The Watch - How Historically Accurate Is ‘Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood’? Plus: Amazon’s Next Move and Celebrating the Music of 1999 | The Watch

Episode Date: July 29, 2019

There was a lot of news out of the TCAs this weekend, including what Amazon wants its streaming service to look like over the next few years (2:43). After Netflix canceled the critically acclaimed ‘Tuca and Bertie,’ the metric of success in the streaming world is called into question yet again (17:15). Plus: How historically accurate is ‘Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood’ (26:00)? And our favorite music from 1999 (39:20) Host: Chris Ryan Guests: Alison Herman, Kate Knibbs, and Lindsay Zoladz Spoilers for ‘Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood’ in the second half of this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the watch is brought to you by M&M's hazelnut. Watching a movie or a TV show is nothing without a bag of your favorite treats. Take your treats to the next level with the new M&M's Hazelnut Spread chocolate candies. They are a delicious combo of hazelnut spread and milk chocolate in every bite-sized piece, delivering a side of indulgence that's all its own. I love these. You got to get them for the next time you hit the movies or watch one of your favorite shows. Go hazelnutty.

and try the new Eminem's hazelnut spread chocolate candies today. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at Thringer.com, and today on the show, I was joined by Allison Herman. We talked a little bit about the TCA,

specifically about Amazon and some of their new shows that they have coming up and this little bit of a turning point there for Amazon Prime Video or whatever it is you call it. The thing that kind of prompted this was, I don't know what to call it. I don't know what to call Amazon. I don't know if they care about how many people are watching their shows or how big their shows are. Obviously, they care. But unlike Netflix and the idea that, oh, Netflix is spending all this money on original programming,

there's a bubble if they don't hit certain subscriber numbers. I don't think that applies to Amazon. Unlike HBO, where they're merging with a huge communications company, technology company, and AT&T, and starting a new streaming network under their own banner and expanding how much content they're making, Amazon's not really going through any kind of profound changes on the back end or in forward-facing. They do seem to be moving towards a new era, though. And I wanted to talk a little bit about that with Allison and also just talk a little bit about the nature of TV cancellations in an era where there's so much stuff. Why does stuff have to be canceled at all and getting into the emotions of that?

So that was interesting. I talked to Kate Nibs a little bit about some of the history behind Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Kate's a sort of a Manson murder expert. And you can read her piece on The Ringer.com going into some of the context and the history around the Manson murders, which obviously plays a huge part in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. That is a spoilery discussion, as is my discussion with Lindsay Zolads, who came on to talk to me a little bit about her piece that she wrote for The Ringer. That's up today.

And we also talked about 99 Music Week, which is also launching today on The Ringer on Monday. It's awesome. It's a ranking of the singles and the albums from the year. we have tons of great videos and pieces on the site. We'll be making the case for a bunch of the different albums. So stay tuned to The Ringer all week long. Let's get into my conversation with Allison about TCA's and Amazon. What's up, Allison?

It's kind of a slow news week in terms of TV shows that are, you know, premiering, debuting that we need to drop takes on. August is going to be nuts, though, because we have Mine Hunter Succession. Glow. Glow, gemstones. So there's a lot of stuff we'll be talking about in the coming weeks. I wanted to have Allison on. We also have Kate Nibs and Lindsay Zolads on later in the show to talk a little

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and 99 Music Week. But I wanted to talk to Allison a little bit about TCA's. The greatest time of the year. Well, I mean, there's certainly the most tweeted about conference of television critics in America. The most inbox annihilating event in the country. So for people who don't know, Andy and I've talked about it before, the TCA's. Why don't you give me your bullet points on what the TCA's are? Sure. I mean, it's a somewhat outdated concept in which all television critics in America

theoretically congregate in a hotel ballroom for two weeks twice a year to be put up to date on the upcoming, you know, the January 1 forecast the second half of the TV year. The summer one is supposed to forecast the fall. Okay. Obviously, this is both a little bit outdated from the perspective of like you don't need to have people physically in a room to disseminate information anymore, but also just like the schedule of TV. no longer works such that it's it's kind of an arbitrary, you know, splitting up. Like, we're about to distribute the TCA Awards and they have the same thing going as the Emmys where it's like, wait, like what's even eligible? Sure. What period are we covering?

But they are useful in that it puts critics in a room with executives and you get sent, like screeners for a lot of upcoming shows. You get trailers. You get people talking about what they're planning. You get executives talking about their overall strategy. So that's probably what. And you get the frizant. You get the intellectual salon of being like.

of hundreds of people with their laptops open, slacking their bosses while also taking notes. Dorothy Parker's vicious circle is back. The TCA's also, like, functions as a sort of state of the union for both specific networks and some of these executives giving, like, broad television state of the union speeches. Like Landgraf often does, yeah. So John Landgraf from FX, yeah. The infamous peak TV speech was an address to TCA and FX's annual tally of exactly how many scripted series are being. produced for what kinds of outlets is always like a presentation at TCA. So the thing I wanted to talk to you about today is Amazon. So we don't normally spend a

lot of time talking about what is Amazon, what's their strategy, who like who are they appealing to? Are these shows successful? Are these shows good? Because I think unlike saying maybe Netflix or HBO, there isn't as much sort of like train spotting going on with Amazon as there is, but those other companies, because if HBO has a huge series of failure shows or that these new streaming networks bite into their Apple, they could be in trouble in some way. Or Netflix, is there a Netflix bubble? That's what I talked about with Lucas Shaw.

