Quentin Tarantino Says New Leonardo DiCaprio Movie Will Be Another ‘Pulp Fiction’

At Cinecon, Quentin Tarantino and Leonardo DiCaprio decided to just walk on stage to talk about their upcoming film, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”

Tarantino, in his usual outlandish self, told the crowd that ‘Once Upon’ is “probably the closest to ‘Pulp Fiction’ that I have done,” according to THR. If that's not enough to excite you I don't know what will. 

Tarantino went to say that “Sony and myself will be coming to the theaters with the most exciting star dynamic since Paul Newman and Robert Redford. It’s very hush-hush and top secret. But I can tell you that ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ takes place in 1969, at the height of the counterculture hippie revolution and the height of new Hollywood. Street by street, block by block, we’ll transform Los Angeles into the Hollywood of 1969.”

Of course, he's referring to Brad Pitt and DiCaprio. The latter went on to chime in and say “It’s hard to speak about a film that we haven’t done yet, but I’m incredibly excited…to work with Brad Pitt, and I think he’s going to transport us. I’m a huge fan of ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ — movies about Hollywood. As an L.A. native, having read the script, it’s one of the most amazing screenplays. We are going to do our best job to make it fantastic.”

Sony Pictures motion picture group chairman Tom Rothman, also on stage, added that “It's the best screenplay that I have had the privilege to read.”

Of course, the hype machine is very well what this is. However, ever since "Pulp Fiction" Tarantino has cautiously made sure to not replicate the stylistic and narrative aspects of what most consider to be his masterpiece. The fact that QT has decided to embrace and revisit that film and go back to it will make any cinephile excited and gleeful at the prospect. 

The films that QT released post-Pulp Fiction all made sure to sidestep whatever was used in that 1994 film: "Jackie Brown" was based on an Elmore Leonard novel and was inspired by blaxploitation films, "Kill Bill" was inspired by Japanese grindhouse cinema, "Inglorious Basterds," was a revisionistic war movie, "Django Unchained" was inspired by Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns and "The Hateful Eight" felt like a violent version of an Agatha Christie novel. 

There’s no release date yet for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”

"Killing Them Softly"

(R) ★★★

Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly has a lot going for it; a hot director, a famous actor, an appearance at Cannes, love it/hate it festival buzz and a killer cast. So exactly what happened for it to hit a major bump? Before going into a monday matinee of the film, I had yet to encounter a person that liked the film and critical buzz has been tame to say the least. Suprising given the fact that Dominik's highly underrated The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford was a mesmerizing journey into an American killer's mind. Know what I say? Don't listen to the haters. Sure Killing Them Softly is an imperfect American dream through hell, however if you give it a chance it might just lure you into its sadistic criminal world. With nary a light in sight within its frames the film is heavy on dialogue and gruesome violence. You can tell Dominik's trying to find a groove in the film, he struggles at that, there's very much a European cinema influence in here but there are also shades of 90's Tarantino. It's this confusion in style that limits the potential of the film - yet some of the scenes Dominik creates stick with you.

A heist is done on a poker game, Markie (Ray Liotta) is manager and works under gangsters. He already pulled a heist once before and got away with it but this time around -even with him not involved- he gets eyed upon by his bosses. Not good but exactly what the guys that pulled it off wanted - that is until one of them fucks it up and puts his crew in a lot of heat. That is where Brad Pitt's Jackie comes into the picture, a hit man that is given the task of chasing these heist pullers and killing them (softly as he says). He brings in Mickey - the never better James Gandolfini- a slimy hitman that has turned into a drunk. The action scenes are tensely delivered, with Dominik's handheld camera bringing realism to the surroundings. The flaws come in some of the dialogue driven scenes that get stretched out a bit too long, Dominik is aiming for Tarantino-like slyness but only ends up doing it half well. No worries, his movie pulls you in with its dark humor and even darker violence. He means to tell us that the America these gangsters live in is the same one that inhabits our lives.

The film takes place in 2008 when America's economy was down and out. Dominik -With a soundtrack that includes speeches by then senator Obama and President Bush- hammers on his message that our nation is driven by nothing more than corporate greed. Fair enough and not far from the truth but I could have done without some of these insinuations and more story-based stuff. The actors do deliver, Pitt is a marvel and you believe in his acting (when haven't we) and Gandolfini stretches himself out here and does the best work he's done since the last season of The Sopranos. This isn't a movie that cuddles to its audience or answers all the questions when the credits roll, this is a film that is demanding and can frustrate primitive minded people. That makes it all the better for us. Killing Them Softly is rough around the edges but is a unique piece of work. It takes chances that not many movies these days would, how good is that?

