Tag: Lena Dunham

  • ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ is no Family portrait

    ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ is no Family portrait

    Lena Dunham, Margaret Qualley, and Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

    “You expected Charles Manson at the very least, didn’t ya?” – Randall Flagg

    July 26 of 2019 brought us the latest film from a very interesting auteur. This self-taught professional has a vast knowledge of foreign and exploitation films that serves him well in providing homages and commentary. It’s funny, thrilling, and well-acted, one of his strongest efforts yet. Brad Jones really did do a great job with Another Cinema Snob Movie. Oh right, a new Quentin Tarantino movie also came out.

    Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, I am unhappy to report, is a letdown. Treating its subject matter in a very ill-conceived manner, it represents how a diverted focus can mar so much potential for greatness.

    It’s 1969 and Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an actor sliding into irrelevance. He keeps employed in western TV shows here and there, but he’s not seen as the leading man material he once was. His stunt double and best friend Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) is finding his own employment difficulties. After a while, they’ll need to consider their options in how to best move forward to reinvigorate their careers.

    On a parallel track is Rick’s neighbor Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). Yes, that Sharon Tate. Which means Charles Manson (Damon Herriman) and the Manson Family are around too. Cliff runs into them when picking up Kathryn Lutesinger (Margaret Qualley) and giving her a ride back to the ranch. Things don’t go quite so smoothly there, giving the cult a new target.

    As has come to be expected of him, Tarantino has assembled a very impressive cast that can rival any Avengers lineup. In addition to those mentioned, there’s Kurt Russell, Lena Dunham, Damian Lewis, Dakota Fanning, Michael Madsen, Al Pacino, Bruce Dern (subbing in for Burt Reynolds, who died before he could film his part) and Luke Perry (who died not long after filming; does this movie have a curse or something?). There’s certainly more to be on the lookout for, and they’re all wonderful to watch in action.

    Had this movie been entirely about Rick and Cliff, it could have been great. The two men succeed in their parts and play off each other superbly. How it handles showbusiness in this era is also interesting, presenting a (b-)side of pictures that rarely gets explored on this level. The attention to detail in the recreations is fabulous. But to the film’s detriment, that isn’t the only story being told here.

    The treatment of the Manson stuff truly does ruin things. Tate and the Family really should have been dropped entirely, or at least replaced with fictional analogues. It’s going to be hard to discuss this without verging on spoilers, but to say that what happens in the movie wasn’t what happened in reality is a colossal understatement. 

    Robbie is fine as Tate, but overqualified for the role. A lookalike actress who does reenactments on ID channel shows would’ve done just as well. Same goes for the Family, though they actually do consist of a couple actors who have impersonated their parts before. 

    The events of the ending are where things really go off the rails. What happens there does use these figures, but ultimately they specifically are entirely irrelevant and should have just been replaced with invented stand-ins. But as is, it’s not a thoughtful presentation of the matter. In fact, it can be read as downright insulting to the victims of the Tate-LaBianca murders and probably does as much a disservice to the events as The Haunting of Sharon Tate did. Not only that, but it completely invalidates earlier scenes that were meant to be poignant. All impact those parts were supposed to have is promptly stripped away and renders them as utterly pointless.

    Then there’s the depiction of Bruce Lee (Mike Moh), which also should never have been included. In this film, he’s an absolute jerk who then gets into a fight with Cliff who handles him with ease. I can somewhat understand wanting to demonstrate Cliff’s military training, but why couldn’t this have been done with a fictional character? There has to be a better way to build him up without tearing down someone who means so much to so many.

    Lastly, places where the writer/director gets in his own way stick out quite a bit. There’s a part when Rick is shooting with a child actress (Julia Butters) where he, ignoring the script, places her in danger. However, she was prepared for it and thus Rick is vindicated (never mind that there was no way for him to know that). This really feels like an awkward defense from Tarantino on the Uma Thurman situation. And the displays of his rather infamous fetishes are just shamelessly blatant (though we see DiCaprio’s soles probably as much as the ladies’, so I suppose equal opportunity is some progress).

    A proper examination into one of the most horrific crimes in recent history Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is not. Whatever real-world tragedy Tarantino decides to exploit next (9/11?), he ought to exercise some better judgment.