But with Amazon, it's like, it's kind of like second-guessing a utility company at this point. Like there will always sort of be this need, this underlying need for the superstore that they are. So this video product that they offer is really almost like an active. of not quite corporate benevolence, but it's a loss leader for them to some extent. Well, and it's a weird thing to say about a slate that includes a literal billion dollar Lord of the Rings project, but it's weirdly lower stakes. It's like Amazon, the company is not going to live or die on the success of Amazon's entertainment division, whereas like Netflix is only Netflix, especially now that they've pivoted away from the DVD and then licensing other

people's content. It's like Netflix increasingly is Netflix original. This huge spend that Netflix is doing on original content is the make or break thing for this company. Now, they could sustain themselves for years to come even if they never have another stranger things or whatever, but they will still be in the making content and hoping people subscribe business the same way HBO is. And also there's the fact that Amazon is somehow even less transparent than Netflix. Like because Netflix is a publicly traded company, they literally have to come forward and be like, this is how many subscribers we got for our entertainment streaming service. And here's how that compares through our goals. And Amazon, it's like, we know how many people subscribe to Prime, but Prime

can mean two-day shipping in addition to being able to watch Fleabag. It means a lot of things. So we don't even know how many people are specifically subscribing to or patronizing the streaming content division of Amazon in general, which means like the ratings are even more obscure. So Jennifer Salky and her colleagues who are the heads of Amazon talked at TCA's about how they don't even plan on doing the like Netflix thing, which we already find kind of frustratingly vague. But where it's like when we have a touchdown, we're going to do a touchdown dance.

We're going to do an end zone dance. Yeah, or like when we have a touchdown, we're not going to talk about the interceptions. We'll give like a number and then not really clarify what the number means or even when we do the number doesn't mean the same thing as like what Nielsen's numbers mean, but Amazon is like we're just literally not going to give numbers at all. So we find Amazon at a little bit of a crossroads to the extent that any company

that's also like brooms and, you know, like bulk t-shirts and also like televisions or anything you really want to buy that could be at up crossroads. Obviously, the thing on the horizon that everybody is talking about is the Lord of the Rings show that is coming. I don't know if it's coming in 2020. I mean, no one knows. We know they have the writer's room. We know they've started casting. Yes. It's kind of under lock and key. But also, I guess Amazon is never not in a transitional period. I feel like every time they make a public statement, they're like, we're rebranding or something. It's like your brand was never clear enough in the first place for you to retool this much. Well, I think that we could describe the sort of changing of the guard here,

partly to shows like catastrophe and fleabag and transparent coming to an end. We really think fleabag is coming to an end. I think Jennifer Salky said, never say never, like I'm holding out hope that she turns back around to the camera and wants to say a few more things. but you've got transparent ending catastrophe ended its run, Fleabag ended its run, and then they've kind of brought in this new slate of shows. And that includes Lord of the Rings. It includes Modern Love,

which is an adaptation of the long-running New York Times column. And this show would be an anthology series starring among other people, Tina Fey, John Slattery. Who else is in this show? Kristen Miliotti? Christine Miliotti, yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. A lot of people in that,

is it looks like just like a kind of adult rom-com anthology show. Yeah, it looks like they're doing the Ramanofs, which, speaking of shows that are ending, they announced it both the Ramanofs and the Ruffin show. Oh my God. Too old to die young. How dare you? How dare you? This is a calculated act of aggression towards Chris Ryan.

No, but they're winding down both those projects, which, I mean, obviously the Raminovs probably has some, like, extra baggage attached to it with, like, the Weinstein and everything going on around Matthew Winer, but also, like, I think the Rephontz is. and thing is a signal that they don't really plan on. She says she's been texting with Nicholas, though. Really? Yeah. Not that they're going to bring it back, but she's like, they asked basically,

did you hide too old to die young? Because, you know, like the idea was basically is if one of the issues with Amazon, I think is when you go to Amazon.com, you might get a banner. I think you get a banner that says like, oh, you know, this is on Prime Video right now. But you actually have to look pretty hard to find what's on it. And you would have to really look hard. divine tool to die young, which is fine for someone like me. You know, it's like, it's just like me and my other tool to die young heads.

We have our cult and we have our leader in Refin. But I guess she said at the TCA, as Jennifer Salky said, you know, we really tried to market that to Europe where Nicholas is very big. So that's why you didn't see any. So we didn't even try in the United States is what you're saying. But apparently it's all good. They're still texting. So, you know, never know what you could get from Nicholas Wenning Refine on Amazon in the future.

Some other projects that Amazon has coming up soon. The Boys, which is a show from Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, which is kind of a raunchy revisionist superhero show. Carnival Row and Orlando Bloom kind of looks kind of steam punky. It was originally developed by Garamo del Toro, but now is being run, I think, by Travis Beecham, who did the second Pacific Rim, if I remember correctly. Yeah, if I have any other Penny Dreadful Aheads out there in the Watch

audience. It looks to be scratching a similar it. Would you say that you are a petty dreadful head? Oh, extremely. It is maybe the most underrated TV show of the last five years. How about this? Dreadhead. There you go. That's why they pay you the big bucks. There you go. A Tim Gunn, Heidi Kloom show, which kind of falls in the sort of category

of the Grand Tour, which was the, shoot, what was that BBC show called? Top Gear. Top Gear. So it's the original Top Gear hosts. Once they left the Top Gear, they have a show called The Grand Tour. I can't believe it's not Project Runway. And Heidi Kloom have a show called Making the Cut. And in the same vein, Blake Lively has a show coming that is set in the world of high fashion,

a fictional show, but set in the world of high fashion. So they're working with, I guess what they're, you know, I'm trying to figure out, like, what's the best way to describe their slate? Is it high and low? Is it, I think it's almost like, to me it feels almost CBS for streaming. There's, like, gleaming shiny products in every, like, conceivable department. from reality to competition to comedy to epic, you know, serialized storytelling to even, you know, superhero genre stuff. And of course, Jack Ryan coming back in season two with a season set in Venezuela, unless.

All right. Yeah, I wish I could have a meme of Allison's face when I said that. Would you think it's fair to say they're pivoting from Art House to popcorn here? They always say they're doing that, but then I was just browsing their in development and upcoming shows Wikipedia page. which was quite the document. And, you know, they'll say stuff like that, but then, you know, they're still in business of the Palladinos, obviously, and they're happy to get a war. So the Palladino's just optioned Ninth Street women, which is this, like, nonfiction doorstop about female artists in the 50s in New York and, like, struggling. As part of, like, the Maisel expanded universe?

