Tag: Al Pacino

Most reviews for this movie mention fun facts about Quentin Tarantino. And I will spend this time talking about an issue with that. Holy shit, can we all stop going crazy about how many movies he has directed? Let that be his obsession, not ours as reviewers.

Sure, he said he will retire after 10. But plenty of directors have said they would retire and then not.

Outside of a director’s first film, or their second film, I have never seen so many care about their total number after that point. By obsessing over it, we are building up Tarantino to be something bigger than what he really is, and let’s face it, he doesn’t need everyone else stroking his ego.

And with that, let’s talk about Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, his 9th-ish directed movie.

DanceThe year is 1969. Vietnam sucks. Hippies exist. People are famous and rich and Nixon is around as well. We went to the goddamn moon!

But the plot starts in February and ends in August, so most of the film takes place without the moon landing at all. We are talking about aging star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), who was the lead in a Western show for many years in the 50’s and early 60’s, but now is stuck without many job offers and one off appearances in shows as a bad guy who always loses to the hero. It is also about Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), long time friend and stunt man of Dalton’s. Although he isn’t getting as much stunt work, he is still trying and really a personal assistant and friend to Dalton in order to make some money.

The movie is mainly about their struggles, but it is also a little bit about their neighbors, Polanski and Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). It is also about a lot of hippies living in abandoned studios. It is about what people need to do to get famous, even if it means doing (shudder) European movies.

Also starring Al Pacino, Austin Butler, Bruce Dern, Clifton Collins Jr., Dakota Fanning, Damian Lewis, Damon Herriman, Emile Hirsch, Harley Quinn Smith, Julia Butters, Kurt Russell, Lorenza Izzo, Luke Perry, Margaret Qualley, Mike Moh, Rafal Zawierucha, Scoot McNairy, and Timothy Olyphant.

Most of all business deals are done in bars with cigars.

Around 2006, when information was coming out about this future movie called Iron Man, people were abuzz with casting decisions. Who is playing who!? One of the most exciting aspects of the whole deal was of course Samuel L. Jackson playing Nick Fury. And then not much else was said about him for a while.

Opening night while watching Iron Man, I remember being so excited the whole film to see SLJ as Fury, and getting to the end of the movie and being confused. “No! They said there would be a Nick Fury!” So as the credits started to roll, I told my friends to sit down. There must be something more in the credits. And lo and behold, at the end of the first MCU film, there was another scene, with Fury introducing the concept of Avengers. At that point this wasn’t established, for something at the end of the credits, I just knew it had to be. I needed my Nick Fury, damn it.

So how does this relate to Once Upon A Time in Hollywood? It relates perfectly I’ll have you know in a second, but let me give you some non spoilery analysis.

This movie is gorgeous. It meanders, yes. It could have been slimmed down. Pitt and DeCaprio give wonderful performances and I won’t forget about them soon. The cameos were fun. Robbie felt like a completely different person and did well at this carefree in the moment feeling actress.

So here are the spoilers for the rest of the review.

Did you know that Charles Manson was in this movie? Well, if you read movie articles, you should have known about it. Because about a year and a half ago, info for this movie started coming out and people were in an uproar that Tarantino was about to do a movie about Manson. There was a bit of backpedaling, like letting us know that he was in it but it isn’t about him, it just has him in it as a subplot or something.

And then I guess everyone forgot about it, because suddenly with this movie coming out, there is this strange aura of spoilers like its Avengers: Endgame. What the hell could really be a spoiler for a movie like this? In the theater, while talking to friends, I correctly guessed the ending of the film before hand as a joke, and uhh, it was correct. It was mostly a surprise due to just knowing what happened with Inglorious Bastards and knowing that Manson was in it. Shit, they end up making pretty obvious references to IB early in the film with a fictional Nazi burning movie.

Anyways, I think it is a mistake to try and make this whole thing a secret. I think it is okay to know that Manson murders plotline is involved, because if you don’t know anything about the real life Manson murders, a lot of the buildup won’t make as much sense. I mean, shit. This movie was actually supposed to come out on August 9th originally, which is the 50th anniversary of those murders. But it was pushed two weeks up in this schedule, maybe to make things less obvious, I have no idea.

I appreciate the level of detail that went into those scenes, using actual lines, character names, times, dates, and places. It is something he has thought a lot about, and it makes sense in QT’s “real world movie series” and still helps explain his “in universe film series” as a comparison.

If you are unfamiliar with that period, whether it is real events, the movies of the time, it will feel like a long drag and never really reach a high amount of payout. But as a movie about the place where movies were made, about an event that affected movies since that time, it has a lot of insight and actual information in a fictional film.

