Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

Tarantino starts out Once Upon a Time in Hollywood on the set of Bounty Law. Rick Fucking Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) are being interviewed in black and white, the audience seeing Dalton's insincerity and Booth's rye sense of humor. Booth carries Dalton's load, we are told, and it sets the tone for the color film coming.

The rest of the run time tells a story that goes three ways. We see Dalton after Bounty Law has been cancelled. His career isn't the best: he's playing the bad guys in various television shows. In comes a hot studio producer telling him to go east where the Italians are making westerns. Booth sticks by his side while having his own adventures.

Booth is a bit of a character. A capable man. Pragmatic. He loves his dog. He does not take any more shit than necessary. He can hold his own in a fight with Bruce Lee and fix a tv antennae. We see Booth care for Dalton and get mixed up with some girls who might be a little dangerous.

Speaking of girls, Sharon Tate (Margot Robie) is our last point of view. She's newish in town with a couple of movies under her belt. Her new husband is a hot shit director and her house is gated. One of her most significant scenes shows her going to the theater where her movie is playing and be delighted by the audience laughing.

Watching Dalton, Booth, and Tate wander themselves around this story, Hollywood comes to the forefront. Sounds cliche, another story where a place is a character, but Tarantino fills in the story in four dimensions. Hollywood looks the part, all the right music comes out of the stereos. It feels like it should, and that might be the best lie of them all. The way things should be ain't always the way they are. That's how movies go, though, huh? Whole point of them is to present a lie, a facsimile of the truth, and tell everyone how things are. Think of all the things movies have made you believe: Moscow is always cold, cars explode when shot, the pyramids don't have a KFC beside them. Tarantino uses the fake and the real to carve out a story made of pure wish fulfilment.

Spoilers beyond: go watch it. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

How many wishes get granted in this little fabel? That's the why of starting out "Once upon a time…" right? Otherwise name the movie "Hollywood Shit-fits" and get on with your life. But this story has a few wishes granted, the big one coming at the end, one of Tarantino's big wishes. Tarantino uses the myth-making, wish-granting of Hollywood to make sure that Sharon Tate lives just as he did when he killed Hitler in Inglourious Basterds. By undoing the Tate murders, Tarantino's world exists with the sixties continuing past their expiration date. Tarantino's inner creative world is dependent on evil being stupid and punished in the most creative way possible.

Let's go back to Rick Fucking Dalton. As the story tracks, Dalton had a pretty good life until his show was cancelled. He keeps on, paying Cliff, and doing parts on television shows. Then comes along a fairy godmother in the form of Shwarz (Pacino) with a deal: Travel to Italy and be in a few movies and a star will be born. It's a chance, one that may not pay off, but a chance at a better and more creative life. Throughout most of the movie, we see Dalton in this limbo. Everyone around him tells him how good he is, from the eccentric director to his young co-star. We see him flip out when he can't remember lines; we understand that he cares about his craft and not become jaded and cynical. In the end, the gets a new career, wife, and relationship with Cliff, being invited up to the house of the young star and director he pined for early in the movie. Dalton's story is one of privileges much like many fairy tale subjects, the story of how a talented person got everything they ever dreamed.

To juxtapose Dalton we have Cliff Booth. If Dalton is Cinderella or Snow White, someone in the stardom who allows good things to happen and success blossom from who they are, then Cliff is Hansel and Gretel or Little Red Riding Hood, a confident pragmatic creature on a path they will not be deviated from. Cliff works hard as a stuntman. You can see that with the many, many scars all over his body. He also has a bit of a moral code, one that does not allow him to listen to Bruce Lee shoot his mouth off or have a hippie cut his tire. Both of those examples prove Booth is not a man to be messed with as well as showing our own wish fulfillment as humans. Few people can say that beating up on Bruce Lee would be low on their list of capabilities as well as standing up to the Manson family if they were to attack your car.