Yeah. Part of me is just like they could just do that for, like, the next season of Mrs. Maisel. I don't really understand why they're doing. But, you know, they're still happy to bankroll, that kind of thing. They definitely have the most impressive, I would say, press release collection of any streaming network. Like, I don't know if you remember. Shout out to Brian Phillips, but Tong Wars, the Wongar Y show they said they were doing, which I think is safe to say they're not. But like, I almost feel like we don't even have. God, release the Wongar Y cut.

But I almost feel like we don't even know what Amazon is going to be because they still feel in the process of developing and eventually releasing these super high profile projects. And they've said, Salkey has said specifically, that they don't plan on being Netflix. They don't want to do the, even though they probably could match Netflix dollar for dollar, they don't want to do the all things to all people.

We're just going to spend the money and have, spend the money and have one of every single conceivable kind of show. But I also don't think they've narrowed down a specific brand where it's... The only thing I can identify here is their algorithm, so to speak, is either stars or world building. and it's one or the other, and hopefully both. But, you know, they have Lord of the Rings, they have Good Omen, they have, you know,

the Carnival Rose seems like a world-building show. They have a renewed expanse for season five. They were airing season four. They saved that from sci-fi. So those are all sort of in the, find me the next Game of Thrones directive from Jeff Bezos. Like, that's that category. And then there's things like Modern Love

where it's Anne Hathaway on a television show. There's the Blake Lively television show. There is, if there is a person out there and they've made deals with Connie Britton and Forst Whitaker and Lena Waith, which maybe are not like megastars, but are at least names and faces to attach to projects. Well, and we even even mentioned Underground Railroad. Like, they have a Barry Jenkins project that's happening. They have Utopia, which is a Julian Flynn thing. They have, you know, crazy animated comedy that's executive produced by the guy from BoJack Horseman and created by the writer who did that crazy dementia episode that they did, like, which looks very. Very hei.

Yeah. And it's starring Rosa Salazar, aka Alita Battle Angel. Shout out to Moes. Yeah, like they have a lot of weird niche stuff, and yet they keep saying they don't really want to do that anymore, but they also don't want to be Netflix. It's just such a weird miasma. Yeah, the two things that they don't have what Netflix has is a volume, you know, like you can spend the entire day or in the entire month, like searching through Netflix and never see the same thing twice. And they also have things. They don't have friends or the office.

They don't have the 300 episode show that you would spend all day with Amazon on in the background playing. Now, they may have stuff in their library that they have access to or that you can access via any of the subscriptions that you might have with Imprime video. But nothing that jumps off the page like that. Yeah, it still feels very ancillary. And the thing that felt very telling to me was like for the longest time, like now you can punch in Amazon.com slash video and get like a sort of facsimile of the Netflix browsing screen. but for a while you didn't even have that. No, you had to go to the upper left-hand corner and find the drop-down menu for Prime Video,

and then you would find it. And even then, original's is only one carousel. Or you would type in, like, transparent, and it would be like, do you want transparent bubble wrap? It's just, it's really hard to have it. And then you're like, God damn, how did I wind up buying bubble wrap? I didn't even know I needed this. I mean, that's probably part of their plan all along.

But, you know, it's just they haven't yet made Prime feel either, like, distinct from the rest of Amazon, or like a full presence. But again, it's also like it's not like they have to. Right. So, you know, I'm curious to see where it will go, but I still feel like we're, you know, maybe even years out from like fully understanding

what Amazon is going to be. Yeah. And I think one of the issues here is that because we don't necessarily understand the metrics for success at some of these places, yes, I am teeing you up. Okay. Because we do not understand the metrics for success

for some of these places like Netflix. like Amazon, some of the programming decisions can be a little bit confusing. Now, some of it might be the people who are making it, no longer want to make it, or the star wants to go do other things, whatever. And then sometimes it can just seem sort of arbitrary. And in the case of something that happened with Netflix this last week, it did seem like almost a little bit like twisting the knife a little bit. And that is, I'm referring to the cancellation of Allison's beloved show, Tuka and Birdie.

As you may recall, Tuka and Bertie was one of the recipients of my mid-year TV awards. I loved it. The kiss of death, maybe. Oh, no. Oh, God. I mean, yeah, I guess fleback's over. Okay.

I'm not going to go check that. From now on, it's just like all, like, you're just going to have to say like the ranch. You know, it's just like whatever you don't like. Listen, the other two is another season, so at least we have that to look forward to. Yes. But, um, yeah. So Tugan Burney was a show. I and a lot of other critics really, really loved and hit that sweet spot of, you know,

like people love Ali Wong. People love Tiffany Haddish. People love sensitively told creative stories that touch on themes. that are not frequently addressed in serialized television. Sure. All those things. And I feel like the traditional understanding of how Netflix's renewal or cancellation decision works is that they have enough cash on hand that they can have critical acclaim and popular,

you know, reception. And as long as you have one of those two, you get to continue. And it's only when you have neither of those two that you get canceled. So something like gypsy. Sure. a total came and went didn't make any cultural impact. Clearly no one also watched it and they didn't want to pay Naomi Watts for another 10 episodes. So that, you know, shuffled off pretty quietly.

This was a thing that had enough of at least the critical claim. Like, yes, I understand that there is not an audience of millions for like a cartoon where a bird's like left boob hops off her body and takes a day off because of sexual harassment. Like it's a weird, you know. Why did I just show? Yeah. But I think, you know, it's obvious antecedon as Bojack Horseman. And as a lot of people have been pointing out, Bojack was a pretty slow role. Like, people didn't really, I remember critics not really liking the first season.

It was only when season two happened that people were like, oh, this is great. To the extent that I engage with animated culture, which is limited. It's well documented. It's well documented. It's well documented that I have a limited relationship to talking drawings. I will say part of the enjoyment of them is having, like, a big batch of them to kind of like peruse rather than like waiting for this new season of something or like checking it out for the first time. BoJack's a perfect example like you're saying.