Also, DiCaprio and Pitt are really fun in this one.

3 out of 4.

Danny Collins is a movie that sort of just sneaked into theaters. It wasn’t heavily advertised, it didn’t have more than 1 screening, and I honestly had never heard of it.

I might have even watched it when it came out, if it didn’t come out against Insurgent. Come on. Teen high school dystopian dramas > everything, am I right?

My biggest concern for this movie is actually Al Pacino, once a great actor, now a guy in a lot of bad movies, like Jack and Jill and Stand Up Guys. He is becoming a bit of a box office turn off for me, just like Robert De Niro. For the most part, they seem to be just showing up to do their scenes and not putting any heart to it, getting their easy pay checks. That is the one thing I will mostly look for in this film. Can Pacino try harder?

This guy fucks.

Danny Collins (Pacino) used to be a big star. He was wildly famous in the 70s, with lyrics that compared to John Lennon and he was on top of the world. Now, 40 years later, he is still rich and famous and touring, but playing all of his old hits to old fans and kind of just going with the motions and never giving it his all. Huh, sounds a lot like something I talked about not to long ago.

Either way, his long time manager Frank (Christopher Plummer) let’s him know for his birthday that he found a 40 year old letter, written to him by John Lennon that never made it to him. A letter that basically would have changed his life and told him that money and fame aren’t everything. Well fuck, now he is old and feels useless. But there is still a chance. He should just leave his young cheating wife (Katarina Cas), check himself into a hotel and no longer worry about music but instead worry about his life.

So he is going to live in a Hilton hotel, to constantly hit on their manager (Annette Bening), and try to hook up the main receptionist (Melissa Benoist, who is in everything now) and the main valet (Josh Peck). But that isn’t his main goal, no of course not! He actually has a son, Tom (Bobby Cannavale, who is in everything now), whom he has a rocky relationship with. So he wants to fix that up real soon before someone dies and ruins it all. This means he also will have to befriend his wife (Jennifer Garner) and finally meet his granddaughter (Giselle Eisenberg).

Good. A man with a mission. A man who might go back to money fame drugs and playing for old people if he can’t fix his real life before it is too late. Also featuring Brian Smith as a booty call, and Nick Offerman, who has like, a minute of screen time only at the start, but looks cool enough to mention in this review.

At least the casting department got something right. Cannavale could totally be Pacino’s son.

There you go Al Pacino! If you play a part that in some way mirrors your own career for the last five years, you might put some effort into it!

From Pacino I saw passion and I saw an actor who cared about playing his character. Great! And his own enthusiasm made me enjoy the performance and overall, enjoy the movie.

I thought the relationship aspects between Collins and his family felt realistic and avoided tons of cliches. The most unfortunate part about the family was Jennifer Garner though, who had a character that didn’t do a whole lot in the film, so it felt odd for someone of her talent to be used in such a way. This happens a lot with the mom role in films, for whatever reason, but since they had her, one would guess her role would be more substantial.

I was also very impressed with Bening, playing a hotel manager or something. She was able to pull off the professional/dealing with a huge celebrity/not caring about said celebrity really well. And of course, Cannavale was great for many reasons as well.

Danny Collins, a movie that I was afraid would be a bad VH1 made for TV movie, ended up having quite a few strong characters and a unique enough plot to really enjoy. Based loosely off of a real story, but I don’t care about that story, so I didn’t feel like talking about it.

3 out of 4.

Oh, it must be summer now. That is the only way to explain that my local theaters are finally getting some limited release films over the last few months. All the college students have gone home, so they have to cater to old people now. Which is why I got to see Stand Up Guys, a few weeks before its DVD release, a few months after it came out. Heck, I get to see Mud for next week too. Color me ecstatic. (But where are you Stoker?!).

Speaking of “Stoking,” this image has been edited from the movie version. Want to guess where?

Life sucks for retired gangsters. After all, it is hard to retire as one. You have to first not die. You also have to be released out of your gang. Even when you are, you might be later charged for crimes if you slip up, and people still might want you dead. Jeez. No on thinks of the consequences!

For Val (Al Pacino), he just spent 27 or so years in Jail, taking the blame for a crime that went bad, keeping his accomplishes secret. Yeah, what a stand up guy. Unfortunately, in that accident, he accidentally shot and killed the only son of their boss, Claphands (Mark Margolis). So Claphands is mad, but he is a vengeful fucker. He has made Val serve his entire sentence looking over his back, with plans to have him assassinated within a day of him getting back.