Speaking of the Manson family, of course they are foiled at the end. The suspense leading up to the horror ending is masterful, but the fairy tale setting will not allow them to succeed. As monsters in stories are defeated, so must these stupid cultists. In the real world, the idiots of the Manson clan made their way around the gates and killed Sharon Tate. Tarantino has them connect their insane notions of race wars with television, jumping dozens of years ahead of Tipper Gore, and instead go after Rick Fucking Dalton. Unfortunately for them, Cliff Booth and his dog are making some food and proceed to destroy the stupid cultists. Sure, Dalton ends the violence with a flamethrower, but Booth had it all in hand.

The mix of truth and fiction creates a world Tarantino wants to live in. It creates a world where all the best songs are always on the radio, a world where good performers get the roles they deserve, and a world where strong men defeat bad people. This world is covered in orange and lime green and it thumps along on the muffler sound of a classic car. It creates Hollywood, the lie we all want to believe in. Otherwise why even write about it?

Spider-Man: Far From Home Makes the Villain Matter

Halfway through Spider-Man: Far From Home I turned to the person next to me and said, "I think this movie just shifted into high gear." In response, her boyfriend leaned over and said, "Stop talking to my girlfriend during the movie." After that I kept my comments about how better the effects and villain get once the whole story is laid out.

     After the effects of Thanos's Snap and Unsnappening in the Avengers films, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) just wants to have a nice European vacation. He's gonna see some sights. Take some pictures. Tell MJ (Zendaya) how he feels about her. Too bad for them, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) need his help to beat some elemental apocalypse creatures with some leftover Tony Stark tech.

     With Spider-Man: Homecoming, Jon Watts proved he could weave a good story around kids and superheroics. Having already proved he can deal with menacing figures going against children in the not-too-talked about Cop Car, he almost cookie cut the menace from Kevin Bacon in that film onto Michael Keaton's Vulture. Here he ziggs a bit, implying the gravitas in Mysterio while undercutting it with a twist that comics readers will see coming but is thrilling anyway. When Mysterio proves himself to not be the gracious mentor but a scheming actor, Gyllenhaal gets to stretch villainous side, not pure evil like he showed in Nightcrawler but the laughing menace Tom Cruise showed in Magnolia. He's a showman with a dark side and that resonates far more than dark and cackling.

     When Mysterio shows his true colors, the movie really comes alive. Until that second act reveal, most of the action and effects seemed lackluster. Possible big budget fatigue, but the giant water monster and the backpack wearing Peter Parker in a carnival mask looked cartoonish. Then Mysterio's effects to disorient and play with Parker's senses turn the effects budget up to eleven, providing sequences that rival Doctor Strange's multiverse and Ant-Man's microverse effects for "man I wish I was in college and on drugs right now" effect. The amazing hallucination effects fall apart once you think about how we are shown dozens of people work to make the other effects possible but handwaving plots is Marvel's true superpower.

     Unfortunately, all Marvel's bad traits are on display here as well. As cool as the hallucination sequence is, it and all the other fight scenes are chopped to hell. No matter how much money the John Wick franchise makes proving good action have to be seen, Marvel still cuts too quick and too often to get a good feel about how particular fights are going. Nowhere is this more clear than the ending battle on the London Bridge with Spider-Man going against a bunch of drones. It's mostly dull with misdirection and confusing more than it is thrilling.

     Walking out of the theater dodging that guy and his girlfriend, I have to say I enjoyed the movie overall. A fun movie containing enough pathos to move us through the end of Phase 4 of this big weird money-making experiment. Mysterio himself also hints at bigger and better things, being an effective villain not in his over schemes in this film, but the secrets he lets out after his defeat. Whereas the Vulture kept Parker's secret identity, Mysterio let that secret fly and the implications are fascinating to think about.

Check it out before it leaves theaters

The Dead Don't Die (2019)

A case can be made for the zombie art house film. Slow paced, shot with a deft hand, full of esoteric dialog delivered by deadpan performers, Jim Jarmish's The Dead Don't Die checks many boxes for the art house crowd while giving into the violent mass appeal. Prone to the odd tangent, the film is a mixed bag of unexpected and traditional.