It's like it's a show that if you give it a chance, you're really happy that there's like 20, 30 episodes of it rather than oh like I'm still getting used to it. You know, like. Yeah. And I think Tigger and Bertie probably would have benefited from the same runway. Yeah. Bojack was a slow snowball. Like the first season wasn't really received that well. The second and third I feel like we're rapturous.

received by critics. And then it was after that, the, like, other friends of mine started to be like, I've started watching this. So I feel like it was given the space to grow. And, you know, I don't think we've actually said this yet. Netflix canceled Tuka and Bertie after a single season. And this has been a case where the creators,

Lisa Hannawalt and other people have been involved with the show, have been very public that this was not what they wanted. They wanted to continue. They would like to maybe go to another network, although we now know Netflix doesn't want other streaming networks to pick up its canceled shows. Because one day at a time wound up on a network I've literally never heard of before. Yeah, and that was literally because they wanted it for CBS All Access.

Netflix put the kibash on that. And then CBS just like owns this other network. And they were like, okay, we're going to throw it on here. But, you know. There's one day Netflix is going to cancel a show and a company that's owned by Netflix is going to pick it back up again. Oh, God. But like, it's interesting that you bring up one day at a time because I feel like that was another example of this era of Netflix as either like the savior of critically. claim canceled shows like Arrested Development or just a place that has like so much going on that

it can afford to make multiple seasons of, for example, like Lady Dynamite, Maria Bamford's sort of autobiographical sitcom is extremely fucking weird and only lasted two seasons, but the wrap on that was Maria Bamford was like, I don't really want to make any more of this. And the fact that that was kind of given the space to grow. And animation has a reputation. Again, we don't have the metrics, so we don't know how many people watch this. We also don't really know how much Chukinburty cost, but the reputation is that animation does not cost as much as a live action show. And given that we just had, like, headlines that were like Netflix just burned like $125 million on Triple Frontier, it seems very weird to me that they would abruptly

cancel a show that both critics liked, but also has a lot of talent relationships that they're clearly invested in. Would you take season two of Toon Burdy if it was set in the Triple Frontier universe? Oh my God. I would give anything to watch Ali Wong interact with Ben Afflex. So yes, give it to me now. I guess the one thing we should mention is that, and you were just saying before about Amazon does great press release, the Netflix thing was sort of compounded by the fact that a show that I think has almost universal approval rating, which is Big Mouth. And I adore Big Mouth. So do I. Was announced that they were going to do three more seasons of it, which is exactly, what we're talking about is like they got themselves an animated hit.

It's by all accounts loved by teens and teens at heart and like just pretty much anybody who's like, oh, I'm just going to watch a couple episodes of the big mouth. And now they are setting that up to be almost not quite Simpsons-esque in its run, but by, you know, they'll have six seasons of it or at least five or six seasons of that. Once this deal is done, that's a significant amount of television hours put together. And I think that that was sort of like, well, why can't you show the same sort of deference to Tuka and Bertie? Yeah, or just a fraction of that investment just allocate for this show or even just be like, okay, we're only going to do three seasons of two and Bernie and then it's over. But to truncate it so early I thought was really tough. And then the fact that like just from a basic PR management perspective, I understand that like they want to, you know, center big mouth and promote its success. And I'm so happy that it's going to have additional seasons. But like read the room. Just like wait a few days before you're like, we canceled this one like. weird, sexual, inventive, absurd, obscene comedy.

And then this other one that fills a very similar niche, we were going to give, like, triple renewal to. And that was just, again, like, I love Big Mouth. It feels very weird that I have, like, any negative emotions associated with this renewal. It's really just the timing. Yeah, and it's literally just, like, how Netflix is managing this. It's nothing to do with the show itself. RIP, Dutuka and Bertie, Allison, anytime you want to come back on a memorial,

Eliza show that you've lost. You've got to just avoid putting them in any kind of award situation. Yeah, I was about to say, don't say that. That's just like anticipating that everything I love is going to come to an end. Yeah, it will. Just like for me. Allison, thank you so much for joining me today. We'll talk to you soon. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Luminary. Luminary is a new podcast subscription service with some of the best content around. I'm excited about Luminary because it's the only place you can listen to the newest show on the Ringer podcast Network, Break Stuff, the story of Woodstock 99. This is definitely a podcast you can't miss. In 1999, a music festival took place in upstate New York that became a social experiment.

There were riots, looting, and numerous assaults, and it was set to a soundtrack of the era's most aggressive rock bands. Incredibly, it was the third iteration of Woodstock, a festival known for peace, love, and hippie idealism. But Woodstock 99 revealed some hard truths behind the myths of the 1960s and the danger that nostalgia can engender. Along with Woodstock 99, Luminary gives you access to a bunch of other original shows from innovative dynamic creators that you cannot find anywhere else, like our spin-off through Watchables 1999. The Luminary app is free to download, and in addition to the Can't Miss originals, you can use it to listen to thousands of podcasts, including this one. Whether you're into music, TV, film, comedy, sports, or more, Luminary has the right show for you.

Check out Woodstock 99 and so much more only on. Luminary. Get your first two months of Luminary's premium content for free when you sign up at Luminary.com slash watch. After that, it's only $7.99 per month. That's luminary.com slash watch for two months of free access. Luminary.com slash watch. Cancel any time. All right. So now I'm joined by the ringers Kate Nibs, one of my favorite ringer writers. And Kay, Kay, I don't even know if you've actually, I think you've been on the watch once maybe? I can't remember. I think you maybe can also recommend some stuff before. Yeah, it's been a while, though. I'm happy to be bad. Yeah, Kate is, whether she knows it or not, our Manson expert. Kate wrote a great piece for

the ringer last week called A Pre Once Upon a Time in Hollywood lesson on the Manson family. And she's a self-described, maybe not expert, but at least the avatar for murder fandom, I guess, or, you know, true crime fandom. And Kate's going to join us today to talk a little bit about some of the events that take place or don't take place in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Obviously, it is a spoiler discussion. So if you haven't seen the film yet, I would advise you to skip this section. Kate, how are you doing and thank you for joining me? I'm doing great. I'm happy to be here. It's a very grisly subject, but it's one that I know a lot about, so I'm happy to share some of my thoughts. So what would you describe? Were you already somebody who knew a lot or read a lot about the Manson murders

before Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was even announced or something? Yes, probably five or six years ago I went through a major true crime spree, and I read a lot of books primarily about... I guess it probably should be like phase, right? Because spree sounds like you actually committed a bunch of crimes that were true. A phase. A phase. Yeah. I read a lot of books about Ted Bundy and Charles Manson during that time.

