Directed by James Gray Written by James Gray & Ethan Gross Cast: Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler, Donald Sutherland, Jamie Kennedy, John Finn, Kimberly Elise, Bobby Nish, LisaGay Hamilton, John Ortiz, Greg Bryk, Loren Dean, Donnie Keshawarz, Natasha Lyonne Soundtrack: Max Richter
I’m not going to write too much about this film because there really isn’t much I can say without spoiling it.
One thing I can say emphatically is that the visuals (cinematography, effects, production design, costumes, props) are fantastic. In an era where special effects aren’t all that special anymore, Ad Astra is a sight to behold, and that alone is worth the price of admission.
The biggest issue I have with the film is that so much of the story and the way it’s told is just copy/pasted (and I mean beat for beat) from another famous story which I saw recently (I won’t say which, other people unfortunately have already broadcast it, but those who know will know), and, sadly, that kept nagging at me.
There’s also a particular scene that breaks the bounds of believability, at least in a film that purports to be “the most realistic portrayal of space travel ever”. You could perhaps get away with it in Moonraker in 1979, but not today.
However, unlike First Man, which also had amazing visuals (and did a great job at highlighting the dangers of space travel), Ad Astra does ultimately have a point (as well as a different sort of tone than other recent space films), and doesn’t just feel aimless.
Believe me, I know how lukewarm this review sounds, but at the end of the day I am giving it a strong recommendation, because I did ultimately appreciate it and I think most others will, too.
Just maybe don’t expect “THE BEST SPACE MOVIE EVER.”
These two movies don’t have anything intrinsically in common (other than friendship being at the core), but with all the talk about Tarantino’s next (and last) film quite possibly being an R-rated Star Trek movie, I figured why not pair these up.
Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Timothy Olyphant, Julia Butters, Austin Butler, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, Mike Moh, Luke Perry, Damian Lewis, Al Pacino, Brenda Vaccaro, Kurt Russell, Zoë Bell, Lorenza Izzo, Rebecca Gayheart, Michael Madsen, Martin Kove, James Remar, Clifton Collins Jr., Scoot McNairy, Marco Rodriguez, Keith Jefferson, Eddie Perez, Maurice Compte, Lew Temple, Samantha Robinson, Daniella Pick, Spencer Garrett, Damon Herriman, Lena Dunham, Rafał Zawierucha, Nicholas Hammond, Costa Ronin, Rumer Willis, Dreama Walker, Rachel Redleaf, Rebecca Rittenhouse, Ramón Franco, Clu Gulager, Kate Berlant
When I first heard that Quentin Tarantino’s new film would be dealing with, you know, that whole Charles Manson and his crazy killer hippie family thing, I was a bit disappointed, as it’s a subject matter well-worn in media portrayal, and, despite Tarantino’s talent, I was hoping for some ground far less traveled.
Silly me, I should have expected the unexpected from the very beginning, though I did go into the film fairly wide-eyed as I couldn’t glean much from the marketing as to what the movie would truly be.
I won’t do a deep dive into Tarantino’s career here (I’ve already done it over here), but I’m not sure it’s really necessary anyway, as Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood is the most uniquely different film he’s ever made; even more a radical departure than Jackie Brown. For one, it’s, well, I’ll call it a comedic fairy tale. Yes, it takes place in the reel world of 1969, and yes, there are scenes of drama and tension, but on balance, Hollywood is a comedy, and a rather wistful one at that (as wistful as Tarantino can manage, anyway).
At the core though is the friendship between shy, stammering actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his cocksure stuntman, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), who are wonderful both together and separately. And of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Margot Robbie, who may not be Sharon Tate, but puts in an admirable portrayal nonetheless.
Really though, what I loved most was the reveling in the world of the film, and the amazing attention to detail in production design, costuming, sets, props, music, television, etc; and the way it blends the fictional with the factual is just fantastic (and since you don’t have anyone playing themselves, you don’t run into a situation like Robert Altman’s The Player, where you have to keep track of who’s a character and who isn’t).
It’s not a perfect comparison, but I got some American Graffiti vibes from this film, in the sense that it’s a tribute to a particular time and place, and it’s mostly a hangout movie that jumps around between a few different characters.
And that’s just fine by me.
Go see it, especially if you can catch it on film.
Rating: ★★★★½ (out of five)
Original Release Date: December 8, 1979
Directed by Robert Wise Written by Harold Livingston (screenplay) and Alan Dean Foster (story), based on the television series created by Gene Roddenberry Cast: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Persis Khambatta, Stephen Collins, Majel Barrett, Grace Lee Whitney, David Gautreaux, Marcy Lafferty, Jon Rashad Kamal, Mark Lenard, Tom Morga Soundtrack: Jerry Goldsmith
Much like its pop culture counterpart, Star Wars, it’s difficult in 2019 to imagine a time when there was an achingly finite amount of Star Trek content, but that was exactly the case forty years ago.
