Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Quentin Tarantino found a time capsule opened it and made a movie. The time was the 60’s and the place was Hollywood. Tarantino has fun, visiting old haunts, seeing old movies, long gone TV shows and 60’s music. Of his audience he is the one most entertained. The movie has vignettes of bad acting scenes which make up a part of the movie. After a while they become boring.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt in the same movie naturally elevates expectations. DiCaprio plays Rick Dalton, an actor whose career is sliding down the peak. DiCaprio does most of the overacting in the movie. Dalton suffers  anxiety over his declining  career. Brad Pitt is cool, Ocean’s Eleven cool. Pitt is the stunt double who works for Rick Dalton. Pitt sports scars  of his profession. He plays well a tanned buffed middle aged man with his usually laidback ease. Margo Robbie plays Sharon Tate. She plays Tate almost childlike. Tate delights with glee seeing herself in her own movie.

There is a profusion of supporting actors. Al Pacino plays a Hollywood producer; he is becoming a caricature of himself. Timothy Olyphant plays a bad guy (that’s a stretch). Lena Dunham as a member of the Manson family; she is the one in the moo moo. Bruce Dern is nearly unrecognizable except  for his gravelly voice. Kurt Russell plays a stunt coordinator boss. Dakota Fanning plays Squeaky Fromme, totally unrecognizable. Some guy plays Bruce Lee, this had to be the funniest scene in the movie. This is a comedy drama crime film.

The movie is schizophrenic. Aside from aging  actors peering into the abyss, the Manson murders provide the movie’s tension . Tarantino’s signature uber violence manifests itself in the tail end of the film. You go from a breezy self-indulgent movie to Reservoir Dogs violence.

Once upon a time is the tag line for a fairy tale. Tarantino weaves a revisionist story about the Manson murders. The murders were a savage heinous crime; almost sacrosanct.  For those of us who witnessed the demented brutality the Family the murders were disturbing and indelible.  They deserve more respect than Tarantino’s script.