So I read Vincent Bugliosi, the prosecutor of Charles Manson, wrote sort of the official account of the crimes in the trial called Helter Skelton. Then there was a really great biography by Jeff Gwyn, who also wrote a really great book on the Jonestown cult called Manson. Okay. And I just recently read this insane book called Chaos, Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the 60s, which came out last month by a journalist named Tom O'Neill, which I highly, highly recommend. even though I'm not sure I believe everything that was in it. It's very interesting. So this had already been an interest of mine, certainly, before the movie was in this. How legit is the O'Neill book?

Because I remember when True Detective Season 3 came out, I bought, like, you know, I bought Like Remembering Satan by Lawrence Wright, and that felt really on the level. But then there was some more out there texts that I think I bought, like, from far reaches of Amazon that I'm not really sure how legit they were. So, I mean, the book was co-written. by a New Yorker writer, and it was apparently thoroughly fact-checked, and it doesn't actually make any definitive claims. It more just lays out a lot of evidence that the official narrative about the Manson murders is, at the very least incomplete, and at the very worst, a complete

cover-up for a Manchurian. Like, basically the book suggests that Charles Manson was a CIA asset. Okay. which is part of the, I think, appeal of this time period and of this case in general is the mythology that's kind of come up around it and like the rumor that masquerades is fact and fact masquerading as rumor which then kind of leads us perfectly

into Tarantino's treatment of the story. I suppose like anybody who knows his films well enough would probably expect once they heard that this movie was being made that there might be some liberties taken with history. Did you have any issues with that part of like Quentin Tarantino kind of working in this alternative reality that he does it with the film? No. So when I heard that it was about the Manson murders and that Margot Robbie was cast as Sharon Tate, I was expecting her to live.

I wasn't exactly sure how it would all play out. But the fact that he created a fairy tale from this horror story and sort of flipped the violence on its head, the way in which he did it, just how like cartoonishly violent it was, was certainly a bit shocking, but the fact that that was the storyline he went for was expected and I think well executed. I thought it was respectful of Sharon Tate and I didn't find it exploitative or upsetting.

I thought it was nice. I thought it was surprisingly tender. Yeah, I mean, I ultimately felt like what it was was sort of his own version of justice for somebody, of doing justice for somebody who didn't have a chance to go on and probably have the life that he thought that she should have had. I wonder whether or not, as the movie kind of winds down and we get into the blow-by-blow, hour-by-hour version of the last night, what would be the last night of her life in reality,

but in the world of this movie is just one of the most, obviously, tumultuous nights of her life. And we kind of get into that. What was your kind of like, was your heart racing? Was your pulse going up? Did you kind of like, were you like, I can't believe I'm going to watch this sort of play out, this thing that I've been reading about for years? Yes, I mean, even though I was hoping and expecting him not to kill Sharon Tate, that was

obviously always a possibility. And in the film you come to like her character so much. And then you also know that she was a real person. And so I was scared. I also thought that once upon a time in Hollywood, Tarantino does a really good job of sort of laying out this nostalgic vision of L.A., but having these creepy Manson characters on the edges, sort of infusing the whole thing with a sense of dread. And I felt the dread built up in me until the climax actually happened. Yeah, I was talking a little bit about this with Sean and Amanda about on the big picture,

about how that I felt like that was, I didn't know that that had been remarked upon enough was the way in which especially once Cliff goes to Spawn Ranch, you start to feel like there is a darkness that's just sort of beyond the horizon that's coming closer and closer. Not only to the characters, but to America. And I thought that was completely fascinating

to watch him interact with that idea, and especially since I think it's something that a lot of people feel now. Totally. And when Cliff went to the Span Rangch, ranch. I was very concerned for his character because the Manson family killed a stuntman. It wasn't one of their most famous crimes, but they killed a stuntman. And the guy Clem, one of the Manson family men that Cliff ends up beating up in that scene, in real life, he killed a different stuntman.

So I wasn't sure whether we were going to see him die there since it seemed like they were drawing from that historic incident. That really ramped up the tension form. And yeah, I was on the edge of my seat. Yeah. Some of the things you wrote about in your piece for The Ringer that I thought were really interesting was some of the other characters that we didn't actually get to see much of,

but that you seemed very fascinated about specifically Dennis Wilson, which who was obviously a member of the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson's brother, I believe, right? And also quite a solo artist in his own right. But I was curious if you could talk a little bit about that element of the story, and Manson's sort of interaction with the music business in the late 60s like that. Yeah, I feel like that gets pushed off to the side a lot,

and people don't realize exactly how entrenched Manson was with some pretty powerful people within the music industry. So Dennis Wilson, the brother of Brian Wilson, as you said, he was a great artist. He played the drums for the beach boys. He ended up, he picked up some Manson girls while they were. hitchhiking, I think around 1968 or

maybe 67 and he really joined the family and he had them all stay at his house for a period of time. They were taking a lot of money from him and he didn't seem to, he let it go

on for months and months. Eventually he asked them to leave and they went to spawn ranch but he was really a part of that community and he introduced Charles Manson to the music producer Terry Melcher, who was the son of Doris Day, dating Candice Bergen, the actress. And he, that's like how, that's how Tate ended up getting mixed up in the whole thing, was that Melcher and Bergen gave their rental house to Sharon Tate and Roman Polansky when they moved elsewhere. And that may be one of the reasons why the Manson family decided to target that house.