Moneyball

I don't really know why it took such a long time for Benneth Miller to make another movie, especially after the triumph that he had with Capote -which dates back to 2005. That's more than 6 years between that film and his newest one Moneyball. I like Capote. It was shot in an incredibly cinematic way and had a great true story to boot. The same can be said of Moneyball which is based on Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane's incredible story, Beane basically reshaped the game of baseball with his sabermetrics system- an original way of drafting and trading his team's players through a computer generated system that some would call a number's game and other's complete bull and sheer luck. I'm with the numbers people. Anyone who loves numbers will probably dig this movie in the way it says the answers lie in the numbers than in the actual game itself. Purists be damned but it's a hell of a ride.

Steven Sodebergh was originally slated as director before he had creative differences with the film's producers. Then came Miller who brings a real sense of vitality to the film. He shoots every frame with the precise markings of a veteran. Sodebergh has kept his screenplay credit but the two main writers here are Aaron Sorkin -The Social Network script wiz- and Steve Zaillan. Sorkin is all over this one. His wit and brash "I'm too good for you" dialogue has not always had me at hello but he does more good than bad with this one. Brad Pitt plays Beane and he is just great, in fact an Oscar nomination awaits Pitt, Jonah Hill as Beane's wiz kid assistant brings incredibly sly comic relief and might get recognized too and wait until you see Phillip Seymour Hoffman as A's Manager Art Howe, he steals every scene he's in. The film is too long at close to 133 minutes -one too many fase endings- and the stuff with Beane, his troubled marriage and his only daughter is the kind of stuff that would have been left off if this wasn't a major studio release. Flaws and all this is the kind of movie Hollywood rarely makes these days, it takes its time to develop fleshed out characters and has incredibly detailed, nuanced scenes.

The first great movie of 2011

It isn't for me to actually call a movie a "masterpiece" or "great" but Terrence Malick's The Tree Of Life is just that - a mosaic of a film that tests an audiences limitations but more importantly the cinematic medium's limitations. No matter what faults you may have with Malick's movie, you cannot deny the sheer chutzpah and originality that went into its creation. There has never really been anything quite like it and I highly doubt there ever will be. Malick tries to transcend the boundaries of life itself by trying to find a kind of meaning that can possibly bind us with a higher power. His search is for transcendence, in the little moments that make and shape us. Death, morning, rebirth, transcendence are just a fraction of the themes being tackled here, suffice to say I don't think the Transformers 3 crowd will very warm up to the film's non linear narrative and constant use of abstract shapes and colors representing a kind of big bang.

This is a welcome return for Malick, who's last picture -The New World- I hadn't so much warmed up to as much as was just puzzled by its mystical nature. The Tree Of Life I got. I understood what Malick was aiming for, what his obsessions were and what he was trying to get at. The spiritual nature of the film is undeniable. Here's a film so ambitious that it sets out to find the meaning of life in its images and contrasting colors. It sets out to bring a kind of ecstasy to its audience, a maddening one in fact, that can resort to turning off the most austere, ignorant of audiences and puzzling the more adventurous ones. This is basically Malick refusing to please us with any easy answers and deciding to please his own subconscious in creating something that turns him on and that makes him curious about life itself. He is not only tormenting us but tormenting himself in saying there is no easy answer to be found in all this.

Malick tries to find his answers though the simplicities and cracks of life. He evokes memories of his own childhood into the life of an American family going through life's trials. Brad Pitt is Mr. O'brien, an overbearing, aggressive father to three children and husband to a quiet, fearful wife. She is played indelibly well by Jessica Chastain in a performance so incredible it will be talked about for ages upon ages in every film school imaginable, ditto the film of course. She is quiet because she has no power in the house, she is controlled and so are her children. The rare time we see her smile is when her husband is out of town and she celebrates with such giddy, exuberance, running with kids around the house. The scene is memorable because it shows darkness leaving and light entering. Every scene Pitt is in brings fear and trouble to the settings. He is a controlling, failed man that has lost touch of who he is. It's an incredible performance that might win him an Oscar nomination just like Chastain.

The Tree Of Life is a groundbreaker because it brings out a dimension to life we never thought existed. We get to see things we couldn't possibly imagine with Malick's poetic eye. Frustration might at times linger and it is nowhere near a perfect film (Why Sean Penn? What's with the ending?) but I'm reminded of a great quote by late film critic Pauline Kael who once said "great movies are rarely perfect movies" - that's how I feel about Malick's visionary mind fuck. It is such an inspiring work of art that you can't help but break out a smile at its originality. There hasn't been a more thoroughly breathtaking cinematic vision on screen in -it seems like- forever. People might hate it, people might curse it but they cannot deny its importance to the way we view the way we live and the way our world is shaped. Through the infinites of our deepest subconscious Malick asks us to take his hand and jump along with him, hipsters and tipsters might dig the hell out of his ideas but so could you. Go along with him.

★★★ ½ (PG-13)