That and this

[selenak]

Started but didn't finish: Once upon a time in Hollywood. Aber about an hour, I realised I didn't care about any of the characters despite being a soft touch for a well done "Hollywood on Hollywood" story, the fictional excerpts from the various Westerns, tv shows and movies alike, that Rick Dalton had been in just came across as self indulgent on Tarantino's part, and the aesthetic reconstruction of 1969's Hollywood plus the usual good soundtrack wasn't worth it. I'll pass.

Watched the first episode and immediately decided this was not for me: the cartoon series Star Trek: Lower Decks. Sorry. It's not the format - I mean, I loved The Clone Wars, which was also marketed primarly at a younger audience - it's the relentless slapstick-ness and way too much embarassment humor. I'm sticking to the non-animated Star Trek for now.

Listened to and actually liked: Six, the musical about Henry VIII's Queens, which maps each on a current day type of singer, stylistically, and does some both witty and empathic things with the two wives usually treated least well in fiction, Anne of Clevers and Katherine Howard in particular. Katherine Howard's song, All You Wanna Do is a fantastic example of that trickiest of feats to accomplish, a song where the singer starts out telling a very different story than the one she ends up telling, because she herself only realises/reveals while singing that the cheerful tale is actually a horror story. Terrific acting/singing, too. Here it is:

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[miladygrey]

Well, I had no idea "Six" existed until now, and I am suddenly and instantly obsessed.

[selenak]

It is infecteous!

[kore]

That Tarantino film had one of the most gruesome and openly misogynist killings at the end I've ever seen outside of a horror movie, while the twist is the "good" woman gets to survive and is indeed rescued by the guy who IRL probably helped lead the murderers right to her door. It was sort of appalling.

[selenak]

Yes, after deciding I wouldn't finish the movie I looked up the summary at wiki and concluded I hadn't missed anything. Re: rescue, though, aren't both Dalton and his stunt double fictional? (So they can't have done anything in rl, right?) Or do you mean another character?

[kore]

I meant how the actor (character) brutally kills Katie/Patricia Krenwinkel (actual person) and that saves Sharon Tate (and everyone else), and Tarantino based that character on Steve McQueen. The stuntman (character) who kills Susan Atkins (actual person) was also based on a real actor who, like the guy in the movie, spent time on the Spahn Ranch. (Manson was sorta popular with what passed for an underworld in Hollywood because he supplied girls and drugs.) So the stuntman is one link between Tate and the Manson world IRL, IIRC there were several.

It just really rubbed me the wrong way Tarantino not only made this paean to Old Hollywood machismo with extra racism (the Bruce Lee bit) and also made the two imaginary macho dudes "good" by saving Sharon Tate, one of Hollywood's most famous murder victims, by brutally murdering the Manson girls. It smacked of this really weird compensatory macho rescue wish fulfillment and I was like, I don't want to be part of your self-insert fantasy RPF about Sharon Tate, bro. (Adding insult to injury, it was supposed to be a "tribute" to Sharon Tate and he talked Tate's family into it by telling them she didn't die, and Margot Robbie got something like three lines in the whole flick.) Tarantino's never been great on women but this movie in particular really got my hackles up.

[davetheanalyzer]

From what I heard, Lower Decks is aimed at adults ala Simpsons but I get not finding to your tastes. Certain brands of comedy can make it hard for me to connect with characters.

Star Trek Prodigy does seem to be aimed at kids but the teaser emphasized more the drama than humor. Granted, I don't know if it'll be like Clone Wars or Sarah Jane Adventures in terms of tone and writing or not.

The only thing I know about Once Upon A Time in Hollywood was there was controversy over how Bruce Lee was portrayed.

[selenak]

The teaser: Alas not available in my region.

[davetheanalyzer]

Dang region locking! I've run across this before with Star Trek trailers.

Toggling my region settings to Europe, I think this trailer will play in your region (apologies for the quality): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hty8ufTB4Z4

[selenak]

Ah thank you! This does look interesting.

[jesuswasbatman]

Yeah, I saw Once Upon a Time in Hollywood in the cinema, and was puzzled why Tarantino thought that the film was worth making.

The one memorable bit for me was two scenes with Dalton playing a villain-of-the-week in the sort of western TV show that he had earlier played the hero of. In the first one, he's hungover, doesn't know his lines, and performs disastrously. After he throws a tantrum alone in his trailer, we later see him filming another scene in the episode, in which he's now fully on top of the script and delivers a genuinely menacing and powerful performance, showing that he does actually have some talent.

[selenak]

That's about as far as I got, and I agree that it was a good acting showcase (on di Caprio's part as well, since playing an actor first delivering a bad and then a good performance can misfire). But it wasn't enough to make me continue watching.

[d_generate_girl]

I love "Six" a lot, and while I do enjoy the original London cast, I think the Broadway cast is absolutely perfect. Oof, Sam Pauly's "All You Wanna Do" and Brittney Mack's Anne of Cleves in general.

[lokifan]

Oh wow, I've heard the Six soundtrack but seeing that performance is a whole other level! My heart broke, omg.

[selenak]

I saw want to watch this musical due to this performance.