But so Manson was very good friends with Dennis Wilson. Also, that book, Chaos, one of the things that Tom O'Neill, the journalist who wrote it did, was he went and interviewed Terry Melcher a lot. And he actually does find pretty hard evidence that Melcher was a lot more involved with the Manson family than he had let on. In terms of like just hosting them or was like integrated into the actual. rituals and stuff like that. So the book claims that Melcher went back to Spawn Ranch after the murders took place, which is very notable because what he told prosecutors in the public was that he barely knew Charles Manson

and he only met him the one time that. And that he had just taken his like the one, him turning down, him recording him as and made it into like a death wish. Yeah. Yeah. So that might not be the whole story. We don't, we don't know for sure. But the argument that the book makes is pretty compelling that Maltcher knew a lot more than he led on and was much more integrated into the community. And Dennis Wilson was very distraught after these murders happened. He felt culpable. He had a really sad life after after that, actually. Like, he sort of descended into substance use issues and ended up dying relatively young.

So it's quite, I mean, the whole story is obviously incredibly sad already, but that's like another sad coda and another example of how there's a lot of ripple effects from violence like this. When I read about the stuff in your piece and whatever reading I've done about L.A. at that time period, and, you know, that's sort of like the spine of Joan Didion's The White Album kind of revolves around California at that time. I'm always fascinated by how some of the community behaviors, like everybody left the doors unlocked and like neighbors new neighbors and people would just kind of

pass through and that kind of you know story that we tell ourselves about america after world war two or just before vietnam and how some of those behaviors were still intact but that it just seemed to take on a much more darker overtone you know like you would maybe your doors were open but you never know who was walking through them one day it could be somebody like charles manson it's just it's a really interesting collision of of sort of um like community behavior Yeah, I think that the Manson murders ended up having a pretty widespread effect on how people, what people needed to do to feel safe in their homes. Yeah. And the idea that you could be put upon, like the idea that random violence could occur because this was right as the murder rates were starting to rise in American cities and they kept rising for several decades.

So it was sort of the beginning of a much more paranoid. or I guess not paranoid because they're rightly so afraid. It's the beginning of a much more frightened period of American life. And this is a period that they get into in the Netflix show Mind Hunter, which is obviously one of my favorite shows that's on right now. And I don't know, Kate, have you had a chance to watch Mind Hunter? I watched the first season, and I'm looking forward to the second because I know that Charles Manson is like rumored to be a character.

Yes, I think that they, it's actually the same actor who plays him in, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood plays him in Mine Hunter, Damon Harriman. And that thing you're describing basically the rise of seemingly random violence in America during this time period and Manson being kind of this figurehead for that is something that Mine Hunter gets into a little bit in season one where they show his slide up on the wall when they're doing a presentation for a local police department with the two FBI agents, played by Holt McElheny and Jonathan Groff do a presentation. and then I think that they're going to start to sort of get a little closer to the source in the second season.

So it should be really interesting to see this conversation play itself out in that second season. Yeah, I'm so curious how they're going to choose to portray Manson because once upon a time in Hollywood, even though it's the same actor, he barely shows up. Like he's really a cameo. He just says a few lines and that's it. So his presence is more felt off screen. Yeah. And it seems like Mind Hunter is going to make him into more of a character.

And yeah, I'm interested to see how they do it. Yeah, well, we'll have to have you back on once mine under season two comes out in a couple of weeks. Kate, thank you so much for calling in. Thanks. So now I'm joined by my buddy Lindsay Zolads from New York City, one of the ringers, culture writers. And Lindsay is here to talk to me a little bit about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and a little bit about 1999 music week, which is a big theme week we've got going on the ringer. And you can listen to pods and watch videos and check out this really awesome special build we did for the lists we did. We ranked the albums and we ranked the singles from the year.

I contributed some. Though, you know, Lindsay, it's funny with the, with 1999 music I was thinking about you and I was like, I bet Lindsay agrees with me about this. I bet Lindsay agrees with me about this.

But then I'm like, sometimes I think that, like, just because I've been reading you for so long, I just automatically assume you're exactly my age. And it's kind of like, do you ever see diehard?

I assume you've seen died. Oh, yeah. So in die hard when the guy's like, just like fucking Saigon, hey, slick. And the other person, the other guy's like, I was in junior high,

dickhead. I kind of feel like sometimes I'm like, yeah, remember fucking Phugazi? Lindsay, Lindsay? And you're like, yeah, not quite. Yeah. I mean, I was in junior high in 1999. So there you go.

And you were in Saigon. It was in Boston, but it was pretty similar. We'll talk about 99 Music Week in a second, but I wanted to talk to you a little bit about your awesome piece on The Ringer today, a very thoughtful, like sort of 360 look at the movie and how your different reactions to it. And I wanted to touch on two. One is sort of the broader one, which I think has been kind of like you articulated it really well, which is about the idea of basically like going to see something and having it not

be like life or death consequences or it means the world or even your take on it is like somehow says something about you that like the idea of ambient entertainment and ironically something that's such an event like a Quentin Tarantino movie functioning is that a little bit? Is that a fair read on where you were going with that? Yeah, I just, I found it. it to be a movie that I really didn't think it wanted you to think too hard about what it was trying to say, which made it sort of difficult to write about from any sort of critical perspective because I found it to be sort of baked into the world of the movie that at the end of the day, there was a value in like light entertainment and it, you know, was kind of

just the glory of this bygone aesthetic and this world of sort of fluffy westerns that weren't as like consequential as the things that came after it. Sure. If that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, but it was a movie that I enjoyed watching quite a bit while I was in the theater. I had a good time at the movies. I laughed.

I looked at my watch a couple times in the middle, I would say. But I think the more I thought about it in the following days after seeing it, the less substantive it felt to me. Which again, like you say, is not, I think there's a value for that. And I think part of the movie is trying to present the glory of that sort of entertainment. But I just, for it to be a really sharp and incisive look at the Hollywood machine, I just didn't find. it to completely hold together in that way. Right. And I think that you get into an interesting discussion about whether or not, like what counts

as substance. Like if it is a fully enveloping, fully realized world in a lot of ways. And I mean, you did touch on this. Like you talked about the last shot in the movie and you've talked about a little bit about the idea of almost watching, wanting that God's eye angle to be a little bit wider and a little bit more panoramic. But if you enjoy the world in which it's set, you can. look overlook maybe draggy parts or parts that don't make much sense or parts that you're kind of like

why is this in here? I think that there are other obviously issues where it's, I think some people have been really turned off by some of the plot points and obviously some of the way he re-addresses history. We could talk about that if you'd like. I thought that you were really like, you were very convincing in your argument about what was bothering you about the movie without being like, kind of hitting me over the head with it. But did you want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I quoted in the piece there was in the Ringer podcast that everyone should listen to that Amy is doing with Quentin. Yeah. Quentin Tarantino's future presentation.