     Officers Cliff (Bill Murray) and Ronnie (Adam Driver) start off their day by meeting up with Tom Waits in the woods. So banal is there existence that when the singer turned hobo fires off a shot at them, they just shrug and let the man off with a warning. Driving back to town, they begin listening to the radio talking about polar fracking and comment on how the days are lasting longer than usual.

     A song comes on the radio that Ronnie likes, The Dead Don't Die by Sturgill Simpson. Cliff asks what it is. Ronnie says, well, it's the theme song.

     So begins the slow death of a small town and the story of a few officers trying to keep their shit together long enough to maybe live. The self awareness of the story is off-putting yet charming. The aw shucks humor mixes with the violence to create an hour and forty-five minute tale that might have something to say if it ever got around to saying it.

     Our officers tour the town. There's another officer, Mindy (Chloë Sevigny) guarding the body of the soon to be risen zombie cameoed by Carol Kane. Steve Buscemi and Danny Glover play an asshole racist farmer and a nice old black man about town who are given little to do but say some lines before the zombie horde pulls them into the ranks. One could go along with calling them caricatures if they were playing any type of characters.

     Strangers make their way to the motel driven in a classic car by Selena Gomez. They are warned about the zombies. Close your doors and lock your windows and all that. In what could be an avant garde act, they are killed off screen, much like Josh Brolin in No Country For Old Men but without the impact. The strangers are given a scene in a convenience store and another at the motel and then death. Their only contribution other than the random futility of life seems to be a stab at the commercialism and to re-introduce the theme song after Gomez purchases a Sturgill Simpson CD.

     I guess that leads us to the zombies. Most zombie movies are commentaries on the world that created them. George Romero's slow zombies are ravenous killers based on our own prejudices and consumerist ideals. The fast runners of 28 Days Later exemplify the ability of modern life to overwhelm and consume the individual. Jarmish's zombies eat and destroy sure enough but when they are not they chant the desires of their simple lives. Dead kids stumble around candy ailes chanting brand names. It's enough to make me wonder if the metaphor of the walking dead has been played out.

     Well aware I have not mentioned Tilda Swinton's Scottish Samuri Funeral Director, I simply do not know how. What well of ideas this creature came from I will never know. She's a delight and steals the movie from her first scene painting corpses to her last… well, even I won't spoil that. It really has to be seen. It's fucking nuts.

     In the final scenes, Cliff snaps at Ronnie after the younger man utters his catchphrase: this is all going to end badly. Where does he get this phrase? It's somewhat of a callback to Ronnie listening to the Sturgill Simpson song, but overall it is a comment on the state of the world. It's all ending badly and the movie The Dead Don't Die is no different.

Shaft (1971/2019)

Doing forty-five in a 2012 Toyota down the street ain't as impressive as ninety in a '71 Chevelle, but my date and I made it to the library. On an average night, we would be bowling. Once you get me out the library door I tend to stay gone. Tonight the library had a movie and free food, so we decided on a show.

    We watched the original Shaft and then went to the theater for the newest film in the series. I'll get to the movies and what I thought of them. First we had to find a seat.

    The library offered popcorn and a drink for the movie. As my date and I are wont to do, we brought our own drinks. For the theater, we break out the tall boys. In the library we went respectful, my date bringing her flask. I got the popcorn and she got the drinks and freshened them up for us.

    Our library pulls out all the stops for movie nights. The finest non-reclining plastic chairs. Bags of popcorn that not only crunch in your mouth but in your hand. A screen so big it would take a family size cereal box to block the projection.

    Speaking of the projection, you never saw such lush grays. Because we are a municipal building, a light must stay on to spotlight the exit. If you sit in the right place, you get to feel like Moses talking to the Lord.

    Talking about the Lord, you will feel the booming quality of those stereo computer speakers. Sit close enough and you might hear the earth move.

    So we settle and relax near the back. The lights are flicked off. The room has filled up some. A small child held up his hands, but his shadow puppets suck.

