ever, you know, in terms of like depiction of people on the screen, like it's okay to have unsympathetic characters, or it's okay

to have a hero that's complicated or something. I mean, a lot of people kind of have said that they check out the movie once they realize that Cliff Booth may have where murdered his wife, you know. And number one,

obviously I think it's left deliberately ambiguous. But number two, I just think that that's something that we've seen in especially like the whole wave of like the Golden age of TV with like Sopranos and so on, has been this idea of the anti hero has been like the person you root for even though they're kind of a bad guy or or at least they're morally compromised in

some way, shape or form. That we are maybe now losing a little bit in this rush to kind of, you know, embody all the positive traits that we would like to see in society, embody those in fictional characters on screen. I think there's something understandable and even maybe noble about that notion. But at the same time, art is just not that simple in that schematic, you know.

I think I think it's it's it's complicated, and that's why we enjoy it, because it's not so straightforward that you know, we're good people, therefore we want to go watch good people on screen doing good things. It's all a little simplistic and boring. Yeah, I I just want to make a final point for myself because I have

to step out I have a meeting. Uh. My sort of final thought on the movie is that, um, you know, talking about how the movie is sort of about the sort of transition of Hollywood from this sort of innocent era to this less innocent era, and Tarantino seems to

be lamenting that fact. And to me, when I think about that, it says to me, and I said this to U case when we saw it, like the movie has this very sort of conservative reactionary bent to it, like, oh man, wouldn't it be great if we could just go back to this era where things were simpler and you know, men were men and blah blah blah, and and some reviewers have pointed out how reactionary the movie is, and I would agree with that, but I also think

it's oddly sincere. It's like a sincere reactionaryism in the sense that, like Tarantino, more than any of his other films, is sort of laying bare how he feels his insecurities about obsolescence in him age, you know, eventually aging out and not being relevant anymore. And there's a certain vulnerability there that that reminds me of kind of like Eastwood's recent work or even john Ford's work, where you kind of like have ostensibly conservative filmmakers who still are able

to put that nuance in there. So it's a complicated film, but one that I think is has spawned so much great discussion, both pro and against and somewhere in the middle. And then there's something to be said for that this is not a movie. It's not a throwaway. You know, it's got people talking to a movie you think about and want to read about, which is that matters? You know, you gotta go yeah, I gotta go. Hopefully the rest of the discussion is by Paul Man. We're going to

keep at it. There's a few more thoughts. Boy, I'm glad Paul has gone, quite frankly because just getting post the best Paul Deckan, by the way, a super producer of stuff. They don't want you to know the movie crushing regular gus. I just want to feel like maybe there's a new Listen, Paul, I'm just splaining. It's not the same as a man. But no, the thing that was really remarkable to me, and that is so rare these days, I think, in especially a big tent pole

type movie. Is it did my my My thinking about it did shift, and I it stayed with me in a way a few movies do anymore. I'm still thinking about it. That's all over a week ago, Yeah, and I don't think about it once a day probably, And I think that's really cool and that just shows that

it the ambiguity is maybe part of that. The way to think about his framing of all these things as part of it, like there it isn't in a sense a political statement kind of you know about like the way we view um art versus the artist versus you know, the trajectory of culture and people getting left behind or who gets you know, who gets left behind, who gets brought forward? You know, I think all of these are

really interesting discussions. Yeah, I mean I think absolutely there's there's no other film this year at least that went out as like a wide release, you know, hundred million dollar kind of thing. Um, There's there's no other film I can think of that has stayed with me for this long, has has generated this much thought and debate and interest, and you know, like people making these the desire people have to like give their opinion on it

and kind of join the conversation and so on. I think it's really really unique, um, in filmmaking these days. I mean, that's a rarity now. And I mean that's part of the reason why I was going to give it like the full five thumbs at the beginning, is because I think this is a film that will absolutely endure, will become kind of part of the cultural canon of

this period. And I think, you know, still has a lot to reveal about itself that will happen over the course of however many years that people are watching and thinking about this movie. Even after this discussion. My thumbs are growing, like seriously, Like I mean, it's like one of those literally things you put in the water that becomes a dinosaur or whatever. That's what's happening with my

thumb right now. I mean, I think one of the signs of a of a great film is that sense of, like you watch it the first time, you're not going to necessarily have like an ecstatic response to it right away, but it's going to stick with you. You're gonna keep thinking something with a great record or something many any great work of art that definitely just like hit you over the head with those can end up being the

more substantial. When something hits you like two quick sometimes that's all there is to it, and it's like you get that first burst of enthusiasm and then it's kind of like that's all it is, and and sooner or later that effect wears off and you're kind of onto the next thing. But something that's like a grower, you know, it's it really seeps its way into like all your plores and you kind of like you realize that it's affecting not only like your thoughts about that film, but