Yeah, I believe. That's right. I got it. Got it. First try. Nailed it. But there was a, they were talking about Jackie Brown on the first episode and Tarantino made this comment that, you know, Jackie Brown, I think, has like the exact same runtime as Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which also feels kind of this sprawling. the sprawling shape of a movie that really doesn't have the epic scale of the tone and the plot of what's actually happening. And they felt to me like Kindred Spirits in that way. He described on the

podcast Jackie Brown as a hangout movie was how he conceived of it. Just like, if you like these characters, you're going to want to hang out with them and watch this movie every couple years and, you know, just spend time in their universe. And I think at least with the stuff, with DiCaprio and Brad Pitt that felt to me what he was trying to do here. And you do, there's, you have a fun time just like riffing with these guys and watching them watch TV and hang out with the dog. And, you know, I think it works well on that level. But there are just these little moments that kind of rupture that feel good time.

And one of them that I think has been the most controversial aspect or one of them is this passing aside that Brad Pitt's character may or may not have killed his wife. And it's kind of played for laughs in a way. It's not the most sensitively drawn portrait of this wife. And we don't really go back to that at all. So there are just these suggestions around the edge of the universe where there is this kind of violence against women or a moral code that maybe is not up to like the biggest or the sharpest scrutiny that I just found, like, I wanted the movie to really think through what it was trying to say there rather than play that off as an aside, because it just, I found it very jarring. Yeah, and I think that some, when I read your piece, the thing I thought about was what,

what it would have been like if any other actor aside for Pitt was in the role. You know, like, to some extent, his performance is so great as Cliff in the movie, but I think you almost, so much of the time you're spent watching. the movie is also engaging in the stardom of Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt and their actual biographies. And I think that that winds up being the one part that I think they could have explored more. I took it when it first happened to be one of those myths that are kind of hanging around a person. But they do do a cutaway that kind of goes into what may or may not have happened between him and his wife. And it's left kind of as like an ellipsis and you don't really know

what happened and then it doesn't wind up getting called back again other than it's more used as like this is why this guy's career is where it's at where he's just driving around Rick Dalton. Yeah, rather than this is what kind of guy he is because by then you've already kind of been seduced by this character into just thinking like he's the cool guy behind the scenes in this movie. And Brad Pitt is so charismatic and so funny in this movie. He's really far and away for me the best part.

And, like, Brad Pitt smoking an acid-dipped cigarette is like, I feel like it's the best, like, drug trip scene in a movie since the Wolf of Wall Street, Quailudes thing. Yes. Which also, shout out to Leo. It's, like, on that level, it's just so good. But then, yeah, like, I wanted to fully enjoy those sort of lighthearted moments of it and kind of be along for the ride. And then there were, again, just, like, things that take you out of it. I think even the presence of Roman Polansky in this movie is, you know, you can't do the Sharon Tate story without having him there.

But the movie didn't really seem to know what to do with some of the more troubling aspects of the story on the periphery. Like he really did Tarantino's trying to turn the Manson murders into this fairy tale. And in no sense, even if you invert what happened, I don't think it's that. simple? I mean, I was thinking about when you, after reading your piece, I was thinking about the differences between this and Bastards. So I mean, obviously, like, Darentino's been pretty explicit linking this movie to Jackie Brown in terms of like you're saying a hangout movie. It's also a movie about people who are entering a different phase of their lives and maybe trying to hang

on to some past glories while also reckoning with getting older. But with bastards, the mission of bastards is laid out very early in the movie. These people want to kill Hitler, right? And you kind of see their motivations or whatever. But It's interesting how Sharon and the Mansons are like, it's more of a breadcrumb trail than it is a mission, you know? And in some ways, I think it was easier to read bastards than it is to read Once Upon a Time to Hollywood. Now, I found Once Upon a Time to Hollywood obviously, like, deeply, deeply affecting. But I also understand, like, I think that there's like something about the way in which it lays out its alternative timelines should be quite distinct from the way he did it in Bastards. Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, you know, something I thought was really interesting about this movie is we only see Charles Manson once in really in passing.

Yeah. You kind of have to piece together that it's him. And it's real, the villains insofar as they're framed in the movie, are more the followers of Manson. And the people, particularly young women who are just sort of blindly following him and get in the depiction of in this movie. sort of almost like snowballed into committing these murders or he's trying to. And that felt like an interesting choice to me. And I think I was not like, I think the the critiques that I've read and talked to people about of this movie through women in particular that just, you know, felt some type of way about various parts of this movie. I know some people were bothered by the violence against the Manson Girls at the end. Yeah. I was kind of expecting that, and I was not, like, that wasn't the most troubling part of it

to me, but I do think, I think Allison Herman brought up this point, at some point in the exit survey or something, where, you know, the Manson Girls were not the same as Nazis per se. Like, to kind of give that catharsis. Yeah, I mean, I think there's like kind of one ending for a Quentin Tarotino movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And especially one that is playing with the history.

