They blew it

Rating: 1/10 (28 July 2019)

This is Roma by someone who never lived. The 60s: Endgame. It is not a coincidence Gen X's directorial icon and his grand summation would play as empty adolescent parody. The blame is sort of on us for canonizing Tarantino in the first place. Here everything is a frame for his ego and legacy, like shining a light in a hall of mirrors and it just blinds you. My problem is he already made this ten times then stepping back is now making making it. Drink every time someone calls it a 'hangout film'. Most strange is it's apolitical in this era where cinema is rather needed to be political, so its relevance becomes questionable as I'll delve, the function of the film calls to question its own phenomenon. Tarantino never grew out of the worst impulses of GenX and is still rebelling bringing this a kind of authentic time capsule of the 90s, as we trapped him there. (Perhaps he trapped himself there.) So is it a surprise his subconscious is just this endless bizarre theme park ride of feet, ego posturing, television shows, absurd solipsism, and elevated trashiness? The poster was all that's needed, or the poster would show up in the actual film I wished he made at its end representing the preposterous history in the lens of 60s kitsch--rather than presenting the reflection as the actual story. A frame within a frame within a. As in this is a novel written by Doc Sportello or Hunter Thompson...or Tarantino in the Polanski context here by some 2050s post post post irony flash in the pan. Do you understand the film here 'is' this already. In its best version, I hoped for Zodiac meets The Nice Guys, but then, we had both of those films. We had Pulp Fiction too. We had Inherent Vice. We had Fear & Loathing. But there are so many tells inside this as the Tarantino legacy summation. Walt Disney being a 'once in 50 year genius', ah, a nod to himself. DiCaprio's anxiety was unexpected as what props up the 'icon' is neurosis, an authentic window into Tarantino's psyche, then Pitt is the angel in his ear. Pitt is, quite literally Pitt--the institutional patriarchal everyman jock bemused by Tarantino so long as the geek offers rewards in exchange, endlessly supportive and welcoming so his 'inferiority complex' on the shoddy foundation of his career is constantly reassured and even poked fun. Tate is the phenomenon wrestling with history and credibility, watching the audience's reaction, again, reflects his own pride. The most common crit are her scenes, and it is interesting it feels he has wet feet, reluctance, and fear to really delve into Tate and Polanski. He's a deer in the headlights when it comes to real life, unsure where to cross the boundaries, what to put down, so chooses the worst of all options by doing nothing at all with her. The feet by now is just him joking with us. The deviance. This is his most daring act for today. Flexible underage women both intelligent, monstrous, but always objectified. It's always: 'Here's a woman'. 'Here's women.' Rather than, here is a character. Of course women in his universe are another pop culture act. So they will only function in symbol, as always a reflection against the male ego. Subservient. See how twice, the little girl and the hippie, bow down at the legs of the men. The Manson family again, subservient women brainwashed. It's no longer subversive just to make them strong.
Another is a problem with anything 60s, is it's not authentic when performed by millennials or gen Z, and this is one area I expected he would nail it. It's window shopping. We can't touch period and should not try by heightening it but bringing it down. The film's dour mood. I sense a guilty conscience as what drove la la land into the slaughter house, the giant orgy of the film business. The 60s vileness never went away and Tarantino was neck deep in it partaking with Weinstein. So in the absence of the spiritual the cinema confession booth offers no wisdom in return but stoner laughs; we go to the same conclusion they did there's nothing there. Yet as always he would conclude with the divinity of cinema. It's why the film was prepackaged, critic proof, and this Leone/Godard summation at the getgo. Then how does it fail, is because his ascent to being the voice of Gen X by packaging nihilism on their behalf, looking back is not only questionable but a moral fright in its own right. Tarantino warred against his critics and the SJW culture by doubling down rather than stepping back.
For me it is the last act. He goes out his way to strip it of all its tension turning a myth into a parody skit. He always turns villains, whether nazi or slave owners, into cartoonish morons, not realizing we ought to see ourselves in villains to be truly scared. He ignored that line that villains ought to be heroes in their own story. Of course it's because he hates them, he hates them so much he doesn't want to dignify them with any sort of artistic soul. Finally! His authentic human feeling comes out. If you see it all vindictive, some revenge from metoo, it adds another texture aside from all this hero worship.
The Polanski family came out against this entire production as aggrandizement and self-important, naturally. That he felt entitled to impart himself for what he 'represents' to cinema culture already. Then so the act is respect via this profoundly egotistical conception; ego as compassion where history becomes his 'ninth film'. It becomes revenge on Polanski's behalf, and on behalf of cinema itself. It becomes archangel Tarantino. This is unexpectedly touching, as you have to set aside motive, you can say, it's accidentally touching. Problem is this drags politics into it, in the only way GenX can, via subversive irony,, and then by dragging in politics we can't look outside the film's current day context. It becomes a bold cinematic response, almost a tantrum to all his critics by making himself untouchable inside the proxy of film history, where he can move around women like little toys, murder or not murder women as he so chooses, and throw around cameos of legends, and the press can't touch him. Here, we're in his horrible turf.
The director as god. Nine films, nine commandments. One can say anything they want so long as you accept the frame of his power, while ignoring the serial rapes enabling his productions being every bit as bad as these murders. (Now I really want to see the 2050s take on Weinstein era, and the absurd Tarantino they would present.) As the world is crumbling, this guy is still playing with his legos and ignores life in favor of what number nine, number ten, and number eleven will 'mean' in his collection of works. The film perhaps expects no one to notice the stunt of it being Tarantino's 'payback', which brings the question of worthiness redeeming him, or at least, the worthiness of his legacy. (I understand the impulse of 'owning' Polanski/Tate and the 60s in terms of film history, but Polanski's work inside his thrillers was soulful, human, relatable, like a friend at your side--all Tarantino does standing alongside him is expose his own bloodthirsty egotism; he's just not a very good person.)
There is also something about generational mirroring, as under the weight of that great generation in the 60s, who lived, experienced political, historical and personal upheaval, the film exposes the hollow generational echoes in reaction, and all of it leaves a bad taste to how X, not the hippies blew it. X is a generation badly needed right now, and I do notice it's beginning to rise to the challenge. So seeing one of its great voices so lacking in self-awareness or accountability, reaffirms they chose the wrong horse to back. Again the parallel of cultural moral vacancy it's maybe not the intended parallel.