  • Lena Dunham is excellent in ‘Tiny Furniture’

    Lena Dunham is excellent in ‘Tiny Furniture’

    Lena Dunham wrote, directed and starred in 'Tiny Furniture'
    Lena Dunham wrote, directed and starred in ‘Tiny Furniture’

    In what I had thought was a wholly unique experience, I spent my initial post-graduation days at home in limbo, unsure of where I was heading or if I’d even get started on that journey. But now it appears that it wasn’t just me, as Jill of all trades Lena Dunham draws on that precise situation and feeling in her breakthrough film, Tiny Furniture. This 2010 film, which won best narrative feature at South by Southwest and best first screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards, has finally found its way to DVD and Blu ray thanks to the Criterion Collection.

    After graduating from college in Ohio, Aura Freeman (Dunham) returns to her New York City home to live with her mother Siri (actual mother Laurie Simmons) and younger sister Nadine (actual sister Grace Dunham). Neither particularly care that she’s come back, and the more into the film we get, it becomes clear that they treat Aura’s presence as more of a burden. In a strange — and fitting for the purposes of this story — coincidence, Siri and Nadine look like each other and don’t resemble Aura physically all that much. It’s almost like Aura was adopted. One has to wonder if Lena herself ever feels that way.

    She also gets back in touch with her old friend Charlotte (Jemima Kirke), who she’s known practically forever (but from the pronounced British accent,  it’s clear that she has spent the more crucial formative years of her life in that land). She is brasher than Aura and, by her own admission, has a greater sense of entitlement. It is through Charlotte that she gets a job as a restaurant hostess. Soon her eye gets caught on fellow employee Keith (David Call). He says he has a girlfriend at the moment, but that hardly lessens her liking.

    Another new man friend she meets is Jed (Alex Karpovsky), who she actually knew of before from his videos on YouTube. In a series of skits called “The Nietzschean Cowboy,” he waxes philosophic while bobbing back and forth on a rocking horse. He doesn’t live in the city; he is visiting to try to pitch his ideas to networks. When her family is away for a week, she invites him to stay over. It’s an attempt on her part to try to bond, and it seems to work. That is, until her mother and sister return.

    Lena Dunham and Jemima Kirke in 'Tiny Furniture'
    Lena Dunham and Jemima Kirke in ‘Tiny Furniture’

    What makes Tiny Furniture engaging is that it’s made by someone in touch in with what it means to be a young person in this era, but with a level of skill of someone much older. The movie looks absolutely fantastic; I would never have guessed it was made for only $25,000. Compositions of shots are done well and the use of color is very striking. In particular, the blinding whiteness of the walls in the home reinforces her purgatorial present. Similarly, the gray of the pipe she and Keith later find themselves in for a special encounter serves to enhance the emptiness they characters later feel coming out of it.

    Dunham has certainly done a great job at writing and directing here, but I feel that there’s too little talk of what a great acting job she does. Aura is magnificently portrayed by her, and while no doubt autobiographical in some degree, comes across as a character all her own. The shining moment is the kitchen argument with her mother. It’s relatively lengthy shot and Dunham manages to capture what Aura is feeling in this moment perfectly, even when acting opposite her actual mother who (I would hope) she has never been that way toward.

    Although I’m swept up in Dunhamania (yes, that was just coined by me right now), I do feel that one crucial component was not addressed: economic troubles and poor job markets. We never see Aura try for a job within her field and then failing that has to work as a hostess. The most that is shown in this regard is that her paycheck is dismally small. Without that, it feels less relevant to this particular troubled time and ignores a key problem of many recent graduates.

    This is actually the second feature film from Dunham. The first, Creative Nonfiction, is an extra. Made during her college years, it also stars Dunham and focuses on her character’s relationships with her friends while trying to come up with a story idea for a movie. The production values are certainly lower than Tiny Furniture, but some of the elements can be seen shaping up here. So too are they present in the four Dunham short films which are also extras. The other extras are Dunham’s introduction to Creative Nonfiction, a half hour conversation between her and Nora Ephron, an interview with Paul Schrader, the trailer for Tiny Furniture, and a booklet with an essay by critic Phillip Lopate.

    We’ll be seeing more of Dunham, as her TV show Girls (also with Kirke) will be on HBO soon. But Tiny Furniture shows that she has big screen magic in her, and her next effort there is greatly anticipated.