After the cancellation of The Original Series in 1969 (there’s that year again), Star Trek was able find a larger and more dedicated following in syndication, enough to have most of the original cast (and writing staff) return for twenty-two episodes of the Emmy-winning Animated Series in 1973-74, but it would take another five years (and multiple fits and starts) before the much-anticipated live-action reunion would happen.
And so, when you see Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and wonder why so much of the first act consists of beauty shots of the starship Enterprise, remember two things:
A. The fans had been waiting ten years for this. and B. At the time, it was the most expensive movie ever made, so you can bet the filmmakers were going to milk every ounce out of their new spaceship toys (especially when The Original Series went out on much smaller screens and in much lower resolution than we’re used to today).
If 1981 was the Year of the Wolf (An American Werewolf in London, The Howling, and Wolfen), then 1979 was the Year of SPACE, as you had Paramount’s Star Trek, United Artists’ Moonraker, 20th Century Fox’s Alien, and Disney’s The Black Hole; all undoubtedly spurred on by the success of Star Wars in 1977, yet all unique in their own way, and in the case of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, it is unabashedly a big screen, big budget version of the TV show, which is exactly why I love it (and all real Star Trek fans should).
In fact, other than Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, The Motion Picture comes the closest to matching the tone and spirit of The Original Series; and yet, it’s got a bit of a different twist, because much like the audience, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy have all aged, grown, and moved on to other stations in life, so while it does eventually become the happy reunion we want, it’s more than a bit tense for a while as both the characters and the audience try to work things out.
Plot-wise, even though this is a forty-year old film, I still won’t spoil it, but, hey, it’s Star Trek. There’s a thing in space and they have to investigate. Boom.
Getting back to what makes the movie great though, other than the characters and the incredible visual spectacle, Jerry Goldsmith absolutely knocked it out of the park with his score. I doubt he could have realized at the time how influential it would be, because not only would the main theme be used for other films and, most notably, The Next Generation TV series, but it wouldn’t shock me to learn his Klingon theme is still being used today.
Lastly, for a film that’s often written off as a “failure,” The Motion Picture actually made plenty of money (#4 for the year at the box office both domestically and worldwide), the problem was that Paramount expected a bigger return on their $46 million investment, and Gene Roddenberry was blamed for the cost overruns (not to mention the mixed critical reviews), leading to his being promoted out of creative control and handing the production reigns to Harve Bennett, who worked with relatively meager budgets in comparison.
Still, thanks to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, we got five more sequels with the original cast, and, in fact, some of the groundwork for Next Generation was actually laid for this film first (most notably Decker and Ilia led to Riker and Troi).
I love it, I’m so glad I got to see it on the big screen at Alamo Drafthouse, and thanks to Fathom Events you’ll be able to see it later this year, too, so, do yourself a favor and go check it out!
Original Release Date: August 21, 2009 Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino Cast: Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger, B.J. Novak, Sylvester Groth, Julie Dreyfus, Richard Sammel, Samm Levine, Paul Rust, Christian Berkel, Léa Seydoux, Ludger Pistor, Rainer Bock, Mike Myers (Cameo), Rod Taylor (Cameo), Harvey Keitel (Voice Cameo), Samuel L. Jackson (Narrator)
It occurred to me the other day that Quentin Tarantino is a very lucky man.
I don’t mean to say that he’s lucky because of where he’s gotten to; I’m saying that because of where he’s gotten to, he’s lucky.
What do I mean?
Well, as far as I can tell, as a writer and director, Quentin Tarantino:
a. is generally loved by critics
b. is generally loved by audiences
c. generally makes financially successful movies (maybe not blockbusters, but certainly no albatrosses either)
d. is generally considered to be a serious artist
and,
e. makes the movies he wants to make.
For a director to achieve such lofty status for a fleeting moment, let alone maintain it for over two decades, is a stunning accomplishment. I mean, think about how many writer/directors who have had huge breakout hits in the past 25 years and who are now relegated to the garbage heap (The Wachowskis; M. Night Shyamalan; Bryan Singer, etc). And yet, time after time, ol’ QT keeps churning out impeccable films.
That’s not to say he isn’t human. In fact, you could argue that previous to the release of Inglourious Basterds he was in the biggest slump of his career, at least since he’d hit it big with Reservoir Dogs. You see, after the turn of the new millennium, Tarantino was basically untouchable: Kill Bill had put him on top of the world; he was a special guest director for Sin City, which gave him some of that all-important “comic book cred”; and, apparently, he made, like, the best episode ever of CSI or something (I’ve never seen it, but I believe it).