maybe how you view other films too. And it just it kind of becomes like a part of you, and I think, um, I think this is one of those rare films to do that. Yeah. I mean, here he is, at this point in his career winding it down, so he says, uh, and he certainly went for it. It was. It did not disappoint me as and there was a lot of anticipation, and I didn't leave the theater disappointed. I left the theater with some issues with it, but

very satisfied. It just didn't feel like you got exactly what you were expecting, right, I mean, it was a good way. It was not a Tarantino movie in a lot of ways, which is why I like it so much. I think because I've I've had trouble with Tarantino for the past umpteen number of films. Like, I really did not enjoy Hateful Eight that much. I enjoyed it like in the theater, watching it the whole like seventy millimeter

road show experience. But it's just kind of like I didn't have any desire to ever see it again afterwards, right, And you know, you'd really have to go back to like Inglore's Bastards for the last time. I was like over the moon about a Tarantino picture, So I was not expecting this to like hit me as well as it did. You know, Yeah, I want to see what's next. Like I'm always wondering with him. He's he's done the revisionist thing three times. Now. I hope that. I don't

think trilogy. I hope he's done with that. Yeah, I don't think you go back to the well again. He's done seemingly all but homages. He's done black exploitation, he's done martial genre. He's done with death Proof whatever you would call that, like the you know, Killer Car movie. Uh, He's he's he's sort of done there. I'm ready. I know he's not gonna do another Reservoir Dogs, but I'm ready for another pulp fiction. E. Reservoir Dogs just kind

of tight crime story. Although we were surprised earlier when we looked at running times and many crush that pulp fiction was three hours long. There like three hours it really is. And this this never felt long once upon a time in Hollywood. So when I say it was too long, it just I just mean story wise, could have been tighter. I was never like, it was never

a slog. I was smiling or laughing through of it, like grinning about like either a piece of set design or a place in l a that I've seen recreated, or just those badass shots getting on the one on one when they fucking stopped traffic for an and all those picture cars in the background that I'm seeing, Like, I was smiling through most of this movie, So that means I liked it. Yeah, Yeah, sometimes it's that easy. Yeah, he did, you know, in terms of like the length

and so on. He did cut apparently a lot of stuff out of this film because the four our version, Yes, which might happen on Netflix. I'm hearing there's there's a there's an extended version of Netflix right now with about twenty five minutes more sprinkled on across like four sections, with another twelve minute monologue about a blowjob. Yeah right, but um, I mean I'm really looking forward to it. And in the case of this film, because you know, Tim Roth was cut out of the movie really yeah,

and I don't know who he's playing. James Mardson was supposedly in it. Did he get cut out? I think he got cut out to Yeah, I know there was an actor that was supposed to play um, a contemporary version of Burt Reynolds in the film that did not make it. In Oh, I thought that that was supposed to sort of been DiCaprio. Well, yeah, I mean obviously

like model off of. But then there was actually gonna be literally a character named Burt Reynolds that was like in the mix at some point, which is interesting because also Burt Reynolds was cast to play Bruce Stern George spond Roll and he died before we could do it, and so Bruce Stern, who was apparently close friend of Burt Reynolds, stepped in and played the part. It's nice seeing Luke Perry in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, nice little last film, and like you could feel it in the theater.

There weren't a ton of people there, but there were probably it was a matinee, probably people in the theater. You could feel a sense of like, oh, man, Luke Perry, look, I'm glad to see him up there. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean Tarantino doing what he does best, kind of like giving people another shot to kind of say like we've sort of forgotten about this person and they're still great and they're still around, and we should be using them. Yeah,

that's pretty cool that he got to do that. I could have seen him playing a more substantial role in a subsequent tearn Man, did you hear that one? That was even better than a ring ring in the Mini Crush, I still didn't silence it. My ring tone goes ring ring, which is me saying that, and then my text tone is me going text man. Uh, final thoughts, guys or any other like favorite moments you want to talk about.