    Right off people started talking. Not telling Richard Roundtree's Shaft what he should do or who he should throw out a window, but just talking. The guy in front of us was going over his taxes on his cell phone.

    "Excuse me, please be quiet," my date said.

    The guy doing his taxes turned around and gave me a sweaty eyeball. I gave him one back. He turned back around and kept talking.

    "'Scuse me, shut the fuck up," my date said.

    The guy turned back to us again. I shrugged and nodded. He said, "Why don't you shut-"

    That's about as far as he got. I like my drinks strong, my clothes comfortable, and my women fiery. She hit the dude with her open palm, a nice slap that was felt back up his family tree. He dropped his phone. People clapped.

    The rest of the movie went by in silence. Richard Roundtree took no shit and Issaac Hayes bopped along with a nice little funk. After we drove off to the multiplex to see the newest Shaft. We had a less eventful time although on the way we finished a joint to color the experience. Turns out we needed it.

     The best way to think about the new Shaft is to compare it to the old Shaft. If anyone out there mentions the middle Shaft from twenty years ago, well, maybe go talk to your mom. She might care.

    So how is the 2019 Shaft different or the same from the 1971 version? Well, I guess depending on who you are, the new one is more offensive. There's all kinds of issues in here to mess around with: sexism, homophobia, attitudes of blackness, manliness, cultural issues, and just bad plotting to name a few.

    In the 1971 Shaft, Richard Roundtree is the sex machine private detective and all around bad mother shut-your-mouth. He is approached by a local mobster whose daughter has been kidnapped by a rival mob guy. Shaft kills many dudes with bullets and windows and sleeps with two women, proving the sex machine and bad mother shut-your-mouth parts.

    In the 2019 version, Jessie T. Usher is a guy who is the son of the guy who is the son of Shaft. The second guy is Samuel L. Jackson and Shaft is still Richard Roundtree. All three men seem to be having a blast but are neither sex machines nor bad mother shut-your-mouths. Wait, no, that's not all correct. They should shut their mouths.

    Where the original stuck to a fairly flat noire plot that ranged around New York City and Harlem creating a world, the new version seems to jump from place to place because things have to happen. Usher's JJ (who should be John Shaft III, right?) creates most of the plot. The younger Shaft's friend dies and to solve the case, he goes to his dad (Jackson) who eventually goes to his granddad (Roundtree). The whole thing ties together with an old case of Jackson's.

    Most of the dialog is Jackson telling Usher to be more of a straight black man and Usher saying "nuh-uh." To back up that Jackson's approach is correct, the movie over and over shows Usher shooting and fighting to impress his love interest (Alexandra Shipp). The love interest swoons at these "manly" actions while berating Jackson for his outdated attitudes.

    Unlike the original, the 2019 movie has no idea what its message wants to be. A comedy? An update to the crime drama? A reason for people to hang out and talk shit to each other? A reason for people to say "the original is better, watch that" because, well, it is and more social conscious.

    If you must see a Shaft, check out the original from the library.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)

She had big hair, big makeup, and read Goodnight Moon like a pro. I sat back and watched Miss Sweet Tater enthrall two dozen kids for an hour while a bunch of idiots outside yelled about Jesus. As if Jesus didn't wear a robe.

    All month we pushed the Drag Queen Story Time. We got a thousand or so calls from the public. The split between patrons wishing us good luck and those calling for our eternal damnation cut right down the middle. It's best not to speculate on such things, but let's just say the retirement home flashed up on the caller ID more than once.

    The day of the event, William Ratcliff came into the library's back door. He looked like a plumber because he was a plumber. Still had on his overalls and carried a big heavy bag. Rather than carry around pipes and toilet rings, that big heavy bag contained Miss Sweet Tater.

    Miss Sweet Tater came from Ratcliff's aunt, a woman with an appetite for life and pecan pie. Little Billy would sit in his Aunt Bea's kitchen and eat that pie and listen while she told him stories of her dancing in New Orleans. A dozen years later, Ratcliff created Miss Sweet Tater and danced on those same New Orleans stages and floats, one time going up on the main stage at the Saenger with the Dixie Chicks to sing God Bless America. Aunt Bea had passed, but Miss Sweet Tater said she had been with him nonetheless.