Then along came a little passion project called Grindhouse, where he and Robert Rodriguez got together to make their own personal double feature, each of them directing one.
Now, look, I don’t know Quentin Tarantino personally, so I don’t know if he took it hard or anything when Grindhouse didn’t do that well, but I do know that in the eyes of the movie-going public his reputation took somewhat of a hit. For one thing, his Death Proof was totally outshined by Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, because Planet Terror on the whole is a more entertaining watch, not to mention actually closer to the “grindhouse” theme they were going for (although, as an aside, the best modern “grindhouse” film has got to be Black Dynamite, but I digress).
Death Proof isn’t a bad movie; in fact it’s pretty good. The dialogue scenes are classic Tarantino, and the action scenes are quite impressive. The real problem is that it might be “too good” (or, rather, too polished) for what it was trying to be. And really, I think the whole Grindhouse project may have been a few years ahead of it’s time, but that’s speculative on my part.
ANYWAY, all of this brings us to Inglourious Basterds (aka Quentin Tarantino’s comeback special).
So, because I have a history degree, whenever the subject of this particular movie comes up, people often ask me what I think. In fact, I’ve had at least one person INSIST to me that I should hate it because of its “historical inaccuracy.”
The truth is, the fact that Inglourious Basterds is “historically inaccurate” is irrelevant, because it was never trying to be factual in the first place. Historical fiction (heck, even historical fantasy) doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to get certain details right, and, as far as I can tell, all of the costumes, weapons, and other equipment are all period authentic; and that’s what matters.
I mean, do people rag on Kelly’s Heroes because it’s not historically accurate? Who cares? It’s entertainment.
(Now, listen. If you’re going to base something on actual events, like Band of Brothers, or set a fictional story within actual events, like Saving Private Ryan, then the standard is definitely higher; but movies like Inglourious Basterds, Kelly’s Heroes, and The Dirty Dozen are different animals.)
So, what makes Inglourious Basterds Tarantino’s possible masterpiece?
Well, pretty much all the same elements that make most other Tarantino movies his possible masterpiece.
Before going to the special screening of Inglourious Basterds that I attended this past week, I went back and re-watched all of his big movies up to that point, and something I noticed about Reservoir Dogs became a recurring theme: most Quentin Tarantino films feature dialogue that’s so well-written, they could each be adapted as stage plays with little difficulty. Sure, a few scenes here and there you’d have to work around, or excise entirely, but the audience would get the point nonetheless.
There’s no doubt that Inglourious Basterds was marketed as something akin to Kill Bill, and there’s definitely some shocking violence along those lines, but on the whole it’s much closer to Tarantino’s earlier work: an out-of-order story told in maybe ten or so actual scenes, most of which consist of gripping dialogue. The real twist with Basterds is that so much of it is subtitled, but therein lies the genius of the writer/director.
Now, I don’t want to give all the credit here to Tarantino, because the performances are pretty much impeccable across the board. I mean, this is the movie that put both Michael Fassbender and Christoph Watlz on the map (and thank God for that). The only real downer for me is Brad Pitt’s accent; it’s just a little too grating for my taste. That, and B.J. Novak is kind of a strange casting choice (although not totally without logic). And maybe Eli Roth could have done a little better. But, really, beyond that, I don’t have much negative to say about this movie, because it’s awesome.
In fact, in terms of individually gripping scenes that I could watch over and over again, I’d put Inglourious Basterds on par with No Country For Old Men. Maybe Tarantino and the Coen Brothers should team up someday…
So, the question is, is Inglourious Basterds Tarantino’s definitive masterpiece?
I think the answer is: there is no answer.
I could argue just as easily for Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Kill Bill, not to mention Django Unchained. I guess it really just comes down to your personal tastes. And that’s one more reason why Quentin Tarantino is a very lucky man.
Rating: ★★★★½
P.S. If you loved Wolfenstein 3D, you have no good excuse for not loving Inglourious Basterds as well.
either)
; M. Night Shyamalan; Bryan Singer
, etc). And yet, time after time, ol’ QT keeps churning out impeccable films.
. You see, after the turn of the new millennium, Tarantino was basically untouchable: Kill
Bill
had put him on top of the world; he was a special guest director for Sin City
, which gave him some of that all-important “comic book cred”; and, apparently, he made, like, the 
, but I digress).
, and Kill Bill, not to mention Django Unchained
. I guess it really just comes down to your personal tastes. And that’s one more reason why Quentin Tarantino is a very lucky man.