I think we've hit the big ones. Yeah, um, I just like I love Los Angeles, and I know a lot of people don't care for it or like they don't know, they don't go to the right place, and so they get a bad impression of it because they so massive. It's a big place. So if you kind of accidentally end up in a part of the valley that's just like strip Mall Central, you're maybe going to

leave with a bad impression of Los Angeles. But I love all the movie history and like the locations, Like I I ate by myself at Musso and Frank one time just because I wanted to that place and it

feels that way. It feels just like it does in the movie because it's that kind of like place out of time, kind of like a room the beginning, did he see the room when he showed the shot of his car erect No, it was in front of the didn't remember that, but I tend to go there a place called the Dresden, which I wonder if why they didn't feature that. There's a I guess that's in the deleted photobe play. I'm really curious. Actually, let's let's see

if you find out. But I don't know if he's like playing a historical figure, if he's just you know, yeah, I mean again, all in, I really liked it. I think that third act felt a little rushed, and it's such a languid pay and then it felt like the last it wasn't even the third actually the last like thirty minutes. It felt like he went, all right, we gotta finish this up. He goes to Italy, he meets a wife. Um, that all felt very rushed to me,

and so that's why I dig it a bit. But overall, man to Casey's point, though, you could argue that that was a very clearly delineated changing of gears, like you know, like it's like we've we've lingered for two long days and speed downhill toward the and and there's there's a lot this is one thing we haven't talked about, like Tarantino does this thing, particularly in this film, where the music and the lyrics of the music very often are commenting in some way with what we're seeing on screen

or juxtaposing. Yeah, and um, that's usually a technique that I find a little bit fasctile, a little bit superficial and kind of annoying most of the time, because I a lot of people tried it and don't do it very well. But I think it's really really well done here, where for instance, when he gets when he gets into that kind of like the last half hour, I think it's like a clip on TV and it's sort of like, and now, ladies and gentlemen, the moment we've all been

waiting for, you know. So there's that, there's a there's a the beautiful montage sequence set to the Rolling Stones at a time where again it's it's out of time on so many levels because he's again talking about the end of this era. He's talking about the end you know, ostensibly of like Cliff and why am I blank on his name ricks relationship there. You know, they they've kind of said this is this is it, buddy, this is

the end of the line. Uh. And then also Sharon Tate, it's like it's her showing like the nursery they've built for the child as like baby, baby, baby, You're out of time. That was like, yeah, that sense of dread that you were talking about exactly, and I know I had the hunch that he was going to reverse it. Yeah,

it's still had that sense of dread for me. I mean I had I had the exact same thing, like I'm like, I know, this is like I'm sure this is not going to just happen, you know, literal food and Leo like, what what have they been doing here this whole time? If not to thwart the crime? So so I knew it was gonna kind of zig instead of zag. But still, as they're walking up that hill with the knives and everything, I was still kind of like,

I don't know what's going to happen here. I'm still jedge my seat, And I love that feeling of kind of being like anything literally anything could be about to happen in this film. Yeah, I have no idea what's about to happen? Um, well, even more even though I feel like I do, I don't how it gonna go down? Yeah, Like because I knew that was going to happen. They were there were two lines that got closer and closer and closer throughout the film, three lines really three stories.

And then when when right before they intersect, when Brad Pitt takes out that acid cigarette, my buddies and I were all like, oh, here we go, like this, this is how this is going to go down. I love that it's tonight tonight. Yeah, I think tonight's get away we go because that is literally the night where they're like, that's the only way you can handle it is by getting blind, drunk together whatever. And that's the nights right,

all intersected. There were these like big moments for all of these characters that where everything was leading up to that kind all been building to this one evening and uh, and Rick Dalton goes home and makes it at midnight a picture of frozen. Yeah, he's in his house coat, that great pool chair, like oh yeah. There were so

many just great little details, period details. Listening to he's listening to like his performance tapeer no, No, it's like old music because something is from like the Fit, you know, it's it's very much like not the hip Like the tape was fun too though when he was But I just love the idea of being in a pool chair holding this kind of expensive piece of a woman, you know, like what we would think of is kind of an

anachronistic and expensive piece of equipment. Yeah, so fun well that, I mean, I love that sequence at the beginning of the film where you contrast what Rick's surroundings are, like he's in this nice house, he's making himself the nice drink at the bar, and he's in his pool. Yeah, Cliss in the trailer and they both seemed to be perfectly at ease and there and they're surrounding it's not cliff Is like here, you know, he's not worried. Yeah, he's like cliff Is like he he has his life

and he's happy with it. You know, he's content, like he he's maybe a little bit uncertain about what the future might hold, but still he's worried about it. Though he's not worried about it. And it's funny that, uh, that Rick is worried about it even though as Cliff explains to him, He's like, dude, going to Italy and shooting munch of Western's does not seem like the worst of all fates the way you seem to be treating it. You know. Um, from where I sit as a stuntman

who barely works anymore, you got it pretty good. You know, well not to mention it, and this will be my last thing. Is you do see that juxtaposition of how Cliff is clearly away happier person than than Dalton, you know,

like you see them diverge. And when Cliff is in his element, he's superient and content and like doesn't really want for anything even though he's eating macaroni and cheese, whereas you know, Dalton is drinking out of the giant oversized bottle of Scotch and so stressed out everything, so stressed about everything. Yeah, that's the thing about gaining that stuff is that you have so much more to lose and it can all go away. You know. That brings a lot of like anxiety and stress to a career.

