Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood (2019)

I decided to take a free afternoon during my vacation. And I sort of regret the decision, with all the deadlines piling up... + other issues. I wonder if it's normal to not have "vacations" without deadlines?... I guess the last one where this didn't apply, more or less, was in 2014. Anyway, moving back - I did regret also because I lost around 2.5 hours of that afternoon with the latest Tarantino movie - "Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood". Don't get me wrong. Let's not get hasty here. Maybe the movie is not bad, but it can be hard for you to decide on that.

The film follows about half a year of Rick Dalton's life, an actor going through a career downfall at the end of the '60s in Hollywood, partnered by his stunt double, Cliff Booth. Both fictive characters, who are placed in a context with plenty of side stories, enough of them to not really know if there's a main one. But... :) long story short - to get something from this movie you need at least one thing: to have a vague idea about the Manson family and the tragic ending of Sharon Tate in 1969. Wikipedia offers enough info, which is far from being a pleasant reading... but unfortunately without knowing any of this the final credits might stun you with some sort of a "what did I just watch here?..." reaction. Even with having this background, there are many parts that you might probably won't get over the course of the 2 hours plus. Probably a solid culture in respect to the '50s-'70s cinema can help. I got a couple references, but unfortunately I can't brag with a "solid culture", so there are most probably plenty references I missed.

You shouldn't expect something Tarantino specific. Soft spoiler: the movie is much more, let's say... "comforting" compared to the reality, and probably that's what you can appreciate here. Or at least that was desired and it works. As a proof, I guess it's the most non-violent movie of all he directed. Stuff which adds more to the "once upon a time" = "fairy tales are nicer" = "what if?..." but I said it's just a soft spoiler ;) Bottom line: if you want something action packed this is not a good option - it has a very slow pace. But for a couple hours to break out from the daily stress it might work - although it happens often to not know why it takes some course and this might bore you, which can make your brain move back to the daily stress ;)...

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

11.22.63

I've read just one book by Stephen King. In the summer of 2014, when I somehow got a small slice of tranquility in ages ... Probably that's why I had the required patience with "11.22.63", which is not a weekend book (size related). Well, in 2016 the movie got out. A mini-series ... 8 parts .. as I said, not just a week-end.

Subject: An English teacher (from Maine, of course .. we're talking about Stephen King), finds out that his every-day diner has a time portal that the owner struggles to use to prevent the Kennedy assassination (ergo -> the title), which he thinks triggered the worst events in the US history. The problem is that he fails. The whole operation must start with several years before, the fixed arrival temporal destination being earlier than 1963. And since the diner's owner gets suddenly struck by cancer before managing to go through all years up to '63, the task is passed to our English teacher. That's a very compressed summary of the intro of a subject with many side stories and spanning plenty of branches.

For comparing the book and the movie I should give lots of spoilers. It's complicated without. Generally speaking the the differences are big, and unfortunately not also good for the TV version. First of all we have lots and lots of pieces cut out of the original. You could think that 8 parts are enough to fit everything, but the screenwriter decided no. More bizarre is that there are also added parts, so I don't think that lacking screen time was the problem. What's really bad is that the additions are sometimes senseless, the worst of all - compared to the written version: the main character gets a sidekick for his mission ... spoiler 1: in the movie he finds a "brother" on his way to Dallas; spoiler 2: the presence of the new character varies from useless to utter annoying, finally the screenwriters deciding that he's better gone ... I said I can't do it without spoilers :) But let's stop here ...

Final verdict: If in other cases - check out "The Man in the High Castle" - who wrote the script managed an exceptional adaptation, even including major changes, "11.22.63" is a failure that can be interesting just for who didn't read the book ... And that's without including the lead (James Franco) who I think can get a nod for the most tormented try to play a novel character that I've ever seen (to put it nicely) ...

Man in the High Castle

Existence is complicated. Existence is weird. Existence is a novel. That's probably how a marketing tagline would look for the book written more than 50 years ago by P.K.Dick. Probably one of the first tries of alternate history where WW2 had a different ending, which got a Hugo at that time. And brought recently in a series that deviates quite a bit from the original, but offers though enough to catch the viewer, and keeps a decent level of PKD feel in it ... At least for the first season. We'll see for what's following ...

Unfortunately, I don't have the proper mood to extend the description, but considering that I'm lately neglecting my blog, I said it might be a good idea to catch up at least with a brief recommendation :)

"It is far from easy to be a good man. In fact, as one gets older, it becomes more and more difficult to know what a good man is. Yet it also becomes increasingly important to at least try." (Man in the High Castle, series I, episode 10)