Like, I think as soon as I realized, okay, Sharon Tate's not going to die in this, it was both kind of thrilling to know he was going to be playing with the historical record like that, but also just like, okay, well, there's only one way that this can go. And these guys are going to be unlikely heroes and stop the Manson murders from happening. And I just, I think, too, like, I needed the ending to go a little bit farther after. I wanted to know what else doesn't happen in California in 1969 if the Manson murders don't. Like that feels like a tipping point where just you could jump off from there of different ways that the culture then could have gone if he's kind of seeing it as this like fall from. Two hours and 40 minutes is a weird thing where you're like, I almost want this to be five hours. You know? Yeah.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Part 2. Yeah. The swing in 70s. one of the things in this movie does really well is depict a relationship to popular culture that obviously is very is treasured by Tarantino and that is his relationship to the radio

and how you would just get in a car and you would be in your car all day because you were living in Los Angeles and that's how people got around and you would have it on one station and you would listen through the commercials and you would just let it rock all day long and also when you got home

you would immediately turn the television on and the TV was on one of a couple channels and you would just kind of have whatever was on at the time. And even though there's a lot of ambient sort of under, like an undercurrent of entertainment in all of that, it felt more, did you think it felt more friendly than it does today where I think it's a little bit more,

like obviously addictive what we're doing to our bodies and our minds? You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, well, there's the, I think that as it was at that time, like the sort of mainstream culture is used as a bridge between all these really different characters and that they're all going to go home that night and watch FBI on one of three broadcast channels that exist.

And we kind of see Bruce Stern's character and Dakota Fanning. Shout out Dakota Fanning just coming through. Like they have plans to watch that show that night. And so do Cliff and Rick. and these people that have so other, like so little in common in every other way are all linked by this monoculture that still exist in that sense. And it did feel, I thought that was weaved through really well just as this ambient fuzz in the background of everything that went to show too, the stature that someone like Rick would have in a time like that where his show, was one of the only shows on that night. Do you have equally fond memories for the way in which you sort of interacted with music in 1999?

I guess that is my segue. Amazing break there. It's really good. Wow. Yeah, I guess I do. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously, if you were in junior high at the time, I would imagine at least, were you aware of stuff like Sleader Kinney and Bonnie Pinsbilly, which are two of the artists you wrote about in the albums list?

Or were you more pop music, what's on the radio, what's on MTV? Yeah, I came to, like, Slater Kinney and more indie rock type stuff. A few years after that, I was 13 in 1999. So I was, I think probably the most important record in my life that year was Blink 182's Enema of the State. Yeah, it's a frequently cited. That was where I was at. Yeah. And, you know, but it's interesting.

So I think some of the records that I was writing about on this list are voted for, I came to later after the fact. And then some were ones that I have the sentimental attachment to because even though, like, my critical instincts weren't as sharp as they would become or like my taste wasn't as discerning, that I think when you're voting on something like this, what you were actually listening to that year is going to weigh heavily as well. It's a surreal thing to think about 20 years after the fact because it's half a sort of memory game and just associated with all sorts of memories in your life and then kind of

looking at it but like what is the best? Yeah. Is Mambo number five really the best? Right. Exactly. This is also sort of a crucial moment the next, from 99 to. I don't even know when it really starts up, but this is sort of the dawn of Pop-Tomism, too, right?

Because it's like a lot of these artists, and Potomism is this idea that basically what used to be considered bubble gum pop or corporate music made by major labels and made by, whether some you would call it teeny boppers or like just basically like singers rather than songwriters and that was somehow looked down upon by the critical establishment. And then Poptimism was like, no,

there's like incredible artistic merit and value to pop music that you hear on the radio. And there was sort of this clash of sensibilities that happened in the beginning of the 21st century in music criticism. And that also is like kind of like in a very interesting moment to be getting into music criticism at that time because there was sort of a, an argument happening about whether or not Britney Spears or Maguire was better. Yeah. And I tend to think of like 99. anything pre-Napster and even like pre-9-11, I think was the last moment before that really happened, that reckoning.

Because when I was putting this list together and reading through the list as it is on the site today, like I feel like this is the last moment where there was that division between rock and pop. And I even, in my experience, being 13 years old, I very much, you know, shout out Y100 Philadelphia area, rest in peace. But like I listen to, to the alternative rock station instead of the pop station when I was 13 and thought that was like

a cool lifestyle choice that somehow marked me as different, which is like such a foreign concept today. But then of course, like I liked pop music too and I, you couldn't avoid something like the Backstreet Boys or Britney Spears in that time. So there was sort of a grudging appreciation that I had. But the funny thing to look back on for me is I was, again, really into Blink 1182 at that time. And I think I thought that was something that made me, like, not pop. But when I look back, I'm like, no, they were my boy band. Oh, yeah.

Even the way that I, that my fandom for them manifested, like, that was my boy band. And even as an indicator of, like, how the carousel comes around now is, like, blink at that time period are considered, like, expert tunesmiths. You know, and like these sort of like pop geniuses in a lot of ways. Yeah, whereas I'm sure that would have really pissed me off when I was like 13, and yet still voting for them on TRL. Yes. So like anything outside of that.

Oh, yes, I did vote on TRL too. I remember like they would have the scroll at the bottom of the show with the videos and I would always watch to see if my comments would come up. They never did. Oh, man. It's fine. What is, is 2019 Lindsay Zolad's favorite album of, 1999 Fiona Apple?

It's close. Shockingly no. But my number one, I went with Blur's 13. Okay. Not only because I was 13 in 1999. But that one to me, no, it's really not for a cute reason.

That one to me, like, felt like a bridge between how I experienced music then and now, like something that I don't know that I heard that record in 99, but I definitely knew who blur were, and I had the self-titled record, which was kind of the first big blur record in the States that had the Woohoo song, of course. So I think for me, when I think about music in 1999 and the way that this idea of like the new millennium and the Y2K scare was just informing so much of culture that year, there was this sense that it was this like culmination of something and that even the music was

building towards some kind of apocalypse in some sense or another, just the idea of like the end of the century. Yeah. And for me, like in terms of, I think the, that blur record is the perfect encapsulation of like the end of the 90s alt rock era and just trying to do something huge and arty and blowing up the whole idea of that as like a band. that, you know, at least stateside got famous off a alt-rock one-hit wonder type deal. And then just making this huge statement album that's just incredibly sad.

Yeah, and it was reckoning with the fact that they were essentially like the biggest band in Britain and were, you know, a novelty in America. Well, I mean, that to us. But, yeah. Well, Lindsay, thank you so much for joining me today on The Watch. We'll have to have you on again soon, if not for anything, just to come up with another die-hard quote that sums up. I'm here for it. Okay, thank you so much, Lindsay.

Thanks, Chris.