Claphands is so vengeful, he is making his best friend, Doc (Christopher Walken) take him out. The only assignment over the last 30 years, to kill his friend within his first release. Sucks. But Doc is going to make sure his last night with Val is a special one before he commits the deed. You know, or else they will go after his other loved ones!

Alan Arkin plays the third member of their gang, reduced to nursing home life. Lucy Punch plays a Madam, Addison Timlin a waitress, and Julianna Margulies a rape victim.

Now guess which of those woman was found in the trunk!

Meh. The first 20 minutes of the film, I was feeling pretty dead inside. It was moving slow, and it looked like it was going no where. Neither Al nor Christopher seemed to really be in to it. I mean, they are old, and they have played gangster before, so they should be old hats at this. But neither felt comfortable, and that felt true the whole movie.

It did get a bit better, there were some fun moments, but it is surprising how much of the movie ended up just being dick jokes. A lot of the gags / adventures for them felt a bit forced too. They threw away any sort of realism for a couple quick jokes or moments that weren’t really funny. Not to mention the end is a total cop out, and kind of bullshit.

I will tell you, what got me the most was the lack of respect for continuity in a movie, or at least no sense of time management. They eat at the same restaurant in a span of six hours three times. Each time with full meals for Al Pacino! They find a nice car a block away from the restaurant. Later, at the same restaurant, they have to go back to where they found the car, and talk about street names and then have a long drive over to it. Come on, don’t lie to me like that movie makers.

Shit like that bugs me.

But one scene made me tear up. I am such a softie.

1 out of 4.

Generally when you sit down to watch a movie (like Jack and Jill), knowing that it was nominated for the most Razzies of the films that year, you might go in thinking it will be bad. Which is understandable, can’t avoid it. If you haven’t heard of the Razzies, you might have guessed it by the the many commercial previews for it, that looked bad.

Well, yeah. It was. But how bad? A lot of the times bad movies by Hollywood standards are considered rage inducing bad, with people carrying their pitchforks to take down the director, but they are also fueled mostly by people who hadn’t seen the movie. That will always happen, forever, because the general reasoning is “No, why would I want to watch that? Its bad!” The whole reason for this website, pretty much, to fight that behavior.

So let us all go watch supposedly bad movies anyways, just to make sure its not a conspiracy!

So Adam Sandler plays Jack, a sort of successful commercial director/advertisement agency thing. Thanksgiving is coming up, also known as the annual visit from his twin sister, Jill. Why do they look identical minus hair and stuff? No idea, shits impossible. She used to live in the Bronx with their mom, but now that she is dead, it has been only her and her bird. So she is lonely. That is most of the plot really, his twin sister is annoying, but just trying to be less lonely and sad.

Jack’s family involves his wife (Katie Holmes), his daughter (Elodie Tougne), and adopted son (Rohan Chand).

His boss is played by Tim Meadows, and his atheist assistant is Nick Swardson. The big problem they are facing is that Dunken Donuts wants to pull away from their company, their biggest client,if they cannot get Al Pacino to be in their new commercial product line for a “Dunkacino”. But that is Al Pacino, there is no way they could get him to do something so silly. [I think I just got that the commercial is a metaphor for this movie?]

Al Pacino, playing himself, falls in love with Jill, who keeps making excuses to stay around, and eventually Jack realizes he can use Jill to land Al Pacino (Even if she finds him repulsive). Eventually everyone learns to love each other, and yay family.

It makes me cry a bit knowing this is a real scene in a real movie.

So, I did find parts of the film funny. The ending with Jack and Pacino watching the commercial and talking about how it must be destroyed, I assume is about the movie, and was funny. The opening and beginning had actual twins talking about their lives (I assume the stories weren’t made up) which was neat. Jack also had some nice lines at his sisters expense early on in the film. Obviously Sandler as Jill was annoying and horrendous. So he pretty much ruined all of his jokes, by having her react to them in the manner that she did.

But besides that,I thought Katie Holmes was the worst part of this movie. She felt so fake, and did just a bad job at appearing concerned and caring. Seriously. Her facial expressions were the worst. Al Pacino as himself also hit a nerve. Sometimes he was amusing, but his deep fascination with Jill, on a level compared to stalking wasn’t as good as his general anger towards other things in Hollywood.

Lot of cameos in this movie, and thought Norm MacDonald‘s was the best.

So worst movie ever? Nah. Bad? Sure, definitely. Would have been the same result if it wasn’t twins and Adam Sandler just played the role of an annoying sister. Well, at least kids will like it.

1 out of 4.