[philip918]

Finally saw this and nice to see a good discussion here.

Re: the violence against the women at the end. I found the head smashing gratuitous in a stupid and aggravating way (much like the final shootout in Django), but overall the extreme violence perpetrated by Cliff and his dog on the Manson Family members felt earned and cathartic. Tarantino relies on viewers having some familiarity with the murder of Sharon Tate. I've been working on a documentary series about the Manson Family the last few months, so I'm now more than familiar with the people and events involved.
Tarantino's finale is a direct response to the real life violence Tex Watson, Susan Atkins, and Patricia Krenwinkle inflicted on Sharon Tate and her friends. Steven Parent was shot three times and stabbed. Jay Sebring was shot and then stabbed seven times. Voytek Frykowski was shot, his head smashed in with the butt of the gun, and stabbed 51 times. Abigail Folger was stabbed 29 times. Sharon Tate, who was eight and a half months pregnant, was stabbed 16 times. Go ahead and Google the crime scene photographs.
The fairy tale ending worked for me. The final shot of Sharon, Abigail, and Voytek emerging from the house to join Jay and Rick like the happy ghosts of an impossible future was incredibly touching.

Somehow the ending really worked for me while the rest of the film didn't. I found it easy to watch, and some scenes were very good, but nothing particularly grabbed me. The Bruce Lee scene was cringe-inducingly bad.

[oldkid]

I deeply enjoyed my time with this one.  The callbacks to 60s Los Angeles that I can barely recall, the slow pacing, the moviestardom, the forever building up of tension to a conclusion that didn’t come.  I walked away from the film feeling pumped and dirty.  The sexism, the conservative politics, the redemptive violence— okay, they are always in his films.  But in the era of Trump, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  The only blatant immoral act I can see is the flamethrower at the end, because I couldn’t see why he thought he needed to kill this person, falling bloody in his pool.  But there is a lot there that seems to call out control of a radical element and callbacks to when ‘Merica was “great and free” if you were male and white... and you know.

This is a work of genius for the wrong side.  I am happy/unhappy to have seen it.

[St. Martin the Bald]

I gotta say, this gets better every time I re-watch it.
His mythical Hollywood, full of movie theaters and landmark restaurants is just the place I would want to inhabit.

[Corndog]

I agree. I was slightly positive the first time I saw it, but when I rewatched it a second time I really bought into it a lot more.

[etdoesgood]

Saw this thread came back up, read oldkid's take, and mostly agree with it. I've seen it twice - theater and home.

I deeply enjoyed my time with this one.  The callbacks to 60s Los Angeles that I can barely recall, the slow pacing, the moviestardom, the forever building up of tension to a conclusion that didn’t come.  I walked away from the film feeling pumped and dirty.  The sexism, the conservative politics, the redemptive violence— okay, they are always in his films.  But in the era of Trump, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  The only blatant immoral act I can see is the flamethrower at the end, because I couldn’t see why he thought he needed to kill this person, falling bloody in his pool.  But there is a lot there that seems to call out control of a radical element and callbacks to when ‘Merica was “great and free” if you were male and white... and you know.

This is a work of genius for the wrong side.  I am happy/unhappy to have seen it.

I still have it rated as Good, and there it will probably stay. The ending doesn't bother me because Manson; I'm more on the side that this film is conservative in a way that makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, definitely see a MAGA connections, intentionally or not.