Extreme violence, lengthy conversations set at tables or in cars, movie references most people won’t even notice, perfectly crafted soundtracks, liberal usage of “colorful metaphors,” and so very many shots of feet are just a few of the surface level staples of the work of Quentin Tarantino. But if you’re really paying attention you see so much more revealed with each film and he can still surprise us after 27 years and either 9 or 10 movies, depending on how you count Kill Bill (for the record, Tarantino himself considers Volumes 1 & 2 a single film). For instance, the word “heartfelt” had never come to mind with any of his earlier films but it’s clear to me that Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is just that.
If you’re a baseball fan then you are familiar with what a fantasy camp is. People in their fifties with disposable income throw down an obscene amount of money to have baseball practice for a week with retired Major Leaguers from their favorite team. Yes, that sounds fun to me. But it also makes me wish that movie fantasy camps existed. I’m sure sci-fi and fantasy would be the most popular genres. Horror would have huge turnouts, especially if people got to kill and/or be zombies. That’s all well and good. What I really want is to go to buddy action comedy fantasy camp. You show up on a dingy looking police station set that hasn’t been used since 1993, you get paired up with a total stranger, and then you get assigned a case. You have “gun fights, car chases, proper action and,” whatnot. Along the way you cause property damage, eat about 17 street vendor hot dogs, and get trained in the art of delivering a perfect post-kill one-liner.
A deeply depressing thought occurred to me as I had my annual summer re-watch of Jaws. It came to me specifically when watching what is probably the film’s single best scene. Chances are that you probably already guessed that I’m referring to Quint (Robert Shaw) describing the terror of being in the water in 1945 as the U.S.S. Indianapolis sank and sharks picked off members of the crew one by one. Jaws is, believe it or not, now 44 years old. The movie remains one of the more perfectly paced and entertaining in the history of cinema. Quint’s tale of sheer horror is absorbing and still has the capacity to put viewers on the edge of their seats after multiple decades and viewings. So what depressed me so much? I imagined what would happen to this scene if this movie were to be made now. I don’t mean if someone were to remake Jaws (which shouldn’t happen ever) but if the original film hadn’t been made in 1975 and a brand new movie called Jaws with essentially the same story, characters, and time period were to be released freshly to audiences in 2019.
