Projector 5: A History of Violence (Patreon)

by Keith Phipps

I’m writing this on a Monday morning after two horrific mass shootings. Just moments ago, President Trump linked those shootings to violent video games and “a culture that celebrates violence.” We’re not a political podcast at heart, but this directly touches on topics discussed in our Fight Club / The Art of Self-Defense pairing, so I want to touch on it because it comes up there. I don’t want to just put a happy face on the issue and say that violence — whether in movies, on television, or in video games — can’t be seductive, but this is an old dodge that gets trotted out whenever there’s a massacre and a need to pin the blame on anything but the easy availability of guns in the United States. It’s also a claim with no support in research. Violence is a part of life and thus something that gets dealt with in art, sometimes well, sometimes poorly, and sometimes, no doubt, irresponsibly. But to point to depictions of it as a source — maybe the main source — of our current woes, is too easy. 

You didn’t sign up for a political newsletter, so maybe it’s best just to leave it there. No doubt we can move away from the topic when we deal with… let me just check what’s coming up… oh yeah, the new Quentin Tarantino movie. Speaking of which, there’s been a tremendous amount of compelling writing about Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood since its release. If you haven’t read them yet check out…

Justin Chang’s review in the Los Angeles Times.

Manuela Lazic on the career of Sharon Tate at The Ringer.

Nate Jones on how the film recreated 1969 L.A. at Vulture. 

Tarantino himself on his soundtracks and music habits at the Discogs blog.

Alison Wilmore on the women of Tarantino films at Buzzfeed.

Walter Chaw on his complicated reactions to that Bruce Lee scene at Vulture.

Also, your humble newsletter writer published a few pieces at various publications.

Believe it or not, people wrote about other movies, too. At Decicder, Josh Sorokach wrote about his efforts to flip The Cutting Edge’s Rotten Tomato score from “rotten” to “fresh.”

The Hollywood Reporter checks in with Michael Biehn.

In The New York Times, A.O. Scott relitigates the election of Eleection.

Also in The New York Times, our own Scott Tobias reviews The Son, a film he describes on Twitter as “kinda-sorta like a Rosemary’s Baby for dads.”

Finally, we hope you enjoyed our Hobbs & Shaw bonus episode. Look for some talk about Succession coming soon.