Absolutely absolutely, and just like that that sense of like what what Paul was saying about the film kind of

having this conservative reactionary tendency. I think that's a valid criticism, although having seen the movie again, having thought about it more, I don't think that that Tarantino is at all demonizing like what was to come in terms of Hollywood or in terms of the culture shifting, because obviously, like what is what is going to replace all this is like nineteen seventies new Hollywood cinema, and it's going to be that whole generation that kind of like yeah, and and

and and you know everything, Um, all those great filmmakers that that Tarantino loves, that we all love, Um, that's that is what's going to replace this. So at the same time, it is completely logical that these characters, these kind of like older style actors, would be a little bit grumpy about feeling like they're going to be yesterday's news, you know. But it also makes sense that they end up hanging out at the end that yeah, that there's

a bridge between the two eras. And it's not just that you know, the the hippies have been all killed and and so like Happily ever After equals the sixties

never ended or something. It's just kind of it's saying that actually there is a way forward for somebody like a Rick Dalton to like, uh, become part of this new movement and to have a second career to to kind of yeah, and so I it's very like the whole film is extremely optimistic in that way, and that it shows that um, change is scary, but ultimately like something good will come from it, and and that people do like their lives can't have second acts, that they

can kind of you know, that that that this great tragedy didn't have to happen, that um, that all these people can sort of live happily ever after in a way. And uh, I think that's it's it's a very weird conflicted feeling you get walking out of the movie because you have that fantasy that's up there on screen and then you have the reality of what really happened, and that in that weird kind of disconnect you know, of

knowing what how it really went down. Um. I think is one of the one of the bigger kind of themes of the film that that we are watching, you know, a fantasy and that we want it so hard to be but in a way watching it up there on the big screen this way in a way it's sort of not is but it has, It has more weight in our minds, you know that we can picture this

other future. I think it's really interesting. Well, even in the way fairy tales kind of go through iterations over time, Like the older versions of fairy tales are usually much more fucked up and statistic and really grim, and then they gradually get all that stuff gets taken out of

it because we want the happy ending. We want it to be happily ever after, you know, or even if it's based on a true story, all of the grittiness and you know, nastiness of the true story ultimately kind of gets sucked out and left with this like artifice, this disney ending or whatever. And I think that's kind of disney ending, but it is a happily ever after. He literally goes through those gates and then you don't even see them. You don't even see them hanging out.

He just walks up as sends the golden stair. Might it might as well have it? Did say, once upon a time dot dot dot, And I mean that was the only time you saw the name of the movie. Yeah, I love that that Sharon Tate at the very end, it's just Margot Robbie's voice on the intercom. You don't even see her. It's it's as if she's like, you know, transcended this this physical reality. She's just this kind of like pure being. Um. And she's behind her gate, you know,

she's protected still and and I love that. Um. You know when when Margot Robbie goes to the film, she's looking at Sharon Tate on screen that they didn't you know, replace her in the picture the way they did replace for instance, that scene from FBI Files where it was originally Burt Renaldson. That's an amazing comparison sequence. Yeah. Yeah, that's one of the funniest parts of the movie when they're watching that because them talking actor to just like

filmmaking guys so dead on, so dead on. And the one line from it that gets me was when the one guy comes on screen and Dicabrie goes, oh, that guy has a prey, Like that's such a thing to be like, Oh yeah, that got that actor that was on for that day. What a fucking asshole that they cut to like them a driving shot and uh and he's like where shoot that he's I don't know, somewhere out Laurel Cane or something. And when he does the car slide or whatever and Brad Pitt gives him at

props or whatever. Yeah, because the streets are quiet, not when Rick fucking Dalton's around, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's yeah. I love that. I mean, the dynamic between the two of them, that friendship, it just felt so real, so dead on. You know, I could watch movies about these two guys just hanging out whatever. Pretty cool. Yeah, exactly. All right, dudes, I think we should wrap it up. Good job, really great discussion. Yeah, that was a lot

of fun. I think maybe next time there's some really big, massive thing we can do another round table like this is fun. Alright, thumbs up to go or mini thumbs. I'm up to four and a half stars now by the four and a half thumbs because we have, after this discussion every time to think about it. The more I dig in, the more I love this movie. All Right, I'm at four thumbs. J can't go any higher case. He's like, I'm back to four and a half. Topped out. Yeah,

I'm gonna talk myself out of it. All right. Thanks everybody. I hope you enjoyed it, and we'll see you next week for more podcasts. For my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.