Yeah, I guess psychopath isn't quite right. Just a guy with an air of danger around him, that's what I was picking up on
Yes, now that I will go along with. Cliff Booth "appears" to be a happy-go-lucky mellow guy, but he clearly can get extremely intense, both with his fighting skills and his need to punish people who attack him. I think that's fair, but it doesn't make him crazy per se.
I thought it was meh. Way too long, way too slow, way too self-indulgent. Maybe I'll find nuance in it the 2nd time around but I think it's more likely I'll be even more bored. At least the 1st screening leaves open the tension of what will happen to the characters. The Manson family and the ticking clock to August 1969 adds a feeling of dread. Once you know how the movie addresses those incidents, though, that tension will go out the window, so you're just left with 5 hours of "Lancer" outtakes!
I keep reading how this is Tarantino's 9th film but lists i see online make it the 10th. Is Kill Bill 1 & 2 considered one movie? Can someone help out a newbie?
It's worth noting that the original cut of the film was four hours long, so it wouldn't be a case of them just putting out all the footage they've got. Presumably, Tarantino and the editor thought all stuff in the four-hour cut was essential, at least initially. I imagine a strong argument can (and will) be made that they were wrong. But I will still enjoy seeing the extra footage. I view it the same way as bonus tracks attached to the end of an album I really like. If I like a record, then I most likely will enjoy hearing the outtakes and alternate versions, but they won't supplant the original album for me. I like this movie, and I will enjoy seeing lots of additional footage, even if my ultimate impression is that the final edit is the best version of the story.
Saw it for the third time day and it gets better with each viewing. It was my friends first viewing and she loved it. Cliff would probably be dead if he weren’t tripping. It relaxed him and made him not too defensive or aggressive when the members first burst into the house.
Sometimes things like this that you found disappointing are more enjoyable the second time because you know what to expect. You might find that you relax into it more and find moments to appreciate that got shut down the first time. You never know.
I'm leaning toward him being the best character in the film, and I really expect at least an Oscar nomination for Pitt for this. I hope to go back and see it again Tuesday (AMC Stubs $5 day, thank you very much) so I can soak in all the background stuff I might have missed.
I was amazed that not only was I not bored on the second viewing, I picked up on a lot more that was going on, particularly in the Spahn Ranch scene. Loved the music quite a bit. And I paid a lot more attention to the climax at the end, though I still lost count of how many times Pitt slammed Katie into the wall phone. And the pitbull's biting Tex Watson was still very, very hard to watch. I think you're not gonna walk away from either of those.
I went back and saw it again. I think you will enjoy it the second time even more. I was spending a lot of time trying to figure certain things out where the second time I relaxed more and took it in as intended. As others have said, this is a movie that will continue to give upon many viewings. Tarantino is quite brilliant. I watched Pulp Fiction tonight and have not seen it in maybe five years. I forgot he acted in it. He did a good job and I enjoyed watching him. I hope he will continue giving us very well done, thought provoking films.
If there is anything that bothers me it’s probably the Bruce Dern scene. I understand why it was played the way it was, but in both this and Hateful Eight, it feels like they are throw away scenes for an actor of his magnitude. Yes I loved seeing him, I just wish he had been put to better use. The bed scene...c’mon, most of us could have played that. I can’t help but wonder if Bruce wasn’t a bit embarrassed by it. Unless he’s simply happy at this point to be working at all. And for all I know perhaps he’s not up to doing much more. In that case, I’m just thrilled to see him at all. But he was great in Nebraska, which wasn’t all that long ago, and seemed in good health.
Well, what the heck. If he’s okay with changing history at almost ridiculous extremes (and I’m okay with that, his films are not documentaries) I can’t imagine him having any issues with inserting visuals that might not be quite correct in the time line. At least those happened!
Slamming her head into the phone had me laughing even more the second time! Who else could illicit such a response from an audience? He takes a lot of chances, just like I’m sure directors of comedies have to do before an audience views it. Makes you wonder how many scenes he films like that where they need to be cut because the audience doesn’t respond as intended. With the dog scene, I guess I just saw it as the same thing: it isn’t real, and it’s over the top funny. Imsuppose some trained dogs will do that, but it’s likely deserved. Kinda good to remember those things when seeing one of his films!
There was a point where it became "Coyote vs. Road Runner" violence, and I did laugh out loud both times it happened because it was so extreme and over the top. Maybe 3 head smashes into the phone wouldn't make me laugh, but 12 definitely do. I'm reminded of what Paul Verhoven did 30 years ago in Robocop, where the ED-209 droid in the demo shot the guy on the desk about 279 times, which is maybe 276 times more than he really needed to. But the point of the scene was the excess, and Verhoven was upset that this got a movie (briefly) an NC-17. He had to cut it down to about 20 shots, and that removed a lot of the joke: that the robot was using grossly-excessive force to take down a suspect.
Ca No way! I had an English bulldog who could demolish a pork chop bone in two bites, I wanted to see Tex’s wrist squirting and shattered and flopping like linguini! Tarantino did not deliver! Grindhouse my ass!
Brad was into twos. I saw it again. Twice into the phone. Twice into a framed picture. Twice into the mantle. And twice into a table. Hard Eight.
No problem with that scene Build up and release. The two fishermen in “jaws” with his wife’s roast nearly gets chomped, but it ends with a laugh. It’s nit the climatic moment. It’s a feint A bump on the coaster You don’t want to outdo the climate. The single most brilliant use of music, editing and direction is when Brad Pitts walks the dog down the road as “Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are coming to the Canyon)” rises on the soundtrack - the hair rises on my neck every time! The family’s surreally sputtering car. The perfect creepy song. The anticipation this is the moment. It’s beautiful. It’s an incredible moment he’s built to. It’s Masterful.
I'm guessing Dern just wasn't well. He doesn't seem very present in the scene and Pitt seems kind of uncomfortable. He also flubs a line and it's left in. I'm guessing it was a tough scene to shoot and they salvaged what they could as a tribute to Dern. Another actor might have been better as Spahn. I feel like the meeting with Spahn should have been more of an EVENT given all the trouble Cliff goes through in order to see him.
I say it’s fine. The clincher is Spahn is fine and that is what is revealed after the suspenseful approach. After the reveal, the rest is Anticlimax. Just fun patter And I Like Pitt In that scene. AND. that is like what would have been the result, in all reality.
Did Cliff have to beat the crap out of the Spahn Ranch hippie he suspects flattened his tire? There was no proof that he was the one that did it so it was a bit unjustified for someone with a cool head as Cliff. I thought that scene was kind of out of character and does point to psychopathic traits. Or maybe he's a sociopath.