    After that long afternoon worrying about a violent response to a man wearing a dress, Miss Sweet Tater and I decided to take in a movie. We had time to kill while the crowd dispersed. I pulled up the Shudder app and scrolled through. We chose Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon.

    Humor and horror are linked by the visceral reactions they produce. Humor creates a laugh, horror a cringe. Shifting from a laugh to a cringe takes a deft hand that few have. Behind the Mask rides the line pretty close and succeeds way more than it fails.

    In the spirit of the Blair Witch, three grad students get in over their handheld heads. They have been contacted by Leslie Vernon, a spree killer, who wants to document his first assault on a group of horny and drunken teens. The majority of the flick follows Leslie as he lays out how he's setting up his Final Girl, how he's picked the legend to fuel his mythology, and how he's gonna hack and slash when the time comes.

    For the most part, the movie is a funny deconstruction of slasher movies, almost in the spirit of Scream. Other movie franchises get called out and named. At times it plods along, fueled by the likeable Leslie Vernon and the gullible grad students. When the time comes, however, Leslie puts his scythe where his mouth is and delivers.

    More fun than fright, Behind the Mask is clever and deserves to be checked out.

Booksmart (2019)

The other night, my friend Cornbread was on an internet call, looking at each other from two thousand miles away. Very spooky if you think about it, just ghosts in each other's machines. Then Cornbread goes all glitchy saying, "You believe in ghosts?"

    You can talk to about such topics with a certain type of friend. This type of friend does not have the name of a demon tattooed on them. This type of friend does not own two or more crystals they believe have any kind of powers. This type of friend does not have a sword nearby.

    If you are talking ghosts and goblins with a friend holding a sword in one hand, a glowing crystal in the other, and has the name JERRY tattooed on his or her bicep, find a new friend.

    So I told Cornbread no, I did not believe in ghosts. What did he think? He told me to hold on a minute and got himself another beer, cracking open the cold can and saying, "I saw a man exhale a mighty big cloud of vapor and walk into the dark."

    I asked a few questions. What kind of vapor? What kind of dark? Do ghosts exhale? I have not been a resident of the South in several years and while not sure, I doubted they had changed the rules on breathing ghosts.

    Turns out, they have not changed southern ghost rules. They just got hipsters that vape. I encouraged Cornbread to try it out before his two pack a day habit of Camel Wides catches up to him.

    So the film Booksmart had me tricked. I went in looking for an edgy comedy like the ones I was raised on. The ones where one or more Corey had adventures in high school.

    The plot follows Amy and Molly, two smart as shit kids going to better places after high school who find out so are all the assholes they look down upon. The slutty girl, the theater kid, the stoner guys, all the archetypes of school are going off to Ivy League or equivalent. Amy and Molly face the fact that while everyone else was partying and studying, they were just studying. Stunned by this revelation, Amy and Molly plot to go to the crazy high school party and have one last fun night. Along the way they meet a serial killer, confront their crushes, and learn that all they really needed was to be less up their own asses.

    The plot is clever in its simplicity. As Amy and Molly get to know the kids they dismissed, they learn the kids are three dimensional people. The direction of Olivia Wilde and the script pivots with nimble dexterity around Amy and Molly's point of view. From the beginning to the end the audience goes through the same emotional growth as the girls seeing their peers as more than they first appeared. Add in amazing shots such as the pool scene (which could have been a Radiohead music video from the 90s) and the following oner shot that ends in silent screaming, and the film amazed me even more.

    Like the best John Hughes movie, Booksmart leaves the audience thinking the characters are going to be okay. Maybe it leaves them one too many times, the ending drawn out far too long, but I wish all these kids well. That's not too bad.

    Special awards go to Billie Lourd who has the best "having sex in a graveyard" story in recent memory.

    The library says check it out.